I made a gesture to Ruslan and Jean as well, indicating that they could sit too.
His security man shook his head, "We're fine, sir." Diligent they were. The manager shrugged.
Jean had a look that he would have liked to take a seat, but now that the other guys said they didn't need it, there was no way he was going to sit down now. Jean said to the both of them, "We're fine, too, Miss White."
I shrugged, mirroring his gesture and sent an order for a tray of tea for six or so, including pastries and those little sandwiches, to the front desk after reenabling my wireless systems. I indicated it should arrive in two trays.
The tea arrived pretty quickly after that. A deep gong announced that someone was about to enter the room to give everyone present a chance to stop discussing confidential matters. A few seconds later, two girls my age but as heavily augmented as the front desk girl sat the tea service next to each end of the table, bowed, and left. They were also wearing yukatas, which really suited them.
The woman, which I assumed was the man's subordinate, started making tea. Kiwi glanced at her before reaching to do the same, but since I was playing the posh British girl, I stopped her, asking, "Just how often have you made tea, Miss Pink?"
She grinned at me. It was simple teabags, where you had to steep it in the teacup, so it wasn't like the Japanese or Chinese tea ceremonies I had watched on the net. I did notice that the little kettles were self-powered, despite being fine-china. It kept the water just shy of boiling, which was a nice touch.
As I was nibbling on one of the sandwiches, I noticed the Biotechnica chemist whispering to his boss. His boss nodded at him and said, "We have a question."
I sat the half-eaten mini sandwich down and nodded, "Of course."
The chemist coughed, "You've repeated this synthesis?" I nodded at him, "Okay, the fourth step, when you are supposed to fluorinate the phenyl group, wouldn't that result in a carcinogen?"
I raised my eyebrows behind my mask. No, it wouldn't. But I didn't say that. I tilted my head to the side and said exactly the opposite of the truth, "My expertise is organic chemistry synthesis, not medicine, so I can't actually comment as to the toxicity of the compound, merely its synthesis steps. That said, the end product isn't listed in any publicly known or expected carcinogen list." I spread my hands, "I was told you had already received samples of the product, so you should have already examined it?"
That merely got a shrug from the chemist. There were ways these days to test even small samples of unknown chemicals to see if they were a carcinogen, although they were expensive due to the complicated machinery they required. There was a zero per cent chance they hadn't already done these tests. There was no reason to ask me this, so it made me a little suspicious. I asked, "Do you have any questions about the synthesis ?"
There were whispers at his end of the table before the chemist said, "Not right now." The whispering also made me suspicious. I wasn't using a hidden or directional microphone to listen to them, but there was no reason they shouldn't suspect I wasn't. I wouldn't use whispers to communicate with Kiwi and the others. For one, there were cybernetics that enhanced senses, including hearing, that could easily discern whispering in a room this small. In this room, I would only trust digitally encrypted peer-to-peer wireless communications in text.
Speaking of which, I sent a text to everyone explaining about the virus and my suspicions about this question. To me, it kind of sounded like they were fishing to see how much I knew about the drug's application, which wouldn't be what a hired chemist would know. Ruslan replied, "We should probably expect an ambush then. I will let the other team know, and we'll send them another alert when we're leaving the building."
I thought about that and agreed. If I wasn't being unduly paranoid, then the virus was to install a tracking system so their security forces could kidnap us at their leisure after they identified us. If that didn't work, it would make sense to proceed to plan B, which was likely a messier public ambush.
If that was their plan, then why were they doing it, though? To just get the money back, or did they think that Wakako's "hired chemist" was actually the inventor of the drug? We had gone to a lot of effort to try to give the impression this was stolen tech. Internally, sighing, I wondered why things were getting complicated. The only bonus was we did actually have possession of the funds, half of which I could spirit away past any recovery in an instant.
If they intended to get the money back, then even if they kidnapped us successfully, I would have already transferred the digital currency away, so there was no way they could get both halves back-unless perhaps the malware contained some kind of man-in-the-middle malware that would intercept the funds transfer, while still making it appear as though it went through properly from my end. That was putting a lot of trust in something as nebulous as a successful viral attack, which could go wrong in any number of ways.
