During his flight, Nina had sent him posts from the Seattle forums that pertained to last weeks impromptu run. The buzz on the street was that a gang war was about to break out. Justin wasn't so sure of that. It seemed to him that Jarrol was small time and likely hired by a megacorp to shakedown Cate at the Devil's Doorstep.
His part of the run it had gone smooth (the street gang didn't have much in the way of matrix security), but his fellow runners didn't have it as easy and worse, they didn't handle themselves with the same subtlety as he had. In fact, with the amount of munitions discharged and explosions, the megacorp law enforcement agencies were likely to have noticed. That wasn't a pleasant thought.
A black sedan rolled down the street, pulling to a stop in front of Justin. The tinted reinforced window slid down to reveal Ivan Putin, an older man with grey hair and a sharp chin. "Mr. Chance, it is good to have you back. Was your time in India good?"
Justin palmed the copied datachip he'd stolen and handed it to Ivan through the window. "The food was synth and the connection flaky." Justin took the offered credstick and stepped away from the window. "I'm glad to be home."
"Hah! Well don't go far. Word is something big is about to go down."
The sedan took off, leaving Justin standing on the curb. He pulled up his AR and asked Nina to locate the nearest taxi. He had a couple stops to make before meeting up with Cid.
*******************************************************
* Later that day *
*******************************************************
The mounted crystal display came to life in a flurry of black and white noise. Justin banged the side of the terminal until the screen came into focus. "Cid, we're online." A muffled response came from outside the van. "I still can't understand you, man. Try using the comm."
Justin pulled a keyboard down from one of the racks inside the van and waited for the rig to come online. Ninarested on his shoulder, waiting patiently for something to do.
Hermes BIOS v10.8r
Ikon Series
.
<dmitri.bios.overide>
External Response Chip Detected
Verifying...............Done
Internal Response Chip Disabled
<end>
.
Initializing Hardware
...Sim Module Interfaces (1)
...Fiber-Optic Storage Devices (2)
...Wireless Matrix Interfaces (2)
...Wired Matrix Interfaces (1)
.
<dmitri.bootloader.break>
Dimitri.ROM#boot novaOS,8,1
.
Loading Novatech Operating System
... 100% (complete)
"Comrade Chance," Dmitri's voice acknowledged Justin after the biometric scanner logged him in to the terminal. Dmitri was an IC program that Justin picked up in India, discarded after the second crash. Justin was excited about this rig. In a world of implanted commlinks and holographic outputs, the two-dimensional display was considered archaic, but Justin thought the black crystal display still offered a richer color palette than the holographs.
"Hey Dmitri, welcome to your new home." Justin flipped through his database of black ISP commcode addresses. "Let's get you connected."
Dimitri.OS>open commcode worldcorp.isp
passcode: ********
Access Granted
Cid jumped back and cursed as Dmitri's icon entered the AR and transformed into a four-story robot reminiscent of late 20th century japanime. "Holy hell, are you trying to draw attention to us?" Cid shouted over the comm.
"Oops! I'll fix it, hold on." Justin issued a command and Dmitri's icon transformed into a mimic of the van itself, but with a new decal on the hood. "Is that better?"
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