"You want to crash out?" she asked. "Use the bed in the other room."

He nodded, then asked hesitantly, "Is there anything to eat?"

She glanced over at Modal. "Why don't you call room service?" she suggested. "Get some food up here for all of us. I've got to make a call."

She could see that Modal wanted to argue-he obviously still thought the kid was a liability-but he held his tongue. She shrugged. As the elf had said, keeping the kid with them was her mistake to make. Despite his misgivings he was going along with her.

She sat down on the bed of room 1203, keyed in Agarwal's LTG number.

"Have you seen the news?" was the ex-decker's first question when he answered the phone and saw who it was.

"Not really." Modal had turned on the radio in the stolen car, but Sly hadn't really given the news report much attention. She wracked her brain, trying to remember what the significant stories had been. Gang clashes, random street violence . . . But what had Argent said? The gangs weren 't involved, and the violence was neither random nor unmotivated. She felt cold. "It's starting, isn't it?" she asked Agarwal.

Agarwal didn't answer her question directly, but his serious expression was communication enough. "As of about five minutes ago," he said quietly, "there have been no more reports of anything that could be corporate violence in the news media. And any descriptions of such events in the current affairs databases were erased. What does that tell you, Sharon?"

A lot. Fear twisted within her, but she forced a chuckle. "I guess it doesn't mean it's all over, huh?"

"What it tells me," Agarwal went on, as though she hadn't spoken, "is that the metroplex government- possibly backed by the federal bureaucracy-has issued a 'D Notice', an official gag order. Add to that the fact that just before your call, a voice-only announcement from Governor Schultz was broadcast on all trid and radio channels, and posted in all datafaxes and news-bases." He snorted. "At five to five in the morning, I a.s.sume the voice was synthesized. The ill.u.s.trious governor is rarely known to rise before ten."

"What did Schultz say?" Sly asked.

"That all of the untoward gang and street violence has come to an end," Agarwal said bleakly. "That the government has stepped in. That everything is back to normal, and that no citizen of the metroplex should fear for his or her safety." He snorted again. "As if the government could guarantee that in a corporate war." He shook his head. "All members of government are liars. They are consummate liars, they lie continuously. They know that we know that they lie, but they lie just the same. And then they talk about their honor."

The ex-decker chuckled wryly. "Forgive me my political digressions." He sighed. "I blush to inform you I have yet to break the file completely."

"I don't know that it matters so much anymore," she admitted. "You were right, it's lost tech. And now I know exactly what." As efficiently as possible, she briefed him on what Falcon had told her.

When she was finished, Agarwal looked pale, shaken. "So the Concord of Zurich-Orbital is about to collapse?"

She shrugged. "It didn't seem to do much good," she said. "Yamatetsu was still working counter to it, and I guess the rest of the corps were too."

"Yes, yes," Agarwal brushed that off. "But there is more to the Concord than just the matter of fiber optics, Sharon. Much more. It is perhaps the most wide-ranging agreement the megacorporations have ever entered into with each other.

"The Concord has provisions covering most facets of communications technology," he went on. "You know that most of the zaibatsus have their own satellites, communication and otherwise? Well, many of those satellites are thought to have sophisticated jamming circuits, or even anti-satellite-ASAT-capability, to destroy the communication a.s.sets of a compet.i.tor. Similarly, many megacorporations still carry out research into 'core wars'-which, as I mentioned to you earlier, is viral warfare against a compet.i.tor's computer systems.

"Of course, if any corporation were to use any of these capabilities-jamming, ASAT, or viral-there would be reprisals. Followed by counter-reprisals, followed by escalation. Followed by a level of-shall we say-'digital bloodletting' that no corporation would wish to even contemplate.

"That is the importance of the Concord, Sharon," Agarwal concluded, "to prevent that. And it has worked, for more than twenty years. In 2041, an Atlanta-based corporation called Lanrie-a small player, its influence limited to the Confederated American States-infected a compet.i.tor in Miami with a tailored computer virus. Somehow the major zaibatsus found out about it. Under the terms of the Concord of Zurich-Orbital, and with the sanction of the Corporate Court, the megacorporations totally destroyed Lanrie. Shattered its financial structure. Destroyed its facilities and a.s.sets. Executed its Board of Directors. All as an object lesson. Since then n.o.body has actually practiced viral warfare."

