Alternia Comics

   “You got a Wire port down here? I'm not getting any signal...”
   “Yeah, that's by design. Wouldn't want anyone to hack in to a patient while they're under. If you'd like to lie down, beds one and four have jack points. Or there's a guest Wire port in the lounge.” Adam was making sure Em was sedated and secured to the wheeled bed as he spoke. “If ya need to get on the net, I'd suggest the one in the lobby. The beds are local LAN only at the moment. Wouldn't take long to reconfigure, but I'm a little busy just now.” He adjusted the heart monitor and unlocked the wheels.
   “The lobby will be fine, thanks.” Varrow walked to the lobby vending machine and bought a bag of chips as she called back “How long have you known Em?” When she heard no answer she turned back and saw the operatory doors swinging gently to a close.
   She settled down in a chair and pulled the jack cord from her neck. She had planned to follow Lindley and Sadhur in real time on the traffic cams, but her mind wandered again. What was Em's gripe with Tizercorps? What had gone so wrong with that job?
   She logged on and found herself on the garage's public network. It looked much like what she remembered seeing above ground as they drove past, but through a green filter. A few cars were in maintenance bays and Varrow could see the active links of the cars' on-board computers. Her avatar drifted past these on her way out the routing node.
   She glanced at the Tizercorps public node before deciding hacking in would be more trouble than it was worth. She set up a listener routine to sniff the news wires for new about thefts connected to Tizer, and set a second running on the ShadowWire sniffing out jobs attributed to Em.
   “Bobby?” The communication program launched and sent the message to her student but got no reply. “Not out yet? You're losin points, kid.” She sent the second message by email and checked the status of the slow hack. “Still running. Good. 60% complete? Should have him out in a few hours...”
   The sniffer came back from the ShadowWire.
   The shadow players were crediting Em with a botched medical supplies theft three months ago. They said he hijacked a van from a Teledyne warehouse, but the equipment never made it to the buyer. The shadows were split over where they ended up, where he was supposed to take them, and where they were supposed to go before the job.
   Some insisted they were bound for an OpTech outlet originally, others swear up and down they were going to a hospital in Northern Canada. Most believed Em took the job from Tizer and simply kept the money and the gear. A few said another corp, generally agreed to be NorthEast Industries, offered Em more money halfway through the job.
   None of that fit with what Varrow had seen at Em's apartment and in his car. For starters, the Shadows claimed his payout was well over a million credits. If that had been the case, there either would have been more high tech gear, or what was there would have been higher quality. And Em did say he'd been paid in gear, not cash..
   Nothing adds up about that job, and the more I think about it, the more things don't add up with this job. Who are Sadhur and Lindon working for? The job seems too perfectly suited to Em... He only called me because --
   Varrow's thoughts were interrupted by the sniffer coming back with another result, this time from the public networks, the Light News. A hospital in Northern Canada did order a lot of gear from Teledyne a few months ago, but they only got half of their order. The mainstream quickly buried the story, and representatives from the hospital refused to comment. Teledyne blamed the courier service, saying their part of the transaction had been fulfilled once the equipment was on the truck.
   “Varrow?” The signal interrupted her again.
   “Bobby? What the hell? When did you get out?”
   “Thank the bits I got through. I've been back on line for a few hours now, but your hack is still following me. Guess it'll come in handy if I get stuck again.”
   “But ... I pinged you a few minutes ago. You didn't respond.”
   “You're behind a really twisty firewall, chief. Chat protocols and just about anything not coming back on an established line are dropped at the edge. Anything that does get through is still subject to frequent and in depth interrogation on the last mile before its destination.”
   “So how'd you get through? Didn't think I taught you that well yet.”
   “A little creative thinking and some help from a friend of mine. She's running interference on the Spanish Inquisition routines so I'm not troubled.”
   “Okay. Good work. You pass. For now.” Varrow's avatar pulled a sardonic grin that Bobby knew meant his tests would be that much harder now. “You up for some extra credit?”
   “Sure boss. What's up?”
   “I need you to dig in to a job a player named Em ran a few months ago. Medical supplies from Teledyne that didn't go where they were supposed to. See what you can find out.”
   “Wait .. Em? The Em? I dunno boss, word in the Shadows is he's a bad ass in meatspace, and he's got a hacker partner that'll tear you up as soon as look at you online.”
   “Really? I've been out of it too long ... Don't worry about his partner. And he's too busy to track you in meatspace at the moment. Trust me, Kid. You'll be safe on this one. Find out who's got a beef with Em.”
   “If you say so boss ... Where are you?”
   “Never mind about that. I'll get back online when I can, be ready with that information.”
   “Sur--” Bobby's reply was abruptly cut as Varrow was unceremoniously dumped back in to meatspace. The router reset and the signal dropped.
   “Ow! What the crap?” Varrow shouted, rubbing her eyes as she looked around the room. It looked like it had when she logged in. The large room was still empty and the third bed was still missing. She stretched and got up, walking to the operatory door. Varrow looked in through the window and saw Em laying face down with his head and shoulders held in place by steel arms. Leff was hovering over Em's prone form, watching a monitor and moving two joysticks as a mechanical arm moved delicately near Em's head.
   With nothing better to do, Varrow wandered around the shop, spending most of her time inspecting Em's car, examining the labels on the buttons. After half an hour, Leff wheeled Em, now laying on his back in the bed, back to the third position among the other beds.
   “He'll be right as rain in about an hour. I'm sorry if you were disconnected earlier. My assistant upstairs noticed unusual activity and shut down the router, fearing an attack.” Leff took off his gloves and gown, throwing the former into a biohazard bin and the latter into a laundry cart, before walking to the lounge and falling in to a chair. “It never seems like it's going to be much work at the outset, but it always drains my energy.”
   Varrow nodded as she sat down next to him.
   Leff sighed heavily as he leaned his head back in his chair. “Em talked about you a lot, you know, after the breakup.”
   “He always did take things too seriously.”
   “No, I mean a lot. Constantly. If he wasn't pining, he was bawling. You didn't just break his heart; you shattered it. He crawled in to a bottle for a week! Hell, it was nearly a month before he could think straight enough for even a milk run job.” He put no effort in to disguising the venom in his voice. “I'll treat you alright in front of Em 'cause he's a dear friend, and whether he admits it or not, he's still got his heart set on you.” Varrow had tried to interrupt several times but Leff refused to let her get a word in edge wise until he finished. “One last thing. If you go hacking your way through my firewall again, I'll do worse than give you a little dump shock.”
   Varrow sat in stunned silence for a moment. The man she took to be kindly and fatherly when she first met him surprised her. He obviously cared a great deal for Em. She had only known a few people in her life capable of speaking with such animosity. “What makes him so special to you, old man?” she asked at length.
   Leff answered without raising his head. “Nothin but time, girl. Known him for many years and I plan to know him many more.” Leff raised his head to stare in to Varrow's eyes, adding weight to the last few words he spoke.
   Varrow took another tack as the old man dropped his head back again. “How long have you had this place?”
   “Set it up a few weeks after he started comin to me for help.”
   “When did Em ask for help?”
   “'Bout two weeks before we started diggin for this place.”
   “How long are you going to talk in circles?”
   “'Till you get bored.”
   “And how long until Em wakes up?”
   “Hour or so.”
   “Anything you won't talk in circles about?”
   “A few things.”
   Varrow gave up trying to talk to the old man. She rolled her eyes back in her head to bring up her internal display and sent a quick email to Bobby to say she'd be offline for a while, then started game of solitaire.