‘I’m shitting myself,’ he said, still grinning, took another swig from his vodka and lit his spliff. The door to the node opened and suddenly it was all business.
Rannu, Balor and Gregor were first through, weapons at the ready, sweeping left and right, checking corners as they entered. I heard the first scream of surprise. Gibby and Buck followed. They dropped their instrument cases to the side of the node’s entrance, their weapons came up and they were all pro. Morag and Pagan followed, Morag carrying the cube. Mudge lifted his AK-47 to port and the pair of us sauntered through. Despite the drugs I was finding my enthusiasm for paramilitary nonsense fading.
I’m not sure what I was expecting from a broadcast studio, maybe lavish sets or banks of high-tech equipment, people everywhere, that sort of thing. I was pretty disappointed. I don’t know what this node was called but they specialised in ‘reality’ soap opera porn. It was a lot more cost-effective to use computer-generated sets and actors, but apparently some people claimed they could tell the difference, and for those who could afford to subscribe to real flesh there were set-ups like this. That didn’t stop them from computer-generating things like costumes and sets, and I would guess digitally enhancing some of the actors’ attributes.
Basically it was a plain white set with various representational bits of furniture that the actors could react to and use, detail to be added in post-production. There were three actors on the set, two men and a woman, all of them generically attractive in a really dull way. All had white, skintight overalls that covered everything but their faces so their costumes could be added at a later date. There was one other person on the set. She had camera eyes like Mudge’s and a transmitter in one of her sockets, presumably linking her to a media board. Around the set several miniature camera systems floated silently, catching the actors from every conceivable angle. They were similar to the ones Mudge had used to shoot the fight I’d had with Rannu in New York, but they were much smaller and more sophisticated.
A catwalk surrounded the studio area, and directly opposite us was a glass booth with two men in it, one of whom was unmistakeably some kind of security guard. Beyond I could see a passage leading, presumably, to reception and to the exit out onto this level of the Spoke. I headed for that, strolling calmly, lighting a cigarette. Balor was terrifying the actors by screaming at them to lie on the floor.
‘Calm down,’ I told him. ‘Just sit over there and be quiet,’ I ordered the actors, pointing at a featureless, modular white sofa. They nodded, one of the men blinking back tears.
Rannu had his Metal Storm gauss carbine out in front of him, the butt tight in against his shoulder as he made his way smoothly up the metal stairs to the catwalk. I headed into the passageway leading to the reception and the entrance of the node. The walls of the corridor were painted turquoise and decorated with some suitably hip logo that looked like a high-tech, fast-moving chicken to me. I guessed it was supposed to be cooler than that, or maybe chickens were in. Behind me I could hear Morag shouting at someone to put their gun down.
‘Remember we’re not going to kill anyone,’ I said over the tac net. I received something akin to white noise back from Balor. I strolled round the corner into the reception area, my shotgun still slung across my back, and walked into a badly controlled burst of fire from a PD W. I staggered a little, my armoured coat and subcutaneous armour stopping the small-calibre rounds.
‘Ow, fuck!’ I shouted intelligently and then staggered back around the corner, all pissed off, but not before I caught a glimpse of what I assumed was a rather militant receptionist. He was crouching for cover behind a large and groovy-looking desk. I heard something behind me and glanced round to see the misshapen, off-centre figure of Gregor lope over to my position, his Retributor at the ready.
‘I think the railgun may be overkill here,’ I told him. ‘Hey!’ I said, shouting to the receptionist. ‘We don’t want to hurt you. Just leave, okay?’
‘How do I know you won’t shoot me if I try to leave?’ he demanded.
‘We haven’t shot you yet!’ I pointed out. ‘We do have desk-piercing rounds in our weapons!’ Gregor laughed. There was another burst of gunfire.
‘You’re next to the fucking door; just run away!’ I shouted, and was answered with another burst of gunfire. What was this guy’s problem? Gregor made to move round me, railgun at the ready.
‘Don’t kill him,’ I hissed at Gregor. He went round the corner and there was another burst of gunfire. Judging by the ricochets some of it hit Gregor. I think he had plates beneath his skin that hardened when they were hit with sufficient kinetic force. It was disconcerting to watch. Gregor returned.
‘Did you miss being shot?’ I asked. Gregor just looked at me in a manner I guessed was supposed to be rueful. It was difficult to tell with his warped facial features.
‘You!’ I shouted to the armed receptionist. ‘What the fuck are you doing? He’s obviously a big weird-looking thing with a railgun and you shot him? What were you thinking? Put the gun down now or you’ll get shot so much you’ll cease to exist!’ Gregor gave me a funny look. ‘What? Civilians respond to threats like that.’
There was no answer but eventually I heard the sound of running footsteps.
‘See? Look round the corner. Maybe you’ll get shot again,’ I suggested. Gregor pushed me round the corner. Despite all the metal and plastic I was carrying internally, his enormous strength moved me with little effort.
‘Hey! That’s not funny, man.’ But the receptionist had gone. In front of the desk was a large glass wall that looked out onto a wide plaza lined with various trendy-looking offices. There were a few suits looking our way. Behind me from the main studio I could hear more shouting.
‘Watch the door,’ I told Gregor. He nodded. I wandered back into the main studio area. I found Balor had the actors, the camera-eyed woman, two security guards and a young guy I assumed had been working the media deck up in the gallery all lying face down on the floor. He was covering them with his Spectre/grenade launcher combo. I sighed.
‘I thought I said they could sit down?’ I said to him.
‘What are we going to do with them? We could strap them to possible breach points,’ he said.
I looked up at the demonic features of the huge amphibian cyborg. ‘We could,’ I mused. ‘Or we could let them go because they’ll be a noisy pain in the arse and it’s not what we do.’
Balor looked at me in disgust. ‘They won’t make any noise if we cut their tongues out,’ he said. At this, several of them started screaming and crying. I just looked at Balor.
I leant down to the actress, who seemed to be holding it together best. She looked vaguely familiar to me, but whether that was because I’d seen her on the viz or she’d surgically altered herself to look like the flavour of the month I didn’t know.
‘We’re going to let you go,’ I said as reassuringly as I could. I guessed as I was covered in angry bleeding sores and looked like a walking corpse it probably wasn’t all that reassuring. She nodded nonetheless. ‘Now security, the police and possibly the military are going to talk to you, okay?’ I said. She nodded again. ‘I want you to tell them that everyone in here is ex-special forces and that we are ready for a breach, but if they leave us be we’ll turn ourselves over once we’re finished, okay?’ I said. She nodded.
‘Okay. All of you, up and out,’ I told them. A few of them had to be coaxed but eventually they all left. They stared at Gregor as they moved past him.
In the studio Morag and Pagan were both tranced into the net. I had net feed but hadn’t brought the window up yet. Gibby and Buck were setting up their instruments, Buck his guitar, Gibby his keyboard, but they were also plugging themselves into other bits and pieces. They would have a drum machine, bass machine, mixing deck and a transmitter to link to the media deck, I guessed. Mudge had nicked the camera-eyed woman’s remote media deck connection and was concentrating. Rannu appeared through a door near the gallery on the catwalk above.