Read shadowrun 40 The Burning Time for Free Online Page B

the slate blue carpeting. The cubes got their nickname from the way the workers would pop their heads up over the walls from time to time to talk or look around, like gophers poking their heads up from their holes.
    Dan rounded the corner of the maze that led to his cube, chosen carefully because the location didn’t let passersby see in. That small measure of privacy turned out to be a disadvantage that morning, however. He stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway of his cubicle when he saw someone else sitting in his chair.
    The man was human, probably about Dan’s age or a little younger. He was dressed in "corporate casual," an open-necked polo shirt of dark green and a pair of black synthdenim jeans over what looked like black, steel-toed boots. His red hair was long and carefully combed in front, but clipped short on the sides and in back. A slim fiber optic cable trailed from the chrome-lipped jack behind his ear, running down over his shoulder to the terminal on Dan’s desk.
    The stranger glanced up at Dan from whatever he was doing, which Dan took to mean he couldn’t have been too deeply immersed in the virtual reality of the Matrix. The red-haired smiled, revealing perfect white teeth, and reached up to tug the cable from his datajack.
    "Oh, hi," he said. "Your boss said it’d be okay to use your terminal for a while before you got here. I’m Roy Kilaro." He held up the ID tag that hung from a lanyard around his neck. "I’m with Information Systems from the main office in Montreal. You’re Dan"—he squinted at Dan’s ID tag—"Otabi, right?"
    Dan nodded. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
    If Kilaro took offense at Dan’s abruptness, he didn’t show it. "Routine maintenance check of the data-traffic systems," he said with a wave of his hand. "Nothing major, just some things the Powers That Be want checked out."
    Dan felt a stab of fear, but he forced himself to sound calm. "What sort of things?".
    "Sorry. Top secret." Kilaro winked as though the whole thing was some kind of joke, but Dan didn’t think so. Kilaro let the data cable reel smoothly back into its slot next to the terminal and pushed back from Dan’s desk. "I’m all done here, so you can have your cube back. Sorry to barge in unannounced."
    "No problem," Dan murmured as Kilaro stood up and reached for the strap of a flat black case sitting on the floor at his feet. Dan could guess what it contained. Only serious computer systems specialists carried cyberdecks.
    As Kilaro looped the strap over his shoulder, Dan noticed the tail end of a tattoo curling down toward his wrist. It looked like some kind of Asian dragon.
    "That’s quite a tattoo," he said, trying to keep Kilaro talking to see if he could learn more about what he was looking for.
    Kilaro smiled and pulled up his sleeve a little further. "A souvenir of my misspent youth. Tattoos were all the rage back then," he said. " But I don’t want to take up any more of your morning, Dan, and I’ve got a lot more to do so. . ."
    "Oh! Of course," Dan said, stepping aside to let Kilaro pass.
    "Have a good day," Kilaro said over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the cubicle.
    "Yeah, you too," Dan called after him, watching him from the doorway and wondering what had really brought Kilaro down from Montreal. He was afraid he knew what it was.
    He walked over to his terminal and sat down. He picked up the optical cable, then sat for a moment trying to calm himself. Then he reached up and slotted the cable into his datajack. He logged into the system and began to run a routine startup, still wondering what Kilaro had been up to.

    Roy Kilaro reached the lobby, where he stopped at the security desk.
    "All set there, Mr. Kilaro?" the ork security guard asked him.
    "For now, Lou." Roy slid his ID through the card-reader to log himself out of the system. "I might be back to check up on a few things."
    "So you’re gonna be in town for a few more days?"
    "Maybe. Why?"
    The old ork grinned.