Chapter 2: The Delivery

Mike sat in Dewitt's car, watching the road signs flash past. “I'm not much for conversation, but I have to say, heading southeast like this is giving me a bad feeling.”

“Sonny said you could find out a lot about what goes on in this city just sitting at your computer,” Dewitt said. “Looks like he was right.”

“Listen, I can help you get information on other people by hacking, but I refuse to go anywhere a gunfight might break out,” Mike said. “Tony and Joe are handling today's deal. Maybe you don't know much about them, but they're both the sort who really enjoy pulling a gun and shooting at live targets. I don't want to get within two hundred meters of people like that.”

“You can stay in the car when we get there. I'll get out and do the talking,” Dewitt replied. “All you have to do is use that ‘superphone’ you've got hidden in your right trouser pocket. I don't know what else to call the thing. Anyway, use it to hack every electronic device carried by everyone at the deal. And keep the engine running.”

“How did you know...?” Mike asked in surprise.

“While I was smoking, you did something besides contacting Sonny. You hacked my phone,” Dewitt said. “You obviously weren't using one of the café's computers. For a hacker at your level, it's perfectly normal to carry a modified miniature computer loaded with a few programs you've written yourself, ready to hack into nearby electronic systems whenever you need to. It's like a man bringing protection on a date. It never hurts to be prepared.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “That's not a very good analogy... but let's leave that aside. With this phone, I can hack into any civilian electronic device without being detected. Ordinary phones, gulp, pvp, even mechanical prostheses. Even if you handed the device to an expert afterward, it'd take them a while to find anything. How did you notice?”

Dewitt took his phone out of his pocket and tossed it to Mike. “A knockoff phone, a disposable SIM card, and a simple signal reception tester. Total cost, a hundred.”

Mike understood at once. “You didn't bring your own phone to meet me at all. You brought a piece of junk you'd just bought, and nobody knew the SIM's number. So as soon as the tester picked anything up, you'd know...”

“I'd know it had to be you up to something,” Dewitt finished for him. “I said I was going out for a smoke, but I also wanted to test you. I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't hacked that piece of junk. Also, by watching how the signal strength changed as I moved, I got a rough estimate of your range for hacking electronic devices. You should have no trouble anywhere from fifty to two hundred meters. And you owe me a hundred.”

Mike immediately revised his opinion of the man beside him. He was evidently much more calculating than Mike had imagined. After a moment's thought, Mike said, “All right. Since you know what we're dealing with, let's get this straight beforehand. I'll stay in the car and handle their phones. You'll get all the call logs, messages, and browsing histories from the Genovese people and the people collecting the shipment. If they don't change their SIM cards, you'll also be able to listen in and track any of them whenever you like afterward. But listen to me. I'd like to live a few more years, so I'm not getting out of the car. If you insist on wading into this mess, that's your business. If somebody suddenly pulls a gun and shoots you dead while you're talking, or knocks you out and carries you off, I'm putting it in reverse and getting out of there.”

Seeing how nervous he was, Dewitt merely gave a noncommittal smile. “Don't worry. I won't cause a disturbance.”

As they talked, they stopped at a red light. A homeless man darted over from the roadside and began wiping Dewitt's side of the windshield with a filthy, wet sponge.

The light turned yellow. Without warning, Dewitt floored the accelerator, and the car shot forward. The homeless man had no time to dodge. His upper body sprawled across the windshield, his feet kicking in the air as the car carried him along. Once their speed passed eighty kilometers an hour, Dewitt slammed on the brakes. The homeless man went flying off to one side and landed on the road. Screeching brakes and swearing drivers filled the street, and traffic immediately descended into chaos.

It all happened so fast that as soon as Mike recovered his wits, he burst out swearing. “Goddammit! What are you doing?!”

“Don't worry, he'll be fine. Inertia just sent him flying. It's about the same as falling off a bicycle.” Dewitt swung the car around and charged onto the sidewalk. “We can pretty much get started on the running part of this hit-and-run now.”

“You're the one who hit him! I want out!”

