Aftermath, Chapter Seven: That Smooth Jazz

Angel's vital signs were strong and well within her pre-set safety margins.  Somewhere, deep in the electronic vistas of far flung servers, Angel sliced through security protocols of the corps human resource databases.  Her heart rate ticked up a beat when she started pulling down data, leveling off as opposition failed to appear.

A message packet appeared on my comm: "Easier than I thought it would be.  I'm running a scan on the data to make sure they aren't trying to slip a trojan in on me."

"K." I replied.

The safe house creaked as the wind picked up outside.

I watched, my face bathed in the soft light of my comm, as the minutes ticked by.  When you're watching a decker work it is far too easy to let your mind wander.  Angel was depending on me, so I focused on the tiny displays as they beeped and chirped about her vital signs.  I had been on jobs where people had played games on their comm when they were supposed to be watching their decker.  It usually wasn't an issue, but the times that it was were always terrible.  The data streamed by:

Heart rate: 61 beats per minutes

Blood pressure: nominal

Alpha Rhythm     12 hz    118 microvolts
Beta Rhythm        16 hz       7 microvolts
Delta Rhythm         3 hz   148 microvolts
Theta Rhythm        7 hz       8 microvolts

I had no idea what those values meant but the monitor indicated they were in the "safe" zone.   Angel's heart rate jumped to seventy-five beats, the display froze, then turned white as I lost access. 

Angel reached up and pulled the cable from her head.

"Smooth."  She said.  "I must be better than I thought.  No alarms and I have the data."

"What did you get?" I asked.

She smiled, a frightful mischief gleaming in her eyes. "I copied all of their personnel databases.  Their social identity numbers, job titles, work locations, addresses, all of it belongs to me now."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, as comprehension dawned upon me.

Angel's face broke into a smile that would make an anime super villain proud. {HEY! ~ Angel}  "Yep, if you can do that magic shape and sex change thing we can get you in as one of them."

It must have been contagious because I felt my own face break into a grin.  "Oh I LOVE working with you, Angel."

***
Two days later...

Ratchet was a block away, the old ambulance he was driving looked impeccably clean.  Crank rode in the back, the paramedic uniform was tight on him but it was the best we had been able to find.

Jazz was still listed as being in an induced coma in the corp hospital.  Creep's death was being investigated as 'suspicious' and I was officially wanted for questioning for a number of things I had never done, and for dozens of things I actually HAD done.  All of that would make me walking into the corp hospital an exercise in gross stupidity.

Carla Rodriquez, age forty-one, was a pretty woman who was gracefully entering her middle years with a fierce regime of exercise, dietary monitoring and some very discrete surgery.  She had worked for the corporation for sixteen years, being recruited straight out of her stint in the UCAS Navy.  Through hard work, finely honed skills and more than a little corporate power-playing, she had advanced to middle management in the corp's security division. Carla didn't have any trouble entering the corporate hospital at all.  She walked in the front door like she belonged there.

The real Carla Rodriquez was sleeping off a double dose of tranquilizers we had injected into her toothpaste.  Angel watched her from the camera built into her trideo unit while I was walking in the front door of the hospital.  The AR display in Carla's chic sunglasses highlighted several staff members, their names floating over their heads like characters in an mmorpg.

"Mrs. Rodriquez, good to see ma'am." SGT. TIMOTHY CAVERTON, AKA: TIM, according to the data hovering over his head, said to me with a smile.

I waved back, and walked toward the sec-guard.  "Sgt. Caverton, Tim, just the man I wanted to see." I said with a thin smile.  "We've got a patient transport with special needs occurring in about thirty minutes.  Orders should already be in but I want to see Lieutenant Sanders about it.  Can you tell her I'm here please."

"Yes, Ma'am." 'Tim' said.  "She said something about that order coming through this morning."

I fixed him with a calm look and did my best to give him a reassuring smile. "Not here."

He nodded, "Understood."

"I know the way, Tim. Tell her I'm coming." I turned with a wave, taking short steps to keep my hips from swaying, and walked toward a door that read 'STAFF ONLY'.

The sensors embedded in and above the door scanned my face, build and height while the pressure sensor in the floor measured my weight.  Carla's stolen commlink received a ping from the security system, and the doors opened silently for me.  I didn't break stride as I walked down to the security office and knocked on a door that bore the title "Supervisor" on it in bland lettering.

