Hammerjack

CHAPTER ONE "This is theZone,man," Cray Alden heard someone say as he walked into the staging area, the attitude behind the voice pumped with synthetic steroids and the usual macho bullshit. "Sectors on the outside don't see it like we do. When it starts to come down, I ain't even gonnawaitto see what happens before I frag 'em. Don't matter to me as long as I collect." It was the Zone agent's mantra: pay for play. Without the cash, you might as well be dealing with a Boy Scout. That was the way it worked in the Franchise Zones, especially out here in the Asian Sphere. Sleaze and civilization had been one and the same here for centuries, untold pleasures opening the door to dirty riches. That made for plenty of players, and where there were players there were runners: high-tech polar opposites of the kind of muscle in this room. The commerce of illegal information was big business, and there was usually no shortage of takers. "I know, man, I know," another one of them picked up. "I think it's better to bring them in cold anyway. Seen runners do some crazy shit. Do yourself a favor and take 'em out the second you get a clean shot." "Just as easy to dig flash from a corpse," someone agreed casually. "Yeah, but then you miss out on the fun part," another observed. "You ever see an open extraction? Never heard screaming like that in your life." This brought forth a howl of laughter, the kind Cray only heard when he was in the company of these missing links. He could smell the raw meat on their breath. Cray would have preferred to do this by himself, but the Collective didn't allow that kind of leeway inside the Zone. Instead he had been assigned four agents to assist him in the interception--overkill as far as Cray was concerned, but to his superiors there was no such thing. Each of the agents carried three visible weapons, although Cray was certain they had more tucked away in the camochrome armor that plated their bodies. He hated working with them. Every time he heard them laugh, he lost a little more faith in the human race. The cackles gave way to the pounding of boots as they saw Cray walking in. It was a thing they did whenever they met the man in charge of the mission--a sort of tribal rite that had more to do with tradition than actual respect. They also put on a show with their armor, the camochrome pixels changing colors as Cray walked past, making them bright one second and nearly invisible the next. The effect was eerie, and made them seem even less real. Cray didn't try to hide his contempt. They wouldn't have cared anyway. "That's enough," he told the agents as he took the floor. The noise died down as soon as Cray stepped behind the small podium at the head of the room. His tone of voice made the agents pay attention, but it was the money Cray's boss had ponied up that made them listen. Phao Yin was the force behind everything Cray did, enough to make these agents think he was CSS--even though nothing could be further from the truth. "I want to start by making one thing clear," he announced. "I don't work like the people you're used to. There is no bounty involved here, no price for flesh. I'm here to make a simple intercept, and you're here to make sure nothing goes wrong. So don't go thinking the mark is expendable. I want her takenalive. Is that understood?" A snicker arose. The agents probably thought Cray was looking forward to torturing his mark. If they thought that, fine. As long as it meant they followed orders. "Good," Cray finished. "I know you've already assimilated the dossier on our target, so I won't waste your time going over it again. If you have any questions, now's the time." The agent Cray heard when he first walked in stood up. "Your dossier is missGiller, Marc is the author of 'Hammerjack', published 0000 under ISBN 9780553383317 and ISBN 0553383310.