Fortunately for deckers everywhere, such systems were extremely costly to implement and maintain. Human operators still got tired, sick, or bored and had to be relieved at regular intervals, paid, fed, and given vacation time and raises. Computers didn’t care about any of those things, nor could they be bribed, bought, or blackmailed. Computers also didn’t have opinions about what they saw or heard from day to day and didn’t abscond with important company secrets. Brain-rigged security systems were still reserved for very specific facilities that needed a "human touch" but where the corporate controllers were willing to entrust a single person as the all-seeing eyes and ears of their facility.
Since the building’s computer was in control of all of the security systems, Ariel could access and control them through her link to the computer system. The security subroutines were of course protected by access barriers and more ice, but Ariel had cut through enough ice in her time to know what to do. A wave of her wand and a pinch of fairy dust produced a ring of old-fashioned skeleton keys that jingled pleasantly (an added sensory touch Ariel was quite proud of). A complex matching algorithm ran, and one key presented itself at the top of the ring in the silver fairy’s hand. Ariel stepped over to the chrome-and-circuit-covered wall of the host system and inserted the key into the slot that appeared there.
Gently,
gently,
she thought as she manipulated the code to match the system access. The wall shifted and flatscreen images appeared on it.
Images of the darkened and empty parking area outside the building and of the lobby, the corridors, and the underground parking garage and the vehicles in it.
Another screen filled with information on the current status of the security systems in place throughout the building. Success!
Looking over the displays, Ariel could see that her intrusion had not triggered any alarms so far. She was dimly aware of the breathing and pulse rate of her physical body, hidden away in a safe-house kilometers from the target site. Her senses were focused totally on the virtual world and what was happening there. A few commands to her cyberdeck sent out a looped playback of the quiet scene outside the building and among the corridors into the central security processor. The loop would continue to display that image for as long as Ariel wanted to, blind and deaf to the events about to happen. The loop would eventually trigger an internal alert in the system’s self-diagnostic, but if the Hammermen were around long enough to worry about that, something far worse than a simple internal alert would happen first.
Now,
a
check
through
the
internal
sensors
.
Ariel checked the internal readings of the security system, and was surprised by what she found.
Hmm,
internal
systems
and
cameras
in
the
lower
level
are
mostly
offline
.
Only
the
systems
in
one
lab
space
are
working,
and
they’re
feeding
into
an
isolated
datastore
.
Ariel shifted her attention to the recording systems for the basement-level lab, which were sending data into a protected archive in the computer system.
They’re
putting
out
a
lot
of
data,
she thought, examining the datastore.
Must
be
a
couple
hundred
megapulses
at
least
.
Probing carefully with all of her sensor programs, Ariel approached the datastore, looking for a way to access the datastream flowing into it without giving away her presence in the computer system. The data could provide some valuable information on the location of the target her team was seeking as well as on the status of the facility. There didn’t seem to be many people in the upper levels of the facility, so Ariel had to assume that whoever was home was in the lab where the datastream originated. She keyed her transmitter.
"Hammer," the deep voice replied to her signal.
"I’m into the security system, external and internal cameras and detects are neutralized and I figure they’ll stay that way for a good twenty minutes. I’ve got an active data feed from a basement-level lab. Suspect that is the location of our target. I’m attempting to access the data."
"Good work, Trouble. Proceed with caution. We’re just a couple minutes out."
"Roger that."
Time
to
open
this
baby
up,
she thought. Ariel waved her magic wand, and the Matrix responded to her commands. She carefully peeled away layer after layer of access to the datastore, using her route through the command system to justify her actions to the computer’s security. Time slowed to a crawl as she focused solely on the task before her. In a matter of moments that seemed like hours, Ariel accessed the datastore and examined the datastream. It was a huge volume of data focused on a single individual. It contained physiological and neurological data of every imaginable kind: vital signs, galvanic response, brainwaves, blood chemistry, neurochemistry, pupil dilation, capillary flow,
respiration
, all carefully measured and digitized responses to stimulus flowing from the computer system to the test subject and back again.
This
has
got
to
be
our
boy,
Ariel thought as she looked in amazement at all of the data. She could hardly imagine why anyone would want such detailed information on anyone, but it wasn’t hers to ask. Whoever their target really was, he was important enough to two corporations to want to hold on to him and to be willing to pay the Hammermen’s fees to get their hands on him.
Suddenly, the datastream from the lab fluctuated strangely.
What
the
hell
...
?
Ariel thought just before the whole system went crazy. A surge of data from the input stream struck the datastore like a thunderbolt. The entire collection of files vanished in a cloud of digital static, dumped from the system entirely. The sudden and unexpected force of the backlash sent Ariel skittering away from the doomed datastore as the computer system suddenly came to life around her.
The lighting of the system shifted from silvery gray to deep and pulsating red as the entire system went on alert. From the static and snow of the datastore’s demise stepped a black-armored figure like a robot designed to look like an ancient Japanese samurai. The figure seemed to absorb light into its black surface except for the edge of its long, curved sword, which gleamed wickedly, a touch of programming flair Ariel had to admire even as the helmeted head of the samurai slowly turned and scanned the system. It locked a gaze on Ariel made up of two burning red points of light deep within the slit of its helmet, and she knew it was too late for her to activate any of her masking programs to get away. The ice had spotted her.
