“Goddamn it!”
We could hear the shout through the wall. Samuel was pissed, despite the fact we were working through the weekend. We’d combed the files he’d given us and turned up nothing. No-one seemed to be receiving irregular payments or unaccounted for injections. It was entirely possible that it just wasn’t recorded, but that became a job for people with warrants, not us.
Of course, it would have been helpful if we had access to Raven Microcyber’s records as well, but that was a bit more difficult. Didn’t stop Samuel muttering about it after we told him the bad news. Crave was talking to him, which may have been a bad move. Samuel could easily hold Crave’s “connections” over him. He wouldn’t normally, it wasn’t his style, but it was possible if Samuel was under enough pressure.
I didn’t really have anything to do bar listen to the argument, so I was sitting back in my chair, eyes closed, trying to rest a bit. Sunday was supposed to be relaxing for me anyway, and the stupid damn Festival was tonight. Max and Anna had already gone home, but I was hanging around because I was supposed to be in charge, after all.
The yelling stopped and about a minute later I felt a tap on my shoulder. Crave gestured out the door.
“Go home, Ziska. We’re pretty much sorted here.”
I nodded, still blinking from the change in light. “’Kay. You alright with him?”
Crave sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be leaving shortly too. He knows we’re not getting any more out of what he’s given us.” He took a sip out of his mug of coffee. It smelt almost painfully strong. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.”
“Depends on Raven’s defence, I guess.” I replied.
Crave looked at me for a moment, downed the rest of his coffee and said “No. No work talk. I’m going home, you’re going home. I’m going to take Harriet out for dinner. She’s under pressure because of this too.”
I was already clearing up my desk. “Alright. Thanks, Crave.” I said.
“Nah, you did all the work time.” He replied. “Good work, by the way.”
– – –
Vy and I had a Festival tradition, though it was pretty minor. We headed out and had dinner, sorta like old times. It wasn’t a major thing, but I really liked doing it. We were headed out to somewhere a little fancier, but we’d stopped by a little stall in the meantime and picked up some pizzaballs. I peeled away a segment and bit down. My mouth was flooded with pineapple, ham and cheese, all at roughly ten degrees too warm to be comfortable.
Vy being Vy, that’s when she decided to ask me questions. “So, what’s the plan for this evening?”
I glared at her and slowed down deliberately and obviously. She grinned and slowly broke into a giggle. By the time I was done, chewing very, very slowly, she was laughing her head off.
“I’m not sure.” I said, trying to make myself heard and keep my voice down at the same time. “The Run’s going to have to be quick or Matsushima’s going to destroy us.” We could see their headquarters from here, green pine logo shining over the city.
Vy became more serious, though she was still grinning like an idiot. “Well, if you have to get out, get out.”
“I know, I know.” I said. “No point getting caught.”
We wandered on for a while. Can’t speak for Vy, but I was thinking about tonight, so my responses were probably pretty vague. By the time we’d arrived at the restaurant, I was getting seriously worried about the Festival. After we were bundled to our reservation I settled down pretty quickly, though. Vy was, as always, spectacular company. We ordered takoyaki and watched some Runs from other people’s perspective, where Vy pointed out stuff that people had done to appear impressive not just on their own streams, but on other peoples’. Golden Boy was a master at this, as was to be expected.
We loitered, ordering plate after plate of whatever we felt like trying. The ox tongue was particularly nice.
We left at eleven. I had to get fitted and Vy had to be set up. We’d probably left it a little late, but neither of us really wanted to head off. Getting home was quick enough, but the starting point was a fair way away.
I opened the door and jogged over to my limbs and Masque, skipping past the stuff on the floor. A quick look over revealed a slight amount of damage to the helmet and a lot of dust. I hadn’t cleaned it since Friday’s run, something I was starting to regret. Still, not much choice now. I fitted my racing limbs into the Spider and pulled on my leathers.
The Spider did it’s job quickly and I ran some super-light tests. Everything checked out.
After I dropped out of my window, I decided to take a quick detour. Vy’s talk about looking good on other’s videos was still in my head and the City Gardens were usually running their sprinklers at time of night. The water was sometimes used as an obstacle. I’d be cutting it fine, but I’d look a lot better.
I slipped over the spiked fence, landing on the grass and almost right on top of a sprinkler. I was immediately pelted with droplets of water, blocking my vision and making it’s endless series of thuds seemingly right next to my ear. The beam of water moved on, though and I found myself drenched, but clean.
I left the park, vaulting the fence again. I checked the time and realised I’d made a mistake; I wasn’t going to be there on time. They were usually slower starting than they’d said they would be, so I wasn’t worried about missing the Run, but part of my Masque was always being there on time.
