Deus Ex Machina – Cogs or Gears?
"SINless think corpers have the simple life sheltered from pain and want. Well as they say, ‘The simple life ain’t so simple.’ The corp breeds its own type of subtle chains. You strive for goals and conform to expectations, but they’re not your goals. They’re what the corp makes you want. I figured part of it out early on, but didn’t think about the consequences. I thought I’d be taking an easier road. Drek happens." She paused swirling the tequila and took a sip from the glass. Glancing around at the hard denizens of Cutter’s bar, she sighed. The rough mix at odds with the human execs, who populated the arcology of her youth. "Don’t really know when I started the less traveled way into the shadows." Gears reminisced.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What do you want to be when you grow up? You can get on the fast track like your brother. Instead what do you do?" He paused working up a righteous wrath. Hands shaking and face red, he leans his athletic frame over the table looming over the young girl. "You fragged up the qualification exams!"
The girl quaked inside. Her pale, shiny face and hands that jittered like leaves in the wake of an air elemental betrayed her turmoil. "What if I goblinize like George?" she quailed. "My oldest brother who you ignore -" She looked up briefly, a hint of accusation as her face tightened. "- just because he’s a dwarf and the corp made him a low caste rigger. My other brother works like a cog in a machine. This is so useless to struggle for everything," Mary pouted throwing her hands into the air. Sure she didn’t know what she wanted but she knew she did not want the scrutiny and brainwashing the corp dealt to the kids in the fast track academic programs.
"Don’t you dare mention that name in this house young lady," the vigorous looking middle age man shouted his face red and his Armante suit bunching awkwardly as he raised his hands to brush his hair back into place. Aside from his contorted and discolored face, Mary bore a strong resemblance to her father, who even in his anger looked the part of a corp executive.
The beautiful woman chimed in, "How dare you talk ill of your brother. Don’t you tarnish our family’s honor. We’re good corporate citizens. You could have been on the fast track like Edward. You’re smart enough to ace those exams. Don’t you want to make us proud?"
Mary stood up abruptly. Her chair fell over backwards. "Mother, I am trying to live my life and I’ll be successful! So what if I am not perfect like Edward!" Tears running down her face, she fled to her room slamming the door as a smile appeared on her face.
The apartments music system continued to play the background white noise of a babbling brook. The couple stared at each other in silence. "Guess it could be worse. We’ll have to do some contingency planning for this scenario – the general academic program tracks her into mid-management, not much better than a wage slave. If it weren’t for her attitude, we could pull some favors for a retest or get a decker to tweak her score." The other nodded thoughtfully. "I’m off to work." They both rose and departed for their offices for another day of corp maneuvering for profit and power.
~~~~~~~~~
"Burnout do you want to play voyeur? Peruse one of the entries I saved from my old wrist comp."
Dear Diary, Well now I’m half way through my freshman year. High school sucks. At least that’s what the other kids say. Really it’s not so bad. It is just so regimented… Guess I knew that before the qualification exams, wasn’t too hard to blow a few questions. Kind of funny, who would intentionally test out of the advanced curriculum? I don’t want to be ground to dust in the corp machine like ‘Mister Success,’ Edward. Yeah, he still visits now and then. The parents fawn all over him.
Anyways, school. The corp places us kids into several tracks. Guess I could have gotten into the cognita critica track that most of my friends from the junior high preparatory program. I’ll miss the challenging info, especially the language classes, and the others who are in the program, but I’ve got a deal with Bitsy. My parents were real disappointed, no duh, about my test scores that downgraded me to the academics that lead to the admin/management track instead of the more prestigious executive or research track.
At least I’m human. Poor George got pulled from the research track in his senior year. They even had his cyberware ‘soft-modified’ for rigging after he goblinized into a dwarf – no racial bias there. They claimed he was unfit for the intellectual rigors of research blaming the stress of his senior orals as the trigger for his delayed change. Gods, I hope I don’t change.
The other kids are okay. I’m sort of with the in crowd because mom and dad are execs. Mom had one of her assistants take me shopping for clothes to wear on the days the classes meet in person. I’ve got some sweet Armante outfits.
The classes in this track are a breeze. It’s mostly rote facts and simple problems nothing that challenges how you think like the prep program in junior high. It helped that I’ve been reading Ed’s old school chips from the exec track. The parents left his room like a shrine… George’s room is now mom’s study.
Bitsy also lends me the interactive chips for the cognita critica course – those are pretty interesting. Instead of just presenting dull facts, you get to figure things out on your own. It’s pretty cool especially the class on poking holes in someone’s logic. Getting much better arguing with the parents! Bitsy says tutoring actually helps her learn the info. Honestly, I think she uses some of my questions and ideas in class…
Snuck out to see George in the corporate garage. He’s so cool. He shows me how all the things work and even takes me into the machine room. The other riggers are cool too. They don’t tease me about my zits or looks. They only care about how much a person knows and their skills. The other kids in this track are so incredibly petty and vie to hangout with the best looking, toughest athletes or scions of the executives.
~~~~~~~~interludes from summer after freshman year~~~~~~
"Well dear, what are you going to do for the summer session?" asked the woman.
"The only class I am taking is to fulfill my music requirement. It’s a class over at the corporate recreational services center that will count towards school." Mary smiled politely. What should I say? Can you believe I am learning to play the guitar? Maybe I’ll join a band! Had to cut my nails, but they were never as nice as the cool ‘glamour’ girls anyways. "I am already towards the top of my classes. In this track, they want everyone to stay in synch."
Her mother shook her head. "In my day, we struggled and learned as much as we could. Don’t you want to advance and have a nice life in the corp? If you don’t land a top job, you’ll never be able to maintain your lifestyle when you graduate and start your career. Look at me, now I’m in charge of the top research med group for the corp and I run as my own firm. I’ve even got my own departments from research to janitorial instead of using the corp’s central facilities." She flashed a self-satisfied smile. "Don’t you want to control your fate?" She sighed. "Well, enjoy the summer with your friends."
As Mary left the room, her father snorted, "Can’t believe she’s becoming such a slacker. She showed such promise. At least Edward’s kicking hoop up the corp food chain. He just got promoted when he caught his boss embezzling their group’s marketing funds. Too bad they could not recover the funds."
Edward blossomed with a predator’s grin, "Thanks to mom’s budget analysis programs and dad’s intro to that fixer. We’re a strong team."
The three smiled at each other and raised their drinks in a toast.
From outside the doorway, Mary shook her head as she overheard the conversation. Edward setup his boss and absconded with the funds himself. His success at catching (or maybe framing?) someone else proved he was skilled enough to advance. Who’d want to follow in those footsteps? Life’s got to be more than the corp.
After dropping her wristcomp, with its internal tracking system, in her room, Mary left her family’s apartment in the exec housing wing of the acrology. The parents would be mortified. They think I am hanging out at the mall. She giggled to herself as she walked down the sedate but well furnished corridor through the wing of exec apartments to Bitsy’s place. The hall held the usual traffic - executives rushed passed in their suits dictating to their wrist comps or to their human assistants, who trailed in their wake. She clung to the edge of the hall as they passed. She continued her walk until reaching a familiar door. The door’s recognition routine let her into Bitsy’s family apartment. The apartment was warm and silent after the conversations and projected white noise in the corridor. She made her way down the apartment’s hall walking silently on the plush hand-woven rugs without being heard or spotted by Bitsy’s parents.
"Hoi B. You want to review those experiments? I read through all the background and some of the references." She nodded a friendly hello to Bitsy who was staring at the wall screen that was split into several text sections, a control panel for a remote chemistry lab and a visual of the lab itself.
Bitsy looked up with a grin, "Hoi M. Just doing the prep. Glad you could come over. Think we can test that idea you had on expressing those genes as enzymes to produce the organic polymer."
"Hey you want orthogonal solutions, I’m the pro!" Mary arched her eyebrows with her quick grin. "Following the protocols of the other experiments would do it but this should use fewer resources and be faster when scaled up. You’ve got to earn extra points for it. Speaking of extra, can we use your system to do a search on electronics. I want to design a surprise for my brother."
"No worries M. I can use some of the sleaze programs my mom wrote so no one will trace the search. You’re to paranoid about the corp." Bitsy sighed at that, but then again she’d started guarding some of her own matrix use. They’d studied some of the profiles generated in marketing research; the implications were not pretty for the corp’s insights into its employees and their dependants. "Don’t know if I’d have come up with this. We’re a good team. Too bad you didn’t want to be in the track. At least, you have time to go to parties."
