Catherine picked up her phone immediately. "Where the hell have you been? I left word with Vito two weeks ago. Vito said you were probably laying low." She seemed pretty irritated, understandably so if she had been trying to get a hold of me for that long.
I tried to pour oil on troubled waters. "I was healing up, got injured pretty badly recently. I'm better now though. What did you need me for?"
Catherine paused, her mild irritation ebbing.
"I have another aseet I'd like technical support on hand for. I'd prefer to work with you because I've worked with you before."
I internally groaned.
The last time I had gone to a STRIKE safehouse I had gotten into a firefight and had to kill people in self-defense for the first time in my life. I still remembered the sightless eyes of the corpse, staring into mine seemingly judging-
I snapped myself back into the conversation. "Will there be any further...complications?"
Catherine paused.
"I wouldn't expect so. The relevant parties are pragmatic enough to cut their losses." A beat. "They have rather more pressing matters at present."
I nodded. "Good."
Catherine had been in deep cover in Vixen's organization after all, she'd be familiar enough with how they acted operationally to know when they'd cut losses.
Catherine spoke again, interrupting my train of thought.
"Do you have time today? I can be in Hell's Kitchen in about 2 hours."
Huh. She was in a rush.
"Sure. Nothing pressing on my end."
I waited for about two hours, mostly poking around the warehouse above the bunker. It had its own phone line, which surprised me. I wasn't sure how the Corporation had swung that. Some bank account in the Maldives that had quietly run dry years ago, maybe. I should look into getting it reactivated at some point, on top of whatever power tap was in place for the bunker.
Eventually I headed down to the cross street just as an orange Corvette pulled up. Catherine gestured at me to get in.
"Good morning." I said.
Catherine nodded.
I raised an eyebrow.
"New rental?"
Catherine shrugged.
"Perks of the cover. The businesswoman enjoys her sports cars." A slight smile ghosted across her face.
I nodded."Fair enough. What kind of former cache are we looking into this time then?."
Catherine shrugged. "A small armory."
After that, we drove east through Midtown. Around 42nd Street, she pulled into a parking garage.
"Can't take this to Long Island City," she said, handing the ticket to the attendant. "It'll be stripped in twenty minutes."
"So what's the plan?"
"I prepositioned a work van in Williamsburg. We'll take a taxi there, hop in the van and drive it up to Long Island City."
I raised an eyebrow. "Why go through all these contortions? Why not just take the van from the start?"
Catherine smiled slightly. "I enjoy driving sports cars. Perks of my cover. The inconvenience is worth it."
We grabbed a taxi outside the garage. Twenty-five minutes later, we were standing in a cracked parking lot in Williamsburg.
Catherine pointed at a rather inconspicuous looking van.
"That'll be our transport to the site. Clothes are inside. I'll change first. Keep watch."
After Catherine changed into her clothing, I entered the van and put on some workboots and a work jacket. I exited the van after 2 minutes.
"What's our story?"
Catherine rolled her shoulders. "I'm a foreign consultant assessing a property. You're my local contact."
The scenery changed as we drove north. Brooklyn's density gave way to the industrial sprawl of Long Island City. By the time we reached Hunter's Point, we were deep in working waterfront territory. Brick warehouses, shuttered factories and streets that dead-ended at the East River.
Catherine turned onto a street that ran along the waterfront. The East River appeared between buildings, Manhattan's skyline visible across it. A few small piers jutted into the water, some collapsed, some just deteriorating. Old pilings stuck up from the river like broken teeth.
We came to a halt in front of a shuttered business.
The building was two stories of dark red brick, probably 1950s or early 60s construction. It was utilitarian, just functional walls and regular window spacing. Most of the second-floor windows were intact but filthy.
On the brick facade facing the street, faded painted letters read "ATLAS MARITIME SERVICES" Next to the name, there was an equally faded logo: a simple globe with an anchor overlaid on it.
The street-level entrance was padlocked, possibly by the city. I wasn't sure what NYC vacancy law looked like in my time, let alone the 1980s.