I had to take a shortcut.
It was risky, but the best option was to cut through a second storey mall. I used a car as a springboard clambered up over the edge, only to see a crowd staring at me. The mall was still open.
I pushed through the people, aiming for whatever blank spots in the crowd I could find. I was leaving a trail of water behind me as I ran. People jumped out of the way, yelling and screaming. This saved me from warning the people with their back to me, as I engaged my wheels. The flat, firm ground was perfect for using them and I picked up speed rapidly.
The mall ended quickly enough and I came out much, much closer than I had been. Unfortunately, I came out right next to Glass, who started that laugh of hers as she saw the chaos I’d left behind.
“Hey, Queenie! In a bit of a hurry?”
I ignored her and powered on, headed straight for the start area. She followed, laughing occasionally.
The Suntree loomed out of the buildings ahead, the lights underneath it reflecting off the bottom. It blocked out the horizon, eating the cityscape with patches of black. Advertising butterflies were clustered underneath, refilling their batteries. We were starting on top of the Suntree, so I had to climb once again. I reached the designated building, fire escape already lowered from where other Runners had made their way to the top. I climbed the stairs, Glass chattering away beside me. Part of the benefit of my Masque was I could ignore a lot of what she was saying.
We reached the rooftop, and it was packed. There were four different branches of Suntree touching the roof, and we could choose any of them to start, but there were more Runners up here than I thought there’d be.
Glass split off and headed to a different area than where I was starting. Kraken got up on the air-conditioner box, the highest point on the roof, and started to talk. The first couple of words were drowned out by people talking, but they quieted down in time for me to hear.
“…for coming today. I know this is an intimidating choice for Festival venue, but it should be an excellent run.” He tilted his head slightly, looking at something on the inside of his helmet. A couple of seconds past and then he spoke again. “The Run starts in exactly two minutes from… now.”
A count-down started on the inside of my helmet as Kraken jumped down. I moved towards the edge and looked at the Suntree. You couldn’t normally see it from above, so the branches being coated in shining blue hexagons came as a bit of a surprise, though I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. They spread without number, covering everything that might reasonably see sunlight. Where it met the building the tiles infiltrated the brick and cement, growing over the surface before fading out when they got too far from the core of the branches.
The Runners clustered around the edge shined lights all over it, trying to trace it as far as possible. There were probably maps of the Suntree somewhere, but the most recent ones weren’t publicly available and it reshaped itself regularly. In some ways this would be a exploration as well as a race. A few Runners had gone out onto the branches before circling back, testing their weight and what damage they’d do. The tiles had proved to be resilient, fortunately. Most of us weren’t keen on causing damage to the Suntree or other people’s property in general.
We were down to a minute now, and people were starting to be serious. There were about fifteen Runners where I was starting. The most notable ones Fivefold and Spearhead, a man dressed all in grey, with a sharp, angular costume. He was a serious guy. Fivefold was messing around with their suit, folding it in to form it’s usual shape. It wasn’t really clear how far the paper motif really went.
I was at the back of our cluster, not keen on fighting straight out of the gate. The clock ticked past 30 seconds and the final preparations slotted into place. People stretched and took up their positions.
The calm lasted for about ten seconds, before my helmet told me to “GO!” and everyone sprung.
I accelerated hard, but remained at the back of our pack. That was fine, for now. Spearhead was jostling with a few Runners ahead of me, and managed to pull one just enough for them to fall off the Suntree.
One down already.
They sent a “safe” message, but they were out of the race now. Even if they weren’t disqualified, there was no time to make it back up on top of the Suntree.
The tiles were blurring underneath my feet as I kept up, hoping for a gap to slip through. The branch we were on split in three up ahead and I’d already decided on taking the left one.
Then Fivefold tossed something forward and it exploded in smoke, a wall of it. We couldn’t see the branches or each other. I raised my arms in the rough direction of where I remembered the branch to be and fired my Special, the push of air shredding the smoke and catching one of the other Runners out, causing them to fall.
Oops.
I made it on to the left-hand branch, out through the smoke. Fivefold was on the middle branch and far ahead now, streams of smoke still fading from their armour. Spearhead was on my track, but behind me somehow. I assumed he’d followed the noise and clarity my Special had brought.
I was still looking back when the messaging system we were using beeped, startling me. Kraken’s voice broke out over it.
“Matsushima’s here, guys. We’re gonna call off the race.” There were Dog howls and shouting through the communication. “It’s not only Dogs. They’ve got people here too. We’re not sure how many. Point is, get out of here. Now.”
And then I couldn’t see, as a spotlight blasted down from above.
Running Silver 