Running Black: a bit of fan fiction.

 Terrible cyberpunk fan, I am.  Here's a bit of a story that's been lurking in my mind for a bit. I blame it all on Will Gibson. And then Neal Asher.

RUNNING BLACK
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Prelude: INITIALIZE

Dawson -Hull Conglomerate, Regional Offices. London, England. New European Union. 02:18 hours
He wasn’t going to make it, but he kept running anyway. In the last seconds of the data hack, the dark silence exploded; now the air quivered with sirens and every single light in the building pulsed in phosphorus white. Talk about a mission shot to hell. They’d come so close. And now the ronin flew through the maze of offices, sprinting back the way he’d come. Security hacks were shouting, popping out in front of him like training targets in a kill house. He focused just enough to stitch ragged holes across uniformed chests and kept running. One last speed-stim tumbled everything together in a rabid blur. It was other dead that rose in his mind: Riko going down under a wave of drones, Karl choking on his own blood, Mahoud shredded by a turret’s auto cannon. Even Daffid, so cool, and precise, was spattered all over the lower level garage behind him, buying these last seconds. One slip, and lives were snubbed out like cigarettes. He was the only one left.

Another guard folded up, then the click, click, click of the empty chamber registered. Now that was gone too. ‘What’s the use?’ his mind asked, but the 500 million worth of datafiles on his forearm pad kept his body running. He didn’t know or care what they were. He just needed to get outside. The facility was shielded and the infra-red beam needed a clear sky for a burst transmission. A stealthed drone had been first on the load-out list - talk about a clue. Whoever hired them wasn’t convinced of a clean getaway. And they’d been right. He darted left, almost there. At least Mira and the kids would get benefits and a percentage.

The final stretch was empty. For a second he imagined he’d get clear. He almost laughed, but his lungs were heaving and muscles burning on the last ragged edges of the stim boost. He burst through the double doors onto the concourse smack into the sharp reek of garbage and diesel that burned in his nostrils, and a night sky was littered with stars. Someone shouted, but he was out. Still at full speed he raised his arm and thumbed the transmitter. His ears heard the code bleat out, his eyes saw the helmets silhouetted against muzzle flashes. Rounds tore through him but they were too late - the machine valkyrie was bearing the numbers away. He did laugh then. Tri-bursts scoured his body, then all forward motion ceased in jerks and shudders as he tumbled to the asphalt. Blood was running now. Laying there, staring up, all the overdue pain came crowding in at once. It was finished though. He saw the sky, the stars, and thought of Mira. Then everything winked out.

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Part 1: SEQUENCE LOAD

Secure Research Facility, Southern France, New European Union, same night, 03:56 hours

It was overcast and we came in from a mile up. A moonless night, with new drop rigs and the 6 of us were inside their perimeter like vampires stepping out of the mist. It was that clean. We dumped the packs and crouched together waiting another full minute. All their security routines had just been lifted and raped blind, so we owned every null space and nanosecond. That’s what we were told, anyway. But Tam Song wasn’t the trusting sort, so the 6 of us were geared up in Mitsubishi stealth armor, running 3rd tier ECM, with no less than 3 of our own drones ghosting over the facility squirting real-time into our HUDS. All this was out of pocket, but teams had been left cold before because some corporate arbitrator cut a last minute deal and a hundred million in freelance fees became a bump in an expense account no one wanted to explain. Now the players on this little job were already running in serious territory, so trouble was hanging in the air like a bad smell and none of us at Song Associates were interested in the Death Benefits clause in our contract.



After nothing exploded or started wailing, Tam waved our gun boys ahead. The albino Triplets were the last of N’kosa Mambi’s fever dream of an African empire; illegal combat clones he’d gene-modded to their eyeballs, literally. Most of them had been hunted down and exterminated by Coalition forces after the battle of Angel Falls, but these three had made it out. They were designer soldiers; lethal savants grown in vats, raised by V.R. tactical programs, and honed by the Sub-Saharan bush wars. I watched them glide forward wrapped in night vision green, waltzing with their eerie grace, then settle into new positions further onto the little plaza. The whole time their HK’s tracked every approach. Flawless. They’d never been given names so we just called them Flopsey, Mopsey, and Cottontail: our killer bunnies.



Tam was on the micro-bead “Poet9, I need a splice on their local net. Probably a Node in that guard station. Jace will take you there.”



