terminal313

Centuries ago, when anyone said “the city is in mourning” they meant that the city’s population, not the actual city itself, was in a state of grief so profound it affected every denizen. So much so that the very air would be heavily weighted regardless of any weather patterns, fog, or climate dome.

But in our world today, I mean the city itself is mourning. It has been since the Human Liaison up and disappeared almost ten years ago. Since then, living in New York has been a series of increasingly complex challenges, making it harder and harder to justify living and working here.

It was for this reason I was going to put the city out of its misery. Not out of some misguided sense of sympathy or duty toward my fellow New Yorkers. But because the situation was getting to the point where it was down to either the city… or those of us still stubbornly living within its deteriorating influence.

The open invitation for city-AI homicide pinged through my personal feed one dreary Wednesday afternoon, when I had been coming around to the idea of starting an honest night’s work. The sender of this invitation knew to bypass my secretarial VI while maintaining anonymity, which narrowed it down to a handful of people, most of whom I trusted and expected to know better. That left just one person.

The message was succinct: ‘Ash—have a job. Big. Could solve a lot of our problems.’ There was a chain-link embedded into the message, but I didn’t follow it immediately.

This had Tak written all over it. But knowing the sender’s identity didn’t incline me to check this so-called “job” out. There was enough on my docket already, with a dozen new pings to sort through from when I’d signed out yesterday, on top of the two clients I had taken on. Missing persons, East Side, last seen weeks ago, both dropped and abandoned by Enforcement, leaving me as the choice of last resort.

It didn’t help that Tak’s last big job tip-off had cost me days of effort and had burned an informant, all for a lead that ended up down the metaphorical drain.

I didn’t need to be chasing any dreams or big payoffs when my actual caseload was already more than a single man could handle.

If I had been working in any official capacity and with a functional city’s enforcement department, my cases would have been assigned to me, doled out by an algorithm based on existing assignments and previous performance. But every week I was met with more and more bounced pings, invites to going away and retirement happy hours, and I was left with a bitter pill to swallow: I was getting outpaced by collapse and quitters on all sides.

Connections and friends I’d grown accustomed to working with over the years had given up on New York, packed up, moved on to greener pastures like Philadelphia or even Baltimore. The lost friends that bothered me were those who just simply ceased transmitting or pinging me back. I was on edge before I even sat at my desk to trawl through my personal feed each morning.

But, outside from Tak’s message, there weren’t any urgent requests or emerging developments that seemed beyond my skill set. There were just too many of them. I sighed and blinked the feed out of focus. Even when I disconnected and there was no sensory input, I imagined I could feel the pings coming in and piling up behind my eyelids.

I rubbed my eyes to erase the sensation and wandered into my kitchenette, unsure of what exactly it was I wanted, just that I needed a warm cup of something.

Before the heating unit had dispensed the first drop of water, an alert dinged from my holopad. Another bypassed message ping, landing right in my personal port. Twelve minutes had passed between the initial message and this new alert. Tak needed to take my non-responsive silence as a hint.

But when I opened this new message—I at least had to be thorough and make a fully informed decision to silently reject their proposed job—I realized immediately that this ping didn’t come from Tak. ‘As this pertains to you and your associates’ interests—’

I checked over the origin for any obvious data tampering, but it had piggy-backed off the initial connection Tak had opened between us. Which, sure, piqued my interest, I couldn’t deny that. But it was more a cause for alarm.

Tak was flighty and prone to panic. Tak wasn’t sloppy and wouldn’t lead a stranger directly to my personal port.
Yet, somehow, the sender had filtered out my personal data feed from the billions upon billions of data streams in New York and had done so by tracing Tak’s initial message. I glanced at the local time again. And they’d done it in under fifteen minutes. Which was enough to locate my individual thread among the loom, sure, but to then know how to bypass my secretary Virtual Intelligence stopgap without triggering any network security? Even Tak’s initial message had set off my tertiary security measures and they were a known contact.

My mug of hot water was set on the desk and forgotten as I slipped back into the feed.

This new sender… Same network feed as Tak’s. Same digital signature, but with enough micro-variation that it wasn’t flagged as a spammed duped.

The only obvious clue that this wasn’t Tak was in the actual message itself. The diction was completely off from Tak’s disjointed thought-speech patterns. Whoever this was had enough time and capacity to utilize full, complete thought-sentences, typical of syntech senders, not the rapid incomplete thoughts of humans.

