The elevator's display read, "Sub-Level 10," as Lobo stepped off. He was standing at one end of a narrow, gray hallway. Spaced irregularly every few meters along both sides, were unmarked metal doors. Trusting his memory, Lobo began to walk, taking branches and side passages, seemingly at random. At this hour the floor was virtually deserted. Eventually, he arrived at yet another unmarked gray door. He hesitated for a moment, then punched in the "day-code," he'd lifted earlier in the evening from Durak's private terminal.

Gislan's plan had called for a decker. The one that he'd had in mind was young, idealistic, and capricious. In other words, "perfect," except for the fact that he was utterly disinterested in their proposed run. But when faced with the dwarf's unwavering negotiations, he had eventually agreed to do it. It then fell upon Lobo to open a window in his corp's IC and let the kid in.

Although his own department concerned itself with external matters, Lobo was still familiar with the corp's internal security measures. He knew, for example, where to find the decker, who would be monitoring the payroll processor, that night. And he knew that as a security director, his face was known to nearly all of their security personnel. Armed with these facts, along with the knowledge that 'surprise inspections' were becoming increasingly common, he had simply paid the security center a visit.

After a pause, the system accepted the borrowed code and the door slid open, revealing a hemispherical, security monitoring station. The room's far, curved wall was completely covered with video monitors, displaying grainy views from various locations throughout the building. On a raised dais in the center of the room, the sole guard was seated behind a D-shaped desk. This monitoring room was banally similar to the one downstairs in his own department.

He didn't know the man behind the desk, when he stepped into the room. But as Lobo approached, the guard obviously recognized him. He was suddenly all, "yes, sirs" and "no, sirs." His nameplate simply read, "Eichman."

The two men discussed routine security matters, but they may as well have been discussing the price of tea in Chiba, as far as Lobo was concerned. Eventually, he steered their conversation towards the subject of matrix security. He was rewarded, when Eichman gestured towards a low bank of monitors. Depicted in the same colorless, grainy format were several corporate deckers. All were reclining in padded, console-chairs, in various locations throughout the building. Roughly, half were jacked-in. The views were from high up and behind their heads. Lobo made a mental note of the camera angles.

"See that one on the left," the guard said, indicating a screen, "he's been having trouble sleeping off-duty--and staying awake on-duty."

This was not news to Lobo. "Really?" He asked, "mind if I check in on him?"

"No, sir. I was planning to take him some 'kaf, myself in a bit." The guard gestured at a Norelco, near the blank wall.

"A good idea," Lobo commented, heading towards the steaming machine. With his back to the guard, he poured two cups, quickly dropping a gel-cap into one. The capsule contained a measured dose of the hyper-sedative, tranq-4. But it failed to dissolve, insolently floating on top. Behind him, emerged the unmistakable sound of a chair sliding back, followed by light foot steps.

"Want some?" He called over his shoulder.

"Don't mind if I do, sir." Eichman was nearly upon him.

Lobo turned smoothly, and planted the cup in the guard's hand, deliberately trying to draw attention away from the slowly sinking drug in it.

"Thanks," he said, raising the steaming cup to his lips.

In the cup, a bubble formed and the capsule slipped from view.

These particular tranquilizers were classified as "hypnotics." Given the right dose, Lobo knew, they'd put the user to sleep within minutes of ingestion. The poor man, barely made it back to his desk, before succumbing to a drug-induced coma.

As Eichman dozed, Lobo re-checked the lower monitors, poured himself another cup of soykaf, and exited into the hallway, pausing just long enough for another gel-cap to dissolve completely before heading out.

Locating the correct computer room, took longer than Lobo had planned. But after two false starts, he was standing in its doorway. Inside, there were two deckers. Their eyes had a glazed-over quality, that Lobo had seen exhibited by sim-stim abusers. Both were reclining in padded, black, contour chairs, which served as workstation, interface, and cyberdeck. The deckers' hands were poised above keypads set into the chairs' armrests. Out of their heads snaked silvery cables, terminating at the headrests.

Lobo apprehensively watched their twitching hands and rapid eye movements for a moment. Then as if on cue the target decker began to nod off, breaking his matrix connection. The resulting dumped-shock, snapped him alert.

"...I said, 'you're going to end up on report!' " Lobo vehemently set upon the confused man, bellowing, "son, are you even listening to me?"

"Unh, yes..." he mutter, adding, "sir." The decker was still severely disoriented.

