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Authors: James Swallow
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ex-CIA, like Hardesty," Barrett noted. "You know spooks, they like to stick together." "Right."
Hermann blew out a breath, his hand folding closed once again. He gave it an experimental flex, and Saxon saw where the knuckles and the
proximal phalanges were heavily reinforced. Hermann noticed his attention. "A custom-designed modification," he explained. "In time, I hope
to enhance the rest of myself in a similar fashion."
"Metal, not meat, eh?"
Hermann nodded, as if any other idea would be foolish. "Of course."
A soft chime sounded from the intercom, and Namir's voice issued out of a hidden speaker in the wall. "Final approach in ten minutes" he said.
"Prep your gear and be ready. We're on the clock for this one, so mission brief starts the moment the wheels stop. That is all"
Saxon glanced out of the window. The outer suburbs of the Russian capital flashed by, the city below shaking off sleep and awakening.
Pier 86—New York City—United States of America
Widow leaned back from the monitor and made a low, self-amused grumble in the back of her throat, the spider-hands reordering themselves
into something closer to the order of human fingers. She looked up at Kelso and gave her a sour smile. "Thanks for the paper," said the hacker,
nodding toward where Denny stood off to one side. "I always love doing these fun little jobs." Her tone made it clear the opposite was true.
Anna kept her hands inside her pockets. Jags of annoyance pulsed through her like twinges of pain from a pulled muscle, and she thought about
how much she would enjoy slapping the smirk off the thin, spindly woman's face.
Widow gestured at the screen, where the captured image of Matt Ryan's killer was surrounded by a halo of search windows and subroutine
panels. "This guy is a ghost."
"A name," she snarled. "I paid you for name."
"No." The hacker got up, pointing a too-long finger. "You paid for a search for a name. Not the same thing."
"Did you even do anything with that data?" Anna retorted. "Or did you just sit with your virtual thumb up your virtual ass for the past hour?"
Widow's face darkened. "Pay attention, slow-drive, because I'll only explain this once. I did a webwide trawl of all public-access video
databases, plus a thousand more private imaging servers, parsing a data mesh based on Blondie here"—she waved at the screen—"and ran a
match search using a collective of bloodhound info-seeker programs. The fact that he didn't even get the slightest of hits should be a wake-up
call."
Kelso paused, the hacker's words catching up with her. Widow had a point; even the absence of data was a kind of data itself. The problem was,
the absence of data was all that she had to go on, a whole damn pile of it. "He gotta be high military or corporate," added Denny. "To cull someone's past like that? Outta our league." That drew him a sharp glare from
Widow.
Everything they were telling her dovetailed with her own information. Whoever this man was, he had never been muscle-for-hire working kills
for the Red Arrow triad. But who, then? The old, familiar frustration bubbled up inside her, the tension gathering at the base of her skull.
And then Widow did something Kelso didn't expect. She grinned. "Do you want to know how good I really am?"
"You do have something." Anna stepped closer. "Let me guess, you're gonna shake me down for more yuan?"
Widow gave an arch sniff. "No. I got standards. You paid top dollar for the gold service, so you get it." She giggled. "I just like, ha, building a
sense of drama."
"A name?"
"Yeah," Widow said, "but not this guy's, not exactly." She returned to the monitor and pulled up some panels. "Got some puzzle palace stuff
here, up on the Konspiracy Krew boards and over at Glass Curtain. Your mark, the data on the hit he was part of? The tactics match an open
search those guys got running at their end."
Anna had heard of the groups Widow mentioned; they were fringers, part of
Hermann blew out a breath, his hand folding closed once again. He gave it an experimental flex, and Saxon saw where the knuckles and the
proximal phalanges were heavily reinforced. Hermann noticed his attention. "A custom-designed modification," he explained. "In time, I hope
to enhance the rest of myself in a similar fashion."
"Metal, not meat, eh?"
Hermann nodded, as if any other idea would be foolish. "Of course."
A soft chime sounded from the intercom, and Namir's voice issued out of a hidden speaker in the wall. "Final approach in ten minutes" he said.
"Prep your gear and be ready. We're on the clock for this one, so mission brief starts the moment the wheels stop. That is all"
Saxon glanced out of the window. The outer suburbs of the Russian capital flashed by, the city below shaking off sleep and awakening.
Pier 86—New York City—United States of America
Widow leaned back from the monitor and made a low, self-amused grumble in the back of her throat, the spider-hands reordering themselves
into something closer to the order of human fingers. She looked up at Kelso and gave her a sour smile. "Thanks for the paper," said the hacker,
nodding toward where Denny stood off to one side. "I always love doing these fun little jobs." Her tone made it clear the opposite was true.
Anna kept her hands inside her pockets. Jags of annoyance pulsed through her like twinges of pain from a pulled muscle, and she thought about
how much she would enjoy slapping the smirk off the thin, spindly woman's face.
Widow gestured at the screen, where the captured image of Matt Ryan's killer was surrounded by a halo of search windows and subroutine
panels. "This guy is a ghost."
"A name," she snarled. "I paid you for name."
"No." The hacker got up, pointing a too-long finger. "You paid for a search for a name. Not the same thing."
"Did you even do anything with that data?" Anna retorted. "Or did you just sit with your virtual thumb up your virtual ass for the past hour?"
Widow's face darkened. "Pay attention, slow-drive, because I'll only explain this once. I did a webwide trawl of all public-access video
databases, plus a thousand more private imaging servers, parsing a data mesh based on Blondie here"—she waved at the screen—"and ran a
match search using a collective of bloodhound info-seeker programs. The fact that he didn't even get the slightest of hits should be a wake-up
call."
Kelso paused, the hacker's words catching up with her. Widow had a point; even the absence of data was a kind of data itself. The problem was,
the absence of data was all that she had to go on, a whole damn pile of it. "He gotta be high military or corporate," added Denny. "To cull someone's past like that? Outta our league." That drew him a sharp glare from
Widow.
Everything they were telling her dovetailed with her own information. Whoever this man was, he had never been muscle-for-hire working kills
for the Red Arrow triad. But who, then? The old, familiar frustration bubbled up inside her, the tension gathering at the base of her skull.
And then Widow did something Kelso didn't expect. She grinned. "Do you want to know how good I really am?"
"You do have something." Anna stepped closer. "Let me guess, you're gonna shake me down for more yuan?"
Widow gave an arch sniff. "No. I got standards. You paid top dollar for the gold service, so you get it." She giggled. "I just like, ha, building a
sense of drama."
"A name?"
"Yeah," Widow said, "but not this guy's, not exactly." She returned to the monitor and pulled up some panels. "Got some puzzle palace stuff
here, up on the Konspiracy Krew boards and over at Glass Curtain. Your mark, the data on the hit he was part of? The tactics match an open
search those guys got running at their end."
Anna had heard of the groups Widow mentioned; they were fringers, part of
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