There were no threats neither I nor my secretary VI could pick up, even after the fourth scan. I sipped from my mug absently, realizing as I slid into the individual message that I’d just made myself plain hot water before sinking deeper into the feed.

What followed was a string of coded Public Service alerts that assaulted my consciousness. But the order of these volleys didn’t make sense, or at least wouldn’t have in a functioning city. A two-alarm fire over in the Navy Yard had been downgraded to a false alarm. And not just once.

Multiple alerts repeated this pattern of suppression. Whenever a new call came in, presumably from someone reporting a fire blazing out of control at the docks with no public service in sight, the pattern repeated itself dozens of times over the half hour after the initial call had been placed until the alert suppression was bypassed forcefully via a local access point. By then the new assessment of the fire was three-alarm. Probably on account of it being allowed to run rampant.

Maybe a few months ago, having this evidence presented to me of subterfuge and sabotage of the public alert system would have been alarming enough to spur me into action.

But these days, I’d come to accept that this was how New York was going to behave. Another glitch in the system at the cost of people’s livelihoods and safety.

If it weren’t for the accompanying message, I wouldn’t have bothered any further with the matter. But if there was one thing I’d learned from all my years in this line of work, it was that context mattered. Oh, and the tried and true, there’s no such thing as a coincidence.

‘—I strongly suggest you check out the scene before enforcement arrives and ferries off all the valuable evidence.’

The location wasn’t unreasonable to reach via taxi. The sky was holding onto its pale blue, though it was fading minute by minute into the dusky gray of night. What gave me pause was the fact that I didn’t have any associates. I didn’t even have a partner anymore, what with Tak and I splitting. Which meant Tak had not only volunteered me for a job I knew nothing about, it also involved other people. It had a crew.

So much for needing our space and going solo to find it.

I’d flipped to an open channel and was poised to tell Tak off for dropping this mess on my digital doorstep, when yet another ping came through.

‘It appears that you are in need some convincing, Mr. Slater.’

Making a mental note to over tune my VI’s security measures, I glanced through this new incoming message and felt my irritation recede completely. In its place a new constricting tightness wound and settled its way into my stomach.

The message in its entirety was a forwarded alert containing more usable information on the Navy Yard’s fire situation. A name popped out from the mess of coded language: Maxi Masterson. I knew a Masterson, and it wasn’t an uncommon enough name that I could hold onto some hope he wasn’t one in the same.

An ongoing unease sunk into my gut as I finalized hailing the taxi request, resigned then to clawing myself out of the mess Tak had dragged me into.

Though I’d yet to formally agree to anything, Masterson was one of my clients and contacts that hadn’t disappeared entirely into the ether. Several days ago, Masterson had pinged me about one of his dock workers getting roughed up one evening, then not showing up for work in the following days after. Hadn’t returned any of Masterson’s messages, didn’t tell him who was behind the assault.

Enforcement checked the worker’s apartment and reported back it was empty, cleared out. Must have moved on. Case closed.

Given that was likely enforcement bullshit and Masterson’s usual line of work these days, he’d wanted another pair of eyes to go over the scene. So the situation had apparently escalated into targeting a solitary dockyard worker to full blown arson.

Fine. I needed the fresh air, in the least. I queued up a taxi request and refreshed myself on the area while I waited for it.

The blocks surrounding the Navy Yard had vacated during the last decade, occupants winning lotteries to tropical trips but then never returning home for their personal items. Families packing up what could fit in the back of a loader, striking out into the wilderness and never looking back. There were a handful of shipwrights and harbormasters holding out along the Hudson, but the collective turned to Masterson as a means of keeping the peace and orderly calm in lieu of any city authority.

It made the list of suspects and leads to chase slim and next to nonexistent. If New York’s docks stopped receiving shipments, with land routes practically shut off due to the city refusing to allow outside vehicles to connect to the grid, a city of several million stubborn holdouts would be facing starvation within the span of a few weeks. Or days. Okay, maybe months–logistical sorts of things weren’t my forte. All I knew was it would be bad if I couldn’t pop down to Sully’s or the corner bodega for a fix of bad coffee and a sloppy patty melt.

I’d let my mind wander during the ride, eyes drifting blindly over a daunting to-do list while my fingers numbly fiddled across my datapad’s screen. Rookie mistake, since the cabbies were prone to fits, seeing as how each cab was connected to a malfunctioning city and all. This one had been quiet so far, and I’d let my guard down while my thoughts were preoccupied.