"The original business went defunct in the mid-seventies," Catherine said, looking at the building. "STRIKE bought the property soon after as part of the tristate area network of assets."
She pulled out her picks. "Keep an eye out."
I took up a position near the door. Nothing seemed to be happening, but this was a substantially rougher area than where the first safehouse was located. The waterfront stretched behind the building, and the industrial blocks around us looked mostly dead.
Birds chirped quietly, and the sun moved on its arc towards noon. A faded green Dart with a dented quarter panel cruised by. The neighborhood was relatively calm. I relaxed.
A grey Cutlass Supreme rolled past, slowing slightly as it approached. Tinted windows, custom wheels, sitting low on its suspension. Two silhouettes visible in the front seats. It crawled by at maybe ten miles an hour, then continued down the street without stopping.
After what felt like longer but according to my watch was only 3 minutes, Catherine opened the padlock.
"Got it."
The front door of the business creaked open, and we proceeded inside. Inside, we first came across a front desk in what used to be a reception area. The computer terminal that had been there was long gone. The whole room stank of urine. My borrowed work boots made a crunching noise, and I realized I had stepped on a used needle. The light fixtures were all missing. The only thing left on the walls was a faded corporate print, bolted into the drywall in a cracked plastic frame. Some generic tramp steamer.
The walls were "decorated" with tags. There were the generic anarchy symbols and phalluses, but there was a Latin Kings tag that had been spraypainted over with a Reapers tag. There was also, in the maze of graffiti, another Morlocks tag. They seemed to get around. I wondered if one specific Morlock was tagging things, since they weren't a gang as such. I also wondered about street gang attrition rates and turnover. It had to be worse then my universe with all the vigilantes running around...
Catherine coughed, snapping me out of my train of thought.
"When you're quite finished."
I shook my head,clearing the cobwebs.
Catherine moved down the stairs, into the building's basement.
The basement, funnily enough, had less debris. There were two tags (including another Reapers tag) in the stairwell. However, there were less tags, and less general abandoned detritus. There were two extremely rusted metal shelves, the remnants of a wood desk.This was made up for however, but the inch of water sloshing around on the floor.
Catherine pulled a flashlight from her jacket. "We're looking for another hidden door."
I found mine and clicked it on. "You have access to the database. You didn't get the access codes from that?"
"No." Catherine said flatly.
We both splashed our way through the water. I was incredibly thankful for the work boots. Doing this in sneakers would have been a soggy mess.
Catherine opened a rather battered wooden door, and we moved into the room at the rear of the basement.
I looked around. There was another rusted shelf, and a decrepit metal desk, its paint peeling and surface pitted with rust. I experimentally opened a drawer. The drawer stuck, then screeched open when I gave it more muscle. I found an extremely weathered piece of paper.
ATLAS MARITIME SERVICESFreight Forwarding & Consolidation
Serving the Tri-State Area Since 1962
Our Services:
Import/Export DocumentationCustoms BrokerageCargo Consolidation & DistributionHarbor LighterageWarehousingThe Atlas Advantage Small importers and regional distributors benefit from our consolidated shipping rates. Share container costs. Fast NYC-area delivery. Licensed customs broker on staff.
Contact: Atlas Maritime Services Hunter's Point, Long Island City Tel:
Member, National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America
I squinted and pointed my flashlight. The phone number remained illegible. Something about the name was ringing a vague bell with my metaknowledge, but I wasn't sure why. This wasn't one of the on-panel Atlas foundation fronts that I could vaguely recall, and a lot of businesses used the name Atlas.
Besides, if this had been an Atlas Foundation front, it wouldn't have gone under in the mid-seventies. The Foundation didn't seem like they'd just let assets go under. Sometimes the curtains were just blue. I placed the paper back on the desk.
Catherine shined her flashlight around the room, looking for something. She frowned.
Her flashlight flickered. "Bloody torch," she muttered.