"Hey think of it as less competition. Besides it’s more fun to study all this stuff without the pressure of deadlines and exams." Mary winked with a sly gin. "Parties, ha. The only reason I get invited is I am in the track with all the social climbers and they know my parents’ positions. I’m too homely for the boys and most of the girls realize I’m holding back in class so they think I am a snob. They are all so superficial and only think about maximizing their utility today. I doubt one of them plans their future." Mary sat next to Bitsy and slaved her portable keyboard into the house system. They set to work on the problem set.
---------another day
Mary left the executive wing on the street she took the corp shuttle to the intercorp mall complex. The complex was an assault to the senses. Stores blasted light and sound to draw in the roving bands of kids. In the more exclusive area, sales people prowled the halls discretely seeking to steer qualified shoppers to their store.
Mary shoved her wrist comp into an interior pocket of her Armante handbag. Wandering through the food section she spotted some classmates. Who waved her over and welcomed her with a chorus of greetings.
Mary flashed her grin at the inane mallrats. "Hoi all, how’s life? You hanging here today?" She slid into a seat next to Steffy, princess of the faux friendship.
"Mary, you hanging with us today or you running off like usual?" Steffy asked coyly twirling a finger through her long blond curls.
"Ah Steffy, you know I’ve got to keep up my gymnastics and guitar playing even though my parents don’t want me too." Mary rolled her eyes and tapped her calloused finger tips on the edge of the table.
"If you aren’t going to be here can I borrow your handbag?" Steffy asked.
"Oh okay. No worries. I’ll meet you in the food court for dinner and I’ll need it back then okay?" She slide the handbag out of her backpack and passed it to Steffy. Slightly bemused at the near daily ritual. The designer things she lent helped the lower caste beauty to run with the execs kids though her parents were just management.
"Kewel," Steffy squealed her green eyes lighting up. "Null problems Mary. I’ll keep it frosty."
"Laters." Mary split as the other kids began their daily circuit of the mall. In case anyone check her wristcomp’s locator, it would confirm her mall going alibi. She waited by the passenger zone for her illicit ride. A chill wind plucked at her outfit. She stared at the pitch black of the solar cell road surface and at the colorful mix of shoppers entering the mall. They in turn stared at her briefly dismissing her as a nobody.
A shoddily dressed woman holding a squalling baby got off one of the public transports. The woman approached the clumps of shoppers blocking their path into the mall. Mary could hear the plaintive plea, "A nuyen for food? Please help. My baby’s hungry. Ain’t got no job or no SIN…" A few tossed script at the woman, who scrambled to gather it before the wind snatched it away. This lasted a few minutes before to security guards bracketed the woman and forced her onto another bus.
Soon a corp limo dropped off some exec wives. Mary hung back as the group chattered and their cloud of perfume swept passed. From within the limo, the driver winked. Mary hopped into the warm cocoon of the limo’s passenger compartment for a lift back to the corp motor pool where she could hangout with George and the other riggers.
She hopped out in the corp’s Garage. The air hit her with its unique scents of solvents, fuels and other nameless odors that George assured her weren’t too hazardous. She passed the machine shop wincing at the shriek of abused metal and curses of the riggers trying to repair their toys. A breeze tugged her towards the shop’s doors as the vent system pulled in fresh air. She continued past and headed to the simulator room where George promised to let her get a taste of rigging.
Later that night she captured the day… Dear Diary, George let me piggyback along when he flew two drones! It was really wild being in three places at once and flying – too frosty. He borrowed an external neural interface helmet, so even though I don’t have cyberware yet I could get a taste of it. Total control and freedom. The speed… It’s awesome! Course, I passed out half way through it. The other riggers were cool about it and gave me a stim patch. George promises to teach me how to juggle the multiple perspectives with the helmet.
The other riggers were actually betting beers over their shooting skills. It’s funny they have off line shooting matches at old bottles. Guess it’s a macho thing since they are all so precise online with their drones and vehicle mounted weapon systems.
~~~~~~~~~~~~Trouble in paradise
Mary woke in the middle of the night. Her whole body ached. Gymnastics class had not been too bad. Sophmore’s routines were pretty basic in class not like the team workouts she’s seen. Her stomach growled. She suddenly realized she was starving. She struggled out of bed and stumbled in the dark over the piles stuff that always seemed to find its way to her floor. Turning on the kitchen light, she mixed a super-smoothie throwing in scoops of the vitamin, supplement and herb powders her parents took. They’d probably help her muscles recover. She gulped down the shake. Mary trudged back to her room feeling a bit better. Two hours later she awoke again in pain and hungry. Mary struggled out of bed again and picked her way around the piles of clothes, chip cartridges, and the electronics set. Entering the kitchen, she repeated her culinary production. On the way back to her room she stopped into the bathroom. Her skin and scalp itched. Showering felt great, but when she rubbed her hair – it came off in clumps. Her heart raced as she leapt out of the shower. Mary looked into the mirror. I am goblinizing! Oh no, the parents will kick me out! Too tired to deal with it she went back to her room. The cycle of waking famished and sleeping continued throughout the week. In a moment of lucidity, she sent a quick note to her academic system. Her parents did not stop into her room to ask if anything was the matter. When she felt better she sat down at the comm. Both Bitsy and George had left several messages. She girded herself to call them as she stared at her visage in a mirror.
She told her system to call George. His butler program answered, "One moment Miss. Allow me to track him for you."
In seconds George’s face appeared on her comm. "Mary, what’s up? I’ve been worried you missed your visit and didn’t call back like usual. You okay? And turn on the video for Gods sake." George said in a concerned voice.
"George I turned the video off for a reason. I’ve goblinized." Her voice fell silent.
After a moment George responded, "Ah sis, you can come stay with me so the parents don’t bother you. Remember you are still you. That doesn’t change. And you’re still my only real family. Despite the rest of them, blood and spirit counts with me." He paused. "Go ahead turn on your monitor."
She did.
"Whoa, little sister." He said in a hushed tone as his screen flashed on to show her cupping her chin in her palms with eyes lined with red from crying. "You’re the most beautiful elf I’ve ever seen." And truthfully, she was stunning. Goblinization had been very kind to her. Short blond curls had replaced her shoulder length dull brown hair. Her formerly washed-out gray eyes now shown with a green hue. And her splotchy teenage complex had molted into unblemished ivory skin. "Alright, I know you don’t want to deal with this but it’s better you visit the corps med department and get all the paperwork rolling. I’ll come over and we can work together to get you through the process. Don’t be sad. Hey the parents may even like your pretty face. I think it was my full beard at fourteen that turned them off." He grinned and winked. "Guess you better pull out those Sperthidril lessons maybe you could position yourself as a corp liaison officer. Maybe I’ll get to fly you to Tir on business someday."
She grinned through her tears. Life would continue.
She spent the day with George escorting her to the medlabs for a checkup, to security for a new id card, administration for corp records and her wrist comp, and the mall to but a couple new outfits.
Later that evening with paperwork complete she returned home. Mary entered her mother’s study, formerly George’s room – they kept Edward’s room up in case he ever decided to visit overnight. Her mother looked up after Mary had been standing in the doorway for a while. "Excuse me, how did you get in here? Who are you?" She shrilled.
"Mother calm down. It’s me, Mary." Mary smiled cautiously.
"I think I need a drink."
"Mother!"
"At least you are an elf. They are civilized. Though your kind are a minority in my corp. Hmm. I’ll need to discuss this with your father when he gets home. Have you filed all the proper forms?"
Mary nodded glumly. Treated like a game piece, but probably not outright denied and ostracized like George. As good as she could have hoped.
~~~~~~~~~~~~Repercussions
Her first few days walking in the arcology caused a stir. You would have thought the guards had never seen an elvin girl before. They probably never had met one who lived in the exec wing. Her new id card proved handy on several occasions as gung ho guards stopped her. Ironic, she’d never even seen guards in the corridors before. Now she walked warily, afraid they’d stop her whenever she passed a check point. After a few days, her new metatype filtered through the security system and the informal grapevine of guards stationed in areas she traveled. Then they left her alone again.
School continued. There were a few changes.
