“O.K.,” Pita told Yao. “As long as we’re back in half an hour.” She wanted to be back at the station in time for the six o’clock news to make sure Masaki kept his promise and blanked out her face to hide her identity. Those corp goons knew what she looked like by now. But there was still a chance those Lone Star fraggers didn’t.
She followed Yao outside. “Hey,” she said, noticing his ear, “you lost your scanner.”
“Yeah. Come on.”
He led her down the steps, one hand resting protectively on Pita’s shoulder. As she descended them, something nagged at her. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Then it hit her. She’d had to tip her head back to look at Yao’s ear. He should have been shorter than that. And some of the things he said had been odd. As far as Pita could remember from things Chen had told about his brother, Yao had never worked as a real reporter. He’d only done pirate trideo broadcasts. And the body language had been all wrong. Yao kept a careful watch on doors; he didn’t stand with his back to them, the way he had just now in the lobby.
Pita glanced nervously at the man beside her.
This wasn’t Yao.
She didn’t want to find out who it really was. Ducking out from under his hand, she bolted for the top of the stairs, back toward the main entrance of the KKRU building. But before she’d taken two steps, the man behind her barked out a sentence in a foreign, lilting language. Suddenly Pita was running in midair. She struggled wildly, trying to make contact with the ground. But the stairs were a good half-meter under her feet. She twisted about-just in time to see the man who’d been posing as Yao shed his skin in a shimmering transformation. Clothes, hair, features-all blurred and changed. The man was suddenly thinner, darker. With a shock, Pita recognized the dreadlocked elf who’d tried to cast a spell upon her earlier. The mage! The one who’d led the goons to her! Like a fool, she’d fallen into his trap, despite the dream warning, despite Wayne’s reminder that she should scan her visitor on the monitor first-where his true form would have been revealed. Now she was trapped, and he would kill her, Pita cried out, but even as she did, a bolt of yellow streaked from the elf’s fingers toward her, enveloping her. Pita’s eyes closed and she fell forward into darkness.
Pita woke up in a hotel room. She was lying on her side on a bed, her wrists tied tightly behind her back. Her eyes felt gummy and her breathing was slow and deep, despite her pounding heart. She found it difficult to think, to focus. It was like waking up from a dream that you didn’t want to end-except this was a nightmare. With a start, she realized she was naked.
The two men staring at her were the same pair who’d been chasing her earlier. The heavy-set one was sitting on a chair near the bottom of the bed, feet propped up on the mattress. He regarded her with an utter lack of expression that Pita found frightening. His arms were folded across his chest, and the sleeves of his shirt had lifted a little so that Pita could see the dark blue tattoos extending from his arms onto his wrists. Yakuza, she thought, all hope fleeing at the thought.
The slender man was standing, leaning back against a table with his hands on the edge of it. One hand moved, clicking the rings on his fingers against the wood. The tip of his little finger was missing. As Pita groaned, he said something in Japanese to the other man, who grunted in reply. Then he leaned toward Pita.
“You took something that didn’t belong to you,” he said in perfect, unaccented English. “A small bronze disk about so big.” He held his thumb and forefinger about three centimeters apart. “A datachip. We want it back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pita said.
The slap across her cheek took her completely by surprise. The man had moved as fast as a striking snake. Pita’s head bounced off the bed with the force of the blow, and tears welled in her eyes. Her cheek stung.
The man leaned back against the table once more. His eyes ranged up and down Pita’s naked body. She suddenly felt horribly vulnerable.
“We can do anything we like with you,” the slender man said. “Anything at all.” He let the words hang in the air for a moment. “And don’t try to scream for help We'll kill you if you do.”
The larger man shifted in his chair. Pita looked fearfully at him, blinking back her tears.
“We know you take chip,” he said in a low voice that was devoid of all emotion. “Chip not in pockets of dead man. DocWagon not take; cops not take. Mage do sensing, say you take. But chip not in your clothes You tell us where chip is”
Pita gnawed at her lip to stop herself from sobbing.
“What if I tell you?” she asked. “Will you let me go?”
The slender man’s lips curved in a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Of course.”
Pita knew she was trapped. There was no way out of this; the best she could do was buy herself a little time. “I thought the chip was a simsense game,” she said. “I tried it in my digideck, but it didn’t work. All that came up were these weird diagrams. They looked like something maybe a mage would use. I thought maybe I could sell it for a few nuyen, so I took it to a shop on Denny Way. The guy there gave me ten nuyen for it.”
The larger man lifted his feet from the bed and sat up. “What is name of man?” he asked.
Pita tried to shrug, to look as casual as possible, but her bound wrists prevented any motion. “I only know his first name: Aziz.”
“And the name of the shop?” the slender man asked.
The Secret something-or-other,” Pita answered.
The slender man glanced at his companion and said something in Japanese. Then he turned for the door.
“Wait” Pita said. “I kept my part of the deal. I told you where the chip was. Let me go!”
“Not until we get that chip back.”
“But you could at least untie me and let me get dressed,” she pleaded. She gave a meaningful look at the larger man, who was plainly intent on staying behind to watch her. “Even with my hands free, I’m not going to get past him”
“You may dress,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “I’m sure that Tomoyuki is tired of looking at you. But afterward you will have to be tied up again. And if I find that you have lied to me about that chip, you will die. There will be no second chances.”
10
The blare of the telecom’s alarm snapped Carla awake. She groaned and wiped the sleep out of her eyes, then sat up and looked around her apartment. She’d slept in her clothes after kicking off her shoes and neatly folding her jacket over a chair. She’d only intended to take a quick nap. but she’d set the alarm for six p.m. just in case she slept too long. Now the logo and call letters of KKRU Trideo News scrolled across the screen as the newscast began.
The camera zoomed in toward Rita Lambrecht and Tim Lang, tonight’s celebrity news anchors. Carla winced. Rita was a ditsy elf who smiled even when reciting the night’s body count, and Tim was a dwarf wrestling champion who’d been chosen for his rugged good looks and deep baritone voice. It looked like Rita would give the lead-in to the top story. Carla hoped she didn’t muff her lines.
Amazingly, the lead story wasn’t on the dead mage. Instead, it was about a group of rebels who’d blown up an oil refinery in the Yucatan; killing 127 technicians in the explosion. A grim-faced Aztlan spokesman promised “swift and thorough” retribution for the attack. The footage that accompanied the piece was gruesome and graphic, but Carla still didn’t think the story deserved the three minutes KKRU had given it.