Sly was shaken to the core. Her skin felt as cold as if an icy draft were blowing through the room. "And the corps are ready to break the Concord?"

Agarwal nodded. "The Corporate Court is trying to call them back," he explained, "like hunting dogs to heel. To remind them of the Concord, no doubt, and its importance. But-as I told you the last time we talked- the zaibatsus are ignoring the Court's edicts. The potential benefits of the prize-the lost technology-outweigh the potential dangers of breaking the Concord. Or so the megacorporations see it."

She thought it through for a few moments. "Have they crossed the line yet?" she asked. "Has anybody pa.s.sed the point of no return?"

"Not yet. But all are perilously close to the line. The situation is more unstable than ever before."

"Can it be stabilized again?"

"Up to the point that one megacorporation makes a substantive, direct attack against significant a.s.sets of another," Agarwal p.r.o.nounced, "yes."

"How?"

He fixed her with his tired eyes. "If we a.s.sume that the corporations remain on the precipice, and don't go over before you can act," he said slowly, "I think it all rests in your hands. In how you deal with the information you hold.

"The way I see it," he continued, "you have two choices. The first is to destroy the information."

That suggestion wasn't new; she'd already considered it and discarded it. "It won't work," she told Agarwal. "n.o.body would believe I'd destroyed it."

"As you say," he agreed.

"And the second choice?"

"If you can't make sure that n.o.body gets the information," he said, "then make sure everybody gets it. Disseminate it, publicize it, so that every megacorporation has equal access to the information. The only answer is to keep the playing field level and to make sure everyone knows it's level. When one corporation, or faction of corporations, has an advantage-or is thought to have an advantage-then things are unstable. Do you understand, Sharon?"

She nodded slowly. In concept, it made perfect sense, it was simple. But . . . "How?" she demanded.

He spread his hands eloquently. Search me .. .

"And what if I don't manage it?"

"Corporate war," Agarwal stated positively. "The collapse of the world's economy within a few days of its start. The first food riots probably wouldn't occur for at least a week. The big question is whether civilian governments would have time to launch military action before they collapsed. I think any nuclear exchange would probably be quite limited. ..."

He kept talking, but Sly had stopped listening.

What the frag am I going to do? she asked herself again and again.

14.

0515 hours, November 14, 2053 Falcon ate like a starving man, which was exactly what he was. The woman, Sly, had said to get enough food to feed them all. The black elf-Modal, Falcon thought his name was-had gone a little overboard. Three burgers- real beef, not soy filler-pasta salad, bread, cheese, salad . . . more food for the three of them than Falcon would have picked out for six of his gang chummers. He scoped out the hotel room. Of course, anybody who could afford this kind of doss wasn't going to skimp on food.

No skin off my b.u.t.t anyway, he thought, and no cred off my stick. With that established, he set to with a will.

By the time he'd polished off a burger, two cheese sandwiches, an apple, and some strange star-shaped fruit he didn't recognize, Falcon was starting to feel a little better. Modal was sprawled on the bed watching him. The elf had polished off his own burger quick enough, and now he was sucking on a beer he'd pulled from the room's minibar.

Thinking that a beer would go down just wiz, Falcon glanced at the elf, at the beer in his hand, raised an eyebrow questioningly. Modal's expression and body language didn't change. He'd still rather see me flatlined. Falcon thought. Which means he's not likely to offer me a drink. He hesitated, then crossed to the minibar and fished out his own beer. An import, he saw, in a real gla.s.s bottle. Modal was scowling fiercely, but at least he hadn't shot him. Falcon twisted off the top, sprawled back in his chair, and gave the brew the attention it deserved.

A few minutes later, the door to the adjoining room swung open. Falcon had heard Sly carrying on a phone conversation, but the door's sound insulation was enough to keep him from making out any of her words. It must have been bad news, he thought. She looked like h.e.l.l, face pinched and white, eyes haunted.