A sudden wide swing pushed me against the passenger door as it took a last minute turn, pulling us south. “Hey.” The screens on the dashboard remained dim, not registering my input.

I leaned between the seats to tap on the screen and a wholly inhuman voice crackled forth from the dented speakers, bombarding me from the doors, roof, seats, and floor. ‘G00D EVENING MR. SLATER. I AM SAD TO REP0RT YOUR DESTINATION IIS SCARY. WE WILL NOT BE GOING THERE.

‘PLEASE SIT BACK AS I TAKE USS SOMEWHERE NIICER. H0W ABOUT THE CITY LIMITS.’

I sat back to get my bearings. The cab was darting in and out of traffic and stopped cars, though its speed was still relatively safe. There was time for it to build up a head of errors and begin careening us to the boulevard which was likely where it had decided to take me. Fastest way out of the area once we hit the parkway. I sighed. “You tried this last week,” I was speaking to what I assumed was the city’s AI. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the rumors were true about rogue cabbies splintering off from the transport network hub. “I thought you’d learned something after the last shattered window.” I had my fingers touching the dull tip of the glass shatterer on my multi-tool I kept on hand for exactly this scenario.

A distinct, white-noise whine pitched through the speakers, more unpleasant than the voice. It remained, a dual tone, while the cab spoke up. ‘Y0U ARE NOT A NIICE CITIZEN AT TIMES MR SLATER.’

“I promise to be on my best behavior if you put us back on track to the docks,” I replied.

The uptick in whining frequency meant the cab was thinking things through. Then, the whine cut out abruptly and the voice nearly snarled with static. ‘FINE. BUT DO N0T SAY I DID NOT TRYY TO HELP YOU.’

I was thrown into the middle this time as the cab jerked to take an immediate right. Suspiciously, the lights and surrounding cabs allowed this, though the manual drivers protested in the usual way. The cab’s mutterings were drowned out in the sudden song of Eastern Parkway, but at least we were heading back in the right direction. I stayed alert until I was certain there wouldn’t be any last-minute detours again, then relaxed back into my personal feed where there was a snarl of public safety announcements to untangle as we neared the proximity to the fire.
Despite its earlier protests, the cab maneuvered around sections cordoned off by small crowds of onlookers and pop-up treatment tents run by medical first responders in order to get me as close to the scene as possible. Thin tendrils of gray smoke trailed up from what looked to be cargo holds, but the blaze had chewed through a good stacks of crates.
The cab had kept up a low static of incessant muttering to itself for the last several blocks, but this was cut off with a pleasant chime signaling that we were pulling up to our destination. A much more cheerful, though just as synthetic, voice sang out from the cab’s dented speakers. “We have arrived at your destination, Mr. Slater. On behalf of New York’s Taxi Service, I hope I was able to exceed your traveling expectations for you today.”

I gave the center console a gentle tap. “There, now was that so hard?”

I couldn’t discern if the fire was actually out, given a haze was swiftly moving through from the breeze coming off the bay and most people had donned air filtration masks. I was hoping the air quality wouldn’t be too bad as I didn’t want to put anything on around my face. Otherwise, I’d look ridiculous talking to Maxi through a popped-up collar.

If Maxi was even still on scene. If he was even still with us–

“This might have been easier if you were doing something about this in the first place,” I directed at the cab as I swung the door open.

‘I AM A TAXI, MR. SLATER. N0T A FIRETRUCK. VERY ASTUTE DETECTIVE W00RK.’

“Not sure why I’d want to leave. Don’t think even Philadelphia’s cabs would be so friendly,” I said. Some in the nearest gathered group glanced my way when I got out, but most were still fixated on the warm haze before us. Others still were either waiting in line or actively being checked by the medical team. I slammed the door shut as the cab drolled out a sarcastic ‘GO0D LUCK–’, which drew a bit more attention and frowns.

A makeshift fire brigade had shown up to battle the flames but had thrown in the towel on outright suppression and seemed to be working on just containing the blaze and damage control for any other nearby shipments. Glass and ash crunched underfoot as I cut through a line. Water mixed with suppressant foam lined the streets and covered the sidewalks in a gray film stoppered up from going into the drains by debris and pre-existing city detritus. Someone from the brigade noticed and gave a shout, but I was scanning for the familiar rugged square face among the strands of strangers.