A woman's voice called, "Enter".  The lock clicked and the door swung open into the room beyond.  The AR overlay promptly floated over the sole occupant of the room. LT. SAMANTHA SANDERS, AKA: SAM".  A data field appeared next to her, reminding me that her daughter's name was Sarah and that she had a vacation coming up in two weeks.  I walked into the room, pulled off the expensive shades and smiled.

"Sam, good to see you." I said. "You ready for your trip yet?"

Samantha Sanders stood up and returned my smile, extending her hand to me. "Oh, God yes!  Jean is trying to screw me over on the time-share with my daughter though.  I swear, sometimes I wish he would just stop being an asshole and grow up."

I shook her hand.  "How is Sarah?"

"Ugh.  Adolescence is setting in. She likes this boy at her kendo class.  He seems like a good kid, but I don't think she needs to be developing an interest just yet."  She should her head. "Anyway, thanks for asking.  What's with these last minute orders?"  She gestured to the chair that sat opposite her desk.

I sat, placing Carla's purse on the floor next to me.  I crossed my legs and got my game face on. "Came from higher up.  I'm going to be there when he gets loaded on the transport.  I want you there with me.  He's too important to risk but I don't want to make a big show of it and draw attention."

"I can understand that." Samantha Sanders looked at me, her face a perfectly professional mask.  "Are we still expecting someone to try to kidnap him?"

I nodded. "I'm afraid so.  If I had to guess, I would say they are going to shuffle him around a bit.  Make it harder for someone to snatch him."

"Well, so long as he's out of my hospital and on to being someone else's headache that is fine by me." Samantha looked at me and smiled. "How long has it been since you danced the tango?"

I paused and immediately realized that I had made a horrible mistake.

Samantha's smile vanished and her hand blurred toward her shoulder rig. She was at least as fast as I was, her gun clearing her holster as her face contorted into a hard-lined grimace.  My right hand came up, my finger pointing at the sec-guard as she pulled the trigger.

I flinched, expecting a bullet to blow my brains across the room, and nothing happened.

Samantha's eyed went wide as my little sleep spell wrapped around her brain and squeezed her into unconsciousness.

I keyed Carla's commlink. "She made me somehow."

"I was listening. Probably some kind of personal code phrase." Angel replied.  Her voice was clear over my earpiece.

I stood and pulled the heavy pistol from Samantha Sanders' hand. "She had me dead to rights.  What happened with her gun?"

"Checking on that, give me a minute." Angel replied.

I used the time to lower Sanders to the floor and handcuff her hands behind her back.  I found her cuff keys and put them in Carla's purse.  "Any time now Angel.  I need to know how bad things are."

There was an uncomfortably long pause before Angel answered.

"Friend or foe safety on the gun.  Carla's commlink is flagged as friendly and the gun's optics matched you to Carla within ninety-eight percentile points. It set off a warning in the sec-systems. I've flagged it as a false alarm triggered during a weapon inspection. Sec-guards are going to be curious about it." Angel's news wasn't as bad as it could have been.  That Sanders was now unconscious and handcuffed on the floor was far worse.

"She was awfully quick on the trigger, Angel.  Keep your eyes open. Signal for pick-up." I picked up Sanders' heavy pistol and thumbed the switch to eject the magazine, it wouldn't budge.  "What the frag is up with this thing." I muttered.

I powered Sanders' commlink off, pulled its battery pack, and stuck it in Carla's purse.  The heavy pistol wouldn't cooperate with me, refusing to allow me to remove the magazine or even to engage the safety.  It went into the trash bin near the door as I took one last look around.

Behind me, someone knocked on the door.  I took a step back, suddenly very aware that I was trapped in a room with an unconscious security supervisor.  "Enter" I said.

There was a click and the door swung open toward me, revealing Sgt. 'Tim'.

"L.T., division HQ says they can't confirm..." he trailed off, glancing around the room for his boss.

"Is there a problem?" I asked, as the door clicked closed behind him.

"No, ma'am. Well, not really.  Division can't confirm the transport orders.  I've sent a request to authenticate."  He replied.

I felt my stomach tighten.  "Good work."

"Where's lieutenant Sanders?" he asked.

"Ladies room. It couldn't wait." I replied.

"Oh.  Well, I'll just forward this to her comm then." He stopped, his eyes falling to his comm. "Weird, she's offline.  Must be one helluva head call."

