*** The call.

Case got out of the shower still not feeling cleaner, just wetter. He decided against the pile of cloths next to the bathroom door and went for the one next to the bed, not that it really mattered. Just as he was pulling the t-shirt over his head the room computer announced he had an incomming video call. He took his time getting dressed before he told the computer to patch it through.
 'Jesus, you look like shit.'
 'Selene. Yeah, well, I just took a shower.'
 'Well that explains nothing then. Do you remember Shinji?'
 'Shinji? Sure.'
 'Well it turns out he wants to see you again.'
 'About?'
 'Now how the fuck would I know?'
 'Right, where and when then?'
 'It's all in your computer, regular encryption.'
The call struck Case as odd, usually deals like the one with Shinji were one-time-meetings only.
Selene was an old friend from work, a computer expert that handled all the clients and set up all the meetings in order to keep as small a trace possible if anybody ever came looking.
Case worked as a customs officer, the kind you went to if you didn't want customs to know what you were taking in to or out of the country. Usually he only dealt with private persons or small-time smugglers as most of the corporations and crime cartels had their own ways of getting stuff in and out. Corporate equipment and personnel were way too secret and sensitive to send through the regular system and the yakuza sure as hell didn't want to pay thousands of customs people throughout the world just for looking the other way. Together him and Selene made up an invisible team capable of getting pretty much anything through customs.
He'd seen everything from pet monkeys and banned magazines to all sorts of drugs and even weapons. He remembered Shinji since that was the deal that had given him enough money to finally get his reflex implants, not that he needed them in his regular work, crates of stuff seldom picked fights. It was just something he'd always wanted, besides, being able to dodge a stabbing knife could literally save your life and you never knew when a knife would appear in some of the deals he'd done in the past.
Shinji however wasn't one of the guys he was worried about to carry a weapon, the guy had the look of a family man, paid well enough, always wore a suit and all he wanted to get out was a briefcase. Something that small could probably have been set up through other channels but Case wasn't the one to turn down a good paycheck so why ask questions.
A quick shave and a mouthful of orange juice later he was back on the monorail watching huge screens showering the city in commercial light flickering past. It took a while to get out to the part of the sprawl where Selene had told him to meet Shinji. It was almost a rule to arrange these meetings outside of the city core, less surveilance, less questions asked if something went wrong.
The address he'd gotten from Selene led him to a partly abandoned living complex, electricity was obviously out and it looked like the top five or ten floors never got built but that hadn't stopped people from moving in. Eleven flights of stairs and no elevator made him glad he tried to stay in shape but a little pissed off that Shinji couldn't have waited down in the street.
Somebody must have set up a generator on this floor as he heard an engine somewhere and the hallway had at least a couple of working lights. Case went past a couple of doors until he found the right number and gave it a knock while looking around himself as if somebody might have been stalking him. The door pushed open from his knock and he took a step back.
 'Shinji?'
No answer.
 'Hey Shinji, you in there? I'm coming in.'
As he entered the room that odd feeling from when he first got the call came back. Why meet eleven stories up in a building with no electricity? Why leave the door open, sure he was probably expected but you locked your door in a place like this. It was a small appartement made out of a single room with no furniture except for a table over by the far wall from the door. Shinji was nowhere to be seen.
He walked up to the table and put his bag down on it, he was just about to reach for his cellphone and check the appartement number again when he heard something behind him.

*** The meeting.

The pain and shock of the fist in his side gave him that split second feeling of dizziness just as the adrenaline made the bioimplant kick his reflexes into high gear. Judging by the pain in his lower ribs and the effort it took to draw the next breath he thought a few might be broken but luckily the signals sent to his brain was dulled down to a murmor by the drugs just administered.
He knew his assailant probably didn't have a weapon or didn't want to use it or he already would have so not bothering to look back he put his foot to the wall in front of him and kicked back, giving him momentum enough to send both himself and the attacker flying back into the room. While in the air Case turned his head sideways and got a look at the arm and hand that had just cost him a couple of ribs, he had time to realize that that arm had had to cost over 100'000NY even with good connections in the bay.
As they both crashed to the floor in a tumbling fashion his arms and feet knew exactly where to go and he was up on his feet in less than a second. The big fellow in a black suit and a short haircut on the floor was already half way up as well, suggesting he'd had more improvements than just the arm.
The decision to flee came naturally. He knew he'd only last a couple of seconds in his current shape against what seemed to be a corporate funded and trained problem solver. Why was this guy even after him? Case liked to think of himself as a hot-shot runner but no way had he ever dealt with the bigger corporations who had their own security.
Still feeling the tingeling sensation of the perfomance enhancers he realized the only way out of the room was the door he walked in through, both windows on the other side were nailed shut. The suit was up from the floor with an appreciating grin on his face, maybe he knew he had Case trapped, maybe he was just looking forward towards the kill. Case didn't know and he could actually care less, he was in no mood to make this guy happy what-so-ever but with the black suit between himself and the door he had to think of something quickly.
That's when the generator fell silent and with it all the lights went out. Left was nothing but darkness and silence except for his own ragged breath.
Case had time to hope that this guy somewhere in front of him in the darkness hadn't had his eyes made but came to the conclusion that if he had that arm and what seemed to be similiar reflex and agility implants as himself he sure as hell would have the eyes to match the rest of his body.
As if in slow motion he half sensed the air shift, half heard the man move when a second blow to his stomach proved him right. He'd had time to twist a couple of inches to the side letting most of the force slide off him but it still connected and made him stagger backwards and trip over the table.
Suddenly he heard a large thump followed by soft footsteps that in no way could have come from the big suit. A flashlight came on aimed directly at him making him squint and cover his eyes. He could see the black suit back on the floor again, not moving, but he had no chance of telling who held the flashlight.
 'What the hell...' was all that Case managed to get out.
 'You'd best come with me now.' A calm male voice with a japanese accent, not Shinjis.
 'Who..?'
 'No time for this, the rest will get here as soon as this one doesn't call it in.'
 'Call what in?'
 'You.'