The car barreled along the sidewalk as though there were nobody there. Pedestrians struck all manner of impressive poses to dodge its front end, while quite a few lampposts and fire hydrants came to grief. “Relax, Four-Eyes. I know what I'm doing.”

And just like that, Dewitt's name for Mike changed from “kid” to “Four-Eyes.” But Mike had no time to take issue with it. Someone else had the wheel. All he could do was buckle his seat belt, clutch the door handle, and shout, “Stop the car, you lunatic!”

Dewitt explained in a level voice, “The right amount of chaos will draw the police. This isn't a bank robbery, so they won't come too quickly, but bringing traffic to a standstill is no small matter either, so they won't come too slowly. The deal is at North Wind Island Park. Unless you swim, the only way there is to take Highway 1400 onto Highway e. I'm using this to make a slight adjustment to the deployment of the city's police. If Tony, Joe, and I don't get along, and there's a gunfight or a huge explosion with flames shooting into the sky, the police will be able to reach the scene sooner.”

By now the car was back on the road. The shortcut along the sidewalk had taken them past the traffic jam.

“I told you, if things get violent between you and them, I'm running,” Mike replied.

“Yes. I took that possibility into account just now too,” Dewitt said. “When you try to leave me behind and drive out of the park alone, you should pass the main police contingent coming the other way on Highway e. They'll see a hit-and-run vehicle that caused traffic chaos a short while earlier leaving the scene of a gunfight. By the way, I stole this car. So you'll be arrested and face several charges at once.”

Mike slumped in his seat, staring blankly ahead. “I think I need to revise my opinion of you again. And reconsider what I'm charging for this job.”

...

Fifteen minutes later, North Wind Island Park.

Tony was fat, with a brutish face and vicious eyes. He wasn't one of the Genovese family's better killers, but he could match anyone for cruelty. Joe was an old Mafia hand with a head of graying hair. Still handling deliveries at his age could only mean he wasn't very bright, but to have survived on the front lines this long, he surely had some skill as well as luck.

Both men had suffered fatal wounds in gunfights. Of course, by the middle to late twenty-first century, a so-called fatal wound wasn't necessarily fatal. Afterward, Tony's right hand and Joe's left leg had acquired many new functions, such as firing bullets or storing grenades. Cyborg technology was already widely used in the Imperial military and HL, so civilian criminals were unwilling to fall behind. They soon obtained the relevant technical information through the black market, veterans, and even corrupt officials. By now, modifications of this degree were quite common among gangsters, though their combat capabilities fell far short of those of cyborgs in the true sense. At most, they had fitted themselves with a few high-tech weapons in place of prosthetic limbs.

At the moment, Tony and Joe were standing beside a van, smoking. A driver and four men to carry the goods were also standing by. Before long, another vehicle arrived and stopped beside them. Four or five people got out, one carrying a black briefcase that plainly held cash.

“Oh, Tony, old buddy, how've you been?” the middle-aged man leading the pickup party greeted him warmly.

Tony took the cigarette butt from his mouth, dropped it on the ground, and crushed it underfoot. “Fine. I just don't much like waiting for people. Joe and I were saying, if you came much later, we'd throw you in the lake to feed the fish.”

The man laughed heartily, apparently finding the joke quite a good one. Tony and Joe forced smiles that never reached their eyes. In a deal like this, neither side trusted the other, and neither truly considered the other a friend. A moment later, a joke might still be a joke, or it might become reality.

The two sides checked the goods and counted the money. Then the leaders stood around smoking and talking nonsense while the underlings began moving the shipment. The work wasn't really all that complicated. Drugs brought across the ocean were hidden in chocolate boxes and delivered to another group, who processed the extremely pure white powder into different grades of product to meet market demand and distributed them to minor bosses in charge of sales. Eventually, the drugs reached the dealers fighting on the front lines. These could be found everywhere: on street corners, outside convenience stores, in nightclubs, and near universities. It was a highly developed distribution network with a long history. Only war had ever briefly interrupted the business.