Drawing on his military experience, Lobo proceeded to berate the insubordinate decker, purposely keeping the beleaguered man off-balance. "Here drink this, son," he ordered, handing over the drug-infested soykaf. "And pay attention!"

The man sipped nervously from the cup.

"I don't ever want to come in here," Lobo barked, "and find any of my deckers sleeping on company time! Do you have any idea, how many ..."

Lobo let his bombast trail off. The combination of drugs and a carefully engineered, sleepless, off-duty period, proved too much for the decker, who returned to his former state of unconsciousness.

Back in Desert Wars, troops on extended patrols had routinely used alpha-wave distortion gear. These small, firmware devices had, with less-than-spectacular results, broadcast subliminal frequencies in an effort to keep their recipients awake. It had taken Lobo little effort to rig a duplicate that'd broadcast similar signals from this decker's own telecomm.

Done. Their link would hold for at least 100 more seconds. The window closed another fraction. Time was short. Two pairs of powerful, vespine wings began to beat, and the decker's icon flew in, completely bypassing the corp's hideously expensive, IC programs.

Exactly fifty-six seconds later, he emerged from the temporary opening, remembering to pull it closed on his way out.

*
*
*

Lobo and Durak occupied a bay at one end of their corp's vast loading docks, preparing for the morning's run. Behind them stood row after row of all manner of shipping containers, each laid out, dress-right-dressed, by some lowly wageslave lift-operators. The dock was deserted at this hour, save for the occasional maintenance 'bot. The two men worked in silence. Loading gear into a van was really just another, over-rehearsed, immediate action drill.

Lobo finished securing the last of Durak's gear, while his boss "supervised." In all, this IAD had taken him fewer than ten minutes. Not bad, he thought, while sealing the van's rear doors. Normally, there would have been a team's worth of equipment, along with a low-ranking flunky on hand to load it. But this wasn't a normal mission. No, today it was just the two of them, plus a decker for overwatch. This was in itself, a minor breach of their departmental standard operating procedures. But since Lobo knew that Durak had been largely responsible for the SOP's content, he hadn't bothered to bring the matter up.

"Cute tiara," Durak spat, breaking their self-imposed silence. He was gesturing towards Gislan's headband. "You goin' Keeb on me now, boy?"

Lobo ignored the elf-slur and headed towards the van's passenger side. "You can drive," he said, prompting his boss into the driver's seat. "I'm still tired." And he was too.

"We're suppos'ta be on a mission, Lobo. Ya shoulda hit the sack at twenty-hundred, like I did. That's a real P-7 attitude, mister."

In militarilinga, that translated as 'poor pre-planning produces piss-poor performance.' It implied that one wasn't very focused on the task at hand. If Durak only knew.

After making the connection with Gislan's decker, Lobo had let himself out of Durak's office and headed straight to the parking garage. Earlier that afternoon, he'd left his Blitzen in Gislan's care and requisitioned an armored, Eurocar Caravan from the corp's motorpool for the morning's mission.

Even though he'd been edgy about having just let the kid into their system, Lobo'd had forced himself to relax, while carrying out his next phase. This required spending the two hours immediately following the Matrix run, cleaning out one of his own department's armories, and loading every bit of security gear at his disposal into the Caravan's spacious cargo compartments. One way or another, Lobo knew, he wasn't ever coming back.

Durak started the van's engine. Its eight cylinders obligingly began to diesel with a soothing, rhythmic vibration. The two men settled back as Durak maneuvered out into the open night.

The van's bucket seats weren't actually comfortable. But earlier, Lobo'd somehow managed to grab a an hour's cat-nap, before his cybereye's chrono-alarm had awakened him--before his boss had arrived. And now, thanks to the hum of the engine, he was still fighting to remain out of that state, when Durak piped up, "Ya get everything?"

"Everything that wasn't nailed down or on fire," Lobo replied, grinning to himself in the darkness.

Shiawase had always been one of the fiercest competitors in the biotech race. And according to Durak's intelligence reports, Shiawase's Seattle division was on the verge of several important and very profitable breakthroughs. So any setbacks at this critical point would prove extremely costly. Enter Lobo and Durak, with a batch of corporate-grown bacteria.

Their research and development labs had been engineering tailored macrophages to assist in the recycling of organics. This particularly aggressive strain, the lab-techs assured, would wreak havoc by completely contaminating Shiawase's facilities, while posing no appreciable hazards to their personnel.

