"What is the most valuable commodity?" The man in black asked.

A few of the scruffy men inside the van looked at each other. 

"Money," said one. "It's gotta be money."

"Women," said another. "A nice bedwarmer would make me happier that all your stupid money."

"Guns," said a large, imposing figure at the back. "The power of life and death, in your hands."

The man in black smiled. "All very good answers," he said, "But the real answer is secrets. One carefully spilled secret can put guns in the hands of millions. Secrets is what you'll be stealing for me today. And if you suceed, you'll get your money, you'll get your guns, you'll get your women. Anything you want. Just get me this disk."

The man in black produced a picture, and passed it around the people in the van.

"I've chosen you from various small time project gangs because you impressed me." He went around the circle. "Your real names don't concern me. I will give you new ones, and if BESC get hold of you, they're your only names, and you never saw me."

"You are Red Fox." he said, pointing at the young man with the shaved head to the right of him. He carried on with the rest of them, pointing to each in turn. "Blue Minc. White Tiger, Green Snake, Yellow Falcon, Purple Frog, Grey Horse, the big guy is Brown Bear, and you are Pink Rabbit." He finished on the token girl in the van.

---

Talest Jot-Anne had been stealing a cache of heavy weapons from a man called "Bik the Butcher". She had been cut off from the rest of her runners and they left her for dead. She managed to escape the butcher's men by jumping out of an open-air stairwell and catching the rain four stories down. The man in black had been watching, and less than an hour later, she was sitting in a van driving down an interdistrict road. For a first job, that went quite well. Still some time to recover from all this trauma, danger and physical exhaustion would have been welcomed.

'Pink Rabbit'. That would be her name now, until the mission was over. She stared at the disc in the picture. It looked like any other disc to her, but luckily, from what she understood in the conversation during the drive, the one called 'Green Snake' was the one would would be finding the disc. It was her job to run it from 'checkpoint B' to 'Home Base'. The map of their target building was on the floor too. She could memorize her route easy enough, it being two straight lines, but memorizing the whole building? She'd need a few days at least. Whoever designed it didn't have simplicity in mind. If anything went wrong before the Disk fell into her hands....No. She shouldn't think like that. She should focus on doing her job right.

The van came to a stop. This was it...