Vikingland:

Chapter three:

Lars was not happy to be forced to take the bus ride south to his den again. The buses was not air-conditioned, and the stench from so many sweaty people almost made him sick. this was the safest way back home, since the Silly Petes and the Micky Petes had closed off all the modern communications in and out of the city. If he had known what a ruckus that little lesson for the Azzie bimbo would have cost, he would have left her alone. All he got for his troubles was a nice little box with a dangerous looking stylised jaguar logo of Aztechnology and a couple of Azzie chips. They better contain something worthwhile, or he was heading for a bad mood.

Finally, he got of at Brandbergen, and took a little stroll to check if he was tailed. He wasn't. Opening his door, he heard the sound of a starved Cat. He had forgot to by some food for Jack. Growling, Lars dumped the duffel bag inside the door, and headed for the nearby convenience shop. Since the Jihad and the Turkish uprising and invasion in Europe, the Turks and other Moslems that lived in Stockholm and other cities, had been moved south, for their own protection, as the Military called it. Ethnic cleansing was a more suitable name for it. Many Turks had come from Brandbergen, and only very few ethnic Scandinavians lived here. Other ethnic groups had moved here, so the cultural mix was rather spicy. It became evident the moment one set foot outside the door, as the neo-salsa music of the Latin-American refugees was booming out of almost every available car or apartment. Tough looking gangs prowled the district, marking the borders of their turf's, and rattling their chains and knives at each others. It was quite a tranquil place all things considered, since no one was interested in letting the Law have any reason to investigate.

It was still creepy for a young, scrawny white kid with no obvious cybermods or gangcolors and with two metal studs in his right temple move in the area. But since he first help the various gangs to unscramble the anti-theft codes on stolen car radios and pocket secretaries, he had gained some respect as a neutral guy of some use to all. But there was always the wannabees that jazzed up on Smuggled German BTL's or chemical compounds from one mobile lab or another would be confronting an easy target. That's why he spent most of his earnings last week in purchasing a boosted Beretta light pistol with filed off serial numbers and three full clips. The bulge under his jeans jacket was noticeable to a trained eye, and the wannabees looked for easier targets.

He joined a greyed woman and her plump daughter as he got to the convenience store. The strong bars on the windows showed that others found it convenient to try to get some stuff after closing time. those few that actually got past the bars, and smashed the ballistic protected windows had been meeting the owner, one slotted-off giant of a troll by the descriptive name of Hammer. A former member of the Counter Insurgency Commando, he was trained in most ways to beat the frag of an opponent. Why he left is still a well maintained secret, but he had got enough to by this shop. He was also a very good friend of Lars.

"Tjaba, Polare! How do you do, Lars?" He was lifted into the air by a pair of cyber-enhanced arms, big enough to lift trucks. Lars did not like to be tossed into the air like a ragdoll, but had the sense not to tell Hammer.
"Oh, hi Hammer. I need some of your best pet food, not the kind you can yourself, it's for Jack. He is going to tear my face off if I bring up that refuse you find in the sewers."

"Hey, its first class devil rat, mixed up with other nice rodents you find for free down there. Cats love the stuff!"
Lars had only tried it once, and the stench of the sewer rats had taken a month to clear out with the inadequate air-conditioning. And the quiet little cat had turned into a miniature tiger, and not very nice to have in furnished rooms.

"Look, I pay the extortion prices you use, just to get the real stuff, ok?"

The mountain of a man in front of him made the sound of a landslide, and the motion of the said mountain really enhanced the effect. Hammer was laughing.
"No way, Polare, that is for regular customers, but you are my friend, so I will let you buy them at my own prices. Need any canned food yourself? I got hold of a couple of crates of Hi-grade MRE that bounced off a military truck the other day."

Lars knew that hammer dealt in low-grade contraband, and that he had contacts with his old friends in the service. That is how he got the Beretta.
"Nah, just give me two cans of pet food and a portion of wok and Ill be fine, oh and throw in a couple of cans of Jolt and I will be just fine. I can pay my debts too."

That made the man-mountain rumble again.
"Pay your debts? Hah, that would be the day. I promise to get you a scooter if you pay all your debts in one day!"