She re-enrolled into class for Sperethiel, the revived elven language. Her change granted an exception to the rule that languages were reserved for the higher track academic programs; ironically her tape studies meant she was actually further along than the class. Now she had stronger incentive to learn the language of the elves. The teacher was also an elf. The teacher told stories of traveling in the Tirs switching into the appropriate accents and local slang. The stories built a much broader picture of her new racial heritage than the corp’s cold learning tapes.
Gymnastics was a bitter experience. The instructor kicked Mary out, claiming she did not have the right body type anymore, though her figure remained wiry. She switched to the yoga class.
She actually enjoyed the yoga classes. Ironically, the exercises from yoga complemented the mental tricks George taught her for the rigging simulations in the Garage. Both were a balance of attention and senses. Ancient arts tied well into the self-control required for high-tech rigging.
Steffy swore to be her friend for life when Mary passed on all the designer outfits that no longer fit. Her goblinization also brought a growth spurt. Steffy helped Mary with her hair and makeup. The pair of blonds periodically trolled the mall.
The boys were much more . . . friendly. Mary’d gone from an average looking human to a very cute elf. Before they ignored her or asked her for help on problem sets, now they just wanted to get into her pants.
One incident scared her. A group of jocks surrounded her as she left the academic center. A huge troll appeared out of nowhere while the jocks were approaching her. The troll’s voice boomed forth, "Gentlemen any problems here?" He slapped his meaty hands together like a car door slamming. There were five jocks but the teenage troll was over seven feet and weighed as much as three of them. The jocks moved on. The troll did not.
"Ah thank you." Mary thought of the old saying, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ as she looked at the giant looming over her. Yeah right. However, the troll was polite and escorted her to the shuttle stop.
He gave her some friendly advice, "We metas got to stick together. If you ever get in trouble just find the biggest troll around. We can intimidate or crush any problem."
After being saved by the unusually articulate troll, Mary looked into taking the short series of evening self-defense classes at the corp recreation services center.
~~~~~~~~~~~~Her first visit back to the corp garage.
George traded assignments with another rigger to drive the limo to the mall. He wanted to drive her in the first time after her change. She climbed into the limo. The driver rolled down the barrier between the driver and passenger section.
"Hoi George, thanks for picking me up." Mary smiled at her brother. "How do you know what the passengers want when you are up front?"
"Next to the bar is a full communications unit that is hardwired into the master system for the vehicle. I control the master system through my jack." He tapped the cable that snaked from the jack in his head to the console. "If the privacy barrier is up, you have to push the button on the comm. unit."
"Can’t you connect a bypass and recorder to monitor what goes on back here? If you tied it into the system passively, even bug checks would not find it. Just think of the things you could learn from your exec passengers’ conversations." Offered Mary in passing.
George nodded thoughtfully. "Clever with minimal exposure. As it is, I’ve done well acting on information I’ve overheard. In fact, if you want to invest money, I am running a small investment firm, RGR Capital on the side. The corp may have relegated me to this role, but I learned my lessons well." He grinned, "Plus I went through all the courses Edward had access to and copied them to my wrist comp! It helps to know a few legal shell games and investment strategies. "
----------------
Mary entered the Garage’s simulation training center. It had several sections. The smallest looked like a lounge with chairs and wires for jacks or helmets. "They look pretty spaced out." Some of them were moving their hands and feet in the air grasping virtual controls like a bizarre dance.
A human with a big gut turned and smiled, "Deckers and riggers get this way. But riggers have to pay attention to the real world too."
She gasped shocked.
George chuckled, "Yeah, the best riggers can juggle multiple inputs. You gotta check the instruments against your senses. That’s why we have simulator modules and training vehicles for beginners getting certified in something new. You get to learn the manual control systems for the vehicles before jacking in to learn the electronic controls."
Mary noted to herself that the proportion of metas was much higher in the Garage, a low prestige area. It was an area where skill negated the traditional "glass wall" for metas who wanted to stay in the corp. They must do this to keep the percentages high for the corp diversity rating.
An old dwarf walked up to them and slapped George on back. "Hoi George, you bringing in another victim for our demolition derbies?"
"No sir. Just showing my little sister the grand tour of the Garage. Mary, this gentleman, Mr. Brock, is in charge of the rigger training programs."
"Sir, gentleman, ha! You’re laying it on thick today. I may be a corper but we dwarves and riggers are brothers." Brock turned to Mary. "Young lady, it is a pleasure to meet you. Here’s a magkey. You’ll have to check out my toy collection – besides you can’t crash any more often than your brother did…"
"Hey, just because I’m always trying new types of vehicles and pushing their specs…"
Brock winked at Mary and abruptly turned away heading to a spinning helicopter simulator module.
George sputtered, "…, ah well. At least he likes you. With the helmets here you can even rig without a jack. It’s not as good but you’d get the idea. And you’d be on equal footing with everyone on the manual controls. Once you get the basics you can go whipping through courses and racing. It’s a total rush."
"Unless you crash." Mary snidely added.
George groaned. "Well, there is that. Anyway, pushing beyond the edge here means you can take it to the edge on the street. Besides where else can you learn to rig all these?" He grinned spreading his arms.
Mary nodded thoughtfully. She looked over to Brock as he helped the rigger exiting the formerly beserker simulator. He glanced over. She saluted with the magkey and winked at him as she pocketed the magkey. Now the Garage could be fun even when George was working.
---------------
Time passed…
---------------
George sat listening through the tapes on his recorders hidden in the corporate limos. A smart frame scanned most of the tapes for key words and semantics that could help guide his investments. While most of the searches that resulted in investments were focused on mergers, acquisitions, and corporate results, some of his lucrative non-legitimate gains came by tracking shadowruns. He could tail the shadow runners and use drones to retrieve assets while target corp security teams were tricked by shadow runners. Pickings in the wake of shadow runs were good whether or not the runs themselves were successful. On a personal level, he set searches for other interesting topics – his family and the corp’s policy on metas.
He scrolled through the transcript of one brief conversation.
"How’s the new crop?"
"Well, there are a few hardbodies in the corp school we can put into the special secretary pool. One’s a hot little elven number, who’s in the management track. We’ll need to demote her but the hormone changes should do the trick. Her parents are exec’s but they don’t know about the pool and are anti-meta anyways."
"Okay for the top five - SOP. Endocrine therapy, cosmetic surgery as needed, and headgear smart enough to do the real work."
Frag! They had to be talking about Mary. He’d have to have a decker friend seek out this pool program, clearly had the backing of some powerful figures in the corp if most execs did not know about it. Not something you could easily blow the whistle about… He’d have to warn Mary.
-------------------
Mary’s whole class met in person to take their tests. They were wearing low-end helmets since few of them had cyberware and datajacks. The corp preferred to wait until they’d reached full growth or were entering the final year of high school. Mary used the rigger trick to split her attention for multitasking. She could pay attention to the room as well as the imagery induced by the helmet. A couple corp suits entered the room dispassionately commenting on evaluations on each student. They were confirming the implants the corp gave students after their junior year. The corp’s had to make sure everyone had the right look or connections – so much for meritocracy. Only two of the students warranted much discussion.
The lucky two? Jules, son of a board member, and herself. Both were given headgear and medical treatments from a special account instead of the regular corp implant program.
The suits paused at Mary. One copped a feel through her shirt. Mary bit her tongue and refused to react. She pushed it to the back of her mind.
Mary chatted with Jules after class. "Hey Jules, does the invitation to the dance still stand?" She tilted her head batting her eyelashes at him.
Jules smiled confidently. "Sure does, we’ll look great together."
Seething inside at his arrogance, she asked, "Can I get the info off your wrist comp?"
"Sure can, I’ll be over with the boys. Just bring it over when you are done." He ambled over to the gang of youths. They laughed and slapped his back. Someone finally got a date with the ice princess.
Mary ran through the wrist comp extracting the dance info as well as the chunk of encrypted treatment instructions for Jule’s implants. She walked over and embellished her role, "Thanks Jules, looking forward to our date." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
Jules stammered and his buddies chortled as she walked away.
When she got home to her room, she thought over the suits actions. She cried in shame and rage vowing that would not happen again.
Composed, she met George later in the evening. She told him about the suits’ visit to the class but not about the offensive behavior. She gave George a chip with her, Bitsy’s and Jules’ encrypted treatment instructions. He took it to a friend who had an isolated deck and knew the corp encryption routines. A few days later he returned the chip to Mary with a flourish.
