Hong Kong

by Mel Odom

  “Who are you?” Gobbet asked.

  “I was once a man, as human as you are now.” The dried lips pulled back in a grim rictus. “Now I am a dead man. My soul is bound to this place, and I cannot leave.”

  “You believe we can get you out of here?” Gobbet asked.

  “You can.” It nodded and reached into its robes. When it held its hand out, a porcelain ring sat on its withered palm. “Take this talisman and place it among the other artifacts you have taken. Once you have moved this beyond the binding threshold of this excavation, I will be free.”

  “Let’s say we do this,” Gobbet said. “What is in it for us?”

  The pruny lips twitched in another ghastly smile. “The sure knowledge that you have done what is right.”

  Gobbet folded her arms and straightened her back. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

  I focused on the thing’s head, in case it decided it didn’t have to do better than that.

  It didn’t blink because it didn’t have any eyelids, or eyes, but it did hesitate. “When I am free, I will give you a thing. A token. Crumble it in your hands, and I will come to your aid…but only once. One time, and no more.”

  It stared at Gobbet with those deep-set hollows, and I could have sworn small fires danced at the back of its skull. “I trust him,” she told me. “A couple of mages I know, people I’ve run with, have dealt with intelligent mummies.”

  “You’re sure about this?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I heard RC and Demergo made a deal like this once, and ended up with a ton of nuyen, too.”

  “Will this be sufficient, human?” Its voice had turned cold, almost arctic. I shivered. “Will you accept my offer?”

  The rat shaman wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. “Okay, we’ll do it.”

  “Thank you.” The thing bowed its head. “I will be forever in your debt.”

  “Not really,” Duncan muttered. “Just till we use the ring. If ever.”

  The creature flipped the ring to Gobbet, who caught it in both hands. Then the dead thing faded from view, like it had never been there. Except Gobbet held the porcelain ring.

  No one said anything else, and I took the lead up the steps.

  Getting up to the main level felt good, like crawling up out of a grave, which I guessed was pretty accurate. We moved quickly, all of us in silent agreement that we’d taken all the chances we intended to take. We had the books, whatever bonus materials Is0bel had scored, and there was no reason to get greedy.

  We’d gotten lucky, and we knew it.

  “We still have to wipe the security logs.” Is0bel turned and pointed to an open door in the same room as the dig opening. “That way.”

  Holding the Ingram across my body in a ready position, I led the way into the room. Two computer terminals occupied a back wall around the corner.

  “The one on the right,” Drake announced over the commlink. “Flip the switch on the bottom right, then plug in my datachip. The script will doctor the security logs so we can sneak you out.”

  Reaching into her pocket, Is0bel pulled out the datachip she’d filled with the files Drake had sent us. I nodded to her and she slotted it in the computer, then flipped the switch.

  “It’s executing now,” Drake said. “And…done. Get out of there.”

  Some of the tension knotting up my chest unraveled, and I breathed a little easier as we headed back the way we’d come.

  “You know,” Gobbet said quietly, “there are some interesting artifacts along the way. We could do a little shopping as we pass by. I’d like a closer look at some of those things. Wouldn’t have to go through this Drake character to sell ’em, either. Kiluminati Alabrad would pay well for just about anything we could bring out of here. And RainbowSmite would snatch up anything we could find that deals with paracritters.”

  “We stay focused,” Duncan said before I could reply. “We’ve got a chance to get out, we take it and move on.”

  “Agreed,” Is0bel said.

  “You’re no fun,” Gobbet replied. “And I know we could unload that skeleton on Pipeline because she knows a ton of collectors. Arrrgggghhhh. This is killing me.”

  “The Chairman would take those scrolls in a heartbeat,” Is0bel said, sounding wistful.

  We’d barely cleared the open doorway when I saw movement in the far room, shadows slipping through the darkness.

  “Get down!” I waved the others to cover.

  “Sneak us out, my ass,” Duncan snarled. “I really hate this guy.”

