Sam turned away from the wall screen and looked around the room again. This apartment had been his home for just over a year, but only a few knick-knacks, some bare spots on the carpeting from the dogs, and a handmade bowl from Hanae said anything about the man who had lived here. The rest was company issue, down to the pictures on the walls.
He would leave behind his clothes. A suitcase would be too suspicious. He would have to make do with what was on his back and whatever Roe promised to provide once they had escaped. His scrapbooks lay on the table by the sofa, their pages strewn over the surface. He had spent most of the night culling them, choosing the few photos most important to him. He had narrowed it down to a couple dozen choice items, a miniature history of his family. He and Janice in Kyoto, her graduation from Tokyo University and his from Columbia, several snapshots from the last family outing before he and Janice were orphaned, his father in his old U.S. Navy uniform, his mother hosting one of her regular card parties, scattered selections from his childhood, the wedding pictures of his parents and grandparents, and finally an old tintype of Thaddeus Samuel Helmut Verner, the first of the family to come to the Americas. They would be his lifeline to the past, memories too precious to give up.
He looked at the bookshelf. There were few volumes among the objects and small electronics. He had never been a real book lover like his sister or his father. The feel of a hard copy didn’t seem to be important. To him, it was always the content that mattered, not the form. The only book he wanted was his Bible, but like a suitcase, it would cause suspicion.
He would not be without its comfort, though. A chip copy was safely snugged into the case in his pocket. Keeping the computerized Bible company were a few other reading chips. Most were references, but he had also taken a copy of his father’s diary and a record of his correspondence. On a whim, he had included the instruction manual for his unfinished flight simulation course. He also had the four gray chips.
Those chips held the persona programs from his cyberterminal. To take them was technically theft, but the programs had been tailored for him and they would be destroyed before someone else took over his terminal. It was actually cheaper to burn a new set for the new man or woman. The chips contained no data, and he was sure his new employer would supply fresh persona chips suited to their own systems. Taking these was symbolic. His Matrix presence would leave along with his physical body.
Maybe that was why he had decided to take the flight manual. Perhaps it was a symbolic statement of his flight from psychological bondage. Or maybe it had to do with the flight he’d taken with those shadowrunners a year ago. He was about to embark on another dangerous experience whose outcome he could not entirely predict.
He checked his watch.
“Almost time,” he called to Hanae, who was still puttering in the bathroom.
“Just a minute.”
He hoped it wasn’t one of her fifteen-minute “minutes.” He paced, unconsciously following the track Kiniru used when waiting for Sam to take her for a walk.
Hanae emerged a few minutes later, dressed far more sensibly than Sam had feared. Though she wore a loose, flowing dress, the material was sturdy and the cut unrestrictive. She had a bulging satchel slung over one shoulder.
“Isn’t that bag a little large for a trip to a club?”
“It is big,” she said hesitantly, “but it should be all right. It’s part of the latest look. Lots of leather, beads, and fringe.”
“I hope it’s not too heavy. We’ll have to cross the club’s landing pad to the aircraft in a hurry.”
“If they cancel out the signal on the screamer, we should be able to stroll out to the plane. After all, people leave that way all the time.”
“Not in DocWagon aerial ambulances.”
She shrugged. “If it’s too heavy, you’ll help me. We’ll be fine.”
He prayed that they would. He didn’t want anything to slow them down now that the time had come.
Despite Sam’s misgivings, they reached the Club Quarter on Level 6 without incident. No one seemed interested in a couple out for a night on the arcology. The halls of the Quarter were already crowded, though it was still early. Music of all kinds bled from the sound-insulated clubs to blend into a puddle of unintelligible sound. The revelers didn’t seem to care. Many danced in the halls, moving to music in their heads. Some danced to their imaginations; others wore chipsticks in skull-mounted jacks or carried simsense players that fed the music to their brains.
It wasn’t too difficult to find Rumplestiltskin’s. Roe wasn’t there yet, but hundreds of other hopefuls were already queued up in the vain hope of entry into the fashionable club.
“I had no idea,” Hanae said when she saw the line.
“I wonder if Roe did.”
“If she did, it must be part of the plan.” The quaver in Hanae’s voice didn’t match her confident words.
“I guess we get in line.”
Ten minutes later, Hanae took Sam’s arm and pulled herself close. “Maybe she’s already inside. Maybe she left without us.”
“Don’t worry,” Sam assured her, hiding his own growing doubt. “She’ll keep her part of the deal.”
Thirty minutes later, they were still in line. The club doorway had come into view and they caught their first sight of the doorman. Like many clubs, Rumplestiltskin’s employed a troll to handle the lines of hopefuls. Too well-dressed to be called a bouncer, his size and demeanor left no doubt that he could fulfill that function. Almost three meters of muscle and thick hide was more than enough to intimidate all but the rowdiest partyboy. They were still ten meters from the front of the line when Roe suddenly appeared.
“This will never do,” she said. Taking each one by the arm, she led them directly up to the doorman. She twirled a shiny credstick in her right hand. The four dark bands on the end of the cylinder marked it as certified for at least 100 nuyen. She tossed it to the man. “My friends here are late for their table.”
She turned back to them. “Giacomo will take care of you, so there’s no worry. Everything’s wiz, but I’ve got to make a call to check up on the other member of our party. See you in about half an hour. Have fun.”
Sam watched her walk back along the line to converse with a quartet of scruffy men and women. Even at this distance, he could tell the biggest was an ork. Her tusks were capped with silver and glinted coldly in the hallway lights. She carried a large case with a casual ease born of enormous strength.
Roe’s companions were surely shadowrunners, her team for the extraction. They had a hard, used look about them. Maybe even over-used, Sam thought. He had little experience in these matters, but he had expected Roe to show up with a team that was more...more what? Imposing? Dangerous? At ease in the Club Quarter? More like Tsung and her runners? It didn’t help his state of mind to wonder about their competence.
Roe and the runners walked toward the head of the line for a block, then turned into a corridor that took them away from Rumplestiltskin’s. They passed Sam and Hanae, and getting a closer look only fueled Sam’s fears. As Roe’s team moved in and out of the hall’s pools of illumination, the play of light and shadow focused Sam’s attention on the person in the middle of the group. That one maintained a steady, if oddly gaited, walk while the others shifted around. They seemed to be running interference, keeping the crowd from jostling the dark-clothed figure.
The person’s long overcoat effectively concealed gender along with almost everything else. All Sam could glimpse was a pallid face showing between the turned-up collar and the slouch hat. The skin looked soft and unlined as a baby’s. The eyes were hidden behind some kind of heavy goggles. The face turned briefly, and Sam had the distinct impression he was the object of that stare. Then the face was gone, masked by the crowd. No look of recognition, antipathy, concern, or any other emotion marred the sexless smoothness. Whoever that person was, Sam found the appearance of the dark-coated albino unsettling.
“Sam, you’re staring,” Hanae whispered. Louder, she said, “Come on, darling. This nice Mr. Giacomo has found our reservation.”
“Thought I saw someone I knew,” he mumbled as he allowed himself to be led into the club.