"Here you go little sister. Smart move getting those other instruction sets for comparison. My friend broke the encryption and made brand new orders for you." He grinned at his success. "Of course, now you owe me a couple grand…"
He winced at her scowl. "Jeez, just kidding."
"So what will I get and what did they have planned for me?" she asked expectantly.
"Now you’ll get a duplicate of Bitsy’s top of the line cybersystem and datajack. The system is totally flexible. Those researchers get cool toys! It will let you run the matrix or rig controls of equipment for experiments. Hell, you’ll have wider parameters for rigging than anyone in the corp garage. Bitsy had some basic bioware listed on her instructions. Jules instructions came with a completely separate menu of choices. His cyberware appears like a standard exec system with a lot of upgrades. I selected a couple of the upgrades for you too. Think that’s cool? This is just getting good." He grinned. "On the bioware side, he got some sweet deals. Most of the bioware was health related – top end immunizations, nootropic, neuroendocrine and other enhancements like musculature optimization, tissue repair genes, mitochondria supplementation. . . most of this stuff isn’t discussed anywhere on the matrix. Looks like lots of life extension and intelligence raising modifications – not that you need it... I tweaked the selections to reflect your sex and race." He finished out of breath from his spiel.
"Wow, great work George!" her eyes shown with the threat of tears and her grin stretched wide. She paused. "But what had they selected for me in the first place?"
"Ah if you really want to know…" He paused and then continued in an angry tone. "A computer with a smart system to handle secretary work. Basically sounds like they plan to derail you from management into the secretary pool as we suspected. What’s even worse…" His face got red as their father’s when irate. "… a hormone makeover with taps to your nervous system. You’d have been a high-end joy girl at the whim of whoever had the command controls."
They stared at each other in silence.
"I say you should get the revised treatment. A black account pays for this so the funds won’t be missed. You can continue your studies through next year. But then… You’ll have to leave the corp. They’ll realize the switch when they assign you to an exec full time."
"Guess I can ace all my coursework that might give them some pause."
"Doubt that would help at this point. You are in their sights. Just get the surgery after the school year, do your summer internship, finish your last year of school and run before the corp assigns you. You’ve got some money set aside. And you could go to one of the Tirs or work for a smaller corp here as a rigger."
------------
After the exams that finished at the end of her junior year, Mary went to the corporate hospital. They paperwork was exhausting. Basically she signed herself to years of labor in exchange for the upcoming treatment. She asked her father about some of the clauses. He’d snapped at her and told her just to sign it. George was a bit more helpful. He asked about buyout clauses and contingencies around the opt-in to full employment after graduation. She found one buried in the contract, but it would not help if she ran away as planned. Maybe she could exercise the right in the future to reclaim her SIN.
She arrived at the HR department. The waiting room was full of her peers. The clerks processed the paperwork slowly. Late that afternoon the group was shuttled to the medical complex. She was nervous. If they realized the encrypted treatment instructions were altered, the corp could punisher her - permanently. ‘Complications of surgery.’ It happened.
She was processed in with the others from her class, but they were all sent to separate rooms. She sat in the private hospital room, a Spartan cell. A nurse came and took her to a nicer room on another floor. She saw Jules being escorted too, but none of their peers.
At the nurses’ station on the new floor her guide downloaded the modified treatment instructions from Mary’s wrist comp. The nurse paused and typed for a few minutes. Mary felt sweat drip from her hairline. "Is there a problem?"
The nurse looked up. "No, these just take a while. I’ll load this into the operating schedule. Actually we take precautions to seal the records and update your medfiles with the corp standard defaults so no one will know your full implants." She winked.
"Thanks." I think. The clandestine operation groups in the corp must love this setup. When Mary got her wristcomp back, she swapped the treatment instructions back to the originals.
The next two weeks flashed by in a haze. She was feed special ‘foods’ and given many injections through the shunts the installed into her skin. The shunts freaked her out. They were like evil jacks administering foul fluids – real jacks should carry pure electrons. Several days she lost entirely for the surgery to install the cyberware.
In the disassociated daze after the surgery, she barely noticed a pair of men in suits entering her room one night. She was so groggy she could not talk or move. The first suit attached her wrist comp to a deck. He gave a thumbs up. Then, he zapped her thigh with device. Mary felt a tugging at her leg. Then the other chanted as the glow of a healing spell coalesced around her.
When she finally regained her senses the next morning she was in a gel bed. She self-consciously touched the jack behind her ear. She also noticed some dried blood on her leg and felt a barely perceptible lump. Something to investigate…
Soon after her movement, a cheerful nurse looked in the door to verify the instrument readings. "My you recovered quickly. We’ll get you started on the physical therapy and training."
In the last few days of her hospital stay, Mary recovered enough to walk about the facility when she wasn’t in training therapy. She had a therapist who adjusted the cyberware installation and spent several days going through basic functions and covering the more unusual upgrades.
The areas of the facility she could access were impersonal with industrial design. The most excitement was to wander down to the nurses’ station and visit the central social area for the patients in their wing. There weren’t many patients in their wing. Few chose to leave their rooms.
In her walks, Mary noticed a module behind the nurses’ station that seemed out of place. The labels declared it dangerous with biohazard logo’s and a manifest that she could skim. The module held the ritual samples taken during operations. Frag. I’ll never escape the corp if they have tissue samples.
In the shared bathroom, Mary unclipped her hair. The high tensile ceramic broach disassembled into lock picks. As her heart beat fast in fear of being interrupted, she attacked the mechanical lock on the cleaning supplies cabinet below the sink. After jabbing her own finger as she initially fumbled with the lock, she soon pushed all the tumblers aside and popped the door. A wax lined paper water cup served to carry some SuperKleen™ with new, improved digestive enzyme action. When the nurses took a lazy snack break, Mary casually walked behind their station. The module was unlocked! She dripped some of her ‘drink’ in the sample labeled with her SIN. Quickly she headed to the social lounge dropping the cup in a trash bin.
Sitting on a couch in the empty lounge she flicked through the trideo channels. She’d seen glimpses of others rooms and knew they were occupied. Her classmates had probably been released already. Wonder if any of them aside from Bitsy noticed I was missing? The same boring shows and advertising flashed by until she settled on a nature station that fit her elven mien.
"Hey Mary. a deep male voice echoed in the lounge.
Startled out of her reverie, Mary jumped in her seat. She turned. "Hi Jules." Who else would know me here aside from scion of the corp’s board member?
"Check this out!" Jules walked over and lifted the end of the couch she sat on showing off his new musculature augmentation.
Mary was not impressed. "See ya Jules. I’m going to take a nap. This medical stuff just exhausts me." Especially the stunts it makes you pull.
------------
The morning before her final therapy session Mary entered the lounge to find a large human playing a motorcycle race sim through an urban sprawl’s roads. She watched him play for a while. He was okay but not on the class of the professionals she’d sparred with in the Garage’s sim races.
The man glanced her way when he hit a straightaway. He scanned her head to toe with black matte cybereyes. "Hey cutie, want play doctor?" He leered wickedly.
"No." She retorted. "But I’ll play that sim with you."
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay, you’re on."
"Wanna put some cash on the line?" She offered.
"Oh sure, why not. Maybe just a little, say 5k nuyen?"
"Okay," she responded casually, while her stomach flipped. So much money! That’s almost all my savings. Hell, I can beat him. She pulled out her credstick. Slotting it into the matrix, she took a margin loan against her assets. She placed the stick into the table between them and jacked in.
They ran the basic sim. Mary won without even pushing her limits.
"Damn girl. You’re good. But let’s play again with the advanced version." He challenged.
"Sure, that was fun." She giggled and tossed her hair so naturally that Steffy would have been proud.
"Okay, let’s raise the stakes too. Can you handle 50k?"
Damn. Mary silently gritted her teeth. Through the datajack she split her focus and put a call to George explaining the situation. He agreed to front the 40k if she let him watch the race. "Okay" She set her cred stick into the table between them.
Her opponent set up the game. Mary noticed that he allocated points to design a custom bike and turned on options for computer generated riders and urban obstacles but did not mention this to her. You’ll learn I’m not a naive waif. She quickly recreated one of her favorite motorcycles using her allotment of points to select a cycle chassis building up by individual components. It was harder than modifying one of the default cycles but if you could do it in the time limit you got much better performance for the points. She used her remaining points for some special modifications as well as mounted weapons.