There were too many questions. I asked Kiwi if I should run the malware in my Zetatech's sandbox as that might get them to call off the messy public ambush, and she glanced at me and winced, texting, "No way! Although you have better ICE than even I do, there is just no telling what might happen. It isn't impossible for viruses to escape out of a virtual machine into bare metal. And if that happens, you're probably screwed."
Yeah, that didn't seem like a good idea to me, either, but it was an option. If we were in some place that wasn't as secure as it was, we might be able to extract the malware and then assault someone and install it on their system, but trying to do that in Konpeki Plaza was pretty stupid. I didn't want the cheerful and cute kimono girls to turn into bloodthirsty killers. Going loud in a place like this pretty much ensured you wouldn't have a long life afterwards.
We waited almost the full two hours we had given them, but there were only a couple more questions, and only one of them was actually insightful.
Finally, all the Biotechnica people stood, so I did the same, Kiwi mirroring me. The Biotechnica manager said, "Thank you, we will consider this transaction concluded. We will inform the broker, as I am sure you will as well."
With that, they all walked out of the room, a security guy in front and also taking the rear. Once the door closed, I said, "Miss Pink, please sweep the room in case our guests accidentally left any surveillance devices behind."
She nodded and got some tools to walk over to their side of the table. Jean and Rus sat down at the table. They were silent, but Ruslan sent a text to our group chat, "What's the plan, now?"
I pulled the small backpack of mine that I had Jean carry into the room onto the table, as there was no way I was going to wear a backpack while wearing a dress. It was the same bag that I had placed the datashard containing the funds. Speaking of which, I immediately posted the funds transfer pending on my system to the public banking ledger, getting a green confirmation and a pleasant beep of a transfer successfully processed.
Well, that was one less thing to worry about. Out of the bag, I pulled out several objects. One was a different black duffle bag, which I slid over to Ruslan and said aloud, "Mr Orange, please transfer the cash to this bag."
He raised an eyebrow but started to comply. He texted, "Think there is a tracking device in the bag?"
I replied back in text, "That or in the bundle of bills themselves. This bag features a fine copper mesh sewed in the lining and should block any kind of radio transmission. Wakako will take it directly to a faraday-cage lined room and process the physical currency there."
He nodded and tossed the bundles of cash in the new bag as I pulled out three masks. These were half masks, unlike mine, and obvious respirators with included goggles. I slid them to each of my team and said, "Please put these on."
"Miss White, I can't detect any hidden cameras or microphones," Kiwi said formally before putting on the mask that I slid across the entire length of the table to her.
I hummed and nodded, taking out a final device. It looked like a half-sphere, and I sat it on the table like it was a gauche modern art centrepiece at Thanksgiving dinner. Jean asked in the chat as he secured his respirator on, "What is that, girl?"
I glanced around, verifying that everyone had their mask on before I pressed a button on top of the Tinkertech device. This caused the half-sphere to open up like a clamshell. Immediately, dense clouds of what appeared to be fog flowed out of the machine, filling the entire room up very quickly. I had been worried about the cloud going underneath the door of the conference room, but these doors were basically airtight due to their soundproofing.
My eyes automatically shifted to infrared and I could see the warm outlines of the others, including Jean who was waving his hands out in front of his face. He said aloud, "Woah, what the fuck!" Kiwi and Ruslan just stayed still, but Kiwi texted a long line of question marks.
I replied in the chat, "Biotechnica has known that this room was going to be the meeting site for days. That gave them the opportunity to rent the room after us in order to collect stray hairs or skin flakes in order to identify us. This will render all of those potential efforts useless. Although I don't know for sure that they are doing that, it is better to be safe than sorry. The cloud evaporates dry like an alcohol, so it won't leave a mess, but while it is fine on your skin, it is irritating to the eyes and lungs, hence the mask and goggles." It went without saying that my plague doctor mask had a respirator in it; I mean, I had that whole beak volume to use, so why wouldn't I put one in it?