Durak's mission involved breaking into the lower levels of Shiawase Biotech's research laboratory, planting time-release aerosols--on the wrong side of their ventilation scrubbers--and slipping back out. Estimated start-to-finish time: twenty-five minutes. This was much simpler than the plan that Lobo and Gislan had worked out.

Durak steered the van into a curbside parking space, a few blocks from their target. "Wake up, boy!" He ordered, "it's showtime!"

"I was already awake," Lobo replied, following Durak into the back of the van. There, the two men geared-up.

"Man, you did bring a lot of stuff, didn't ya?" Durak chided, "what'ja think, we're invading Portland?"

Ignoring the racist's barbs, Lobo focused on his mission-within-the-mission. He slipped an extra Browning Max-Power into a newly-acquired shoulder holster and slung his custom Smartgun across his back. Both men were wearing standard issue black, kelvar, cat-suits. These non-reflective 'business suits' held a dual responsibility: protection and concealment.

Lobo had also taken the precaution of layering his 'suit over form-fitting body armor. If they'd correctly deduced Durak's intent, he'd need all of the protection he could get. And since this would be his only chance to equip himself, he'd better get it right the first time. Finally, he grabbed up a black, nylon carry-all and slung it over his shoulder, being careful not to dislodge Gislan's trode-set from beneath his headband. "You ready?" He asked the older man.

With a nod, the two veterans exited the van and began to move cautiously towards the Shiawase labs. At the last corner, they paused to listen, acclimatizing their senses to the sounds of the objective.

"Ya gotta be kiddin' me," Lobo whispered. "That's it??!!"

Even though having his tac computer deactivated, left him feeling extremely naked, Lobo was still able to use his cyber-eyes' magnification to scan the target site. What he saw was this: a small cluster of overly neglected, apartment towers. They each had six-stories and all of their lower windows were smashed out, probably by a bored local thrill gang or two. Without his computer "riding shotgun," Lobo couldn't detect any signs of life at all.

"SShhh!" Came the hushed reply, "pipe down and watch."

Lobo was beginning to decide that the whole mission was a nothing but a ruse to lure him into an execution site, when a guard appeared in one of the apartment's doorways. He paused there a moment then began to move.

"Watch where he goes," Durak whispered.

Lobo did, mentally assigning tags to the buildings. The guard went from building 1 to building 3, then to building 5, then to 6. After a pause, he emerged and headed back to 5, to 3, and disappeared back into the first building.

The two, security men waited. Seventeen minutes later, the guard re-appeared. This time the pattern was 1 to 3 to 4 to 6 and back to 4 to 3 to 1. At +29 minutes, it was "1,2,3,5,3,2,1."

Lobo and Durak pulled back. "What do you think?" Durak asked.

"There's no external security, that I could see. Just that deputy dawg," Lobo replied. "I think he's all alone and knows it." It was an old security trick. The guard was trying to make the grounds appear more occupied. He was multiplying his numbers. Unfortunately, it was blindingly obvious from his motions, that building number one held the real labs and probably the only ammo and commo gear.

"I agree," Durak smiled.

They waited through one more pattern, then silently approached the nearest building, number five, and took up defensive positions in its lobby. It took the guard only one more pattern to include their location in his rounds. As soon as he entered the apartment, Lobo and Durak subdued him, borrowed his uniform, and shackled him to a column in the middle of the room.

After a heated discussion over whether or not to let the captured guard live, Lobo re-occupied his position. He'd won the battle this time, but he knew he wouldn't be able to hold Durak nor his utter disregard for human life in check much longer. The only reason his boss'd given in was that the mission-clock was now ticking. But other than satisfying his bloodlust, there'd been no reason to geek this sec guard. They hadn't so much as been glimpsed, even as they attacked him.

It was the same old situation that Lobo had always faced while on missions with Durak and the whole affair sickened him. During his military career, he'd seen his own share of action. Yes, there was a time to kill, just as there was a time to die, he thought. But this was neither of them. This seemed ignoble and senseless.

Instead he turned his attention to the window beside him, peering through it, into the complex's courtyard. While behind him, Durak finished slipping into the gaurd's jacket. Lobo watched as his boss re-traced the guard's movements from building to building, eventually stopping before door number one. There, Durak motioned for Lobo to join him.

The younger man crossed the courtyard at chipped speeds, keeping to the shadows where he could. When he arrived at the door, Durak was gesturing at the door's keypad. No problem, Lobo thought, and began to rummage through his bag for a passcode sequencer.

