Blank closed the door behind him, leaving Wraith - for the time being - alone in the hotel room. It wasn't much to behold, and without his new allies, it seemed even less. The smell that had hung in the air permeated, which ruled its source out as the Troll. Beyond that, without the chatter, Wraith could hear the sounds of the traffic and the world below. Cars whipping past, pedestrians clambering uselessly about. The same old thing.

When Blank asked if it would be cool to leave Wraith alone for a bit, he had already dived back into the virtual world, he barely had enough presence of mind to give Blank a thumbs up.

Gres had several leads to follow up. It was day one and the Johnson had warned them off of direct Matrix searches for their target, Gres would honor that as long as he had other options and he did. Thanks to Dangermouse he knew the name of the noodle place and location. While a noodle shop with the name of Mister Noodle probably didn’t have cameras or other surveillance type stuff, other businesses in the area just might. It was time to see just what the local business had to offer to an eager young hacker and size up just how hard they would be to crack.

Once he had his bots, and programs running, on the local area of Mister Noodle, Gres moved on to his next target. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Smith’s faces hadn’t been found in his searching so it was time to take it to another level. Pulling up the record of the meet Gres went over every visible pixel on their persons. Their suits got ran through the local fashions, and designers, looking for matches. Any visible jewelry, watches, and cyber ware, were enhanced and scanned for identifying marks, and then searched for as well. Hopefully he would get enough pieces of the puzzle to figure out who there Johnson was.

Then finally on to the easy stuff, finding someone that would rent a van, or other decent size vehicle without asking to many questions. Or at least not be able to detect a fake ID very easily.

Tonight wasn't his night. Every search against video cameras and surveillance gear in the park came up dry. Those few video-related signals that he could detect were all interior cameras at local shops or boutiques. Nothing outwards facing. Nothing that would've caught the angle of the shop. Since they were all inside their own networks, it was a relative risk for a minor reward.

At least the van search turned up something. A local delivery service used small electric three-wheel vans for dial-a-bottle styled services. They advertised on their RFID that they'd "transport anything". Presumably, that meant people too. They also indicated that they'd rent out vans, and that they had a fleet at hteir disposal. Looked ideal.

Blank's walk through the hotel was a quiet one. The carpet squished, as if wet, under each of his steps. The shade changes, he soon realized, were from leaking water that seeped in underneath it all. Cheap place. They all were.

He wasn't acknowledged at the door. Instead, he slipped right out onto the sidewalk without any acknowledgment. There, he found a perch; in Hong Kong, you either fought the tides of people as they walked, or you fell into it. It all depended on which way you were going.

Joe went with the traffic until he could enter a train station. While Hong Kong never really slept, there wasn’t a lot of traffic headed into Kowloon at this time of night. At his stop, he noticed that their light rationing had started earlier than normal. “Maybe we should up our bribe.” He said to no one.

Several of the buildings had groupings of people standing around burning barrels: less for warmth, rather for light. The buildings here blocked out moonlight even more than they blocked sunlight. People showed up – in Blank’s electronic eyes – as glowing green – when they were in enough light for that and when they were in shadow, a roughly human-shaped heat-bloom. He avoided everyone he could.

“Evening Alan.” One of Joe’s neighbors said in Cantonese as he walked up to his building. Joe Blank was also known as Alan Smith, that was the name on his lease. “They turned off the power early – again.”

‘Alan’ nodded. “Maybe if they upped the rent some, we could pay a bigger bribe.” He said to the old man.

The old man said something in Cantonese that Joe didn’t entirely catch but it sounded like a curse of some kind. “Don’t say that too loud – or they’ll just raise your rent and pocket the money. You don’t think the super lives here do you?”

Joe nodded, walking past the man and his burning barrel and into the building.

The old man looked at Joe, “You look nice; girl or a job.”

Joe stopped, wondering just how many people had noticed that he looked like this – and maybe he needed to dress like this more often. At least people wouldn’t know he was up to Biz when he looked like this.

“Girl, didn’t work out so well.” He lied.

“That’s too bad, you should let me set you up with my niece.” The old man shot back, “She likes tall gailows, and is very pretty.”

“Sure – sure.” Joe said, “Give me her number sometime.” He quickly opened the door and walked into the building to avoid anymore questions or setups.

He easily walked up the twelve flights of steps, stepping over several squatters and addicts who flopped for the evening there. When he had first moved in, he had to prove himself to the 23 Monkey gang (who controlled this building and the area around it) as well as various other people who wanted his money. Throwing the first BTL addict down ten flights of stairs seemed to send the right “don’t-mess-with-me” message. He had settled things with the gang in the easiest possible way. He paid them protection money; and in exchange, they promised him that no one would enter his flat.

He hoped that they understood that breaking that promise would mean war with him. And, he hoped that they were smart enough to realize that he was a hard man. So far, the investment was paying off. No one entered his flat unless he wanted them to.

His flat was small, and had the lights been on, he would have noticed that it was dreary. Walls, once white – were now gray with pollution; once fashionable wall-paper was faded and worn. This had once been part of a larger, nicer place; but had been subdivided into these rat holes. He walked over to the balcony door and opened it. The sounds and smells of the city filled the place. The rain helped keep some of the less pleasant smells “down”; but with all the burning, the air couldn’t help but smell of smoke.

He pulled his bed from against the wall and accessed the secret panel under it. Quickly retrieving a box of gel ammo and a couple other essentials, he closed the panel; pushed the bed back and was back out the door.

**I’m on my way back.** Joe communicated to Wraith, **You hungry or need something?**

An incoming message alert pulled Gres back into the real world… **Understood** Gres’s stomach growled at the mention of food, ** Yeah I guess I am… I suppose noodles are part of the local scene?**