Modal sat up, put his beer down. "Bad news?" he asked in his weird accent.

Sly nodded, slumped down on the bed next to the elf. Modal handed over his can of beer. The dark-haired woman took a healthy pull on it, smiled her thanks.

"Things are definitely . . . what you said earlier, fugazi," she told the elf. Then she interrupted herself. "What does that mean, anyway?"

"Totally fragged up," the elf explained. "It's slang from the Smoke." He paused. "It's happening?"

"Looks like it," Sly admitted unwillingly, then went on to discuss something about the Concord of Zurich-Orbital. Apparently there was more to it than Nightwalker had told Falcon-or perhaps more than Nightwalker had known. The young ganger didn't understand all the strange corporate maneuvering and backstabbing Sly described, but he did understand the bottom line. It's like the gangs, he thought. As long as a truce benefits everyone, there's peace. But when somebody sees an advantage, there's a turf war. Apparently the megacorps worked on the same principle, and were now readying for their own kind of war. Though he couldn't see how a corp war could hurt him personally-or the two runners, either-their sour expressions told him they thought it was serious drek. And they understand this high-level stuff better than I do, he had to remind himself.

"So what did the man suggest?" Modal asked. "Nothing concrete," Sly said. "Good concepts, but no suggestions about what to do."

"I've got a suggestion if you want to hear it," the elf put in. "Just get on your fragging bike and go. Hit the Caribbean League or anywhere else that strikes your fancy." He shrugged. "Okay, I know you don't have the credit to come into the light completely, but why not take your retirement in b.l.o.o.d.y installments? Let the corps b.u.g.g.e.r each other blind, and serves them right. When everything's settled down, you can get back into the biz.

"I'm b.l.o.o.d.y serious," he pressed, as Sly shook her head. "Just toddle off into the sunset. It's better than getting splattered-which is what'll happen if you stick around; you know that, Sly. Travel light, get rid of all liabilities"-the elf glared at Falcon, and the young Amerindian knew exactly what he was getting at-"and go." Sly was silent for a moment. Watching her eyes, Falcon could almost see the thoughts moving behind them as she considered Modal's suggestions. "Maybe," she mused softly.

A knock sounded on the door. "Room service," came a m.u.f.fled voice from the hallway.

At the first sound, guns had almost magically appeared in the hands of both runners. Now Falcon saw them both relax.

"Probably come to collect the plates," Modal said. He slipped his pistol back into its holster, then smoothly swung to his feet and headed for the door.

Danger.

Who said that? For a moment, Falcon glanced around looking to see who had spoken. The voice had been so clear. . . .

But it hadn't been a woman's voice, and it hadn't been the elf's strange accent. It sounded more like . . .

My voice? An icy chill shot up Falcon's spine.

Modal was almost at the door.

Shockingly, for just a split instant, Falcon's ears seemed to ring with the crash of gunshots, the echo of screams. When neither of the others reacted, he realized the sounds were only in his mind.

Modal reached for the door handle.

"No!" Falcon shouted.

The elf froze, turned and glared at him.

"No," the ganger said, trying to fill his voice with a control he didn't feel. "Don't answer it. It's a setup."

As he spoke the words-and only then-he knew them to be the truth.

"Oh?" The elf's voice dripped with scorn. "And just how the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l do you know that, eh?"

Falcon couldn't say, except that he did know. The knock on the door sounded again, sharper, more insistent.

And accompanied by another sound-a sharp click of metal on metal. At first Falcon thought that was in his head as well, but then he saw Modal tense.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, he might be right." The ma.s.sive pistol was back in the elf's hand. He looked around him, apparently sizing up the tactical situation. "Get into the other room," he ordered quietly.

Falcon had already come to the same conclusion, and was heading for the connecting door. Sly joined him in the second room, followed by Modal. The elf partially closed the connecting door, leaving a tiny gap. The two runners had their weapons at the ready. Falcon felt helpless, vulnerable, wishing for his Fichetti or even his old zip gun. Give me something.

"Do they know about the two rooms?" Sly asked quietly.

