Heat rippled
along the black line of Canal Street. Go squinted at the closest of the storage facilities as Jason’s new crawler turned north on the smaller, numbered road.
In the back seat, Rosario noisily patted her carbine. “Did you have them build this crawler just for you?”
The driver chuckled. “We’re the first to rent it. You like the new crawler smell?”
“I’m glad insurance is expensed.”
Go pointed to the fourth streetlight pole on the right of the road, where Ash sat on his motorcycle. “Looks far enough out, yeah?”
Jason pulled in behind the motorcycle. “I shut down all the surrounding cameras.”
“And we’re sure Harry hasn’t emptied this place out yet?”
“Ash says he’s sure.”
When the passenger door opened, Rosario hurried out. She pulled her windbreaker off, bunched it up, and set it on the ground, then put her weapons on top. The trunk opened, and she hauled out a bulletproof vest. Once she had it secured, she pulled the windbreaker back on. With a few adjustments, she converted her shoulder holster into a hip holster. Ash was already wearing a lightweight vest, which he favored over Rosario’s heavier one. He valued speed over protection.
Jason pulled an extra vest and pistol holster from the trunk. “Go?”
“Nah.” Go held up the crowbar he’d brought along and patted the backpack he’d set on the ground. “Got what I need right here, mate.”
Ash snorted. “Always ready to put the rest of us at risk, so long as you don’t have to pull a trigger.”
“You do enough for everyone else.”
“It’s called getting the job done. Speaking of… That van? It left the garage I found it in about ten minutes ago.”
Rosario sucked in a deep breath. “And it’s coming here?”
“So far.”
Go licked perspiration from his lips. “How’d you find this garage?”
“I used my brain.” The security expert guffawed. “Lilly gave me full access to the RPC books when she came around. That moron Nico was too cheap to run advanced financial auditing searches. Not me. It’s all being paid for by the law firm, so fuck it.”
“And?”
“And there was a huge operational budget discrepancy.”
Jason slapped his vest. “I thought they ran audits on the books?”
“Not a thorough one. If you’re going to do it, spend the money and do it right.”
Go felt stupid for not challenging the RPC security expert. They were notoriously incompetent, more reliant on bluster and posing than actual knowledge. Nico’s arrogance had ultimately cost him his life. “This operational budget, it’s where the storage facility and garage were paid for?”
Ash flicked sweat from his bald scalp. “Indirectly. I guess this Harry Cho copy was—”
“Artifact ghost.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Harry’s still alive, remember?”
“Not if you pull the plug, and you know she will the second she has the paperwork signed.”
“Whatever.”
“Anyway—this ‘artifact ghost’ was redirecting funds to another company it had set up. Plus, it was using a lot of Grid failures to hide the places where it operated.”
Rosario sighted at something far away with her carbine. “Robot deliveries?”
“Lots of them. And I found that company through the audit and those failures. And that company rents that unit right there.” Ash jabbed a finger in the direction of the storage facility.
The artifact ghost had been planning almost from the moment of its inception. The garage, the storage facility, the van, the robots…
Go tested his grip on the crowbar, getting familiar with its mass and balance. “It killed Harry.”
Jason spun around. “What?”
“This artifact ghost. It killed Harry up on the moon. Nico, too.”
“That was the Lancer team.”
“Nah. Check on their orbital rental. They followed us up there. You had a good look at their gear. They didn’t have anything capable of defeating that research station’s security.”
“But they had someone on the inside—” Jason groaned in realization. “Harry didn’t know what was going on.”
“Couldn’t have. It was this ghost. What’s that Greek story where the son kills his father and ends up with his mother?”
Rosario frowned. “Oedipus? You think this artifact ghost killed Harry to have Lilly to itself?”
“Sort of, yeah. It’s doing what it has to do to stay alive. Nico must’ve figured something out that would’ve put everything at risk. Maybe Harry figured it out and told Nico.”
“That’s…sick.”
“Sick like hacking a bunch of people up to make it impossible to copy the ghost back into Harry’s body, yeah? Self-preservation.” Go had understood and appreciated Donnell’s skepticism. In fact, part of that skepticism had filtered into Go’s views. But the evidence and the logic—it all made a sick sort of sense now.
This was Harry—had been Harry—and now it was something else.
But it was something very much like its creator, its father.
Jason dug binoculars out of the trunk, then closed it. “How long before the van gets here?”
Ash stared off into space. “A couple of minutes. If you have to pee—”
“Thanks.”
Go shielded his eyes against the blinding sun. It had evaporated the rain, drying the streets, shrinking puddles, and hardening the ground. “We going in when the van arrives?”
Jason and Rosario turned to Ash, who smiled at the deference. “I want to follow the van.”
“You think there might be another facility, yeah?”
“Might be.”
“Makes sense. And we bust into the facility.” Go couldn’t imagine having any problems getting into the shed with the crowbar. But… “This other hacker, the Gridhound. You’re sure it’s not just another artifact ghost?”
Jason stroked his chin. “The artifact ghost isn’t really doing the sort of hacking this other person is.”
“And you don’t think it could.”
“Sure. I’d imagine it’s already learning new skills. But this Gridhound… They’re old school. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ash straddled his motorcycle. “You’re seeing ghosts. This is all Harry Cho’s doing.”
“Way to add value.” Jason turned his back to the security expert. “This Gridhound is doing something different.”
“Oh, come on. What—like a guardian angel?”
Rosario stepped between the security expert and Jason. “Why would a Gridhound get involved?”
Jason bit his lip. “Someone did that deep dive on Christopher Rackers.”
“And stuck around? We haven’t seen any evidence of another Lancers team.”
“I don’t think it’s a team.”
Go caught the glint of sunlight on glass. “It’s coming. Do we need to get farther back?”
Ash tugged his helmet on. “We’re out of sight. That van doesn’t have cameras like the storage facility does. It’s all sensors for driving.”
The van sped past, once again driving aggressively. It disappeared inside the storage compound. Jason closed the trunk and got into the driver’s seat. Rosario climbed into the back, and Go took the front passenger seat again.
Jason drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “It might be another operation.”
Go glanced back at Rosario, but she was absorbed in inspecting her weapons. “What kind of operation?”
“Doesn’t matter. The point is, this Gridhound isn’t doing anything offensive. It’s all recon and soft probes.”
“Military teams do that sort of thing before they attack.”
“I-I don’t think it’s military.”
“But it could be trouble, yeah?”
“Everything could be trouble.”
“Fair enough.”
The van drove back onto the road, turned south, then sped past them. Ash revved the engine on his motorcycle, flashed a thumbs up, then roared off in pursuit of the vehicle.
Jason powered the motor on. “Now or never.”
He pulled onto the road and accelerated toward the storage facility. The gate was already closing, but it stopped, then began opening as they turned toward it. They headed into the compound and braked just in front of the storage shed. Go didn’t need to ask how the genie had overcome the gate security.
The crawler doors opened, and they rushed toward the rolling door.
Go jammed the crowbar into the lock mechanism and looked to his partners. Rosario had her carbine at the ready; she nodded.
He hauled back on the crowbar, popping the latch from the concrete wall, then grabbed the roll door bar.
“Time for a little B&E.”