When the race began she winked at her opponent. He scowled when he noticed she’d caught on to his ploy and managed to produce a custom cycle. She used his shock to take the lead. She kept it throughout the race and earned bonus points shooting gangers that popped in her way. Fortunately, the sim’s settings prevented her opponent from shooting her, though he tried. When the game ended and they unjacked, her opponent exploded out of his seat at her.
"Freeze!" A deep voice commanded as a blurred figure smoothly moved into the room. "Now, now, we’ll have none of that." Stated the smiling new arrival as her opponent went limp with a sigh and scowl. A nurse stood in the doorway with a medpad, apparently her opponent’s stress readings brought the cavalry.
"A cute elf who can rig a cycle really will mess with preconceptions." The smiling man turned from her opponent. "Miss, you should never play with fire without a backup." With that admonishment, he pulled her credstick from the console. "I believe that this must be yours."
Mary took it and fled.
------------
When she returned home from the medical facility, an official package from the corp waited for her.
She visited George in the Garage.
"Hey sis, let’s see."
"What do you think?" Mary pulled her hair aside and showed George the jack in her skull. The tip of the iceberg of her cyberware and no track betrayed her bioware.
"Nice. You’ll need to tweak the cyberware and its programs a bit to get the best performance. I’ve got some presents for you that should help." He grinned. "Speaking of presents… Do you have that money I lent you for your bet on the sim race?"
She pulled out a credstick. "Yes, thank you so much. God that was great to put that testosterone muscle head in his place! The credstick also has my winnings – could you put those towards the accounts you manage for me in RGR Investments?"
"Sure. Guess running the sims here payed off. You should tell Mr. Brock about the race; he loves riggers beating samurai types. Alright step into my office." George ushered her to a seat next to a diagnostic deck with a monitor jack and microsurgery robot that the riggers in the Garage used to tweak their cyberware implants. He ran parameter checks on her new cyberware and upgraded some of the software with patches written by shadow deckers. These enabled her to modify her icon and turnoff built-in trace programs when she wanted.
She ran several sims in the Garage’s training area – the sensor feeds via the jack were incredible, much better than a helmet. Different riggers pointed out their private tricks for juggling the multiple inputs.
They also found two tracing devices implanted by the corp. My the corp was trusting. A scan on her leg revealed he illicit visitors had implanted her with a subdermal drug release device.
George cut out the subdermal, replaced its reservoir with saline, and re-implanted it using a medkit from the Garage. The implant released hormone suppressors to temporarily counter balance the effects of the treatments she would have received if Mary had not had the instructions modified.
Pragmatically, Mary also uploaded some of his customized programs for rigging, helpful utilities to deal with the corp matrix and some basic tools used by deckers.
"Those utilities should make your life a bit easier. The team running that special secretary pool may check on you – probably either at the beginning or end of the summer. They shouldn’t try anything until next summer when you graduate. Just watch out for anyone who wants to check that subdermal implant."
"Oh, Bitsy and I have grown some contact biologics. They can check the subdermal, but if anyone tries to cop a feel, they’ll get a deadly surprise." Mary smiled unpleasantly.
"Too much information." George said his good-byes and left her near their parent’s apartment.
The apartment was empty. Mary’s mother lent her an assistant to help select appropriate business attire. The shopping spree bagged new suites, an attaché case, and minor nick nacks. Seeing the state of Mary’s finger nails, the assistant bought her custom SmartNails™. They appeared totally natural but the engineered ceramic material was strong and could be programmed to different colors with a catalyst and light wand.
Mary left a message for her parents before reporting to her summer job.
------------
Mary walked into the exec office tower. The receptionist called a junior staffer, who gave her a new wrist comp, downloaded files for her to read and produced her a security badge.
"Your appointment is actually in an hour. We can have you watch the sim on the department you’ll be joining."
Mary fumed. Rush and wait. Typical corp style. The receptionist ushered her into a small meeting lounge. She called up the proper sim and made sure Mary hooked in. Mary ran her multitask programs, so she could split her attention and watch the lounge. She pulled a well sealed spritzer bottle out of her purse and carefully sprayed under her jacket. Both prescient actions.
Minutes into the sim, two very large men in suits entered. They blithely ignored her assuming her consciousness was totally involved in the sim.
"Locking down the door." The first suit ran a odd magkey attached to his wristcomm via a cable through the door’s scanner. "Is that our last target?"
Holding a thin screen near her face, the second suit confirmed, "Yes, this is the one." He then pulled out a remote unit and pointed it towards her. "The implant is in and functioning." He then reached forward with a violating touch inside Mary’s new business jacket. He was oblivious to the slight damp on her shirt – a telltale of the bio-agent Mary’s designed and grown with Bitsy’s lab access. "Tasty too bad they save this for the execs. She must like me; she’s speechless!" He chuckled at his own joke.
Mary endured the suits performance apparently oblivious as she raged in the sim. Bastards! Speechless, no I’m saying everything with my designer bioagent. You’ll get yours! Just touch everyone in your HQ during the next hour before the infectious phase ends.
The second suit nodded. "Yeah, we’ll have to find some joygirls at the bar tonight. Enough. Let’s roll; back to the HQ." He unkeyed the door. The two departed after a high five.
Soon after the sim ended, the receptionist fetched Mary, who had begun to calm down when she sprayed her shirt with a second bottle of a counteragent. She gloated to herself. The incubation and toxin release will wipe out the crew handling the special secretary pool operation by tomorrow! I hope it gets all of those vermin.
Following directions, Mary then rode an elevator up to the Intercorporate Liason Department, ILD. She was assigned to one of the top negotiating teams. George said that summer jobs were plums to entice prospects fully into the corporate fold. Her summer would be spent shadowing a junior member of the staff on an exec’s support team.
A classy woman of indeterminate age handled the reception desk for the ILD. She nodded at Mary as she personally answered calls while switching fluidly between languages. Mary heard her name mentioned as the receptionist notified her summer mentor. Mary looked around the lobby, a posh reception atrium that rose a full three floors. This must cost a fortune. Guess they know how to impress and intimidate their counterparts at other firms and governments.
A young man walked into the lobby. "Hello, I’m Jonathan. You must be Mary our intern." He greeted her in a fast voice. "We’ve found some exciting projects for you this summer with the team handling negotiations with several princes of Tir Tairngire for access to some of their bioware and magic research."
Mary grinned, unable to get a word in edgewise.
He continued, "Follow me, I’ll show you to the cubicle your assigned for the summer. Then you can run through the background material and I can show you how to use the programs in the ILD’s matrix. We use lots of tools and processes to support the ILD’s roles identifying partners, building alliances, coordinating joint ventures at a strategic level, negotiating deals, and gathering competitive intelligence. The role you’ll help me with this summer is the admin level two, pretty simple: brief our exec on any new information uncovered by smart frames about the technology we need becoming available elsewhere or obsoleted; maintain his schedule and generally handle support tasks."
"Sounds interesting!" Mary answered perkily. Geez, assistant to the secretary. How bad can this get?
Due to the need to travel in ILD, Jonathan requisitioned her a deck instead of just the computer built into the cubicle’s desktop. He gave her tutorials on working with the software used by the department for translation, smartframes that scanned and analyzed relevant news, and the presentation software. This finished with a tour of the office and introductions to all the junior ILD staff. Violating several rules, he tried to impress her with tales of the ILD’s covert operations side and pointed out which staffers overtly worked on those projects. He also gave her a packet for a business trip – most of the summer would be spent in the Tir. The packet held a travel itinerary, language chips, and various expense forms.
------------
Tir Tairngire
Mary smiled to herself and pulled out one of the audioboxes she’d surgically removed from the shelf of LearningBaby™ dolls at the mall’s ToyDepot. She hid the audiobox in the crook of a branch around the corner from the front desk. She wandered through the lobby stores and ended precisely 20 minutes later looking at the tourist brochures by the check-in counter.
Deep laughter drifted from around the corner followed by the unmistakable sound of a safety latch popping out and a shotgun being pumped. The registration counter clerks ducked back into their office behind a heavy door.
Mary’s hand snaked forward over a jack into the hotel’s system, then she ducked on the floor with the other guests. The bellhops sporting automatic weapons moved with practiced ease through the lobby to secure the corridor. While the businessmen groused and tourists marveled at the commotion, Mary downloaded information from the hotel’s comp. She pulled the cable as she heard the employees door pop open.
