Tails You Lose Read Free

complained.
    Alma had reassured Gray Squirrel that a corporation was also a family—one that made equally valid demands on his time. And it was a family he could count on. Relationships had only two people to keep them going, and they often failed, but a corporation was sustained by hundreds or even thousands of employees. If one faltered, the others would be there to ensure its survival.
    Unless, of course, the corporate family was deliberately torn apart by the UCAS judicial system and scattered to the winds—as her first one had been.
    Gray Squirrel was one of the top researchers in Pacific Cybernetics' R&D lab. He was the driving force behind the REM inducer, one of PCI's most cutting-edge projects, which was certain to push the Vancouver-based company into the corporate big leagues once it was released. For that reason, Alma had been keeping an eye on him. She'd been prepared for an extraction attempt once the project's beta-testing was complete and the REM inducer was officially announced.
    She hadn't expected it to come so soon. The suddenness of Gray Squirrel's extraction—and its meticulous execution—had taken her completely by surprise. Even the I Ching had not warned of it.
    Perhaps today's message would become clearer as the day progressed. The first line of the hexagram had been changing yang; the second two were both changing yin. At some point in the next twenty-four hours the situation would change as yang became yin and yin became yang. A different hexagram would emerge: Meeting.
    Alma hoped that this change would be for the better—that the "meeting" referred to would be the result of her successful recovery of Gray Squirrel. But as always, the I Ching was silent on the specifics. The coins could provide guidance, but it was Alma's own actions that would ultimately determine how the day would unfold.
    * * *
    Alma stood in front of the Heroes' Totems on
Georgia Street
, waiting under an umbrella for Reynolds to pick her up. From a distance, the nine totem poles appeared to be smooth cylinders of polished steel. The only features that could be made out were the regimental totems that perched at the top of each pole: wolf, bear, eagle, deer, thunderbird, killer whale, salmon, frog and beaver, all cast to resemble traditional
Northwest
Coast
carvings. It wasn't until you got closer that the names inscribed on the poles could be seen. And it wasn't until you touched the names themselves that the digipics of the Rangers who had died were revealed.
    Alma pressed a finger against one of the names on the killer whale pole and watched as the face of a young elf shimmered into view on the shiny surface like a face suddenly reflected by a mirror. Peter Charlie was a handsome man with reddish-blond hair and freckles that seemed to make a lie of his strong Native cheeks and nose. He had a cocky, confident smile that contrasted with the raindrops trickling down the surface of the pole, making it look as if tears were streaming down his cheeks. Alma felt tears begin to well in her own eyes and angrily blinked them away.
    Peter had only worked seventeen months at PCI before quitting his job as a security guard to fight in the Tsimshian Border War, but they had developed a close friendship over that short time. He shared Alma's love of demanding sport, and with his whiplike reflexes and wiry muscles he was one of the few people who could keep up with her in a one-on-one game of lacrosse toss. Had Alma not been his superior at PCI, they might have become lovers. They'd come close to it, on that night before his regiment was sent north. During the two months he was on active duty they'd kept in touch via telecom; the first thing Peter had done whenever he came in from a patrol was call her.
    The telecom calls had stopped abruptly in May, during the major offensive that ended the Border War. In the days that followed the battle, the newsfaxes reported the horrendous details: the Tsimshian forces, harnessing the powerful ley