The Runner Records

8th Chapter

"I don't have your chip anymore!" Was the first thing out of Diesel's mouth, which wasn't very useful.

"We know. You gave it to Jacob Premer." Rina told him. "What we want to know is what he's going to do with it now." Diesel certainly wasn't a big guy, in fact he reminded me of a mouse or a small rodent. The way his eyes always seemed to flick around, usually to the nearest exit. But with Rina towering over him and me blocking the other exit in the apartment, he seemed to shrink to a smaller size.

"Look, I didn't know it was Premer who was paying for it. And I'm sorry I took the data chip, the money they gave me wasn't even all that great. I shouldn't have done the job." He started giving excuses, obviously misunderstanding this conversation. We already knew all this, what we needed was to know was where Premer was now. But before we could ask another question, Oliver decided to pipe in.

"Wait, what data chip?" His eyes flicked from me to Rina, then back to me accusingly. "How did you get into this mess? And Jacob Premer?"

"It's a long story," Rina said with a sigh." I'll explain later. Now Diesel, tell me what plans Premer has for this chip." I almost laughed at how calm Rina's tone was and how it only seemed to freak Diesel out even more. The thing is I know Rina wouldn't hurt Diesel. She's not that kind of person and that's not the Runner way, certainly not in Noah's Cabal. But Diesel didn't know that. The fact that Diesel even ran in the first place made me wonder what kind of other jobs he's done and for who, and who came looking for him because of it.

"I don't know! Really, it's not like Jacob Premer tells me a whole lot." Diesel said and it was painfully true. He didn't even know he was working for him, let alone what he needs the chip for.

"Great," I said with a groan. "You have no idea where Premer is or what he plans to do with the chip?"

Diesel shook his head and opened his mouth to say something, but then an audible Ding! came from the huge computer screen. We all turned our attention to the screen, the previous argument forgotten. The loading bar was fully complete and disappeared a moment later. Then a bunch of files popped up on the screen.

"Whoa, you were right Diesel," Oliver said as he pulled out a large keyboard from in his desk. He began typing and clicking on the files. "There is definitely more here than just payment."

"What kind of files are those?" Rina asked, craning her neck so she could see better. I could tell she wanted to go over to Oliver's desk and ask more about what he's doing, but she wouldn't leave the door to the hallway unblocked. Diesel would probably take off again.

"Uh...looks like just documents mostly." Oliver muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard. "Jacob Premer gave you this? Yeah, this is mostly Dogan interactions, like places and times for deals. A record on the cash intake and outtake. And a list of people, though I'm not sure if it's a good list or a bad one."

"Anything useful?" I asked this time, though I already knew the answer. All those files would be useful. Really any information on Dogen and what he's been doing would be useful, even if it's just past interactions.

"Not super useful." Was Oliver's reply and this time he was much too preoccupied to add any annoyance or sarcasm to his tone. "All these documents are old, like months old. You could try to formulate a pattern or something, but I doubt it would do much good." Through all the code and switching of files, I managed to catch Diesel's name more than once. Looks like he's done more jobs for Premer without even realizing it. When I looked at him, Diesel was just looking at the ground, clearly not proud of his jobs. I guess even he knows to stay away from Dogan's business.

"So this doesn't help us either." Rina said it like a question, but it was a statement. This was another dead end. Just what we needed.

"Wait, this is interesting." Oliver said after a moment of discouraged silence. "Dogan's doing business with Noah? No wait, this hasn't happened yet." Oliver's typing fingers pulled up a file and started coding it, or un-coding it, I guess. Behind all the records on the surface, a couple of text showed up. I'm not entirely sure how computers and coding works, but this seemed to be encrypted within the encryption. Obviously Jacob Premer didn't want anyone seeing this.