Many of the people handling these stages didn't even seem like gangsters. Their work was just like any other blue-collar job. Drivers drove, foot soldiers moved the goods, the “workers” in underground factories handled processing, and salespeople sought out addicts with steady incomes and cultivated new customers. Work wasn't easy for these particular blue-collar workers. They simply received more reasonable compensation, while constantly facing the threat of ten years or more in prison.

All told, the only difference between this business and selling ordinary household goods was that they couldn't openly rent a storefront and sell their wares. That was all.

The two groups completed the deal in just ten minutes. They clearly knew the routine. Tony and the other leader embraced and exchanged a few empty pleasantries about the pleasure of doing business together. They were about to go their separate ways when something unexpected happened.

A young man of about twenty walked toward them, calling as he approached, “Hey! Fat Tony!”

It was nearly closing time at the park, and nobody else was around. The sudden appearance of a stranger had already put both parties on edge. Opening with a nickname Tony particularly hated was like tossing a handful of salt into hot oil.

“Who are you, asshole?” Tony barked.

Dewitt sneered. “Me? I'm just passing through. Thought I'd say hello for Sonny while I was here.”

At the name, Tony seemed to go into overdrive. He charged forward and knocked Dewitt to the ground with one punch, then pinned him at the collarbone with his left elbow and raised his right hand, encased in a black leather glove, pointing four fingers at Dewitt's face. “Under this glove is a metal right hand. It can turn your head into a honeycomb dripping brains in two seconds. So whatever I ask you now, you'd better answer truthfully.”

Dewitt still looked very relaxed and very punchable. “Okay,” he replied casually.

“What did Sonny send you here for?”

“He didn't send me,” Dewitt replied. “He only told me Tony from the Genovese family would be making a delivery here today. With his level of intelligence, I imagine he was simply hinting that I should call the police and ruin it.”

“Hahahahaha...” Tony laughed. “And instead you walked right up to us all by yourself to get yourself killed, you idiot?”

Judging by this fat guy's reaction, there must be bad blood between him and Sonny, Dewitt thought. Members of the Italian Mafia can't just kill one another or sabotage another family's business over personal grudges, so Sonny wants to use an outsider like me to stir things up. Hmm... looks like he still doesn't have much faith in my abilities. He figures using me to get back at this fat guy once would be good enough. Afterward he can pin it all on me, a guy who doesn't even count as a partner. It wouldn't matter if I ended up being sacrificed. Entirely unconcerned by Tony's threats, Dewitt continued his private calculations. What an infuriating waste of space. I wonder if the head of the Lucchese family is just as stupid. Never mind. First I'll finish the job at hand.

He suddenly seized Tony's right hand and, before Tony's astonished eyes, snapped the piece of metal in two.

Seeing the situation change, the pickup party immediately declared, “The money and goods have changed hands. This is between you and the Lucchese family. We're staying out of it.” With that, they got into their vehicle and quickly drove away.

Joe and the rest of Tony's men drew their guns and closed in on Dewitt.

“You should know there'll be trouble once the shooting starts.” Dewitt brushed the dust off himself and stood up.

“That depends on whether it's more trouble than letting you live,” Joe said viciously, making it clear that he had no qualms about pulling the trigger.

Tony no longer dared approach him. He cautiously drew a gun and kept his distance. “Are you a cyborg too?”

“Augmentation? Heh... You lose an arm or a leg, bolt on a few parts with weapons in them, and you think that counts as augmentation? Hahaha.” Dewitt laughed scornfully. “Fatso, you're no brighter than Sonny. If I dare show up alone in front of a gang of heavily armed criminals like you, naturally I've made preparations.”

He continued unhurriedly, “It's true I didn't call the police, but I found a way to get quite a few of them prowling around not far from here. If you're going to shoot, I suggest thinking about your escape route first.”

Joe spoke in his raspy voice. “I don't know who you are or where you came from, but as you can see, our deal is finished. What else do you want now? To kill Tony and collect a reward from Sonny? We've got you well outnumbered. I suggest you think this through.”

Dewitt's expression darkened. “Of course. I decided what I was going to do before I came. Your reactions were just as I expected too. The plan isn't going to change...”