  Thinking about how close that exit was, and how the window of time we had to reach it was shrinking if those shadows belonged to Tan Tien sec men and they’d called for backup, I reached into my chest pouch and took out a high-explosive grenade. Drake had wanted the job to look like the work of amateurs. Blowing drek up was about as amateur as things got.

  “Cover your ears,” I advised. “Things are about to get loud.”

  I pulled the pin, slipped the spoon, and lobbed the grenade. For a moment I was afraid the HE was going to fall short and disappear into the hole to the dig site. But it bounced once on the other side of the room and exploded in mid-air.

  I didn’t see the flash. I had my eyes closed. As soon as the light show faded, with the detonation ringing in my ears, I charged to the left, sweeping out around the hole and firing in short bursts at a cluster of muzzle flashes. The shooter jerked and fell back, and the slack way he collapsed told me he probably wasn’t getting back up.

  I slammed into position on one side of the doorway. Duncan took the other. One of the three sec men had gone down when the grenade detonated. Duncan and I fired on the third man as he laid his own trail of bullets across the floor, homing in on Duncan’s cover.

  I wasn’t sure which of us put the guy down, but he crashed to the floor.

  “Change of plans,” Drake said smoothly as the last dead man sprawled out in a bloody, lifeless heap. “Search those bodies for a key fob. You’ll need it to access the side door.”

  “What side door?” Duncan demanded, but he was already sprinting into the room toward the nearest body.

  I sprinted toward the second man, who’d been ripped all over by the grenade.

  “In the lobby,” Drake said. “My program didn’t work as well as I’d expected.”

  “No drek,” Duncan muttered as he patted another sec man down.

  “I’ve been monitoring the exits on my cameras, and the HKPF have the front locked down.”

  They’d worked quickly. I wondered if they were there because of the robbery, or because of us. There was no percentage in worrying about that, though. I concentrated on finding the key fob. Blood covered my gloved hand.

  “Since you can’t go out the front now, you’ve got to exit out the side,” Drake said. “That key will get you through the locked side door, which will take you out the east service exit. That way is clear.”

  “If it’s not,” Duncan said, “and I live through this, I’ll find you and slot you myself.”

  Gobbet searched the third dead man and held up a key fob. “Got it,” she announced triumphantly.

  We backtracked for a moment, following Drake’s hurried directions, and stepped into another room. A bullet cut the air by my head. I ducked and yelled a warning to the others.

  Gobbet waved and a wall of shimmering energy spun out toward the men entrenched in front of the door we were headed for. Green fog rose up around them, caused them to choke and cough.

  Duncan stepped into the room with me. Together, we picked them off, but at least two rounds thudded into my armor, knocking the wind out of me.

  Then they were down and we were running. The key fob worked on the first try, and we plunged through the door into the darkness.

  Chapter 45

  And Give Up Show Business?

  When Kindly Cheng told me two days later there was someone she wanted Duncan and me to meet at the mahjong parlor, I knew the meeting was going to be about biz. I di
dn’t think the Straw Sandal drew a breath she didn’t charge someone for.

  She made arrangements for the transfer of Drake’s two books and our payment. The archeologist was somewhat disappointed that all we’d brought out of the museum that he knew of were the books. Since she was getting a percentage of the haul, Kindly Cheng was irritated as well, but after I explained how things had gone, she stopped complaining. She didn’t like being lied to—or misinformed—any more than we did.

  I told her we’d meet with the prospective client within the hour, then I got the team ready. Duncan and I were dragging ass, and the women didn’t look much better. The nightmares were getting worse, and the more time that passed without getting any word about the old man, the worse we felt.

  The night before, Duncan had stumbled across another ex-Lone Star guy, who now called himself Oakland Bob and was also running the shadows. He was currently working with an ex-UCAS Army officer named Tango, and promised to let us know if he heard anything about the old man.

  We were doing everything we could do to find Raymond, but it never seemed to be enough.

  “This is a new friend,” Kindly Cheng said after we arrived at her mahjong parlor. “Mr. Shenyang. He has a job that we are interested in.”

  I noted the we, and that told me the run would be one we accepted.