Lars smiled, a scooter would certainly make life easier for a SINless, as he did not have to use forged licenses for a mere scooter, and he would save the fare for the bus or subway. The gas would be a simple task to find in other vehicles.
"You are on. How much are my totals up to, with the new order tossed into it?"

Hammer went to his check-out counter, and looked through his customer register.
"Hmm, your total will be 4000 Crowns, or 2000 Kred, whichever currency you got. I rounded it up for you, and if you pay me that, I'll toss in a knife vest as well. Got me one the other week, but the sorry fragger that boosted it, did not check for sizes. It's far to small for me, and even a bit to big for you, but that is easier to fix. Well, can you make it?"

Lars gulped, he had hoped to have at least some spending money after this pet food replenishment, but the wager was tempting. He hauled up his CertiKred® with the right amount, and handed the surprised Troll.

The expression on his face was almost worth the cost. Without a sound, the big troll shook his head, locked the cash register, and motioned for his polare to follow. In a back room, a large knife vest hung on a coat hanger. The rings were ceramic, a light and non-metallic vest designed to stop knives and swords to penetrate. It did not offer much of a protection against bullets, but in this part of town, knives were far more used on the streets. The troll turned the coat hanger around, so Lars could see that the vest was well made, and easy to alter in size, to smaller sizes though. Lars tried it on, adjusting the straps so that it would fit. The vest was not so bulky, and the weight could be easy to get used to, over time. Then Hammer gave him his new purchase, and a mag key.

Smiling, he showed Lars outside the store, where a beat-up, but still legal Scooter was standing on its support.
"There, it's yours. I figured you had use for it, and I got it from a cousin, who found it somewhere down south. I had thought of selling it to you cheap, but this was just as good. Say hi to Jack for me, and hurry back after next job, and I will see if I have another nice thing for you."

"See yah, Hammer, you're a real Polare!"

Lars hopped on the scooter, applied the mag key, and started the tiny engine. It was even filled up to the max! Hammer was a real nice guy, if you met him on his friendly side, of course. The scooter chugged on like a dream, with only a little rattle and blue smoke. Lars decided he needed some better locks on the scooter before taking it into town. he brought it up into his apartment along with his purchases. The angry growls from the cat softened to friendly miau as Lars opened the can, and poured some of it onto a plate. Careful to lock the door behind him, as to give him a minute start, should anybody try to force his way into the apartment, he sat down by his deck, whistling a tune while he applied the new MPCP chip.

It fit perfectly, and all the diagnostics software checked it out at the top of performance. He munched some nuked wok, and wolfed it down with some Jolt, a strong, underground drug that loaned its name from a pre-awakening beverage that was the mainstay for computer geeks all over the world. Trying his luck, he decided to dock, and slot one of the Azzie chips into the chips slots on the Snapphane copy of a Scandinavian Combat Deck, a SecuDeck "SePo" copy. He had got the most of the stuff from either Hammer or Skorpan. Some of it as payment for services rendered, but as much bought with liberated funds from matrix jobs, or the odd pickpocket venture.

Lars had only to make one more adjustment. He switched off the reality filter, and plugged in his boxy, and heavily heat sink peppered Bio-feedback filter. It would act as an Instantaneous Automatic Gain Control, should the chip have any mental boobytraps. Then he slid the sleek, gold plated Yamaha deckplug into his forward datajack, and let the homemade security link be attached to the other datajack. Then he flipped the switch, and entered the innerspace.

Here Lars became Snow Falcon, the name derived from his last name. The well-known interior was the same as always. A gridlike texture on the walls, four exits, and a big blinking red switch representing the panic button. A tiny red light above three of the doors told Snow Falcon that the matrixport was active, and that two exterior chips was slotted. Decking his own cyberdeck like this was not common practice, not even with unknown chips to examine, but this time he had an Aztechnology chip in slot one, and a fresh and empty chip in the other, he was loaded for bear. Opening the Azzie door, he started to access the chip. A maze of swirling, pulsing alphanumeric characters flashed by without any order. Snow Falcon paused to look for any kind of pattern in the chaos, so he could choose what tool to use. Then he saw the pattern appear before him. The characters seemed to form an stylised icon of a jaguar, the Aztechnology logo. Snow Falcon reached into his virtual backpack, and retrieved the paintbrush that represented his SOTA Graphic Representation Decoding utility, and started to trace the contour of the more stable logo, and when he had covered the whole image, the character screen vanished; the curtain fell, revealing a room with the standard cube representation of a datastore.