The shipping and receiving area of the Navy Yard seemed of a bygone era, still made of wood amidst the metal skeletal infrastructure of the pier and docks, with layers of time built upon them. Above, traffic blurred along Brooklyn Bridge, lingering streaks in the air. Neon strobe lights of violet and midnight hues made the surrounding area stand apart from the darkening horizon. I knew water was out there, but the expanse that stretched in front of us was spotted with shipping crates, the solid line broken by the sudden jut of a crane as it rose and lifted itself into the air, cargo in tow, only to fall gracefully back toward the earth. The ebb and flow, the careful rise and fall of cranes and cargo, seemed at once a nighttime ritual and a replacement for the tide that lapped unseen against the seawall barrier.

A rough hand landed on my shoulder and spun me on my heel. “Hey bozo, what the hell do you think–” then I was let go and shoved away. “Oh hell Slater, who even called you?”

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. I’d been preoccupied with burnt corpses or outright vanishing. Air tinged with smoke made acrid by burning flesh and hair. I hadn’t been expecting outright hostility.

Maxi Masterson was an imposing man. But the events of the day seemed to have brought him down to a huddled stature; his rounded shoulders had a light dusting of ash upon them, a filtration mask obscuring the bottom half of his face with its straps pressed deep into his jowls, sweat ran rivulets of gray over his bay-weathered tan skin. A modded human, Maxi’s lens implants were whirring double-time to take in and process the whole situation.

Upon recognition, a contingent of fire fighters fell back, though I knew we were now being observed by multiple angles.

A medical drone flitted and fretted between as Maxi swatted at it. “What, I shouldn’t drop in on a friend when I hear they’re hard up?”

“Since when have I called you a friend, Slater?” Even beneath the mask I could see Maxi’s lip lift in a snarl. “We don’t need no private uptown hotshot on scene. Go home Slater, I didn’t call for you.”

Getting into a one-on-one with Maxi was always a bad idea. One I pursued when a foolhardy occasion struck me. Many of his and the other boys’ modifications were engineered with labor in mind, the day-to-day loadings and unloading about the yard. No doubt financed by whatever transport company contracted out the docks these days.

It meant if I pushed my luck, especially with first responders on scene, Maxi wouldn’t retaliate in a way that would ever jeopardize or damage one of these powerhouse mods. There was a vicious edge to Maxi that I liked dancing along, a dervish to a honed blade. Always thought it was in good fun, but the fire had put everyone on edge tonight.

“There’s no way you can think of where I help out?”

Maxi backhanded the little drone again, sending it spinning and twirling away, though still airborne. He turned from me and was ambling deeper into the dockyard, toward where I knew the offices were, overlooking the Hudson’s comings and goings. “How’d you even hear about any of this?”

“Kind of a funny story, that,” I answered.

“Oh yeah? Share. I could use a fuckin’ laugh, don’t you think?”

As we walked, a pair of bulky men flanked behind us. I tried my best to keep up with Maxi’s longer strides, but he always seemed a bit ahead of me. “Did you know your fire calls were being suppressed by the city?”

By the glare Maxi threw me down his shoulder, he definitely knew. “Figured. It was your dock ID that pushed it through for them then?” I gestured back to the aid tents.

“I’m not going to ask a second time, Slater: The hell are you doing here? Unless you’re about to tell me you’re somehow connected to emergency services now and I _did_ call you?”

“Tak made new friends,” I began with a half-truth. “One of them alerted me. Thought I should head down before enforcement showed up. Kinda assumed it had something to do with our earlier situation.”

Maxi thumbed over to the smoldering crates. From our new angle, I could see the full extent of a half hour’s worth of unchecked work the fire had put in. Crates were stacked three high across multiple rows, wide enough for loaders and crew to maneuver between and cranes to have overhead clearance. But not with enough distance, apparently, to avoid catching fire. The main source started in one of the interior rows but had jumped to each adjacent. What remained of the initial area had collapsed completely into itself, while the other stacks just appeared structurally compromised.

“Do you think whoever paid us storage fees on those crates gives a damn about missing dock workers? I’m up to my neck in this shit, Slater, I don’t have time to hand hold you through another one of your so-called off-the-book investigations. Now, me and my boys have work to do, and we can’t be entertaining guests at this hour.”

The drone was back running scans on Maxi and chirping various mournful tones when it didn’t seem to like what it was learning about its patient’s state.