  The “friend” looked out of place in the gaming establishment. Rotund and balding, the dwarf wore a smile that was only skin deep and was as artificial as rethreaded DNA. The gold chains around his porcine neck were for show, but they were real. He spoke in a nasal voice that didn’t match the barrel chest, and it was fake New York.

  “Pleased ta meetcha,” Shenyang said, thrusting out a huge hand. “Cheng was kind enough to arrange this little sit-down between us. You can call me Dr. Shenyang.”

  We shook hands all around, and his hand was puffy, soft. Not one of a man who had to do manual labor.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Gobbet said. “How can we help you?”

  “I’m, ah…lookin’ for a little…outside help on a problem I’ve been having.” He frowned, looking both pained and embarrassed.

  “We’re here to help,” Gobbet said.

  “Ordinarily,” Shenyang said, “I’d handle it myself or have some of my friends see to it, but it’s kinda…delicate, you know.”

  Gobbet nodded.

  Duncan and I swapped looks, and I knew neither of us was impressed with Shenyang or his problem. I figured we weren’t in for an easy time.

  “My guys’d be noticed before they made any headway on my problem,” Shenyang said. “So I figure, hey, I hire contractors all the time! Might as well get some contractors of a different stripe.”

  “Tell us about your problem,” Gobbet suggested.

  “I run a little film studio, Southern Crown Films.” Shenyang looked at us expectantly. “We mostly do trid work, but we record some sims, too. Maybe you’ve seen some of my stuff…Space Mongols from the Moon? The Flavor of Pomegranates? Ultimate Kill Squad?”

  I hadn’t heard of any of them—not surprising, considering just how many smaller studios there were around the world. Duncan shook his head, too, and Is0bel looked equally at a loss.

  Gobbet, however, smiled. “Sounds familiar.”

  “Oh, a fan!” Shenyang clapped his hands. “Good. It’s always nice ta meet a fellow film enthusiast.” He sipped the drink one of the servers set down in front of him. “Anyway, there’s this other guy in the industry, and we’ve been buttin’ heads since day one. Name’s Neville Ma, and he runs Yellow Springs Studio.”

  I drew another blank on that one.

  “No matter what I do,” Shenyang went on, “I can’t shut Ma outta the biz. He always manages to get one over on me, steal my stars, muscle me out of new distribution. It’s a tough racket, and if you wanna stay on top, ya gotta use every advantage ya can get.”

  Gobbet nodded, and he remained focused on her.

  “Recently,” Shenyang said, “Ma’s been runnin’ me into the ground with this show called Promises in Moonlight. The star’s a girl named Penelope Wong. New talent, but the viewers have been goin’ nuts over her. She’s the linchpin, the one who holds the whole show together.”

  Bored, Duncan tried to cut to the chase. “And so you want something to happen to Ms. Wong?”

  Shenyang shot him an irritated look. “Hang on, I’m gettin’ there. So about six months ago, Neville was out in Guangzhou for some hoity-toity party. He’s on the road, probably drunk, a semi comes outta nowhere, and POW! Wrecks his fancy new Eurocar Westwind.”

  From Duncan’s sour look, he had the same suspicions about the “accident” that I did. I figured we weren’t the first group of shadowrunners Shenyang had hired.

  “Bad luck for Neville,” the studio head mused, “good luck for me. I figure, hey, that’s the end of him for the year, and I start plannin’ some new stuff he can’t compete with from inside a hospital.” He looked around the table. “You follow me so far?”

  “Lemme guess,” Duncan said. “He found a way to compete with you from the hospital.”

  “No, worse!” Shenyang slapped the table hard enough to get Kindly Cheng’s attention. “The bastard is out of the hospital. He’s back in the game, bringin’ out season two of Promises in Moonlight.” He leaned toward us and spoke softer, but with a desperate edge. “I need that show off the air, one way or another. And that, my friends, is where you come in.”

  “Tough break,” Duncan said. “Maybe the wreck wasn’t that bad.”

