Chapter 26

Getting to a telecom I called Brannon. He wasn't in but his line was being monitored. I identified myself as Mr. Darkness and the man smiled.

"I have orders to take any call you make, sir. How can I be of assistance?"

"We just had a run in with some people in the park a couple of blocks from you. There are also three more in a car at Seneca and Third. Would you check them out and find out who they are and who they work for? There should be eight or ten in the park and while you're doing it find out why Lone Star allows a shoot out in the middle of downtown Seattle only eight blocks from their headquarters. Is someone else being paid off? I'll contact Brannon tomorrow for the answers."

Rejoining the group I informed Blake of what I had done and he just nodded. We then followed Thunder as he led us through Ork Under to another entrance. He had several people drive us back to our hideout and told them to check over our vehicles the next day. He let them know that he thought explosives were involves and to be extremely careful.

Once we were back we sat around the break room and tried to figure out who had made the try for us. "Cain, did you pick up anything?"

"Blake, that's not the kind of thing you can search for in astral space. I can see anything that is living and sometimes reflections off of nonliving things. I can't read signs, books or even id cards. No one had a living sign that said they worked for a certain group."

"Wood a credstick hep ya any?" asked one of the Orks.

"It might. Did you get one?"

"Yeah, when we moved dem guys back ina car I picked up one." he said passing it over.

I took it to the telecom and slotted it for info. It didn't help. It was an open credit stick with no SIN and no other data. Tossing it back to the Ork who had picked it up I told him what he had and the amount on it but that it wouldn't help us any.

We discussed several other possibilities but could come up with nothing concrete. There were a lot of 'ifs' 'maybes' and other wild guesses. I for one wanted to just wait.

The next morning I jacked in and went to see Brannon. He should have something by now or I would have to go searching through the Lone Star files. When he appeared on the view screen he didn't look too happy.

"You guys have big trouble all spelled with capital letters now. We found signs of a fight in the park but by the time we got there everyone and everything was gone except for several weapons we found in some trash cans. You?"

I nodded and he continued. "We were in luck with the car. It hadn't been removed and the three bodies were still inside. Two were locals, high priced hitmen, the third we traced through Customs. He's only been here for a few days and is a high priced European named Kurt Adlai Gruber. Lately he has been working exclusively for Saeder-Krupp. Does that name mean anything to you?"

"No, should it? I've never heard of Gruber or Saeder-Krupp. I have enough trouble keeping up with what's going on here in this part of the world without worrying about Europe."

"If it's weapons they have their finger in it. They might not own controlling interest but they buy into other companies enough to know what's going on. They have part of Ares Macrotechnology Inc and another small company you might have heard of, Aztechnology. It was probably through Aztech that they learned about the chips that you had, it would be something that they would be very interested in. Like I said, BIG trouble."

"Have you ever heard of the Dragon Lofwyn? He owns Saeder-Krupp and what he wants he gets."

"You're saying that we have a major European Corp after us and it's owned by a Dragon? Is that why Lone Star didn't respond to the shooting in the park? They had been bought off by this Dragon?"

"Yeah, I think they were or by the Dragon's people more than likely. They gave some excuse about being in another location handling a problem with the gang war but according to what we can learn there weren't any calls of gang problems last evening anywhere."

"Then you have to let it be known that you have located those chips and are again working on Project Chiron."

He just shook his head. "They don't want to let that out just yet. They want to wait and see what else crawls out of the woodwork."

"Ok, and what about us? Are you going to be able to help keep us alive after all that we did for you in recovering the chips and turning them over to you?"

Again he shook his head. "Not officially. I've received orders that you're on your own. Seems they don't want to let anyone know that you and your people had anything to do with the recovery of the chips and what has taken place since then. It would embarrass too many people right now."

"Some big government Thank You we get. That's the reward you spoke of? A Big money Corp comes on the scene and suddenly we're all expendable? We now get our asses shot off to keep from embarrassing Governor Schultz, Chief Loudon, Yvonne baby and the others? The ones who have taken credit for the things we've done while they sat around with their thumb up their asses? You tell that Bitch you work for that she, you and UCAS can rot in Hell!" With that last little display of temper I jacked out and went to see the others.

I asked Blake to bring Thunder, Jojo and Helen into the small kitchen with us and closed the door. I told them about the conversation with Brannon and the last little bit that he had laid on me. No one said anything for a while as the weight of what I had said sunk in.

After several minutes I asked, "Any of you agree that it's time to take a long vacation very far away from here?"

"No," answered Blake emphatically, "That's the last thing we want to do. Right now if we have an edge at all it's that we know this city and they don't."

"They don't have to know the city. With the money they have behind them they can buy all the help they need and that help will know the city as well as we do. How did they pick up on us so fast last night? We sure didn't take out an ad and say that we were going there."