“Oh, Gil.” Carla sank down into the chair in front of the producer’s desk. Her anger had suddenly evaporated into pity. “No wonder you work so much overtime.”
“Yes.” Greer had returned his attention to his cold soykaf.
Carla had been taken aback by the bearish man’s confession. She was saddened by the fact that Mitsuhama had found his weak spot and forced him to dance to their tune. Giving in would be galling for any newscaster. It was especially so for Greer, who cherished his reputation as a tough, no-nonsense newshound. She wanted to reach out, to comfort him. But now was not the time.
“I’m sorry about what happened, Gil,” she said, rising to her feet. “But it leaves me no other option. I’m taking my story to NABS.”
He looked up. “I tried to tell you already, Carla. NABS won’t touch it. No one will. Not if your byline is on it.”
Carla had a sudden premonition of impending doom. Slowly, she sat down again. “Why not?”
Greer looked even more embarrassed as he opened a drawer in his desk. “Given our modem technology, when digitalized images can be edited with a few strokes of a stylus, a news station has only its reputation to fall back upon. The public has to have utter faith that the images they’re watching on their trideo sets are the pure, unaltered truth.”
“Ultimately, it comes down to the credibility of the station’s reporters. If the reporters are perceived to be honest, the station is believed to be credible. But if the reporters are perceived to have compromised themselves in any way, to have lied about their stories-or to have questionable personal lives…”
He paused, and shut the drawer. He focused his attention on the unlabeled optical memory chip he’d pulled from it, refusing to meet Carla’s eyes.
Carla was afraid to ask what was on that chip. The ice water in her gut meant that her subconscious mind already knew.
“Our new boss gave this to me this morning,” Greer said, punching a button on his desk that wiped the boxing match and switched the wall monitor over to a closed-circuit playback mode. Then he got up and closed the blinds in his office window, shutting out the curious faces of the other reporters who were peering up from their work stations, trying to catch a glimpse of Carla’s dressing down.
“I know it’s a lie, Carla, and you know it’s a lie. But when the public sees the images on this chip and hears about your ‘shadow career as a porn star’ and how you kept it in the closet all these years, your credibility will be zero. Nobody will ever take you seriously again.”
Sitting down, he put the chip in the editing unit that was built into his desk and hit the playback icon. He deliberately turned his back to the images that blazed across the monitor. He hadn’t bothered to deactivate the mute, and for this Carla was thankful. She watched in horrified fascination as trideo footage of herself, locked in a naked embrace with Enzo-Mr. November of the Men of Lone Star calendar-filled the flatscreen monitor. After a few moments, she buried her face in her hands. Not only had Mitsuhama found Greer’s weak spot, they’d found hers, too. In spades. She refused to feel guilt for having made the recordings of her romantic liaisons. But she couldn’t help feeling regret-and anguished rage-while watching the trid that could spell the end of her career.
Greer reached over and thumbed the editing unit off. He popped the memory chip and slid it across the desk to Carla. “Here,” he said. “Take it. Wipe it clean. I'm sorry I had to see that. I’m not even going to ask if it’s real or not.”
Numbly, Carla took the chip. She recognized it immediately as the original recording by the scuffs on its yellow plastic case. Wipe it? What good would that do? This was only one chip. The shadowrunners who broke into her apartment had taken dozens of her “personal recordings.” Mitsuhama could have made as many duplicates as they liked of the chip, could be holding back a copy, ready to torpedo her career whenever they wanted to. And she’d never…
“Wait a minute,” Carla said, her reporter’s instincts taking over. “Who, exactly, gave you this chip?”
“Our new boss. John Chang. Head of Mitsuhama Seattle.”
“But the shadowrunners who stole this were working for Renraku,” she said, leaning forward. “That means the two computer corporations are working together to bury this story. But why? They ought to be at each other’s throats, in fierce competition to be the first to develop this new form of magic. If they’re working together…”
“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Greer said, looking pointedly at the memory chip in Carla’s band. “The story is spiked.”
“I realize that,” Carla answered. “But I can’t help but wonder what the sudden cooperation between rivals means. Even if the story never airs, I’d like to satisfy my own curiosity…”
The telecom built into Greer’s desk pinged softly, interrupting her thoughts. He answered it, activating its handset and holding up a hand for silence. After a moment, he handed the handset to Carla.
“It’s for you.”
“Who is it?” Carla mouthed, then put the speaker to her ear when Greer did not reply.
The voice at the other end of the line was polite but firm, with a hint of a Chinese accent.
“Ms. Harris?”
Carla didn’t recognize the voice. “Yes?”
“This is John Chang, vice president of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies' UCAS division, and the new director of KKRU News. I’d like to see you in my office, in the Chrysanthemum Tower. I believe you know where that is. Please report to me here. At once.”
27
Pita was hiding inside a large box, her fur on end. She peered out through a slit in the cardboard at the grimy window that led outside. Humans stared in through its broken glass, their eyes coldly scanning the room. One of them looked like Aziz; he was pointing. The others were Asian men who were only vaguely familiar. Their faces were soft, dream-fuzzed blurs.
Suddenly Pita’s world tilted as the box was upended. She sprawled out onto the dusty floor, her clawed feet scrabbling for purchase on the cement. But it was too late. Hands reached down to pick her up, clamping her tiny body firmly in their grip.
Pita bared her teeth in a hiss and twisted her body, drawing her rear feet up to scratch. Her tail lashed back and forth. She flexed her hands, revealing wickedly hooked claws. But although she could raise one paw, she was unable to move it, unable to slash. She should have been able to wriggle out of the grip of the man who held her, but she felt as if her body was moving through thick syrup.
Then a trideo set in the corner of the room flickered to life. The static shaped itself into the face of an ork. One of his huge hands held a microphone. “Hey!” he yelled into it, in a voice like amplified electronic thunder.
It startled the man who was holding Pita. At last she was able to launch herself out of his hands. She scurried for the door, which was open just a crack. But the distraction had been only a temporary one, and now the humans were closing in. In another moment the hands would close around her again. And then…
“Cat!” Pita jerked awake, her heart thudding in her chest. It took a moment or two before she remembered where she was. She looked wildly around the room at the dusty journalism diploma on the wall and the jumble of clothes in the corner. She was in Masaki’s apartment. And the time-she craned her neck to look at the digital display on the telecom-was five a.m.
She got up from the couch crossed to the window, and stared out at the Seattle skyline. Somewhere down there, in those blocks of buildings framed by glowing streetlights, was the store whose basement she had claimed as a place of refuge. And the white cat that had led her to it.
Pita hadn’t been to the basement in-how long? Nearly three days. She leaned her head against the cool window glass, staring down into the city and trying to collect her racing thoughts. Had the dream been a plea for help? Was the cat in trouble? Pita gnawed her lip. She hadn’t even given the animal a name-she thought of it only as Aziz’s cat. But she had to know if it was all right.