Seven boxes hung in the air in front of him. Snow Falcon dropped the paintbrush, and reached into the back pack pulling forward his looking glass, representing his examination utility. He scanned each and every box, looking for any intrusion countermeasures. Two of the boxes had some kind of IC, so he put those aside. The first one was a box with the name of log. It looked interesting, so he opened it. The contents were displayed in a separate window, hanging down from the box. Snow Falcon quickly scouted the scrolling numbers and characters, and saw that it was an automated log of changes and backups of the other files, and not as interesting at it seemed. He grabbed the next box.

After going through the last unscrambled box, he had a picture of the former owner and her intentions laid out for him. She was a minor executive with Aztechnology Security Corporation EUROPE, based in London. Her itinerary stated that she was going to meet with representatives of both the Ministry of Information and SAAB-Volvo. She stayed at Sheraton Hotel in Stockholm, and was scheduled to leave for London in two weeks. Snow Falcon was bored with the standard information, as he had a feeling that this was just a smoke screen. The two encrypted files might show her real intentions. He dropped the looking glass and reached for the sleek, dark dagger representing his decryption program.

As he reached the first of the encrypted files, a hidden ghostly form started to gobble up the edges of the box. Snow Falcon had never seen anything like this, so he reached the remote control, and hit the 'copy' button, cursing his clumsiness. He stabbed at the hidden jaws that started to devour the box. That stopped it somewhat, but only to reappear at another corner. Snow Falcon made a copy of the dagger program, and used one in each hand, and chopped away pieces of ethereal flesh, slowing down the decay of the file, and finally, he stopped it dead. And just in time too. He felt the very fabric of the file waver, as if it would collapse any time, and Snow Falcon knew that if he tried to open it, it might fall to pieces. Dropping both daggers, he reached for his medicbox in his right leg pocket, and picked up several oversized band-aids, and carefully, he mended the box.

He opened it, and instantly, a number of windows opened up, and a loudspeaker popped out of the box as well. Snow Falcon stood back to watch the show. It seemed to be some kind of promotion vid of a new ballistic rocket system. A launch was described, while on the other window, a series of figures and characters scrolled by. To his untrained eye, it looked like engine heat figures, thrust/fuel consumption ratios and speed indicators. Several other figures scrolled past, unidentified to the stunned decker, and the same sexy, female voice speaking of the launch in easily identified Aztlan Spanish. Snow Falcon reached into his backpack for a bag of pop corn, representing his image identification expert system, while the promo vid droned on.

Then the show ended as quickly as it started, and the windows slammed shut, and it became silent again. Snow Falcon thought he was looking at an attempt by the Azzies to reach into the lucrative Space-lift market. That was not what he had hoped for, but it could be worth a sum to the right buyer, Ares for instance. The last encrypted file he had on the , he tried to copy, before trying to open. As soon as he tried to do that, the same shadowy entity started to destroy the file. Using his two daggers, he cut away the scramble ice before it had caused any damage. Snow Falcon was getting confident and opened the file. He did not know what hit him, when everything went black around him.

He recovered from the dump shock with a heavy headache, and a stench of burning circuitry making him sick. As he got his senses in order, he found the object of the burnt smell. The heavy duty Bio-feedback filter was red-hot and the wires connecting it had melted. Lars disconnected all the wires quickly, and stood up. He went for a can of Jolt, and found some energy and chemical boosters enter his clouded mind. Then he began to back track what really happened. He had been tricked. The chip was just a ruse to fry his mind. The forbidden Azzie Teocali Black Ice utility hidden in the two encrypted files were harmless by themselves, but if both were accessed at the same time, the last file opened would trigger the black ice. A nasty trap, that was lethal and due to the obvious entrapment effect, forbidden. If he did not have the filter attached, he would have been dead. A quick diagnostic check told him that the deck was ok, but that the chips, both the Azzie chip, and the back up chip was erased, and burnt to crisp. With a dread, he looked at the two other Azzie chips, wondering if they held the same surprises.

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