'The lack of a family, of a past, bothered me some," the decker said, "but not too much. There are still some elves who develop through Unexplained Genetic Expression, and record-keeping wasn't all that good in the Tir when it was first formed after the start of UGE. However, it was all I had to work with."
Skater sipped his kaf, listening to Archangel talk, looking for the arsenal in her words that he hoped to find. Already a plan was forming in his mind.
"Women do a lot with how they look," Archangel said. "I started there, using some of the appearance utilities I have for making false documentation requiring a datapic base. I altered her appearance and kept the images cycling through a program I set up that cross-referenced them with various Seattle databases."
A multitude of Ariadne Silverstaffs flipped across the vidscreen. They looked older, younger, fatter, thinner, blonde, gray, and tens of other combinations. Then they froze, coming to rest on a sallow-faced young girl who definitely wasn't of elven blood.
"I asked myself what might be the most damaging secret for the wife of someone so prominent in the Tir," Archangel said. "So I took away the elven features. This is what I ended up with."
Skater studied the face, trying to fathom what story it told.
"A lot of people in the Tir might not consider Tavis Silverstaff such a fair-haired darling if they knew he was married to a human," Duran said.
"As prejudiced as most of those slotters are in the Tir," Wheeler said, "there's no way in hell."
"Why hasn't someone else figured this out?" Trey asked.
He steepled his forefingers under his chin and studied the image on the display.
"Why would they try?" Archangel asked. "Tavis Silverstaff, and perhaps his family, would be the only ones who might have wanted to check her out. Cosmetic surgery of this type wouldn't be visible through magical means. If she told her husband, and I'm thinking she probably did, he'd have helped make sure her elven identity was locked because he loved her. And with NuGene in such financial straits, why would anyone bother targeting Silverstaff for blackmail?"
"Who was she?" Skater asked, feeling drawn toward me girl's hollow eyes.
"Her name used to be Arlen Crenshaw," Archangel said, pulling up official-looking documents. "She was arrested a few times in the red-light district near the docks."
"Sex-for-sell?" Elvis asked.
Archangel nodded. 'Two of the charges stuck and she served some time. Not quite a year in all."
"But enough to be kept on file," Skater said.
"Right. And somewhere in there, she got the nuyen together, had the cosmetic alterations done, moved to the Tir during one of the resettlement times under the Ariadne name, then met and married Tavis Silverstaff, star athlete and potential economic powerhouse."
"Then McKenzie's blackmailing Silverstaff because of his wife's past?" Wheeler asked.
"McKenzie may not even know about that part," Skater said. "He has Larisa's baby hanging over their heads." He still couldn't bring himself to say, his daughter. "McKenzie wouldn't need anything else."
"So that's how McKenzie got an easy in where we're concerned," Elvis said, rubbing his capped tusk thoughtfully. He shifted. In response, the troll's immense weight caused everything to shift.
"As we discovered, McKenzie was already working to make sure the NuGene branch opened in Seattle," Trey stated. "Business and crime often go hand in hand in this sprawl."
"It doesn't really matter," Skater said. "One led to the other, however it happened."
"She's an angle we can use," Duran stated.
"I know," Skater said. "But if we expose her, Silverstaff goes down the drekker. Part of the deal we made with Lofwyr was to hand Silverstaff over-intact." He turned the various scenarios over in his mind. "Attacking McKenzie outright isn't an option. And we don't know how, or even, if NuGene is dirty."
'There's another problem with taking NuGene down," Archangel said. "If we do, and manage to smear their name around, the dragon's stock won't be worth slot."
"He's not going to be a happy camper if that happens," Elvis said. "Personally, I don't want to leave Lofwyr holding the bag-or even any part of it"
Skater nodded, looking at the face on the display. "Agreed. What I do want to do is keep Ariadne Silverstaff out of the line of fire. And the baby as well."
"In the elven embassy, she's going to be guarded pretty fragging tight," Duran growled.
"But she's not going to be there all day," Archangel said. “Tomorrow morning, she's due at KTXX at ten o'clock in the morning for an interview with Perri Twyst."
Skater glanced at the time. It was four a.m. "That doesn't give us much time to get ready," he said. "Archangel, see if you can access some building plans. Duran, let's ride. I want to eyeball this place in person before we put this thing together." He was up and moving, feeling the soreness that was clinging to him, but knowing it would wear away as he stayed in motion. There was no way he wanted Larisa's child caught in the crossfire that he knew for certain was coming.”
32
The catnap he'd managed before the morning raid helped Skater make it through the waiting. Otherwise, he'd probably have been a basket case, worse than a BTL junkie coming down hard.
"Okay," Elvis called out over the commlink, "she's in the building."
"I read you," Skater said. He reached for the van's ignition, glancing at Duran as he keyed the engine.
The ork gave him a thumbs-up and shifted the Scorpion in his lap. Then he slid the Kevlar-lined mask over his features. With his wild hair and rough build, there was no mistaking that Duran was an ork, but hopefully their targets wouldn't know which ork he was until after the dust had settled.
Skater backed out into the underground parking garage. Security for the trideo station wasn't lax, but it wasn't anything like you'd find at a corp office building or arcology. Trid news dealt in secrets just like every other business in the sprawl, only the focus of the trideo companies was in giving those secrets away for public consumption, not using them for blackmail or to gain a favorable trade balance.
Rows of parked cars were on either side of them, interspersed with thick stone pillars that helped support the building above it. KTXX teased spaces out of an apartment and department store building, five floors up.
"If this doesn't go down right," Wheeler warned, "this could turn out to be a real cluster-frag. I've got her limo in sight."
"Stay on them," Skater said, pulling the wheel hard right and heading down into the lower stories of the parking garage. He was running with parking lights only, and they barely touched the gloom inside the garage. It was nine-thirty-one a.m. KTXX had arranged to meet Ariadne and her party on the third floor down at nine-forty-five.
The lady was arriving early.
Archangel had decked and sleazed her way into the building-security systems and retrieved the layout information before six that morning. Those systems had been easier to get into than the trideo corp's because the businesses they supported weren't corp-driven or financial institutions, and the info had been essentially the same.
"There're two Renault-Fiat Eurovans following the limo," Elvis said. "Figure a possibility of twelve guns added to the four aboard the limo."
Skater nodded to himself, it was all a matter of timing.
"Everybody stay chill," he said. "This one's got to come off by the numbers."
Duran reached down and checked the seat belt harness, then flipped the safety off the Scorpion. All their weapons were loaded with gel rounds designed to incapacitate rather than harm. Skater wanted zero bloodshed. They hadn't sorted out who was zooming who on the stock score yet.