Five seconds later, the machine stopped, and less than ten seconds after that, the clouds vanished as if by magic. I nodded and tossed the closed half-sphere into the bag and tossed it to Jean.
Jean grinned, "I've never carried two million eddies before." He still wasn't, but I didn't want to ruin his fun, so I just said, "Let's go."
Being able to pay all the fees digitally over my implant meant I didn't have to walk through the front desk looking like a weirdo because I didn't intend to remove my mask until we got into the getaway van.
So we just left the room and, as a group, walked into one of the elevators, taking it to the underground parking garage. The Konpeki security guys didn't even give me a second glance, as I guess they had even a lot of weirder stuff come and go in their day.
We had to pause at this checkpoint briefly to get our bracelets removed. The security man nodded at us and said, politely but as though he was reading a script, "Pleasant travels, and always be welcomed here at the Azure Plaza."
Wakako called me as we approached the car, and I answered. She asked in an icy cold way that kind of scared even me, "You expect perfidy, Taylor? Are you being a pessimist?"
"I'm not a pessimist," I complained to her out loud, then sniffed delicately and raised my nose into the air, "But that can't possibly last."
That got a snort and a brief smile on her face. She asked, "So you are proceeding with the exfiltration plan we discussed?"
I nodded, "Yes, I think that is best."
"Very well, the bravo team is waiting and ready," Wakako said grimly, "Good luck."
Ruslan jumped into the driver's seat of the van while I jumped into the passenger seat. I really quite liked this model of van; the interior cab was exceptionally spacious, almost like an eighteen-wheeler, and one of those sleeper cab versions at that. I could reach out and not touch the windshield unless I bent really far forward. Kiwi liked driving, but it made a lot more sense for her not to have the distraction as she was the one that had the codes for all of the planted explosives, as well as the control codes for the autocannon. Wakako hadn't been able to find armour-piercing high-explosive rounds like I had wanted, but she got loads of armour-piercing incendiaries and regular high-explosive rounds, which were almost as good. They were reportedly loaded candy-cane style, with one AP round followed by an HE.
The first thing we all did was rearm ourselves. I strapped my thigh holster on and checked my submachine pistol. We all put ballistic vests on, as well, and I thought my appearance was starting to be comical as I had a gun strapped to my thigh and a vest on over my black dress. Hopefully, I wouldn't need to do any high kicks today, as I skipped the pantyhose.
"Connected to all of the devices, as well as the drones by the ambush site," Kiwi said, giving a thumbs up.
"De cash is tied down back here, and secure," Jean said. That was important as if there was a traffic collision, the last thing we wanted was for the duffel bag full of money to be ejected from the vehicle, potentially spilling millions of dollars into the air on whatever road we were travelling. That would trigger a riot.
Ruslan nodded, and he pulled out of the parking space and started driving. We left Konpeki Plaza without incident, but soon after that, Kiwi said, "It looks like we have a tail." Part of the preparation was planting quite a few stickycams along our route of exfiltration and especially near the recently replaced portions of road farther along into the bad part of town, and Kiwi was monitoring them all.
I sighed, "The nice thing about pessimists is that we are never disappointed, only very occasionally pleasantly surprised. But it looks like today is not going to be one of those days."
Ruslan snorted while Jean and I checked our weapons. Kiwi said, while her eyes still stared off into space, "It's just one car, a black SUV with tinted windows." That was on brand for any number of corporate SecTeams, including Biotechnica, which I had personally observed using this style of vehicle a number of times while working.
We were still way too close to Konpeki Plaza and the intact downtown area to start a firefight, as NCPD and possibly even MaxTac would be on us in a surprisingly short time. Although last night I had complained to myself about their response times, that was only for individuals reporting single crimes and in crappy parts of town. If you started a full urban street battle in the good part of town, you could expect to have the borgs of MaxTac show up even if you weren't a cyberpsycho.
But, our ambush site was not only in a bad part of town but right up against the slowly shrinking no-go zone that was a result of the Arasaka bombing decades ago. The cops likely wouldn't respond here unless the battle started expanding a few blocks past the edge of the zone.