But his boss waved him off. Half a minute later, the lock blinked from red to green and the door popped open. This told Lobo three things: one, that their overwatch had successfully penetrated this level of Shiawase's net, two, there was commo between Durak and the decker, only, and three, this decker's function was probably just to watch over Durak's hoop and not his.

As they entered, Lobo found himself in the center of a long, transverse hallway. The building's interior was clean and antiseptic, in sharp contrast to its shoddy exterior. Wooden paneling ran halfway up the walls which were painted a in a uniform shade of powder blue. The ceiling had twin rows of recessed softwhite fluorescents. There were potted plants situated at strategic intervals. In all, it looked more like a typical corporate corridor.

Looking down, Lobo couldn't help noticing the tell-tale signs of the floor's pressure-plates. But he knew that according to their SOP, the decker would be occupied for the next few minutes, randomly shutting off security zones to mask their presence. Provided, they were all using the same SOP.

Near the hall's left end, a door was marked, "STAIRS." They carefully made their way to the door, then headed down at normal speed, half a flight apart. No pressure plates here. Three sub-basements later, Lobo crouched by a heavy security door and waited for Durak to catch up. Once again after a pause, the lock blinked from red to green.

Lobo was about to pull the door, when Durak signed for a halt. Ten seconds passed ...twenty...thirty. And Durak nodded, "all clear." Lobo pulled the door open a crack and watched a guard's back vanish around a corner. Interesting. Their progress in the stairwell was being monitored by their decker, but their presence apparently wasn't being broadcast to Shiawase's security.

They headed down this hall, in the direction from which the guard had come. No pressure plates here either, Lobo noted, but plenty of R&D Labs--and this was just the basement. Their briefing map had been accurate to this point: left at the next junction, to the sixth door on the right, he remembered.

The door's plate read:

Atmospheric Control NO Admittance. This means YOU!

The two security men exchanged raised eyebrows at the last line, before taking up defensive positions at its sides. Predictably, this mag-locked door also had a keypad/card-reader. Now it was up to their decker to pop it.

While he crouched by the door, Lobo really began to notice the effects of not being able to access his tac computer. Without consciously realizing it, he'd grown accustomed to its presence. Since he'd agreed to its installation back in '39, this particular piece of silicon had become more like a traveling companion--the voice inside his head. But now he was cut off. Normally, with it riding shotgun, he'd have been able to detect and track the movements of any approaching guards, but now he felt oddly insecure, somewhere between naked and blind. As he waited, his cybereye ticked off the minutes: one...two...three. The lock still showed red. Way too long, he thought and swung his gaze from the end of the hallway over to Durak's position. His boss must have realized it too, for he raised a finger, signaling, "one minute."

Those sixty seconds passed with an agonizing slowness, but nothing happened. No guards appeared, the halls remained empty, and the lock remained locked. Durak frowned and stabbed a finger, first at Lobo's bag, then at the keypad. The message was clear: use the sequencer, now!

As Lobo rummaged through his carry-all, he began to weigh their options. One way or another they'd lost the decker. He'd most likely been dumped or brain-fried or his deck had been slagged. Either way he was out of the picture. Durak's mission had become more difficult, while at the same time his own plan had just gotten easier.

Prying the lock's cover off, only took Lobo a few seconds, even though he'd had to by-pass a fairly clever anti-tamper alarm. After that, it had been child's play to interface the sequencer with the wiring inside. As he worked, clipping a wire here, attaching a shunt there, he marveled at the overall simplicity of the flat, gray, plastic box.

A passcode sequencer is a device designed to feed a security microprocessor a series of key-sequences, based on advanced mathematical algorithms, then analyze the lock's reactions, and try again--as opposed to trying all of the possible alpha/numeric combinations. Which was a good thing, since a lock like this probably had on the order of 36¹⁰ potential codes. Lobo finished his connections and flipped a switch. The lock's indicators began to strobe: red..green..red..green..red. The two lights pulsed faster and faster as codes were summarily tried and rejected. At times it appeared to be predominately red; seconds later, green seemed to be the mode o' choice. If they had been available on the open market, this particular type of sequencer would have run nearly ¥750,000. But they weren't -- they were illegal as hell. With a final flicker, the red light winked out and the green light assumed a steady-state, as the lock's processor compliantly surrendered in shameful defeat.

With this final security measure defeated, nothing lay between Lobo, Durak and Shiawase's air purification systems. Again, like trained soldiers, the two operatives began to place the aerosols, falling into the nearly subconscious, over-rehearsed patterns of "select, arm, set," "select, arm, set."