Mary skimmed the list of guests and their affiliations. Nothing jumped out at her so she archived the files.
------------
The tours of the Tir manufacturing plants interested Mary but the meetings for the negotiations were interminable. Fortunately, she only had to sit through the major meetings. Mary worked in the background with the other support staff. She made graphics and rewrote slides for the presentations used in the negotiations between her corp and the Tir. Given her metatype and study of the language, Mary attended many of the social gatherings to schmooze with their Tir counterparts. She also worked with the linguists to check the nuances of the Sperethiel in the contract that the translation software sometimes glitched. The work actually engaged her though she could see how it would get boring very quickly.
One afternoon the corp team was given a tour of the woods outside the city. The transport stopped at the entrance to a forest garden. The team wandered the paths followed by their ubiquitous ‘tracker’ drone assigned by the Tir.
Mary freaked. The garden was so open. The sounds and smells were strange. The trees were huge. So, she focused on usurping control of the drone. She could take over when it was only running the automated control programs; another rigger would notice her commands. She’d played with it to determine its specs, which included recorders and a hidden gun loaded with armor piercing rounds. The ‘tracker’ was more of a ‘warden’ drone. Odd that the recorders were off for the first time…
Lost in the rigging, she only devoted a small part of her attention to walking and nodding at the comments of the others. The screams got her full attention. A pack of hellhounds burst from the undergrowth at the corp team. Mary triggered the drone’s gun taking down several of the hounds. One of the negotiation team triggered a spell lock casting a lightening bolt at the remaining hounds. Mary noted the mage’s collapse from the spell drain via the drone’s sensors. She disconnected her cyberware’s remote access from the drone’s sensors and controls returning her focus to her body’s own senses.
"Are you okay?" Jonathan helped her up as she shook acting scared, then realized that she really was. Several members of the team now carried weapons and spell fetishes. The ILD valued hidden talents. Everything vanished as soon as the response team arrived after a few angry commcalls broke through the jamming that seemed to blanket the area.
The response team swept through the forest garden but found no trace of the hounds handlers. The elves were appalled at the ‘invasion’ of one of their garden parks, which they deemed high art. Mary murmured some comments about wanting to get back to the city and within the confines of the arcology. She noticed the Tir elves disquiet at her own discomfort with nature - what they considered a comfortable environment. The team returned to the hotel. Negotiations wrapped up shortly as the Tir side cleaned its house of dissidents.
------------
"Hey corp-girl, how was your summer internship?" George asked Mary.
"Well Mr. Corp yourself, the work supporting strategic decisions and negotiations surprised me – I liked it. The travel to the Tir opened my eyes to what metas can accomplish without prejudice of a corp to restrict their ambitions. The open space and forests were freaky compared to our life here in the arcology. As expected, the politics were cut throat."
"Doesn’t sound too bad…"
"I did a little sightseeing with a small remote through the vent system that goes up through the exec offices. You would not believe some of the activities I filmed!"
"That might be nice insurance someday." George responded wryly. "By the way, even conforming to the corp life is not safe. There was a bit of a stir early in the summer on the day you left for the Tir. Never made it to the corp’s internal matrix, but everyone on an internal security team was taken out by a terminal virus. Fortunately, it did not spread through the arcology like the flu does."
Mary grinned. "Good riddance."
George stared at her shocked.
She explained, "Let’s just say the group running the special secretary pool should be out of operation. I’d rather be cast out than conform if it means getting enforced servitude."
"Hmm, well I hope you laid that to rest. Maybe you could consider making a career in the ILD."
------------
That fall, Jules held a welcome back party for a group of the senior class at his parents’ apartment. Mary dragged Bisty along. When they arrived the party was going strong - kids tweeking their brains with old fashioned alcohol, designer drugs and BTLs supplied by a brooding figure who sat near the bar dealing happiness for credits and nuyen.
Mary went to the bathroom. Glancing around, she touched the mirror noting the lack of a gap in the surface reflection. Mary scowled. Stupid boys. She pulled hairspray from her bag and sent a light mist over a section of the wall mirror. She casually put toilet paper over the rim of the toilet. ‘Accidentally’ covering the mini-cam hidden under the seat as effectively as she’d blocked the two-way mirror. Have to mention those to Bitsy, she thought to herself.
Mary sipped a soda water. Nodding politely as the girls around her gossiped. She excused herself to follow the dealer. The man stepped out onto the balcony pulling along a woozy looking girl.
The balcony’s large potted plants bordered several small nooks for lawn chairs and tables. Walking quietly, Mary spotted the dealer crouched over the now comatose girl reclined on the ground. Mary pulled a StunStick from her purse. She set it to max, enough to fell a troll. The man started to turn amazingly fast, but too late. The charge leapt to his neck.
Mary pushed him off the girl and slapped a stim patch on her. Rifling through the man’s pockets, Mary liberated all the cash he’d collected, a large handgun which she tossed into a fountain on the balcony below, and got his registration packet for the corp’s hotel. With a smile to herself, she kicked the unconscious man in the balls. Guiding the recovering girl back into the apartment Mary toured the rest of the rooms.
Mary squeezed the enzyme sack inside the gel capsule. The sack burst. The enzyme spread against the other sacks in the capsule. The enzyme would dissolve the material separating reagent sacks in exactly three hours triggering a very exothermic reaction… With a sheet of flash paper from the Everyman’s Magick Shoppe she tied the capsule against the fire detector/suppression unit in the library.
Bitsy and Mary left the party and walked back to the slightly lower section of the arcology where they lived. They missed the excitement as the fire suppression system doused those remaining at the party in halogen.
A security team appeared immediately in response to the fire alarm. The team had to call in support to deal with the crowd of youngsters and uncovered the comatose dealer on the porch. One of flunkies for Jules’ father quickly appeared on the scene. A hurried discussion with Jules ensued. The spin control was fast – the kids were sent home and a bulletin went up on the corp’s internal news matrix. The story described how Jules identified a drug dealer and then later caught the man when he broke-in and trashed his parents apartment.
Leaving Bitsy at her place, Mary hurried to the corp hotel. She wrapped a scarf around her head to hide her identity. She waved the registration pack at the doorman. The key let her into the dealer’s room. A garment bag lay open on the bed. It held nothing of interest besides some spare ammo, more drugs & money, several fake ids useless to her, and a classy black trench coat lined with heavy ballistic armor. Mary pulled on the coat staggering slightly at its weight. She scooped up the money, departing quickly as she appeared.
-------------
"George, I’ve got some more money for you to invest for me!" Mary said proudly.
"Tell me everything." He sighed.
She related the previous night’s events.
"Ah sis, you need a street name, especially if you are going to dabble in the shadows."
"What my very own nom de guerre? Cool."
"Let’s see Roadkill, Roadkiller, Riggerette, . . ." deadpanned George.
Mary punched him in the shoulder. Anything would be better than the plain traditional names used in their family. Those were well suited to being a cog in the corp machine, but she wanted more. Cog. "Gears." She blurted.
George raised his eyebrow and looked at her. "Hm, not bad. Alright Gears, let’s set-up your identity and prepare you for a new life."
----------------
"Well Gears you ready for a shadowrun with me?" George asked.
Mary’s eyes widened and she squeaked, "What? Are crazy? Your job…" She gave an unladylike snort. "Besides we don’t have a mage or fire power or a real decker."
"Bah, stereotypes. Besides there are many ways to profit from a shadowrun – some say seven, but that may not be exactly right." George grinned, "My way’s simple… We just follow a team on a run and pick up what they ignore. The tough part’s the scheduling; however… my bugs recorded some execs discussing the details of a run they commissioned."
A few nights later the two watched a team of shadow runners takeout the guards in a gatehouse of a rival megacorps office complex. They waited until the runners entered one of the buildings. George grinned. He guided Mary from their position across the street to raid the guard shack. They walked past sensors blinded by the professionals who’d gone deeper into the complex searching for a specific objective.
Mary pulled a fully stocked medkit looking at the corpses she turned away and started popping out electronic modules out of the security control system. George liberated a pair of drones from their housing on the shack’s roof. He joined her and rolled his eyes at her as he stripped the guards bodies of their ids, keys, and their handguns. Mary did grab a top-of-the-line pair of CopShades™, which were lying on the security console. She dropped them into her shielded pouch in case they were bugged. George glanced at the machineguns held in place with simple clasps, but knew the hardwired alarms on those would summon additional security.
