There was a general call put out for the raw footage of Sunday, the Festival night. Most of the Admins agreed to pass over their footage to Vy, who was acting as an intermediary. Everyone had already seen her footage, after all. Rather than call yet another meeting, about a quarter of the Admins, appointed by Vy, worked together to go through all of the raw footage and hunt for Glass.
She was in nearly every Runner’s footage.
It was insane. She was rarely on camera for more than a second, totally miss-able at the speed with which Admins habitually watched the races. She turned up everywhere, once you were looking for it. Usually, she was just entering or leaving frame, clearly searching for something. A couple of times she was hoisted into a helicopter or slipped out of one onto the Suntree or down an alley, purloining a couple of Dogs from any wandering packs.
I was in Vy’s home, watching her work. It wasn’t relaxing, watching her scan hours of footage of the one event, but it was nice to be doing nothing for once and I had a jelly frog. It had been a very busy week.
We were talking about the unmarked Dogs on the Friday that had started all of this off. Vy had, for a break, brought up the original footage and confirmed they were unmarked. How looking through more video was a “break” I didn’t really understand, but Admins were usually a little strange.
“They’re probably Raven or some other third party.” Vy said.
“That doesn’t explain why they were there, though. We weren’t even in Raven territory, and they rarely bother with external issues.” I replied. “It’s more likely that Matsushima just has some unmarked Dogs running around, no matter how illegal that is.”
Vy hummed, uncertain. I bit into my jelly frog as she thought, apple and ginger flooding my mouth. I’d grabbed a cluster of snacks before heading over, knowing we were in for a long night.
Vy shrugged. “I don’t know who’s they are, Ziska. Probably best to leave it alone.”
Such reluctance was unusual for Vy, but entirely understandable. I changed the subject to the thing that had gotten us into this mess in the first place.
“So, any good Runs lately?” I asked.
Vy’s face lit up and I couldn’t help but grin along. I tried to keep up, but between work and actually participating, we hadn’t had a Run night in a long time.
“I kept a list! Come have a look!”
I hauled a beanbag over near the monitor, without leaving it’s comfort. I kicked over a can on the way, knocking it over and causing the logo on the side to swirl and show the companies tagline, before fading back to the logo.
When I was finally settled, Vy put on the first video. It was pretty good, a Run Kraken had made in the east part of the city. He was quick and stable, rarely forced to move unexpectedly. He timed his ink Special to cover part of a fork in the road, something that had caused crashes before. It was solid, exciting play and a good Run.
We spent the better part of three hours watching Run after Run, before I faded out.
– – –
Vy woke me with a poke to the face, half a two litre jug of heavily caffeinated soda and a worried expression. I rubbed the sleep out my eyes, forgetting my hands were cold after I slept a while. The shock of that and a mug of the aforementioned soda finished waking me up, so I could deal with the third part.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“I was browsing the rest of the Festival footage and-”
“Still?” I interrupted her. “Dedication.”
She frowned. “It’s all gotta be done and you were out of it, so I figured I might as well. Anyway, I came across some stuff you’ll need to see. It’s to do with your Running mates.”
That doesn’t sound good.
Vy turned her screen to face me and tapped the spacebar heavily. The video was pretty much stuff we’d seen before; Glass turns the corner, Dogs in tow, comes across a Runner. Instead of moving on, however, she rolled down the Suntree branch towards Pitch, cornering her against the wall of a building. The Runner taking the footage was moving on, though, and we lost any view of the rest of the exchange.
“There’s something very similar for Torrent.” Vy said. “I checked, they didn’t hand over their footage.”
I made a face.
“So, we can confront them, and ask personally, or we can present this to everyone else.” She continued. “I don’t really think there’s a hurry. They’ve either deleted the footage by now or they will keep it for security or something.”
I didn’t really want to deal with this right now. I was still tired and had barely eaten anything. Vy didn’t have anything here that looked worth eating, either and I wasn’t quite hungry enough for three-day old Chinese… I was getting distracted.
“What happens when the other Admins get this footage, though?” I asked.
Vy shrugged. “Not a clue, but they’re more likely to present it at a meeting, I think.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Talk to them.” She replied. “They’re probably in a similar situation to you, confronted and worried about looking bad if they hand it up. That goes double now you have handed your footage up.”
“That makes sense.” I said. “But first, food.”
I opened Vy’s door and was greeted with a sunrise, not the stars I’d been expecting.
“Exactly how long was I asleep?” I asked.
Vy looked a bit sheepish. “A few hours.”
“And you haven’t slept yet?”
“Nope.” She shook the remainder of the soda at me. “Sleep is for the weak.”
I sighed. We went to get hashbrowns.
– – –
I was always surprised at people’s reactions to us ordering and laughing together, until I remembered that Vy, who’d thrown on something resembling a jacket, with pockets everywhere, had never wanted to look professional in her life. I was pretty much forced to wear a suit by my work, and I was in the crumpled remains still. It was never really so much shock as just a mild surprise, but the sort that lead to uncertain questions. One older person had even asked if Vy was my rebellious child, a fact she still teased me about on occasion.
We’d managed to get a booth and a plate of hashbrowns. I’d grabbed a coffee to stop my slow crawl back into sleep, but Vy was pretty wired at this point and had just elected for more sugar instead.
I needed less food than was standard, just because I had less biomass than standard, too. Still, I had about 10 hashbrowns in front of me, along with a fork and what was probably a deceptively empty stomach. Still I waited for Vy to start eating.
“So, if we do talk to Torrent and Pitch, how should we do it?” I asked.
She talked with her mouth full, completely negating my revenge and to some extent, my desire for food. “Just straight-up. ‘Yo, saw you talking to Glass on footage, what’s up with that?’, kinda thing.”
“That’s… brave and potentially dumb. I don’t want to fight these people.”
Fortunately, she finished chewing and swallowed before replying. “Nah, Pitch likes directness and Torrent just doesn’t like being messed about. I know these people too, remember.”
“And you know me better than I do, yeah, yeah, I know.” I stuck my tongue out at her and she stole one of my hashbrowns.
“I know you well enough to know you’ve over-ordered.” She said, grinning. “You won’t need this.”
We ate in comfortable silence after that, both of us focused on food. Annoyingly, Vy was right, and I was full enough that finishing the hashbrowns I had was hard enough by the end.
I’d just put my fork down when a Dog nuzzled the door open and slipped in, feet clacking on the floor. I couldn’t see any markings from here. It sat in the corner and went quiet, eyes still glowing.
Running Silver 