Modal shrugged. "We'll know in a minute." He put his back against the connecting wall, so he could watch the front door to this room and clearly hear what was happening next door. Falcon heard the metallic snicks as both runners flicked the safeties off their weapons. Then they waited.

Not for long. Another sharp rap on the door of room 1205. A few more moments of silence.

Then all drek broke loose. Somebody or something smashed into the door, tearing it off its hinges. Falcon heard the muted spits of silenced gunfire, then the dull crump of an explosion that shook the wall. Holy frag, he thought, a grenade!

Silence again. The raiders next door would know that the room was empty; their prey wasn't there. How would they respond?

Sly and Modal didn't give them time. "Cover," the woman whispered, as she sprinted toward the door to the hallway. Modal nodded, edged closer to the door connecting the two rooms. Falcon could see the strategy. Sly would hit them from behind, from the hallway, while Modal came at them from the front. Make them pay for their mistake, their ignorance about the two rooms.

But what the frag do I do? he thought blankly. Unarmed, without so much as a knife . . .

He didn't have long to worry about it. Sly silently opened the door, slipped into the hall. A moment later, Falcon heard her heavy pistol crash.

On cue, Modal kicked open the connecting door, spun-inhumanly fast-around the frame, his heavy pistol already roaring and bucking in his hand. Falcon heard a scream of agony, a scream that trailed off into a moan, and then a gurgle. Score one kill.

A burst of autofire chewed into the door and the frame. But Modal wasn't there anymore. His chipped reflexes had flung him aside, darting into the cover of a heavy armchair. More screams as his pistol spat flame again. And then he was out of Falcon's field of view.

The firefight continued, but there wasn't anything he could do to help the runners. A wild burst of fire st.i.tched through the connecting wall, smashing the trideo set. He threw himself to the floor, then crawled toward the connecting door. He couldn't stand not knowing what was going on, even if taking a look might cost him his life. He poked his head around the door frame.

Room 1205 looked like it had been decorated in Early War Zone, the grenade having blown the drek out of everything. Small fires were burning where hot shrapnel had lodged in flammable material, and Modal and the others were making short work of whatever had survived the blast. Near the connecting door one of the attackers was down, and decidedly dead. He wore what looked like a high-tone corp suit, probably armored, though it hadn't done him any good. Modal's bullets had blown away most of his head. The figure still clutched a tiny, lethal-looking machine pistol in its lifeless hand.

There was matching carnage in the rest of the room.

Three more attackers-a man and two women, all wearing corp fashions-were sprawled here and there, in various states of disa.s.sembly. Blood and tissue were everywhere, and the room smelled like a slaughterhouse. Falcon swallowed hard, trying to keep his stomach where it belonged.

Modal was in the doorway, firing out into the hall. Probably taking out stragglers, Falcon surmised. The elf's lips were drawn back from his teeth in what looked like a smile of inhuman glee.

He'll kill me, too. The thought struck Falcon with an impact like a bullet-train. He thinks I'm a liability, he's said it often enough. He wants to get rid of me.

And what better time than now? One shot, and all Modal had to tell the woman was that Falcon had stopped a round fired by one of the attackers. No more liability. No more Dennis Falk.

The young ganger looked at the machine pistol in the hand of the nearest corpse. It works both ways, he thought fiercely. I can kill him before he kills me, and blame it on the raiders.

If he was going to do it, he had to do it fast. The sounds of the firefight were dying down in the hall outside. He pried the dead man's fingers from the weapon. Rose to a crouch, leveled the weapon at the elf's back. Started to squeeze the trigger, then froze in midmovement.

What was he doing? He wasn't a murderer. Sure, he'd killed-first the slag in Denny Park, then Slick at Pier 42. But both of them had been trying to kill him. It had been pure self-defense, him or them. But now? He couldn't shoot Modal in the back. He couldn't.

He lowered the gun.

Modal turned, as if sensing something behind him. Looked back over his shoulder.

Falcon had the machine pistol still gripped in both hands, the barrel pointing at the floor behind the elf.

Their eyes met for a moment.

And Falcon knew-knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt-that Modal realized what had almost happened. For a moment the elf stood, stock-still. Then his lips twisted in a wry half-smile.