Snatches of distorted discussion—laughter, arguments, legalese, appreciations of cuisine—came through the Major’s VR headset. The VR also provided images, tracings of furniture and architectural constructions and human heat signatures. These didn’t provide tremendous detail, but the Major could see enough to know that she didn’t detect anyone doing anything that seemed like it would attract a voyeur, much less the planting of malicious spy equipment.
As her superior, Aramaki had access to current intelligence on the hotel that the Major did not; the chief could more easily find out where any important meetings might be occurring on the premises, so that he could just tell the Major and end her room-byroom search. “What are you seeing, sir?” she asked into the comm. “I’ve got a lotta hotel to scan.”
A hologram of the Maciej Hotel in glowing gold outline appeared on Aramaki’s desk. Registry lists scrolled beside the visual. The chief looked through them for possible locations. One immediately stood out. “There is a banquet room reserved for the President of the African Federation,” he told the Major. “Dr. Osmond is hosting for Hanka Robotics.”
The Major adjusted her VR headset so that she could see into the banquet room. Her first impression was that it looked much like any other high-end business gathering being conducted over dinner. She caught the end of a sentence in Osmond’s English accent as he said, “…at a time.”
“Got it,” the Major said on her comm. As she zoomed in, the visuals gained color and solidity, until she could see clear facial features and body language. She honed in on Osmond, who was identified by a holographic tag in her vision. “Forty-third floor.”
She looked across the table, and saw the man her holographic readout identified as “President of West African Federation.” She thought rapidly of what all of this might mean, barely hearing the president as he articulated what he knew for Osmond’s benefit. “The early technology utilized the human body…”
In fact, the inventor Alexander Graham Bell had used preserved parts of the ears of human cadavers in his early experiments with the phonoautograph, which made it a very early ancestor of the bio-tech that was now embodied by the Major. On another, less pressing occasion, such history might have intrigued her. Now, though, the Major sensed impending disaster. “Someone contact the president’s staff,” she said, her urgency clear over the comms. “Someone’s watching him.”
Neither the president nor the people in the room with him were aware of this. The president was simply focused on the matters at hand. “Dr. Osmond… what is it you want from us?”
“I think it’s more about what Hanka Robotics can do for you,” Osmond replied. That got him a few appreciative murmurs from some of the African leader’s retinue. He was winning them over. It would just take one last push to bring it home, and then he would walk out of here with the most lucrative contract his employers had seen in decades. “Seventy-three percent of this world has… woken up to the age of cyberenhancement. You really want to be left behind?”
The president smiled, wondering if his sentiments would have any impact on the other man, whose belief in mechanization was absolute. “My people embrace cyber-enhancement, as do I.” He didn’t really need to state this; tech augmentation was clearly visible somewhere on every member of the delegation. “But there’s no one who really understands the risk… to individuality, identity… messing with the human soul.”
Now that she had a probable target, the Major brought up everything she could reach on the security network, assembling a patchwork of images and data streams on her VR glasses. She captured the video from every camera on the forty-third level, the readouts of every fire alarm, thermostat and air quality monitor, all of it unfolding before her.
When the secure elevator opened at the end of the hallway outside the banquet suite, the Major felt it like the distant tensing of a muscle. That’s not right. According to the Maciej’s security server, the express and local elevators to the forty-third floor had been locked off for the duration of the meeting, deactivated for all but the direst of emergency circumstances.
Six Asian men in identical dark suits of corporate cut, carrying identical briefcases, all exited the elevator in swift order and approached the closed doors to the banquet room. They were differentiated mainly by the style of VR glasses they wore and the placement of their facial scars.
The two grey-suited Hanka security bots standing guard outside the banquet room looked human. One prepared to stop the unfamiliar men, saying, “Gentlemen, excuse me, I think you have the wrong—” But before the bot could finish the lead stranger shot both bots down, leaving them sparking and inoperative. The faceplate of one slid upward, revealing a black skull casing and a glowing red light that dimmed as the guard’s functions ceased.
The Major felt a surge of an adrenaline-analogue flood through her, but she was controlled as she spoke into her comm. “Hallway. Six men. Shots fired. Section Nine ETA?”
She listened for the sound of police sirens, her aural software picking out the faint skirl on the breeze wafting upward. Sergeant Batou was usually her backup in these situations, but the mission brief hadn’t shown a need for him tonight.
This meant the stocky Scandinavian was driving a Section Nine jeepney as fast as he could toward the Major’s position. With him were Borma, Togusa, Ishikawa, Saito, and Ladriya. Section Nine was the most highly skilled and lethal anti-cyber-terrorism squad in the district, perhaps the country. But, right now, Batou felt as though they might as well be traffic cops. The Major needed them, and here they were, nowhere near in position and still on the road. Their intelligence profile for this operation had been low-threat with a clear objective, to follow up on intel chatter about a possible data intrusion at the Maciej, but he thought that was no excuse. “Two minutes out, Major.”
“Too long,” the Major said into the comms. “I’m goin’ in.” She pulled the VR headset’s cable from her cyber-enhanced neck ports, ending the transmission of the scan to Aramaki.
“Hold!” Aramaki shouted into the comm, but the Major was no longer listening.
Within the corridor of the Maciej Hotel, the six assassins continued forward, all pressing the catches on their briefcases at the same time. The cases dropped to the floor, leaving each of the men holding a stubby machine gun.
With a flick of her wrist, the Major cast off her black coat, revealing a pale combat thermoptic bodysuit beneath. Silk-thin, the material was made of an ultra-light compound that could turn a blade or low-caliber round at close range. But this was not the material’s greatest advantage. When inactive, the thermoptic suit looked white, with a jigsaw, fish-scale pattern connecting its sections. Activated, the thermoptics made the suit and its wearer virtually invisible; someone looking for it might see a rippling shape in the air, something that looked like clear glass shimmering through water, but no more than that.
“Major, stop!” Aramaki commanded, but he could not hear her presence on the comms. She had disabled hers, probably so that she wouldn’t hear any more direct orders from him that countered her own perceptions about what she should do next. Aramaki’s mouth tightened. The Major was a superb agent, but there was such a thing as taking too much initiative in the name of duty.