"That's all of 'em," Lobo said, at last, "slot and run."

"No, I don't think so," Durak coldly replied, leveling a small tonal generator at the younger man.

Lobo bristled, weighing his options. They were standing nearly 6 meters apart. He had no tac computer for guidance and he had no real assurance that the dwarf's trodes would block the signals from Durak's tone generator box at this range.

"You been a royal pain in my hoop since day one, boy," Durak gestured with the box, while taking a few steps backwards. Apparently he was unsure of the bomb's blast radius. Lobo held his ground as Teflon-braided muscles tensed near-invisibly.

"Brackhaus says they're gonna reorganize our department soon, into 'Dragon Strike Teams' or some such drek," Durak explained, still backing away, "along the lines of UCAS' SEAL Teams or the Brit's SAS Commandos." The two men now stood seven meters apart.

"When the dust settles, promotions will follow swiftly. And the last thing I need is the Big L's 'pet' standing in my way. So, I'm eliminating the competition." Durak aimed his box, as a beads of sweat began to form about his face, "starting, NOW!"

On that word, Durak 'fired' the generator, wincing at the cortex bomb's anticipatory detonation, which (thank Gislan) never happened. Instead, Lobo exploded forward at a speed attainable only with advanced synaptic acceleration, covering the distance between them in seconds flat. To give him credit, in the face of his former partner's onslaught, Durak actually managed to press the box's button two or three times, before Lobo one-punched him into unconsciousness.

Durak groggily awoke to the distinctive clicking sounds of nylon restraint cuffs being fitted to his arms and legs. He appeared to be securely duct-taped into a heavy office chair. His first impulse was to shout, 'what the frag are you doing?' But all that came out was, "hmmp hn hrmm hr hu humn?"

Lobo pretended to ignore his ex-boss, instead crossing to the other side of the lavishly appointed office. There he knelt on an expanse very plush carpeting and began to pick up his "toys," replacing them in his bag. He'd had to take the stairs and that hadn't been part of the plan. Their presumed-dead decker had apparently fragged up the vators' controls. But with Durak in tow, he'd made it all the way to the sixth floor, where he'd selected a suit-able corner office, whose door read, "Director of Advanced Marketing."

"MMM MHHM MMR-HMMR!" Durak roared, while thoughtfully checking that Lobo's restraints were all holding properly.

"Yes," Lobo replied, undaunted, "this is a lovely office." He stowed a few kilos of C-12 into one of the bag's side pockets.

"Mmmnh!!" Durak tried to curse. Blood began to trickle from beneath the cuffs at his wrists and ankles.

"Sure I like the carpet's feel," Lobo answered, "but I don't know about these periwinkle hues. I mean, what if you spilled something fuchsia on it?" He gathered the last of his timers and shoveled them into another pocket.

"Hmm hn mm mmmnh?" Durak moaned with a deep loathing in his eyes.

"In you mouth?" Lobo looked up with mock concern, "why, even the greenest recruit would recognize that 'standard-issue, UCAS, frag grenade, fused with a radio-remote detonator.'"

Durak's eyes widened notably, "mmn mnh?"

"Yes, I agree, it's amazing what one can do with duct tape." Lobo finished policing the floor's 'underbrush.' The office was completely free of explosive devices, save one. Durak's eyes descended on it and with a grim realization, he began to whimper quietly.

"Okay, hotshot, Demo 101." Lobo picked up the object. "Can you identify this?"

"Mmn mm mnh." It was obvious that he already had.

"Close, it's normally called a 'dead-man's switch,' but in this case it's a 'soon-to-be-dead-man's switch.'"

"Mmh hmm mmmn!"

"Correct. Closing the door holds the plunger shut." Lobo cheerfully scooped up his bag and slung over one shoulder. "You have been studying, haven't you?" He crossed to the door, pausing only to listen for the presence of guards in the hallway. Then he clipped the detonator switch to the inside of the door at eye-level.

From his secured position, Durak was (literally) unable to look away from the detonator's green winking eye. He knew from bitter experience that once the device was armed and its plunger was firmly depressed, it would hold in this 'stand-by mode,' refraining from radioing its trigger sequence. That was, until some fool opened the door and released the plunger.

Lobo knew this, too, and calmly moved the detonator's selector from 'safe' to 'armed.' Before Durak's eyes, the device blinked from green to red. This was accompanied by a soft, "ping."

