Ishmael stood on the sidewalk and stared at the traffic light. Green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red. The proper pattern. But something was wrong.

Cars streamed by, sparse at this hour and in this weather. Light from a few of the loft apartments in the old Motor Wheel factory streamed out onto the road behind him and across the street. A few flickering lights from Oak Park reached Ishmael, while he stood stock still and stared at the traffic lights.

Green, yellow, red. Green yellow, red. Green, yellow, red, blinking yellow. Midnight. Traffic was now officially thin enough to no longer require the more complex pattern of lights and behavior. At this hour of night, all that was needed was a simple pattern of caution and stop before you go. Still he stared at the scene above and ahead of him.

Ishmael tilted his head to the side, shifting his perspective ever so slightly. Cogs and gears ground, shifted, and churned in a slightly different layout. The light from a street light near the corner silhouetted a set of small cameras, each facing as if to measure traffic and detect whether the light needed to change. Those hadn’t been there yesterday. “This is bad.” The fingers of his right hand sought out and rubbed the cross pin on his shirt collar. Its strange warmth was always comforting to him.

Ishmael began his walk to one of his safe houses. After the attack on the club, the house owned by the pointy-eared war goddess wasn’t even close to safe. No, old patterns would serve him best in this situation. Moments ago, he had checked on the Beowulf cluster in the basement of the one-time-factory, one-time-warehouse, now loft building, and verified that it was in working order. Two NIC replacements and a rotation of IP addresses later, he had left by a completely different route than he had used to enter. He had come out the front door, after smiling warmly to an entering resident, and had come upon the changed street corner.

The last two weeks had seen a pattern that was unlikely to be disturbing to anyone but him. Warehouse after warehouse had reported missing electronic equipment. Radio Shack, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and even Vertex had reported missing inventory. None had filed a single insurance claim. None could find any record of the stock ever having been in the places that were reporting the missing items. No serial number tracking, no delivery slips, no electronic or paper trail at all. Ishmael stuffed his right hand back into his pocket and frowned.

These “technocracy” people seemed as subtle as a bar full of rampaging Brujah. However, with how pervasive they seemed to be, it was likely that he had faced those members that were much like the brutal Clan. The rest might be like the Ventrue or the Tremere, and that was bad for everyone. Especially that wizard. Order of Hermes. Anyone who knew the Tremere had to be bad for continued existence.

This wasn’t their style. Neither the Illuminati of the wizards nor those Kindred that had been in Lansing in the past were subtle enough for something like this. None had encroached upon territory that had always been his. Ishmael used the key to open the deadbolt, entered the mediocre apartment, and closed the door behind him. He locked the door, and checked every window and set of blinds, moving in a clockwise circuit. Nothing had been disturbed.

Ishmael entered the master bedroom, which contained a milk crate serving for a stand for a used iMac. The plastic had “$45” written on it in permanent marker, followed by “No Hard Drive”. He plugged the power cord into the wall. He plugged an ethernet cable into the computer and into a new-looking jack in the wall.

The newest gimmick to lease crappy apartments – free high speed internet access.

He grinned and pressed the power button. After a “bong” and a few moments, a large question mark blinked on the screen. He nodded to the machine, as if he understood it, and went into the kitchen. He pulled out the silverware drawer (built-in slots for forks, spoons, and knives – how helfpul) and reached in. He pulled out a CD that had been taped to the underside of the counter, and headed back into the bedroom. He slid the CD into the slot-loading drive, and smiled again as a penguin appeared on the screen.

It took him hours to gather the information and sort it manually. With this kind of situation, he couldn’t trust his aggregation and sorting algorithms. This kind of subtlety was inherently designed to fool systems of that nature. No, this required a tilting of the head and hours of satisfying work. And, oh, did it pay off.

Cameras. Lenses. Coax cable, antenna wire, ethernet cable. Low light cameras, zooming cameras, DV cameras. Circuit boards, computer motherboards, resisters, capacitors, webcams, TV in and out cards… the “missing” equipment was nearly enough to set up a low-grade visual network that could spy effectively on an entire city the size of Lansing. Worse yet, most of the model numbers were unique, or at least inconsistent. Nearly impossible to trace, and each node in the network, each camera, each data-processing hub, everything… it would all be custom. Impossible to trace. On top of all of this, legislation had been shoved through City Council to install a network of camera-responsive lights, like they had in Detroit and its suburbs, at the major intersections of the city. The paperwork was all in perfect order, and had come upon absolutely zero resistance from anyone.

Brilliant.

But the patterns, oh God in heaven, the patterns. Ishmael set the keyboard on the floor. The growth patterns from each central hub were altered by geography, but once that factor was removed, each pattern was a synthetic version of a biological growth curve. An artificial attempt at organic growth. It was breathtaking. It was beautiful. It was the most dangerous thing that Ishmael had ever seen.

Someone in the city was as good as he was; had skills that rivaled his own. It was possible, even likely, that his recent activity had drawn this challenger. No! Conflict only ended one life, and let the other live. Conflict solved nothing! A quiet stirring of rage from deep within Ishmael made him stop and think. Old patterns would serve him best.

Lay low. Do not allow contact. Do not contact anyone. Let the danger pass. After all, as long as no one thought he was a danger, no one would spend the effort to end his life. And without that, he would live forever.

Lay low. Let the danger pass.