My little sleep spell squeezed against Tim's will and he crumpled to the floor.

"Angel this is getting complicated." I said.

"I heard. It'll be a few minutes before the query gets processed.  They'll have a person look it over. I'm wiping all cameras that you've passed so far.  Get out, I'll wave Ratchet off."  Angel's voice held a tension to it I didn't like.

"Negative.  We're getting Jazz." I replied.

"So we're still go?" she asked.

"We are go. Is the nursing team moving him yet?" I opened the door and walked out into the corridor and donned Carla's expensive sunglasses.

"Not yet.  They prepped him but haven't pulled him from his room." she answered.

"Get them moving." I said softly.

Ahead of me another sec-guard walked into view as the doors opened.  He nodded in acknowledgement of me, the icon over his head proclaiming him as S/O LANT AKA: LEWIS.

"Excuse me, is the L.T. in?" he asked as I tried to pass him.

I turned and fixed him with a cold stare. "She's in a meeting with Sergeant Caverton. I think they'll be a while."

"Damn, I need to leave early.  My son got sick at school." he said.

"If it's an emergency, just log your time and send her a message.  It'll be fine.  Tell her I okay'd it." I said as I took two more steps toward the door.

"Yes, ma'am.  What was your name again?" he asked.

Ghost save me from new guys. "Carla Rodriquez. Make sure you log your time correctly."  I walked away, ignoring his gaze.

I took the elevator up to the fortieth floor and met the nurses and medical interns who were overseeing Jazz's move.  "Where's Sanders?" an older nurse asked.

"Seeing to a problem in the ER.  Something about an man with an invalid social identifier code." I replied drably.

"Of course." She huffed. "Probably stole the ID of a dead person.  People have no respect."

"No, they certainly don't." I replied.

I rode in the elevator with the medical team.  Jazz looked horrible.  His head appeared swollen to me and surgical seams marred his otherwise smoothly shaven features. The monitors he was hooked to, beeped softly, contrasting with the 'bing' of the elevator chime as we passed each floor.

"Your team is taking him to the Shasta Center?" One of the medical interns asked.

"Above my pay grade, I'm afraid." I replied. "I'm just here to make sure he gets on the transport."

"I hope they're ready." The older nurse injected. "His new implants really took their toll on him."

I frowned at that.  "I was given to understand that he is stable enough for transport.  Is that not the case?"

"No." She replied. "No, he is fine for transport, so long as he stays hooked up anyway."

The elevator chimed and the doors opened to reveal another corridor.  We followed the hospital bed as it wove through hallways to the ambulance bay.  Crank was standing near the open doors of Ratchet's ambulance, a name badge proclaimed him to be "Larry".

It took twenty painfully long minutes for the hospital staff to transfer Jazz to the ambulance and run through their checklists, before clearing the way for Crank to climb back in.  The ambulance doors swung closed and the vehicle pulled away toward the facility exit.

"Thanks for sticking with us." The older nurse said to me.

"Glad to do it." I replied.

Angel talked me through the twists and turns of the maze of corridors until I finally arrived at the main entrance.  I walked out the front entrance with a silent prayer on my lips as I fought the urge to break and run.

"No sign of pursuit. No alarms yet, but the lady who received the request for confirmation of those orders is trying to call Sanders." Angel's voice hadn't lost the tension I heard earlier.

"I'm out.  I'll see you in thirty minutes."  I vanished into the car I summoned from Carla's commlink.
I was on the I-5 when I wrapped the invisibility spell around myself.  I opened the sunroof and whispered into the astral plane.  The air elemental lifted me easily and we soared out over the highway and turned east.  Below me the car zipped away, Carla's purse and commlink laying on the back seat as it drove back to her home.

I met Angel, Crank and Ratchet at the clinic in Redmond.  The doctor was in, and was not at all happy about the state of our patient.

*****


Thank you for reading my fan fiction. I do hope you enjoy it.
Aftermath is a longer story, presented in chapters for ease of reading.  I do hope you'll join me next time as the story continues.

I also create role playing game books and comic books.  My first comic book, 47 Furious Tails (Issue One) is currently seeking funding on KickStarter.  I hope you'll check it out, support the project if you can and please do share the link to the campaign with others.



I'll see you here next time for Chapter Eight!