*** The escape.

 'Can you stand?' Asked the voice behind the flashlight.
 'Sure, I think so.'
With a wince he managed to pull himself up still blinded by the flashlight.
 'Would you mind pointing that thing somewhere else?'
The light went out completely.
 'Follow me.'
 'Fuck you. Who the hell are you and what the fuck is going on?' Case had no idea if he was even shouting in the right direction but he thought so.
 'No time.' This time the voice was right next to him and he felt his bag being pushed into his arms.
 'Fine, take the lead.' It wasn't fine at all but Case decided that if this guy took down the big black suit he sure as hell didn't want to fight him. Once he got out into the hallway he started backtracking his way towards the stairs using the wall as a guide.
 'I'll be right back.' Said the mysterious man and Case could barely hear the soft steps of the mans shoes disappear down the corridor. A short burst of light gave Case an idea of how far the man had gotten when he vanished through the door to the stairs.
During the time it took Case to reach the door to the stairs he heard several shots being fired and at least two different voices shouting in some, to him, unknown language. He put his hand on the handle but hesitated for a while. What if another one of those suites was on the other side. What if this one had one of those guns he'd just heard?
Still with his hand on the handle the door swung open and the faint light from a dirty window presented him with a short japanese man in a glasses and a wrinkle-free grey suit.
 'Mr Case, please do hurry.'
A quick look around him gave two other black suites slumped down on the floor outside the door and a third one in a very awkward position half a stair down.
 'Sure.' Case made a mental note never to make deals with japanese suits again.

*** The ride.

Once outside Case found his savior already waiting by a car that most definitely hadn't been there moments ago when he got here.
 'Get in.'
 'Hey, I don't want to be in your way here, maybe I could just get home by myself?'
The grey suit had a slight change of expression and Case took it for a smile even if the mans lips hadn't moved. With a sigh he accepted the fact that he wasn't going home on the monorail. He was getting in this car with some guy who had just taken down four pretty elite security employees without even breaking a sweat.
As the car pulled away from the appartement complex Case noticed half a dozen lights moving around on what must have been the eleventh floor in the same building they just got out of.
Case was just about to ask who the those guys were and why they were after him when he changed his mind.
 'Could you please tell me who the hell you are now? And what am I doing here?'
 'Kariudo.' The man answered and handed a small memory stick to Case indicating it could explain more than he himself.
Case realized he was still holding his bag pressed to his chest and quickly got his laptop out and the memory plugged in. The first thing that greeted him was a picture of Shinji but the name next to it wasn't his. Or, rather, he thought, Shinji had never been his real name and he was actually called Shimamura.
He looked out through one of the cars windows and noticed they were on their way back in to town but nowhere near where he lived. Turning his eyes back to the laptop he thought it'd be a good idea to try and let Selene know what was going on as she might be in danger as well if this was something that Shinji had gotten him in to. A quick glance at the grey suit told him this wasn't the time to establish a video call so he just made a failed logon to one of the servers at work. He knew she'd notice within a couple of minutes and once she saw the attempt came from his computer she'd know something was wrong.
After having read some of the stuff on "Shinji" Case figured out that he was an EMSAS employee, EMSAS being one of Europes largest military and surveillance research corporations.
 'Fuck.'
Kariudo got that expression again, Case started to think the guy only had two expressions, the one where you could mistake him for a stone and this discerning one.
It all became clear what was going on. Shimamura had been working for EMSAS but for some other faction as well, probably the same guys Kariudo worked for. Shimamura had sent something that belonged to EMSAS through Case in order to hide it from EMSAS but now they had found out. The fact that Shimamura was already dead was easily found in the files on the memory stick. Case had no plans on ending up the same way.
 'Look, I had no idea who he was, what he was doing or what he was sending.'
 'They know.'
 'So what the hell do you want from me?'
 'To meet with some people.'
Case couldn't help but laugh, something he quickly regretted as his ribs made themselves remembered.
 'You saying you killed four people just so I could say hi to some people?'
 'You will get your explanations.'
The car pulled over to a halt.

*** The deal.

Case figured he was somewhere in the corporate parts of the city. Somewhere he'd never been before anyway, he usually tried to stay as far away from politics and the corporations as possible. They were in some sort of private garage with a couple of more cars identical to the one he'd just been in. One thing that struck him was that the garage didn't smell like a garage, no oil or exhaust fumes or anything, it just didn't smell at all.
Kariudo led him to an elevator, pressed a button with a japanese sign on it and quickly stepped out to leave Case alone in that metal cage. 
 'Since you know this much about Shin... Shimamura you have to know that was almost a year ago. Even if I did have the paperwork there's no way of telling where it went after it reached its destination.'
 'To help us track what Shimamura sent through you.'