Mary looked toward the deeper interior of the office complex wondering what other assets she and George could liberate. George shook his head. "Don’t get greedy. Let’s roll." He whispered. Mary sighed. She shouldered her bags.
They took their loot back to the Americar borrowed for the evening from the long term parking lot at the airport. George manually drove the car away.
"Wow, that was wild. But I’m exhausted." Mary grinned.
"We’re not done yet. The next step is actually more dangerous for us." George pulled out the guards’ wallets. A short drive took them to the apartment ‘plex where the guards lived. Luckily the halls were bare and security minimal. They recovered some decent trideo equipment that the guards were probably still paying off. Both guards also had a bunch of weapons. Mary whistled in surprise as they found the cache in the second apartment. George answered her unspoken question. "It’s a security thing. All guards have some weird compulsion to collect weapons. Maybe it’s why they are guards."
George fenced most of the gear through a fixer he knew and deposited the funds into their accounts at the investment corp he ran.
After getting dropped off near the exec wing, Mary quietly snuck into her room. Exhausted after the adrenaline high of the nights events, she contemplated all she’d learned. The guards’ corpses haunted her dreams.
----------------
Mary smiled as Mr. Brock fell into lecture mode.
"Everyone should know some basic electronics. You never know what ‘parasites’ your transport will get on business. You should study these chips and work through all the samples in our tool shop." He winked at her. "In Mechanics, we trust!"
The chips held manuals with Brock’s own annotations for identifying and making basic sensors such as audio & video bugs, passive & active tracers as well as finding them & jamming them with electronic countermeasures, and triggers for traps & bombs. Her grades in school suffered as she split her time between these and Bitsy’s lessons. The schedule was grueling but fun.
When she took breaks in the Garage, the riggers regaled her with their best stories. Everyone likes to brag. Listening to the riggers’ stories taught her about escape and evasion by switching vehicles or disguises from strip-away polymers to mundane tricks with mud and spray paint to throw witness descriptions. Her attentiveness and camaraderie racing in the sims, endeared her to the riggers. Rigger social circles judged by IQ and knowledge, unlike her peers and even corpers who often fell for nice measurements and looks.
While learning in the tool shop, Mary did a couple small projects. She removed the tracer and serial number chip from the CopShades.
The CopShades ceramic coating accepted the catalyst she used on her SmartNails, so she changed them from the color of the rival corp to pink. Steffy took her to a SmartShades dealer at the mall. With the flirting from the two blonds, the lad behind the counter used the equipment to custom fit the frames for Mary when the manager stepped away. The shades soon became a fixture in her wardrobe. The shade’s zoom features, video capture, glare compensators, and other features proved fun toys.
----------------
"Hey Mary, check this out. These are two ops in corp intel. Playback track 0802." George’s wrist comp blared to life.
Two men carry on a conversation with the distortion of the limo system slightly masking their voices. "The Fixer at the Lizard Lounge just recruited the Mofas for RepcoBio to extract some researchers from our med group."
The second man responded. "Mofas, they’ve got a decent rep. Who are the targets? Any risk factors that require corp security or for us to warn the med group?"
"The targets? Some technicians – Rolosk and Frash. Minor risk, not much revolutionary seems to come out of the group – just solid profits if uninspired products. Their own sec team should be able to handle the shadow runners. If not, we could use this as a reason to get one of our guys into the med group. That slitch exec tries to run as an independent enterprise. It’s small time but sets a bad precedent."
"Any idea what the researchers are working on?"
"The fixer mentioned a project, neuleben, but I don’t see anything on that in our databases.
George stopped the playback.
"Frag!" exclaimed Mary. "That’s mom’s group. Were you driving those intel guys? Have they caught on?"
"This was recorded by one of my passive systems. I pick up the data weekly. I don’t think anyone has spotted my system. Still I can’t act on the paydata, if this conversation could be tracked to the Garage a search would reveal my ops."
"Hmm, I’m still living with the parents through graduation. I guess I do owe mom, but she doesn’t have to know." Mary pursued her lips, then grinned. "I think I can take care of it."
"Yeah, you said that when we took you out in a car for your first real drive too." He grinned.
Mary scowled. "You’re luck I brought that car back in one piece. I was good in the sims. That "simple race" was some warped rigger initiation - the bad weather, road conditions and steep hills – not to mention the gang that started chasing us..."
"Ah, well it did get a little out of hand. But didn’t you have fun?"
Mary rolled her eyes. The adrenaline rush did make me feel alive. Not that I’d ever give George the satisfaction by saying that out loud. She turned heading to the elevators and passages back into the central arcology containing the employee residences.
---------------
Mary walked into the lobby of her mom’s building. She smiled at the receptionist, who nodded. Everyone knew Mary by sight in her mom’s group – especially since she goblinized. She walked over to one of the complimentary terminals and started the group’s public matrix site. Hopping to the search engine, she entered questions:
Display profile of employee Rolosk. The terminal chirped and displayed a warning. <employee information confidential>
Display profile of employee Frash. The results repeated.
Define extraction. <A process of separating a desired substance from its natural state.>
Display profile of team Mofas. <No such team works in this group.>
She looked at the doors into the offices behind the receptionist. They stayed closed. She muttered, "Clueless fraggers don’t even have smart frames trolling their own system. How does mom survive?" She typed in one last query,
Profile neuleben project. <please reenter project not found>
She cleared the screen.
Waving to the secretary she walked glumly out of the building back towards the vacant shuttle stop. This was going to take more work than she anticipated. The fall breeze fluttered gently flicking leaves into the air. She watched the leaves twirl in odd patterns several paces a head of her. She pulled her hands from her pockets and clapped her hands at the open archway before entering the shelter. A thick dust from her pockets scattered from her hands quickly settling across the floor. She blew on the bench to clean off the dust and sat on the first corner. She pulled her feet up underneath her.
A man’s deep voice broke her solitude. "Clueless fraggers? Guess I should be offended."
Startled Mary’s heart pounded as she looked to where the voice originated, the far end of the shuttle stop’s bench. No one was there. A bare spot on the floor contrasted to the thin layer of dust through the rest of the shelter. "Nice spell or good tech." She muttered softly.
"Spell actually. Courtesy of the staff’s mage." The voice answered. "Think you might want to tell me a story? Not every day your boss’s daughter wanders into the office dropping odd hints."
Mary’s heartbeat settled. Probably a cybered guard. "You got the message. Watch the shadows and your dear technicians. Don’t let anything happen to my mom’s rep. And, don’t you dare mention this to her." Her eye flashed dangerously.
Her companion chuckled. "A threat? Are you going to hurt me?" The tone of his questions mocked her and then his voice dropped to a rumble, "You should play with fire girl."
"Play?" She paused. She looked at the concentrators that gathered electricity from the solar cells in the road’s surface. Her cyberware’s microwave unit changed the concentrator’s commands. Miniature wires shifted from the outbound power fiber to the edge of the dust on the ground. "My threats are real." The concentrators released their charge. The dust vaporized into plasma, which made an easy channel for the rest of the energy to travel. She was isolated from the dust. Her companion did not fair so well. He was covered with dust all the way down to his feet planted firmly on the floor. She heard a muffled groan and static as some of his commgear fried. The mask spell broke. "Guess there weren’t any other invisible sec guys in here." She smirked. She applied some extra day glow lip-gloss and planted a kiss on the forehead of her unconscious companion. "Hope your mage does healing spells." With a toss of her long hear, she strode out to board the approaching shuttle.
The guard’s co-workers teased him about the kiss imprinted on his forehead. But they discretely increased security on the technicians and put out a contract on the Mofas. Who were later ‘questioned’ to uncover the Johnson who hired them for AresBioTech. Among the sec team the story of their boss’s frosty daughter quietly circulated. For uncovering the plot several guards earned healthy bonuses.
A week later, Mary received a note. The note was brief. "If you need help playing - <node address>". The imprint of a kiss in day glow ink signed the note.
----------------
While her peers were celebrating their graduation together, Mary stood to the side. Steffy asked her to join her for a trip to the restroom. Both girls were wearing white Armante suits. Mary grinned inside recognizing Steffy’s suit as from those she’d outgrown.
