Thursday, 21 November, 1124; A field in Snohomish
The woman stroked the arm of her earthen protector and whispered, "Thank you sweetie, but I think I'm alright now. Go and join your friends to make sure we're not observed." She looked into its muddy eyes and it seemed to John that some further communication was shared, included a pointed look from her to him and back to it. Then it sank back into the earth from which it had arisen.
"Well, I'm kinda glad you don't trust me, ya know, cuz I don't trust you either. But my mistress does, and that's all that counts, really. Money doesn't have to be an issue, just send your invoice and credit transfer to my 'link here. Some of your other questions are harder, but I'll do what i`can to fill you in."
She stroked her owl's chest and considered her words carefully. We know about the operation because it's been going on for months. But they're very good at keeping it quiet, and we've never been able to stop the transactions from taking place. We merely, um, observe them in the past. It's a magic thing, you wouldn't understand. Not something that can be recorded, and we wouldn't if we could. It's not even something that any one of us has access to - our information gathering is, um, disseminated. So we know it is happening the way we know the sky is blue. Take it or leave it."
She started playing with her commlink as she talked. "We still don't know where the current lot of them are being held, or even if they're in the 'plex yet. We do know that this batch all comes from the CAS. We think they harvest from all over the place so as not to attract too much attention, but that Seattle is where they've got a buyer - the Japanese-American criminals - they have access to the sort of wealthy clientele the Korean-Americans don't. So this is where the transactions take place. We do have feelers out with the pigs, but we have to tread very lightly. Part of the reason is that we think some high-level people are being paid off. We are working with some of pawns on an individual basis to access their resources though. So as you can see, we don't have anything we can really take to the screamsheets. And just sharing what we do know would tip our hand."
She took a breath, kept playing with her commlink with one hand, and pulled what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette from a pocket. "Sorry, man, this whole thing really stresses me out." She lit up and sucked deeply. "Okay, we don't know yet exactly when the next buy will be, but it should be soon. We do know that it will be at one of two locations. We have recruited some other people that are down with the cause - you'll need to work with them. They know what the two locations are. I don't - we're very compartmentalized, ya know, like cells and all that. Sort of. I don't even know where the others are - people have been trying to kill them and they've gone to ground. But you start heading back to civilization, I'll send you meet details once I get them. And good idea about lying to the Korean-Americans. We'll be in touch on that, too. Can I get your commcode, man?"
