The Briefing

“Right,” Tyr had spent the journey back to their warehouse base going through the information on the chip, and was now going to brief his fellow runners about what it was exactly that Chaple wanted them to do tonight.

Everyone had gathered to hear, including Mr. Clean, who had been waiting when they got back, having brought his own private arsenal along in an overfilled duffel bag. He was now using his favorite close-combat weapon, an obscenely large combat knife with a ten inch blade, to cut his rough nails with it as he listened to Tyr in total silence. When Mr. Clean was in this mood the best thing that the others could do was to pretend that it wasn’t there.

“Our run for tonight is to fetch a piece of lostech for Mr. Chaple,” Tyr continued, “currently in the hands of Paratech Inc., which as we all know is a subsidiary of Brackhaven Investments.”

This provoked several immature responses from the group: Kenneth Brackhaven was the man who had just come in second in the UCAS presidential election on the Archconservative ticket and with a distinctly anti-metahuman platform. He was to Peregrine, Fire Fox, Simon and Mr. Clean what Strom Thurmond had been to any black voter in the state of South Carolina back when it was still a part of the United States of America.

Not that Mr. Clean could have been bothered to vote, or Simon would have remembered to leave the garage in order to do the same, but Peregrine and Fire Fox had used false SINs to cast a vote for Dunkelzahn. All it took to vote with a faked SIN was to do so in an area where one candidate was heavily favoured, and you could be sure that nobody would really bother with making sure that you really were who you claimed to be, which is how Fire Fox and Peregrine got to vote as Alexander and Emma Hamilton.

“The lostech is supposedly designed to ease electronic identification and was lost during the aftermath of 29,” Tyr informed them, “it was recently recovered and is now going to help Paratech develop a new and improved type of Matrix Security Program.”

“So they intend to make my life harder? Great…” it didn’t surprise anyone that Fire Fox now let out a bit of sarcasm.

“I doubt that they’re developing this just to fuck with you,” Tyr told Fire Fox, “Now, security is supposed to be pretty lax, and Chaple vouches for the accuracy of the inside source of all this information, as it’s not that astronomically profitable and it hasn’t been made public yet. The company’s facility is located here, in this building…” Tyr stabbed his finger into a point on the city map which was spread out on one of the tables.

“So what is the security level? Define lax…” It was Dove who was talking now, leaning in close against Tyr.

“Maybe half a dozen guards in the building, and the head of the programmers’ night-shift is an old decker,” Tyr did his best to ignore the feel of his lover’s body as it pressed against his own, “and the nearest Kiss Station is located over here…”
Kiss in this case was a euphemism for KESS, Knight Errant Security Services, which was the city’s main contracted police ****.

“Can I kill them?” This question came from Mr. Clean, and Tyr once again found himself hoping that the troll at least exaggerated the disengaged tone of his voice when he asked things like that.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” Tyr told him, “The people going in will be me, Jake, Dove and Fire Fox. It’s inauguration night, so there’ll be a lot of people moving about on the streets, which is why Peregrine will be waiting for us here,” Tyr pointed at a parking garage located near the highway, “ready to get moving quickly if there’s a need for it… and Simon will have the GMC parked in the alley over here,” Tyr moved his finger to a spot about fifty yards from Paratech’s offices, “with Mr. Clean standing ready to show up and give us some support if we should need it.”

“Right,” Tyr said again, knowing that the plan wasn’t genius, but good enough in light of the short time in which he had had to have it all worked out, “any questions?”