As the silent black form of the samurai stepped closer, Ariel readied herself for a fight. The ice was in the depths of the system, protecting some of the highest-security files, which could only mean it was black ice, a force known and feared by deckers everywhere in the shadows as the only ice that did more than damage software and hardware.
Black ice targeted the wetware, the brain of the user, with a lethal jolt of energy. One wrong move and you were dead.
The
race
is
not
to
the
swift,
nor
the
battle
to
the
strong
.
—Ecclesiastes 9:11
As the Hughes WK-2 Stallion helicopter cut through the night sky over the Boston sprawl, Harlan Hammarand checked his sidearm for what must have been the tenth time since takeoff. He knew that everything about the Colt Manhunter was in perfect working order, since he kept the gun in top shape, but the task of checking the firearm gave his hands something to do as the seconds ticked away on their final approach toward the Mandala Technologies facility. Ariel reported that she had taken care of the security systems, just as Harlan knew she would. Ariel was the best decker he’d ever worked with and he counted on her to handle anything the system could throw at her.
Harlan had the same confidence in the rest of his team. The Hammermen, they were called, after Harlan’s handle on the streets: "The Hammer." The ork mercenary had picked up the name during his younger days on the harsh streets of New York City, where he ran with one of the hundreds of gangs living in that urban jungle. Unlike most of them, Harlan had turned his talent for street-fighting and organized mayhem into a marketable skill that had gotten him out of the barrens and barrios of the Rotten Apple and on to bigger and better things. Most of his
omaes
from the old gang were long dead, but Harlan was still around. That was a trend he aimed to continue for as long as he was able.
Hammer looked over at the rest of the team huddled in the back of the chopper. Sloane, Tojo, and Tootall were all mercs he had worked with for years. They’d met in the trenches of the Desert Wars, and they still came through for him just as dependably in the canyons of the concrete jungle. Sloane and Tojo were humans, as different as night and day. Sloane was tall, blond, and Nordic, with a build to nearly rival Hammer’s bulky ork physique. Tojo was small, lithe, and Asian. Both men were as capable with their bare hands as they were with an AK-97.
Tootall hardly needed any of the weapons he wore on his harness. Some three meters tall and weighing in at almost two hundred kilos, the troll was a fearsome fighter using nothing more than his massive fists, each one capable of crushing a human’s skull. All of the men sat silently, either looking out the window or at the walls or floor of the chopper’s cabin, each wrapped up in
his own
thoughts about the action to come.
Geist sat away from the rest of the crew. The mage was small and slight, only little taller than Tojo and not as well-muscled. His hair and skin were pale and looked washed out in the dim light of the cabin, adding to the ghostly appearance that gave him his street name. Geist was German by birth, but Hammer had known him for several years in the shadows of cities from North Africa to North America. The street mage had considerable skill at his job, having been trained at a university in his native Germany before being forced out into the shadows by an incident he never talked about. Hammer suspected it had something to do with Geist’s famous indiscretions with women, particularly those who were married and supposed to be off-limits. Whatever his personal habits, Hammer found the mage to be more than capable at his job. Right now, Geist sat quietly in the back of the cabin, eyes closed in silent meditation, centering himself and gathering his magical power. Hammer knew that that power would be needed before the night was out.
He had a strange feeling about this run. Not that it was all that unusual. Hammer had pulled off tougher extraction runs than what he knew about this one. It wasn’t the mission itself, but the setting and the unusual speed the Johnson demanded for pulling off the extraction. Hammer had the impression the Johnson had gotten the word that he needed to act quickly. That was the way things went in Boston these days: things were happening fast and you had to keep up. Get out of the way or else get run over.
The Boston sprawl had been something of a quiet town for shadowrunners until the last couple of years or so. It was the location of the East Coast Stock Exchange ever since the earthquake that had devastated New York City years before Hammer was even born. The importance of the stock exchange to the economy sustaining all of the megacorporations was enough to make the major multinationals declare Boston "off-limits" to the usual kind of shadow operations the corps routinely conducted against one another. Boston had become a city of "corporate pride" that the megacorp bigwigs could trust as "neutral ground" for their dealings with their rivals. The cutthroat business of Boston was conducted in board rooms and on the stock exchange, not in back
alleys like it was
in cities like Seattle,
After the assassination of the great dragon Dunkelzahn, corporate competition in Boston took on a new tone. Many up and coming smaller corps, supported by money from the dragon’s vast estate, were now in a position to compete with some of the big boys. Other corporations found their structures shaken up by redistributions of stock and assets in the dragon’s will. The death of a single, powerful being had sent shockwaves through the corporate world and into the shadows of the Boston metroplex. Suddenly, a place that was once neutral ground became a hotbed of shadow activity, pitting every company against the others in the race to get the latest and greatest advance. The heart of the UCAS high-technology industry, Boston had begun to see far more corporate espionage and black ops than the plex’s small pool of shadowrunners could handle. That was why out-of-town talent like the Hammermen had become such an increasingly common part of the Boston underworld.
There was plenty of work to be had in the Boston shadows lately, if you were good enough.
The job Hammer and his team were on now was just the kind of work-showing up in Boston lately. The ork didn’t know for certain who they were working for—knowing your employer was a privilege to be earned in the shadows, or information you had to find out for yourself if you were looking to hedge your bets. Most employers of shadow-talent preferred anonymity, going by the universal name of "Mr. Johnson." The Hammermen’s current Johnson was Japanese, which made the name all the more ironic.