The pale gold of the rising sun shimmered along the city's skyline.
Dressed in a sharply tailored suit, Kai was riding a maglev transit car toward Santo Domingo's Arroyo district.
There were not many people in the car, but he still chose a spot by the door so he could look out at the city more easily.
At the same time, he was using his portable comm unit to remotely handle some routine Arasaka business.
Just then, Arthur called.
Kai guessed it was about the search for the implant, and with the way Arthur was calling this early, there was probably new intel.
So he picked up.
"Kai, have you found any lead on that military-grade Sandevistan yet?"
Kai denied it immediately.
"Still investigating. I've had my contacts check some basic angles, but so far nobody's moving that implant through the black market or any public channel."
"What about the cyberpsycho's body? Any leads there?"
"The cyberware was taken before the body ever reached NCPD. Since it isn't being traded openly, there's a good chance it's moving through a middleman. I'll have my people keep digging."
Arthur said, "Then you'd better move fast. I just got word that Special Ops has already talked to Tanaka in R&D. They want to take over the job. Who knows why that bitch suddenly wants to stick her nose into this."
Kai sneered inwardly.
Carter really had leaked the intel to Susan after all.
The truth was, when a department submitted an operation request upward and it got assigned through official channels, the process was not completely airtight.
A lot of Counterintel jobs also involved Special Ops, and overall the relationship between the two departments was more cooperative than competitive.
It was only because the two department heads had personal issues with each other that the rivalry had been getting worse and worse.
And Susan going directly to Tanaka in R&D made the situation obvious.
Just like with the border mission last time, she was trying to snatch the credit.
She was targeting Arthur and Kai specifically, not Counterintel as a whole.
Arthur continued, "Tanaka from R&D is one of Saburo's direct loyalists. Susan's trying to use him to show where she stands. You know things have been unstable inside the company lately. With all the tension inside the Arasaka family, the board's watching to see how things develop. We need to think about ourselves too. Need to make sure we're standing on the right deck before the ship starts tilting."
Naturally, Kai understood the Arasaka family's internal conflicts far better than Arthur did.
In his last life, he had been the one pushing Yorinobu to turn against his old man.
Looking at it now, Yorinobu had still been too green compared to Saburo.
Kai answered calmly, "Understood. I'll speed things up."
Then he ended the call.
The reason Kai had said he still had no lead on the implant was simple.
Security.
Until the trap caught its rat, he intended to keep concealing his scent and wait for the right moment.
Kai put the portable comm unit back into his pocket and, as usual, let his eyes drift toward the scenery outside.
But the corner of his eye caught something in the train car.
A figure like a streak of icy blue light.
He turned his head slightly.
The owner of that flowing streak was a silver-haired girl. She was tall and lean, moving with the nimble grace of a cat. Her shoulder-length silver hair shimmered in the sunlight, flashing with icy blue and pale pink iridescence.
But what truly caught Kai's attention was not her figure.
It was how skilled she was at lifting chips.
As a repeat offender in his last life, Kai had done this kind of thing plenty of times with Jackie and V.
But someone this smooth was rare.
The silver-haired girl moved through the car, selecting targets as she went. With the lightest flick of her hand, she slipped chips from the neural ports at the backs of passengers' necks.
The people she stole from did not notice a thing.
Clearly, she knew her way around tech.
A real netrunner.
Kai had no intention of interfering in her business, though.
As long as she did not try to steal from him, it was not his problem.
He had never undergone any cyberware implantation. Everything he used was wearable prototype equipment instead.
The neural comm prototype he carried was more expensive than most comm-chip implants on the market.
Kai also noticed that the girl's targets were almost all office workers in suits like him.
He even recognized a few of them as Arasaka employees.
Her focus was very specific.
"Decent netrunner skills. And judging by her technique, she's done this plenty of times."
"Looks like a real edgerunner with a grudge against corps."
After a brief moment of attention, Kai looked away again.
For someone willing to go against the corps, Kai felt more sympathy than hostility.
Even if he himself was still wearing the skin of a corpo rat.
For now, he still needed that skin to do what he had to do.
Then suddenly, Kai sharply sensed a pair of nimble fingers slipping into his pocket and lifting the chip from his portable comm unit.
He had already been on guard.
In one swift motion, he turned to the rear right and grabbed the silver-haired girl's slender wrist.
Caught red-handed.
The girl had just gotten the chip into her hand and was about to slip away when her wrist was seized.
She turned back with a frown, her startled gaze colliding with his for the first time.
Only then did Kai get a good look at her face.
Delicate features.
Neon-bright eyes.
Red markings accenting her eyelids and lips, giving her an air that was equal parts mysterious and stubborn.
It did not take her long to understand the situation she was in.
Embarrassed and angry at having slipped up, she tried to wrench free.
But his grip would not budge.
Kai's eyes remained calm as still water.
"You know this isn't a good choice."
The silver-haired girl shot back stubbornly,
"What do you want?"
At that moment, Kai noticed that some of the suited passengers who had already lost chips had started to realize what happened.
They were contacting transit security immediately.
The transit system always responded more seriously to complaints from corporate employees.
And the ones who had just been robbed happened to be Arasaka staff.
The girl's repeated success moving through the train car had already caught the attention of several broad-shouldered security men in uniform.
They were heading this way now, their right hands gripping their holstered sidearms.
There were at least six of them.
A few corporate employees were following behind as well.
The silver-haired girl noticed it too.
According to her original plan, she should have been leaving with the train as soon as it reached the station.
But with her wrist locked in Kai's hand, she could not do that.
Not unless she chose to fight.
The next stop was coming up fast.
The situation was getting dangerous.
At that moment, the girl's fate rested entirely in Kai's hand.
He could let go and allow her to escape.
Or he could hand her over to transit security.
He knew that edgerunners like her did not end up fighting the corps without carrying some buried secret of their own.
The maglev passed between layers of towering buildings, and the interior of the train shifted between light and shadow.
In that flickering glow, the girl's silver-white hair kept changing color, flashing icy blue, then pale pink, unreal and dreamlike, like neon given life.
"Ding-dong. Train arriving. Next stop..."
The metal doors slid open.
But the girl's wrist was still firmly trapped in his hand.
The two of them kept staring at each other.
Both caught in the final moment of hesitation.
(End of Chapter)
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