As they walked down the hall to the bathroom Mary paused to remove her high heeled shoes and get a drink in a snack alcove. Pop. Mary peered into the hall to see Steffy crumple. Two big men in suits picked up the girl’s still form. Mary listened and watched.
One of the men pulled out a wrist phone. "We’ve got the girl. She’ll be ready in a month when the hormones kick in."
Drek! They are still running their secretary pool operation. Now I really do have to leave the corp.
The other man pulled out an odd handheld unit. He swung it around before pointing it at Steffy. Mary’s cyberware picked up a signal from the subdermal that had been implanted during her stay in the corp med. They must be turning off the autodispenser that delivers the hormone suppressor. She copied and broadcast a boosted version of the subdermal’s signal, hoping the man’s device was uni-directional. She pulled the CopShades™ from her purse and shot images of both men.
"Done let’s roll," stated the second man.
Mary rushed to Steffy and pulled a dart from the fallen girl’s neck. She applied a stim patch from her purse. "Steffy, you okay?"
Steffy’s glassy eyes slowly cleared. "Wow, what did they put in those drinks?"
The experience left Mary shaken. Despite her bioagent taking out most of the covert operation’s staff, the fraggers were still operating their special pool and had not forgotten her. This forced her to take the fallback George helped her prepare. Later that night while her peers were still celebrating, Mary left the corp arcology where she’d spent her whole life.
Mary took a corp shuttle, transferred to a city bus and then walked the last few blocks to a small motel. At the desk, she paid cash. The clerk warned her against bring in Johns. She scowled once she realized what he meant though she’d left the fortified lobby by then.
Mary cut off her long curly blond hair. The girls who’d been jealous of her long tresses would cringe too – if they had not been partying and blithely drifting into the future the corp planned for them. Holding the trimmer’s cord on the top of her head, she dragged its blades around her head for a po'boy cut (you know, when the soup bowl goes over the head and anything uncovered gets shaved). She looked in the mirror and shook her head. Her head felt so light. To complete the makeover she pulled out a light blue hair dye. The results were disastrous. She added a couple black frosty highlights. A bit better. The brown contact lenses fit nicely easily covering her gray/green eyes.
She and George stopped at a StufferShack for lunch. She got the kiddie meal, which came with a sheet of rub-on tattoos. George grabbed it and looked over the Totem Tattoos™ "This is you – the lone wolf, no corp to guard your back."
Mary looked at the tiny wolf. It was sort of cute… Impulsively she pressed the tattoo to her cheek. "Ta da, enter stage left, the new me, Gears!"
The nondescript apartment building was only a short ride from the corp arcology, but their round about route George lead her on from after breakfast took a while. Taking the airport shuttle to long term parking they hopped off at the giant parking garage. They walked down the stairwell carefully avoiding the small piles of trash; unfortunately, her noise could not avoid the stink of rotting bio-matter and piss. George watched as Mary boosted a nondescript Americar. She scanned for bugs, by-passed its security, checked the whole car for bombs, and broke into the trunk’s lockbox. George nodded as she started the car. "You’ll do alright." He praised. George navigated on to the apartment he’d setup for her. They parked a couple blocks away and walked through the neighborhood.
The building was relatively clean, though it had clearly seen better days. Little dust devils whirling trash guarded the sidewalk. A light breeze pushed at her but with the new short cut, it did not push her hair back. A sign stated the elevator was out.
George grimaced, "They do clean it once a week. At least the elevator was working when we stocked the apartment." A short climb up the well lit stairwell brought them to her floor. They stood in the hall before her door talking.
"How did you find this place?" Mary asked. The question was almost an accusation. But she was under too much stress to feel contrite.
George ducked an invisible punch. "Hey, it’s better than being a wage slave or a runaway squatter on the streets. It’s low profile to avoid any bounty from the corp; or, more importantly the fraggers who tapped you for their special pool. Now you get to plan your own future. You’d be a good rigger…"
Woosh. Bang. The stairwell door slammed open against the wall. Their conversation stopped as a giggling Orc in a maid’s smock burst into the hall. Before the door could swing shut an Orc in a security uniform ducked out carrying two Orc children and a third riding his shoulders. He stood to his full height and slowly started walking away from the giggler who was opening an apartment door. The children started squealing. The guard spun and ran to the maid who greeted them all with hugs and kisses. George and Mary stared at the family of metas wistfully.
Mary turned away from the scene and continued their conversation, "Yeah, I thought about that – contracting with a small corp or shadow running. Someday I’ll be able to afford my own vehicles, shop and drones. Then I’ll be able to go back and deal with the rest of the corpers who put me in their special secretary pool. After that situation, clearing with the corp should be pretty straight forward, since they think I got the regular implants and basic ‘indenture’ contract’s buyout rights."
"Well, Gears, you aren’t the only one to think about the future. I’m building a network of contacts and web of information about the corps and the business in this city. It helps with my investments at RGR Capital and is a safety net. Always have a front and a fall back."
"Drek, you sound like a fortune cookie from the House of Louie."
"Hey I like their kung pao soysteak."
"I bet’s recycled biomatter not real soy."
"Ah frag. Time to face it. You’ve been better family than the others. It was cool to have you visit the Garage. The workbench and tools are from the gang. Here’s a cred stick with the money I’d been investing for you. Don’t forget all I taught you." He paused. "Good bye Gears." George hugged her. "If it gets too bad you can contact me but the corp will be watching me like a guard naga. Guess life throws some loops at your plans – don’t think you ever meant to join the SINless. Try that Street Slang 3.7 chip – your looks even with your makeover will get you enough notice without the corp accent."
"Yeah, I can always say I chose to run the shadows for the adrenaline rush." She winked. "Did I ever thank you for being such a cool brother?"
George scratched his head. "I think you left me a comm. message once…"
She groaned –humor at a time like this! "Thanks again for all your help; otherwise I’d be some exec’s trophy secretary/sextoy When I’m ready, I’ll get back in touch with you." She walked into the apartment closing the door behind her.
Glancing out the window she saw the buildings across the street as a black block siloetted against clouds that reflected lights from the distant corp arcologies and shopping malls. She pulled the retro straps that lowered the metal Rolladen on the outside of the windows. The room became pitch black and the sounds of the street muted to near silence. She released her breath and tried to will her shoulders to relax.
"Lights." She called. The ceiling mounted fixtures flicked on.
Pressing the hidden catch on the shower stall, she popped the secret panel George installed. On a shelf she set bugout backpack. The pack contained a small med kit, a tool set, cash, a gun, change of clothes, disguise, keys to a storage locker, and various sundries that might be handy if she had to run. Mary gingerly hooked a pair of smoke and fragmentation grenades on the wall for quick release if she needed cover escaping. She opened the catch to peer into the maintenance shaft for the water pipes and trideo cable, a convenient ‘backdoor’ George uncovered. The shaft also would make it easy for her to tap into the building’s security cameras. Luck required preparation.
Gratefully, she shrugged off the heavy armored trench coat ‘borrowed’ from a drug dealer whose career she ended at Jules’ party, which seemed so long ago. A flick of her wrist comp and the expensive trideo console started a music channel. She had liberated it from She sat at the workbench surveying her domain as she took off her combat boots.
It was a small studio. Very plain – a kitchenette, bed and workbench. The trench coat hung heavily like corpse impaled on the end of the garment rack that partially concealed the bathroom corner. George had left a bottle of tequila on the worktable. She giggled at the bottle remembering the first time she’d tried tequila with the riggers in the Garage, she’d coughed most of it all over herself. Clearly an acquired taste.
She ran through some yoga stretches and breathing to relax. Her nervousness lingered. Mary slugged down a shot of tequila with barely a grimace before crashing on the air mattress. Lifting her guitar, she softly strummed a ballad in synch with the trideo, which sat awkwardly between the workbench and the garment rack hidden from casual view through either the door or window. A day ago she lived in the posh exec wing of a mega-corp’s arcology, granted at her parent’s sufferance; now she lived in a laborers’ apartment building unable to use her own SIN watching a trideo her brother helped her steal. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
Hours later the incessant beep of her wristcomp woke her. A message from the fixer, Diogenes, that George’s friend knew. George’s ‘friend,’ a female dwarf named Mama Cutter ran a bar, with the eponymous name, Cutters. Diogenes told her to be at a local bar, the Blue Lounge, later that night to meet a team, the Regulators, who needed a rigger for transport. The game’s a foot.