“So unless Tak’s new friends actually have in-roads with enforcement or teeth to bite back at the New Order’s dogs–”
“Sorry, New Order dogs?”

We were at the base of the steps leading up to the office now. Maxi sighed, one hand on the rough wood railing. “Not getting the hint, huh? Fine, you want to help?” Maxi nodded and the workers who had trailed along after us suddenly crowded me from behind, leaving me no other option but to head up the stairs after Maxi. “Let’s have a chat in my office, shall we?”

Inside, the air was thick with forced air that had a tang of mildew to it. There were a few work stations, mostly barren and under-used, with monitoring screens flicking to different views throughout the docks.

I caught a few of the usual sights: a waiting freight transport that was in the middle of being either loaded or unloaded, an empty crew hall, rows of crates, and then the main hub of activity that was just outside the doors. From the brief glance I could afford as we walked back to Maxi’s office, nothing jumped out to me as immediately useful, but I wanted to get my hands on that data before my welcome was up.

The two workers remained outside but shut the door after us. Maxi gestured for me to sit in either the chairs in front of his desk or the sagging sofa in the corner. I opted to linger about the walls, preoccupying myself with studying wood grain and old-time physical frames. The room was windowless, but I noted movement from the desk that suggested there was a camera feed set up at Maxi’s station as well.

“So, who’s Tak’s new friend, then?” Maxi started.

“Dunno,” I replied with a shrug.

“Damn it Slater, I will drag you outta here by your stupid coat collar, I do not need this.”

“They bypassed my security, and I don’t think Tak even realized their message to me was duped, whoever they are. But they had copied of all this, recorded that the city was trying to let this burn out,” I continued quickly.

Seated behind his desk, Maxi’s bulk was comically out of reference, making a desk larger than the one I had in my personal office seem dwarfed in comparison. He drummed thick calloused fingers on its water-ring pock-marked surface, lens whirring away as he studied me. “Am I supposed to believe that’s impressive?” he finally asked. “Like your personal network feed is Fort Knox or some shit?”

“Enough security to keep me off enforcement’s radar.”

“Or you’re just insignificant enough no one gives a fuck about you,” Maxi shot back. “Like a gnat around a dog’s ass.”
“Someone thought whatever was in those crates was significant enough to hold back proper help on you,” I countered with a nod.

Maxi snorted, then seemed to remember he was still wearing his rebreather and tore it off, letting it dangle close against his throat. He took in a deep inhale, then exhaled a throaty laugh. “Those crates had nothin’ but junk in ‘em. Been rotting there oh, three? Five months now? Came in winter and gone untouched since. Whoever set that blaze was likely just a junkie trying to get warm.”

“In the middle of the day,” I said.

Maxi’s cold implants stared back.

“And this lone junkie, that’s enough to warrant needing to know if Tak’s made friends with more bite than you can muster and more than a dog’s gnat?”

“You know, I don’t like you,” Maxi said, shaking a stubby finger at me. “You mouth off like you’ve got smarts, but whenever I seem to drop a request on your feed, you come back with the same empty bullshit any enforcement officer would.”

That stung a little. Mostly on account that Maxi wasn’t wrong. My closed cases were getting fewer and farther between these days. Most of them closed out of necessity and on account of my leads drying up.

But Maxi didn’t let me interject in my defense and continued on. “But hell with it, rather deal with an insect than the asses. Got a message from Jessup earlier today–he’s gotten the hell out of dodge.” The worker that had been assaulted and landed in Med Center Midtown just to not show up to work. “Gone down to live with family in Baltimore. Didn’t say what spooked him. Shortly after that, the fire alarms started going off like crazy. Triggered all the alerts, ‘cept the most important ones, apparently. We were in the middle of loading the tanker out there, swapping out cargo. No one saw nothing.”

Maxi mimed with his big hands, never once taking his eyes from my wanderings about his office. “Just, one moment the lads are hard at work. Next, whoosh, cargo lot C-32 is up in a blaze.”

“But it was just junk?” I challenged.

“Far as our records show. Like I said, came in the winter and just sat. Missed two pickups. Now whether those were ghost ship records or Hudson was just overlooked again…” Maxi shrugged by way of showing it was a moot point all the same now. “But when I realized our calls weren’t getting through, went into our network feed connection and figured this shitshow was intentional.”

“The suppression.”

“Smarter than a dog’s ass sometimes Slater,” Maxi said with a wink and a crooked-tooth grin.

