“I’m getting too old for this, Ghost.”

It seemed an old story between them.

“Drink your soy.” Ghost waited while she drained half the cup. “You haven’t told us yet what you plan for the Raku.”

“Avaunt, Lord Muselebrain,” the Elf ordered from his corner. “The fair Lady Tsung needs her rest before pressing on with this sordid business. You street samurai are all alike-no proper sensibilities, no understanding of delicate persons or sense of timing.

“All you want to do is flex your muscles. Once you impress us with your hyped resources, you only stay long enough to grab your blood money before scurrying back to your squalid dens.”

Thin, sparkling needles slid from beneath the fingernails of Ghost’s right hand. Sam guessed the Elf was pushing the limits of the Amerindian’s tolerance, imposing on his hospitality. Sally laid a hand on the samurai’s back, out of sight of the Elf. The needles vanished.

“Can it, Dodger,” she said. “Ghost’s not pushing. A decision has to be made.”

The Elf huffed his annoyance at the rebuff. Satisfied, Ghost walked to the window and stared out while Sally put her tray aside and sat up straighter. “So what’s on the disks we pulled?”

“Quite a bit actually, Fair One.” All trace of annoyance was gone from his voice, and was replaced by cool professionalism. “Production schedules. Some personnel files. A couple of patent applications. A fine swag, which would have considerable street value if the run had not terminated so noisily. As is, we shall have to wait until cooler weather before safely disposing of it.”

“Meaning we lost a lot of value?”

“Of course.”

“Well, at least we’ll get paid for the plant.”

Sam was confused. He understood that their stolen data would be less valuable on the open market if they waited to sell it, but he had thought they were simple thieves. “What plant?”

Ghost started to say something, but closed his mouth when Sally spoke.

"We made a little donation to the cleaning supplies of the computer systems research office. An aerosol generator disguised as cleaning spray. It will dispense a little bug called Vigid along with its cleaning solvent. In a few hours, a lot of Renraku wageslaves will be going home sick. The next few days will be somewhat uncomfortable for them and most displeasing to the Renraku management, what with the inevitable schedule disruption. While they limp along, our client, Atreus Applications, gets the jump on the competition. It should allow them to hit the Matrix with a new software package a full week ahead of Renraku.

“That was the real job. Atreus wanted us to snatch some prototypes to hide the nature of the operation. We picked up the disks as a fringe benefit.”

It all sounded straightforward-making allowances for the basically devious nature of shadowruns. But something nagged at Sam. Something about the delivery system of the disruptive bioagent. He ran Sally’s words over in his head. Why not simply spread the agent around? The runners could have been given an antidote beforehand. Why combine it with cleaning fluid? Simply to delay implementation? A tailored time-decay capsule could do that effectively enough. Why cleaning fluid, or was that important at all? Somewhere deep in his brain a synapse fired and a memory awoke.

"Excuse me,” he said tentatively, “But the solvent in the cleaning fluid. Was it acetone-based?”

"Who knows,” Sally said. “What does it matter?”

Sam took a deep breath. “If it was, I don’t think that the Vigid will do what you expect it to.”

“Ah,” sneered the Elf, “observe how the merchandise displays an extensive biotechnical knowledge. We may yet realize a handsome profit.”

“I’m not a biotech,” Sam said, letting his annoyance show. “I’m just a researcher. But I’ve got a good memory. I saw an article on Vigid once. Some researcher for the UCAS government had done an experiment. It got contaminated when an assistant spilled some acetone while cleaning glassware. The acetone interacted with the protein shell of the virus, stripping parts of it and causing the core genetic material to mutate in an isomeric form.”

“So it’s a different bug.” the Elf drawled.

“It’s a lethal bug. That lab assistant died. In a replication test, thirty to forty percent of the analog mice exposed to the isomeric virus died.”

Sally’s took became grim during Sam’s recitation. She placed her kaf mug on the floor in a slow and deliberate manner. “We weren’t hired for wetwork.”

“Certes, the fee was far too low,” the Elf agreed.

“Frag the fees!” Ghost snarled, needles flashing at his fingertips. “Somebody set us up.”

Sally nodded slowly. “I think we need to talk to someone about our recent employers before we go to meet them.”

Sam was not sure why the runners had brought him along, but he didn’t think it politic to ask. They had been rejoined by the Ork called Kham, who seemed outraged at the possibility of a set-up. He had to be dissuaded from bringing heavy weaponry along to the meeting with the fixer.

The walk to the meet-site was through a kind of place Sam had only seen on the trid. The streets were crowded, filled with rockerhaunts, gutterpunks, and chippies. Squatters held their miserable alleys and boxes against muscle-boys from the gangs, and razorguys hung tough behind their moneyed charges. The hungry and the thrill-seekers mingled cheek to chromed jowl in the harsh glare of the neon and public tridscreens.

The noise and crowd swirled around them, parting and reforming as they passed. Even the hardest-looking Street samurai and Ork bullyboys seemed to fade from their path without causing trouble. Maybe the mage had something to do with it, or maybe it was simply Sam’s imagination.

They stopped at an abandoned storefront in a less congested area. Through the smashed window, what little Sam could see of the building’s floor was as littered and stained as the sidewalk. Even from outside, the odor of stale urine and refuse was intense. No one on the street paid the least attention when the group entered the building.

Three men waited inside. All were tall and rangy. Hard muscles showed wherever their street garb exposed flesh.

All carried obvious weaponry. Street samurai, Sam guessed, but he saw none of the obvious cyberware the breed favored. Either they were so good they didn’t need enhancement or else their modifications were very subtle. Either way, they had to be dangerous.

The blond one on the left had a large dog by his side, at least half-wolf in its bloodline. The beast growled softly when Sam and the runners entered. While the others exchanged opening pleasantries with the men. Sam crouched and held out his hand to the animal. Cautiously, its posture indicating suspicion, the beast advanced to sniff at his hand.