  “Yeah, right.” Shenyang brought out a micro-trid, placed it on the table, and showed us an image of a fire-red Westwind scattered across a four-lane highway. “His car was totaled. No way he walked out of that wreck unscathed.”

  Seeing what I was seeing, I had to agree. Now I was curious.

  Shenyang put the trid away. “I tell ya, kid,” he said to Gobbet, “Neville shoulda been in that hospital for at least three months, and in physical therapy a lot longer. Only took him a week to get out. Couldn’t freakin’ believe it. That kinda medical care costs top nuyen. He’s got a lot of money, but not that much.”

  I waited. Duncan seemed as interested as I was.

  “Recovery time like that means that one of two things is goin’ on.” Shenyang counted them on his pudgy fingers. “Neville could’ve found himself a silent partner…someone willin’ to pay top nuyen for cutting-edge care. I don’t think it’s likely, but it coulda happened.” He took a breath. “If it ain’t that, the smart money says he’s been skimmin’ off the top of Yellow Springs’ earnings and not reporting it to the other shareholders.”

  “And you want us to look into that, I take it,” Gobbet said.

  Shenyang nodded. “I need you to go get me something to blackmail Neville with. Find out how he could afford to get outta the hospital so fast. He works out of his penthouse most days, so search his computer, closet, sock drawer, whatever. There’s gotta be something incriminating in there.”

  “Where is this penthouse?” Gobbet asked.

  “Neville lives in The Repulse Bay—it’s this real swanky joint on the south end of Hong Kong Island, by the bay with the same name. I haven’t been able to get anybody in to poke around his apartment because the security’s too tight.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Lucky for you, though,” Shenyang said, “Neville’s throwing a party on the mezzanine level with all the shops and a restaurant and balcony and such. He’s celebrating the second season launch of his show, and everybody’s gonna be there. Gonna mean a real snarl for the building security.”

  That would give us an edge, a thin one, but something we could work with.

  “You might also wanna hit up the party if you can bluff your way in—everyone close to Neville will be there, and most of ’em will be three sheets to the wind. Some discreet questioning might get me the dirt I need.”

  “Sounds good.” Gobbet smiled.

  “Just remember,” Shenyang said, “if you go to the
party, don’t use your real name. Go with ‘Argyle.’ Should be safe enough. There’s nobody in the biz out here with that name, so nobody’ll ask any questions about how your work’s going.”

  “Hit the apartment, hit the party, dig up blackmail information on Neville Ma.” Gobbet shrugged. “Sounds easy enough.”

  “Oh yeah.” Shenyang nodded and grinned. “Cheng talked you up when I approached her with the job. Given what she told me, this job should be cake.” He paused. “Now, the blackmail material is what I need more than anything. But if you can get Penelope Wong outta her contract too, I’ll pay you extra, got it? I want that star power on my side.” He finished his drink. “One last thing…I don’t want you starting a scene while you’re there. You interrupt his party, make a mess, or trash his apartment, and I’m not paying you anything. We clear on that?”

  “Why the concern?” Gobbet leaned back and crossed her arms, closing herself off from him. “If you’re gonna hamstring us before we even go on the run, we wanna know why.”

  “Because it’s gauche,” Shenyang replied, “and I can’t have Ma knowing I’m after him. In my business, everybody’s got dirty tricks, but if you make it public you’re using ’em?” He drew a forefinger across his throat. “That’s it. My career’s as dead as the People’s Republic of China. Nobody’ll work for or with me ever again. So don’t embarrass me, hey?”

  “No mess, no guns,” Gobbet said. “Got it.”

  Shenyang shook his head. “Oh, you can pack heat. Just don’t kill anybody at the party or in Ma’s apartment. You gotta fight, you find somewhere else to do it. If security gets on you, do what ya gotta do. I’d rather explain a few bullet holes than a pile of dead shadowrunners. Got me?”

  “Yeah, got it,” Duncan growled.

  “Good. If you pull this off, I’ll recommend you to all my friends, too.” Shenyang waved his hands, obviously impressed with his own generosity.

  “You don’t seem like you deal with shadowrunners much,” Gobbet stated.