The basement had been thoroughly picked over, even if it was less gutted then the first floor. Copper wiring stripped from the walls, smaller pipes torn out, anything brass long gone. But the main steam pipes remained. Heavy cast iron, worthless to scavengers and too integrated into the structure to easily remove. Catherine examined a wheel valve on one of the larger pipes, and gave it an experimental twist. The wheel creaked, but didn't move. Rusted solid. She moved on, sweeping her light across the walls.
After about five more minutes of searching, Catherine paused. Her flashlight traced across the standing water on the floor, following the way it pooled and flowed.
"The water's moving wrong here," she said, crouching near a small stainless steel drain. The drain was partially submerged and barely visible through the murky water, dark water flowing sluggishly around it.
She grimaced slightly, then plunged her hand into the cold water, gripping the fixture. "STRIKE liked to hide things where people wouldn't want to look."
Click.
A section of the rear wall slid sideways with a soft scrape, the false panel gliding on hidden tracks to reveal a metal door set into the concrete behind it. Unlike everything else in the basement, the door was clean, almost pristine. Catherine stood and pulled her hand from the water, shaking it off. I approached the revealed door, examining the small electronic keypad and card reader mounted beside it. The keypad glowed faintly green in the dark.
"I'll grab the gear from the van" I said.
After a quick trip back inside with the box of tools, I began to unpack them, balancing the box on the decrepit desk.
As I unpacked, I noticed that the mobile terminal was made by a different manufacturer.
"Different terminal this time?"
Catherine nodded.
"It has a battery. It should last for long enough for you to open the door"
I hoisted the terminal out of the box and flicked it on, balancing it on the grimy desk. It wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be. Battery technology was definitely more advanced in this reality. The same DataTech field programmer that I had used previously was in the box, and I hooked its serial into the portable terminal.
Grabbing a screwdriver, I decided to start with the same technique that I used to break into the New Jersey safe house.
I pulled the EPROM and dumped it. Loading the disassembler, I started examining the code structure. The light of the portable terminal's monitor lit the basement eerily, throwing distorted shadows across the wall.
"Huh," I said after a few minutes.
"Problem?"
"No. Opposite actually." I thought back to the Newark job. "It's the same program. Exact same code structure, same obfuscation method."
"So you already know how to break it?"
"Mostly. Just need to extract the specific PIN they used for this facility. Should be faster than Newark." I navigated to the storage addresses I'd documented before. "There. Four bytes at 0x0245 for facility code, eight bytes at 0x0267 for PIN, XOR obfuscation with... let me check the constant..."
Fifteen minutes later, I had the codes extracted.
I connected the outputs of the field programmer to the board, feeling a slight sense of deja vu. The baud rate was the same, and the keypad was activated. I hammered in the access code
I was quietly thankful. This basement was somewhere I'd like to minimize my time in.
The door hissed, and began to swing inwards, the climate controlled air inside the hidden room contrasting with the slightly humid basement air. Light trickled into the room, the armory clearly drawing power from somewhere.
I looked at Catherine. "Didn't think this would still be powered."
Catherine glanced at the light. "These facilities kick over to backup power if the building supply cuts out. Taps straight into the grid." She moved into the armory.
The armory was maybe twenty feet by fifteen, with white-painted cinder block walls and harsh fluorescent strips running along the ceiling.
Mounting systems lined three walls. Heavy-duty weapon racks with locking clamps, equipment shelves with retention straps, and secure cabinets with reinforced doors. The kind of professional storage you'd find in any armory.
Except most of it was empty.
Weapons racks designed to hold multiple rifles: empty, with just mounting brackets and retention clamps hanging loose. A secure cabinet in the corner stood open, its door ajar, shelves bare inside, except for two empty rifle bags. There was another rack system with smaller clamps, probably for sidearms, and it was bare. This armory had been picked to the bone.
Only two items remained.
On the left wall, secured in a specialized bracket with rubberized clamps, was some kind of energy rifle. It was silver and sleek, but it didn't look like any of the few energy rifles I'd seen. The mounting bracket held it horizontally, the weapon locked in place with mechanical clamps at three points along its length.
