"You say you're here about a delivery for Soon's Barbecue, Mr. Sticks?"
"Just Sticks, please, Ms. Xiu Liu."
"Call me Miriam, Sticks."
"All right, Miriam. A very valued customer has asked Mr. Soon to prepare a special meal for him and some guests."
I scratch my throat, revealing the hints of Yakuza-style tattoos on my left forearm. Hopefully, she'll assume I'm connected with the local gumi.
"I see." Miriam leans against her desk, arms crossed over her chest. "And what sort of livestock are we talking about?"
"A purebred Australian Kelpie, male. The client was very specific."
I watch her brow crease, and note the slight downturn at the corner of her lips.
"You people are ridiculous. I don't know how you found out about my occasional delivery to Soon's, but the old man always comes in person to pick up the meat. I told your people before: I won't be blackmailed. Either meet my price or leave me alone."
Dammit. This wasn't going right.
"I believe you have me mistaken for someone else, Miriam. I'm looking for a dog. This dog." I pull out the hologram and hold it out to her. "That's it."
Miriam eyes me critically, then examines the hologram. "Turn around, Mr. Sticks. Slowly. No sudden movements," she says.
I do. Behind me, three dogs watch me intently. I didn't even hear them come in. One of them – an Australian Kelpie, unless I missed my guess – grins at me, showing off a set of sharpened chrome teeth and a lot of healthy pink gum. I turn back around.
"You see, Sticks, I could have you killed if I wanted. But I'm not going to, because I think I know who took your dog, and anything you do to them will benefit me."
Miriam's left hand types on a virtual keyboard, and an AR display forms in front of me. The AR window shows a small building. It looks completely innocuous, right down to the wage slave removing some AR graffiti from the razorwire fence.
"This facility was set up a week ago. At first, they wanted to buy my dogs. Then they wanted to buy my business. When I wouldn't sell, they tried to break into my kennel."
"Why?"
"They build cybermonsters. Aussie Kelpies and other herding dogs are prime security animal material, but well-trained and well-bred herding dogs are rare these days. When they cannot buy them, they steal them. Then these people use extensive implants to augment the animals. The process also drives the animals psychotic."
"Is it worth it? I mean, it must cost a mint to reverse-engineer human implants for animals."
"Your naivete is almost charming, Sticks. How do you suppose they test implants before they're approved for human use? Animals. Before any product reaches human testing, it's already been field tested by a legion of rats, dogs, and apes."
Miriam Xiu Liu's eyes meet mine.
"I believe this is where you will find your dog, Sticks. Now please leave, and never return." She pauses to let that sink in. "Or I'll let my dogs eat your testicles, rape you, and then I sell the simrecording to the Choson Ring for their next double-feature BTL."
The lab Xiu Liu showed me was in Everett, and on the outside it looks like just one more little industrial park. But little corp industrial parks can't afford to hire Knight Errant to patrol their offices twenty-four hours a day, or that AR-inhibiting wallpaper that prevents the tracing program from locking on the dog's implanted RFID tag. I'm a little worried about astral security, a patrolling spirit or something, but that's just a situation I'll have to deal with that when – if – it comes up.
For the last two days I'd been squatting on the fifth floor of an abandoned apartment building half a mile away, popping caffeine pills, staring through the scope of my paintball gun, and pissing in empty water bottles, staking the place out. I had no doubt that this corp was Mr. Johnson's anonymous buyer. My eyes feel raw and itchy as I set the alarm on my commlink. I've made my plans for tonight, and I don't want to oversleep.
It's getting dark when I wake up. Suiting up in my old armor and uniform feels kind of weird – never figured I'd be sporting a Knight Errant badge again, not after the way I left the company. I pick out my best ID and load it into my commlink, make a few practice swings with the tonfa, and snap it in place. Ready as I'll ever be.
Shift change on the front gate occurs at nineteen thirty-two. I snip through the razorwire in the back while all eyes are on the front, and then slip into the shadows around the corner, holding my tonfa at the ready. Six minutes and change later the first patrol comes around the back of the building, right on cue. I hit the first guard so hard his helmet cracks; the second guard is so busy watching him crumple to the ground, he doesn't see me until my tonfa hits him in the solar plexus, then right across the back of his exposed neck.
I strip them of their commlinks and passkeys, and then let myself in the back door. The unconscious guards won't be missed until check-in in ten minutes, and I slip one of their commlinks on. Good, it's still logged into their network. The interior layout was a mystery to me, but the local network contains a pop-up map to help security contain intruders. With the map, it took me three minutes to find my objective.
Chester lay strapped to the operating table. Four limbs of black-painted metal end in wicked claws pointed up to the sky, and what black fur he had left was crisscrossed with antimicrobial sutures. His nose and tongue looked organic, but something about the shape of the head didn't. Cyberskull, most likely. At the sight of me, the dog whines softly and wags his tail. I hope the principal doesn't mind a few improvements.
Club Penumbra doesn't allow pets, so I arrange to meet the principal around back. His car must be on autopilot, because there's no one at the wheel and he steps out the back. Chester is on the end of his makeshift leash, spraying the traditional area of the wall. Supposedly, Maria Mercurial had pissed against that same spot after her first show here.
The tearful reunion between master and man's best friend doesn't go so well.
"What is that?" Mr. Johnson says.
"Your dog. Chester, purebred Australian Kelpie. The kidnappers intended to use him as a security animal, after extensive implants."
"But… wait, I must see… " he says.
My employer goes down on his knees in the filthy alley, picks up Chester's tail and takes a good, long look.
"Oh, no." Tears were in his eyes. "They neutered him! The bastards… he's worthless now!"
I cough politely.
"I'm sorry your animal has been, ah, fixed, but I've completed my mission and I would like the remainder of my fee."
Hutchinson turns apoplectic.
"Your fee? Your fee! You worthless, bloody low-born gutterscum! Don't you understand? This animal is worth nothing to me now! He can't breed! I won't pay you one red cent! You and that – that beast can go to bottomless perdition for all I care!"
Hutchinson tries to storm off, but I extend my staff and trip him before he can get to the car. I bring the staff down a centimeter from his head and watch my former Mr. Johnson flinch.
"My money. One thousand nuyen. Now."
He looks scared enough to pay. Then the sirens start, and his smile is an ugly thing.
"Money be damned. I've called the police. They'll take you away!"
Dammit. The sirens get closer. I bring my staff down again, but this time on his throat. By the time the police arrive, all they'll find is a miserly corpse. I gotta talk to Gio about giving me deadbeats like Hutchinson.
I run, and Chester follows. It's a dead sprint down the back alleys to Little Asia, but I don't really know where we're going. We stop a block from Soon's. The respirator hums, trying to keep up with my breathing. Chester sniffs the garbage with serious interest.
Now what the hell do I do? No money, and now I've got a dog. Maybe I can sell the dog. Not that I know where to start. All those dog fanciers would probably react the same way Hutchinson did. I make a call to Gio, the fixer who got me into this mess. I watch him on the AR call-screen, tapping away at something.