Poet9 was our Net cutter - a splicer from the Mexico city zones. Ten years ago, he’d cobbled a deck together from the scrap heaps and one sweltering night from his cinderblock hut, hotlined the Public Access and hacked his way into BioGen’s financial AI. After five minutes inside, he’d shifted a million credits and spent the next day rich. He was 15 at the time. BioGen went spastic tracing him, and when the Sec-teams broke down the door, they gave him an option: two in the hat or a seat at their Security grid. He took the job. Three years back he dug out his Chip and wound up in Tam Song’s office. Been with us ever since - likes the freedom and rush of freelance work.



I slipped out and intercepted Poet9 on the move and we shifted left towards the guard house. A combined barracks and security bunker, no amount of landscaping and avant-garde sculpture could hide it’s squat ugly shape. It had thick poly-steel plating, and multiple Comms relays on the roof. Pop out panels for the sentinel turrets tastefully displayed the corporate logo holos on a 5 minute loop. They cast shifting glows on every side of the station, but other than that there was no movement. Perimeter patrols weren’t due for another 17 minutes, so that meant all 4 guards were still inside, biding time against the night chill. We approached the double doors.

“Smooth as silk, Jace.” Poet muttered.

“So far.” I squeezed the grip of my SMG and the flex stock automatically cinched tighter. In the dim light it looked like some alien insect was trying to mate with my forearm, but the 6mm IMI Blizzard is a dead-on bullet hose - no other gun comes close. I kept peering into the dark, waiting for something to snap, but Poet was oblivious. I brought the Blizzard up and nodded, then he flipped open the data pad on his wrist and keyed one of our drones to override the cameras. 53 seconds later the desk guard was dead and we were inside.

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Ultra tech surveillance arrays, area denial turrets, miniaturized drones, laser trips, smart mines, all of it nowadays is lethal and precise. And predictable. Predictable is good. Automated systems can be hacked, bypassed with the right code or tech key. It’s humans that are a problem. Human guards have intuition; that gut feeling that something is just not right. Get that creeping suspicion, and it’s better to slap the panic button and get chewed out for a false alarm than end up shackled in front of an executive committee explaining how you spaced a hostile infil. Oh, there’s still plenty of hardcore left-overs who can loot and shoot, but that’s not the reason they‘re still around. It’s instinct; there’s no robotic substitute for it.



So the best in covert work run black. Not just get their Chip removed, step out of civilized society and learn to ghost through security grids. A black market doctor and stealth gear can take care of that. It means go blank, void. Turn empty. A real operative can null down their psychic profile so there’s no trace, no sense of person there. It’s a gift; either you have it, or you don’t. I have it. Tam Song has it. That’s why we were still alive, doing nasty things for mega-corporations, governments, and the occasional PMI contract. No matter how they despised us, or what they said behind our backs, Song Associates Inc. was the best covert team in system. We get in. We get out. We deliver. Posers, hacks, and straight mercs come and go - but running black is different. It’s life at the shadow’s edge.

I left Poet9 at the desk while I moved down the halls for the last three guards. He’d have to jack in at their Control room in the center of the barracks uninterrupted so there was no skipping them. Schematics put the armory just down from a break room, and with a patrol due, that’s where they’d be. I dropped my blade into my left hand - just in case - and I moved with the Blizzard straight armed and sighted.

Sure enough, two were suiting up in the armory, half dressed, helmets, shotguns and radios all neat on a table. I closed the door with a click and they turned looking for one of their partners. The Blizzard coughed neat holes in their faces and they crumpled, disappointed, on the floor.

I switched off the light and slipped back out into the hall. One to go. Where was he - sleep or food?
I sub-vocaled Poet9, “Two more down. Desk monitors got eyes on the fourth?”
A few second later, “Nothing on screen. Find him fast. I need access before the next sequence. Want me to call Tam?”
“Just be ready. I’m on it.” I said, and slipped right, towards the break room and kitchen. Instinct works both ways.

I found him eating. Older guy with a rank badge and cold eyes; probably a vet. Definitely modded because he was up and moving at warp speed the second I spun in thru the door. The Blizzard stitched a neat row on the wall behind where he’d been. He crash flipped a table for cover and dodged left towards a Comms panel. I moved to cut him off with the Blizzard spitting, but he came up on my right with an ugly snub carry piece. Definitely a vet. Two shots roared in the small room and panels splintered next to my head. My turn to dodge. I tumbled and slid into some chairs and came up hosing the area until the breech locked open. As my thumb hit the ejection and the empty mag slid down out of the grip, he came up with those eyes and that backup piece lasered in on me. My left arm whipped around and suddenly my knife sprouted from his neck. He went down backwards and out of sight. Blades don’t need reloading..

Then Tam was in the doorway. “You finished?” He moved to the body, yanked my knife out, wiped it and tossed it back. “Poet’s in and he thinks we have to move on the labs now.”