On the right wall, a smaller shelf unit held what looked like a silver bracer or wrist-mounted device. It sat in a foam-lined case on the shelf.
Catherine stopped just inside the doorway. Her expression didn't change much, but something shifted in her posture. I glanced at her, then at the near-empty room.
"This doesn't look like a fully stocked armory."
"No," Catherine said flatly. "It doesn't."
Catherine grabbed the rifle off its bracket, checking it once before sliding it into one of the empty rifle bags on the cabinet shelf. She set the bag on the desk, then crossed to the right wall and lifted the bracer from its foam case. She examined it for a moment, expression unreadable, then snapped it back into the case and tucked it under her arm.
"Let's go."
Burdened with our gear, we splashed back through the basement, up the stairs, and into the front reception area. Catherine paused by the door, and tilted the faded steamer print on the wall. Just slightly. An inch, maybe less.
I paused. "Wh-"
"Ready?" she said, already opening the front door.
I shook my head and followed her out into the midday sun.
I deposited the box of equipment into the back of the van, and Catherine threw the hard case with the bracer and the soft rifle case into the rear.
I looked around the street as I walked around the van towards the passenger's side. Nothing seemed amiss at first glance. Then I noticed it. The grey Cutlass Supreme that had passed by earlier was sitting at the corner down the street, engine off.
I hustled into the passenger's side seat of the van.
"Catherine, a car that passed earlier is at the curb. I'm not sure if they're watching us."
Catherine assessed for a moment.
"Engine off?"
I nodded.
"How long has it been there?"
"Since we came outside."
Catherine shrugged. "We'll see if they follow."
We pulled away from the curb and onto the street. In the mirror, the Cutlass shuddered to life. As we approached the end of the block, it followed, settling in two cars back. The car shadowed us consistently through Long Island City, keeping pace as we wound through the industrial streets. Once it almost lost us on a turn, then closed the gap too much, sitting right on our bumper for an uncomfortable two minutes before backing off again. Catherine scoffed quietly but said nothing.
We drove onto the Queensboro Bridge, traffic thickening as we climbed. Halfway across, the Cutlass dropped back, then at the Manhattan end simply pulled off to the side of the road.
Catherine watched it in the mirror for a moment as we crossed into Manhattan. "Amateurs," she said.
I looked at her questioningly. She rolled her eyes but explained. "Probably some street gang. Following us to see if we were worth thier time, then dropped us once we were out of their territory."
After a silent rest of the ride, we arrived in Hell's Kitchen. Before I hopped out, Catherine looked at me.
"I'm not going to pay you now, but I need your technical support for something else. I'll pay you at the end of that period. Is that satisfactory?"
I nodded. "Fine. What do you need?"
Catherine reached into her work jacket and pulled out a floptical disk. "I want you to look through this dataset for specific transaction patterns starting from March of 1983. It's too much data for me to manually look through, and I'm sure you'll find some way to automate it."
I took the disk, turning it over in my hand. Another one of those floptical drives. It never stopped quietly amusing me how the background tech of this universe was just more advanced than my timeline.
"What kind of patterns am I looking for?"
"Anything that started in March '83 or later."
She's looking for something immediately post-STRIKE. Curiouser and curiouser.
"That's pretty broad. Can you narrow it down a bit more?"
Catherine waved her hand dismissively. "You're the expert."
"Yeah, but I'm a programmer, not a forensic accountant."
She rolled her eyes. "Get it done. Show up to our next meeting with a list." She paused. "Call Vito when you're finished. He'll get word to me."
I nodded, pocketing the disk. "Right."
Catherine started the van's engine. I stepped out onto the curb and closed the door, watching the van pull away into traffic.
I turned and started walking back toward the warehouse, my mind already turning over the problem. Transaction patterns from March '83.
Wait. Python doesn't exist yet. This is going to be such a pain in the ass.
I choked down the urge to curse.