He leaned back. The chair beneath him groaned. “You’ve been in New York all of, what, six years?”

“I went to uni here, grew up on Long Island,” I corrected.

“Right,” Masterson drew the word out. “So, you’re familiar with the disappearances? Wife, Spectre, my shoreman?”

Sure did. See, the way most cities were set up these days, there was the human element in the form of the human liaison. In New York’s case, it was a uniquely odd arrangement with the human rep being considered the Wife of New York City.

But considering how human and syntech relations got off to their bumpy start right here in this city, it was something most just shrugged at. Until she went missing, of course.

Then you had the syntech side of things, running all the nitty-gritty details of city management from intercity communications and arrangements with the rest of the world at large all the way down to running the traffic grid and trash collection. This entailed enforcement of laws and rules, which was overseen by a fun and comedic duo known locally as the Enforcer and Spectre, NYED’s left and right hands.

When the Wife faded into the ether, we were oh so fortunate the other two went right off after her.

I could only assume Maxi here was about to burst my bubble. “Familiar enough,” I replied, showing more interest in a frame displaying the dockyard’s official permit of business than whatever bone Maxi was about to throw me. “You about to tell me Spectre set fire to a bunch of junk at the docks all to scare off one dockworker?”

“Something like that,” Maxi said in a low growl. “Seems odd, right? A bit beneath him?”

“Pretty sure you know I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Yeah well, seems either some lunatic got ahold of Spectre’s body armor specs and is keen on establishing a new gang in these parts, or enforcement’s hound has picked up a new hobby these days.”

“Bullying dock workers,” I replied, unable to keep the disbelief from my tone.

Maxi only showed his empty palms by way of response. “Gotta say, Slater, if you don’t know who the hell sent you here and you don’t have anything of use for me, why don’t you see yourself out, hm? Or you wanna continue insulting one of my boys in front of me?”

I glanced at his monitoring screens. His ever-vigilant eyes caught the motion, his palms turning into fists on his desk. “This ain’t something for you to get caught up in, you hear me? Best stay off crazy’s radar, if you catch my drift.”

“I can pore through your data feed faster and more securely than any enforcement tech could. Unless you’ve pulled a netrunner for your crew here since we last chatted,” I said, heading right in for the kill. The time for side chatter and paltry data collection was through.

At first, it seemed like Maxi was going to outright refuse and I was mentally preparing to be roughly hauled out by Thug 1 and Thug 2 just outside the door, no doubt keenly aware of our conversation within. But instead, he just let out a long exhale that put the desk back into a proper framing of the man sitting at it. “Fine. Just… Answer me this, Slater? Why do you still care?”

“I didn’t ask at first, sorry, but was anyone hurt?”

An odd expression crossed Maxi’s face that I couldn’t quite discern before he wiped it away with a gnarled hand, scratching at his stubble. “No. Only minor smoke inhalation. Some guys got gung-ho, so some superficial burns that have already been treated. Just seemed like a warning. For what, no idea. Or maybe something was in those crates that missed all our scans.”

His brow was still knit as I gave my carefully considered response. “Then, let me look over things to make sure no one gets hurt next time. Might even pull off preventing a next time, yeah?”

“That doesn’t,” but Maxi stopped himself from going on. Just shook his head, gave another sigh, then gave a sharp quick motion with his fingers. My datapad dinged within my coat. “Have it your way. We’re going to be too busy with physical repairs as it stands.”

I was eager to begin pulling apart the strands of data, with or without Tak’s help, but Maxi suddenly seemed reluctant to let me leave, even deploying use of my first name. “Ashley, you see anything in there that’s compromising, yeah? You don’t fuck with it. Come back to me with it, you hear me?”

“What are you expecting me to find on your cameras, Max?” I asked slyly. “Beyond ghosts.”

Maxi gave me a look so long I was beginning to think his implants were acting up or someone had pinged him through the feed. Almost so I was beginning to get a little self-conscious and turned my attention back to the office walls. “Jessup wasn’t the first incident, and this fire wasn’t the second.”

Ah, there was the pin drop. I only glanced at Maxi at his desk before shrugging. “I’m serious, Slater. Whoever these guys are? They hit two of our pickups last week while Jessup was out, I imagine because he gave them info some way. Since he’s out of the picture now, they’ve escalated to this.”

“What about the other dock masters?” I asked.