"Right, there's the bell. Any questions?"

"Mmm mhhmm mmnh mmhm mm mmr mmmrmn?" Durak made pleading noises from around the grenade.

"Homework? Okay, for next time, compose a 1000-word essay on the long-term effects of induced stress due to the proximity of live explosives. Class dismissed!" And with that, Lobo closed the door on a chapter of his life.

He stood in the hallway for a second, admiring his handiwork. From there, it was a only quick sprint to the stairs, then up to the roof. After that, a few seconds were spent gauging the correct windage, before he fired a cable-gun at a neighboring roof top. This was in turn followed by a brief slide into space with the assistance of a pulley.

Gislan was waiting for him as he landed on the adjacent building. The dwarf was lying prone at the roof's edge, behind a strategically-placed City-Master windshield. He was dressed in camo'd fatigues done up in an 'urban assault' pattern, complete with a matching pair of binoculars.

"I vas beginning to vorry."

"Sorry, I had to make him stay after class and beat the erasers."

Gislan ignored the apparently private joke and said, "you know you're practically SIN-less, now."

A lull in the conversation ensued, while Lobo positioned himself next to his friend.

"So?"

"Vell, you'll need anodher name."

"And you already have one in mind?"

The dwarf nodded, "from Olde Norse mytos. I tink I'll dub you, 'Fenris.'"

"'Fenris,' hunh? Has a nice ring to it." He thought to himself for a few minutes. Turning the new name over in his mind. Fennnnnrisssss.

"It has something to do with wolves, right?" He asked, at last. "I don't go in for all that myth-stuff."

"'Fenris' vas Loki's brother, a legendary volf, dhat broke free of his bonds und slew his masters.

"Fitting, but I'm not free, yet. Any number of things could still go wrong. That decker kid's hit-and-run could fail or his tampering with Durak's accounts could be discovered. Durak could find a way to get loose. And even if he doesn't, we don't have the same physical description."

"Vill you relax? Dhey von't release his body, not publicly anyvay. It'd cause vay too much embarrassment. Shiavase vill probably figure out vhich megacorp pulled dhis run, but dhey'll neffer understand vhat happened in dhat office. I also doubt dhey'll be eager to share any findings vit our 'former' corp." Gislan shifted his weight from one elbow to his other, shaking out the sore one. "Humn? How long do you tink ve'll haff to vait?"

"Depends..." Fenris né Lobo said, adjusting his cyber-eyes' magnification. The near-motionless form of Durak was barely discernible behind the overstuffed & imposing, office chair.

"...depends on how tight Shiawase's security really is." They were lying directly across from the Director of Advanced Marketing's windows.

Another pause.

"Vell, you left all of his office lights on..." Gislan noted, reflecting that one of the most irritating problems with stakeouts was the participants quickly ran out of things to talk to each other about. "...but it could still take dhem hours to notice."

Pause.

"I also taped a line of arrows to the floor," Fenris grinned, "from that office all the way back to the vators."

Gislan smirked, but only a little. "So, back to your scuba skills. Haff you kept dhem up?"

"Well, I suppose they could use some practice."

"Fine. How about tomorrow?"

Fenris didn't know how to reply. After a measured interval, he began, "you know, maybe I should've taped a "Don't Look in Here!" sign to the d..."

From across the street the Advanced Marketing Director's window convulsed once, then exploded violently in a shower of glass, blood, and batting. Several large shards angrily embedded themselves in the ledge at the base of the CityMaster's windshield. The former company operative cautiously leaned up to watch as the rest tumbled to earth in a perverse ballet of moonlit fragments.

Using the resulting confusion as cover, Gislan and a newly unburdened Fenris simply drove their respective vans back to Bayside Salvage, following two different routes.

*
*
*

Far off in one corner of Seattle's LTG, deep within a vast corporate construct's accounting sub-processor, a simple, unassuming, smart-frame executed a 'return' statement, having successfully completed a precisely programmed series of do-loops. From there, it executed a de-cloaking subroutine, which brought it out of 'ultra-masking' mode. To an impartial observer, it would have now appeared as just another accounting checksum program. After executing another 'return,' it set about completing its final instructions set. These included, purchasing a one-way sub-orbital ticket to the Carrib-League in Durak's name, transferring all of Durak's (rather, sizable) public and private funds to an 'anonymous,' numbered, Carrib-League account, and then finally deleting itself out of existence.