But Maxi was already shaking his head. “We’re first and foremost a shipping business here. The other odd jobs and favors I’ve pulled for you? For Tak? No record of that, at least none the city should know.”

“But the city knows,” I hazarded a guess.

“You tell me,” he replied, looking directly at my dinging datapad. Which I hadn’t realized was still alerting me to Maxi’s data package. “But no human should be able to suppress city-wide alerts like that, and any syntech who’d try would be bowled right over by New York’s AI. Which leaves…”

“The city itself or official channels.”

“You can see why today is a bad day for you to make a personal visit.” Maxi pushed himself to standing from the desk, whose wood protested in a louder groan than the chair had made. “There’s nothing in those cargo holds worth dying over, if you catch my drift, but the city is running us ragged all the same, boosting shipment rates, unmanned ghost ships pulling up to dock with nothing on it but worthless junk. But we get screeched at if we don’t unload it on time.”

“Do they make fire their MO?”

“Ash–”

“I just would like to know what I’m up against here.”

“They are not your concern, don’t make them one,” Maxi began. “They’re just like the Roughshods a few years back and the Yalsa Family before them. Get enough lugs with aspirations together, they start looking for fights to pick. Which hey, you got a group you’re looking to form? Don’t pick my crew for an easy mark.”

“Ain’t half your current workforce ex-Yalsa family members?” I gave a knowing look to the door where aforementioned lugs waiting for us to resolve business, just on the other side.

Maxi barked out a laugh. “To my point, Vanny took me for an easy mark, and I picked through what remained of her so-called family. You, however? Slater, you’re not on my payroll and I sure as shit ain’t on yours. No one’s hauling your ass out of a fire.”

My datapad sent out another ping and we both looked down at my pocket.

“You’re a busy man,” Maxi said in a dry tone, indicating the pleasantries of our chat were drawing to a close.
“No idea why,” I replied in a similar fashion. 

“Don’t let me keep you, then.” The door swung open without command or seen signal, and Maxi was crowding me back out into the damp office, the two dock workers once more following close to our heels. As we stepped outside onto the sagging wooden stairs, Maxi snapped his rebreather back onto his face with a wince.

“Do me a favor Slater? Keep this one off the books.”

“I’m not in any books.”

“So you’ve said before,” Maxi murmured as we made our way back to the pop-up tents. The crowd had thinned itself out while we had been having our chat inside, and the fire seemed all but completely out, sending out errant embers to the sky as parts of the cargo containers sagged inward and collapsed in on itself. 

My p-comm pinged once again as we walked. Tak never could take a hint.

“Seems important,” Maxi said.

“It’s my mother ringing to ask whether I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“One day, someone’s gonna break your legs for being a snide shit, Slater.”

“Is that a threat, Masterson?”

“I never said it was gonna be me. I’d hate to see the day, you know,” he replied.

“All right, all right, let’s finish this before the pot roast gets cold,” I said with an eye roll.

“Oh, now he’s in a rush to be somewhere else.”

And that’s when my personal comm lit up, sharp and bright between us.

It was Tak asking me if they had given me enough time to sulk and consider their offer. Mostly on account of there being a meeting tomorrow that they had sort of told the others I’d be in attendance for. A meeting with people I’d never met, for a job I knew next to nothing about, which the more I learned about it the more it seemed way over my head.

I dismissed the alert on my wrist. “Look, Masterson–” I began, side stepping the temporary barrier erected to cordon off the public from the scene.

“You just let me know if there’s anything of value in those data streams I sent over. Otherwise? This is standard business around here. People constantly muscling to be top dog, forging themselves anew, skirting global authorities. What better place to lay low in than a place gone straight to hell.”

Another pointed look at my coat pocket as my datapad went off again. I wanted to hurl both it and my p-comm into the river. Too bad the seawall was now several hundred feet behind us once more. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m hoping for the best here,” Maxi interrupted me before I could respond to his earlier point. “But you need to stop poking and stirring up the ashes of another’s misfortune, yeah? So, call a cab. Tell your mother you’ll be along home for that roast, sure to be frigid at this point.”

Maxi didn’t cross over the holographic tape after me. “Let me know if there’s any new developments at least,” I said by way of goodbye.

“Soon as you stop hovering around danger like a fly to shit.” And with a rude gesture over his shoulder, Maxi lumbered back to the smoldering remains of the arson site, leaving me with a hovering medical drone scanning me for any inflicted burns and a city at my back where all the doubts of my benefit ran ash-dry.