Lone Wolf

by Nigel Findley

  “Anyway," the runner goes on, “then Peg came across NVC and got distracted. She ended up running a full newsbase search, looking for any media reports on NVC and what they might be up to. That newsbase search extended to the news media’s image banks as well.”

  I’m getting the faintest hint of where Argent’s going with this, but I keep my yap tight shut.

  “When she was browsing the image banks,” he continues, “it turns out she hadn’t purged the search criteria from her deck.” He indicates the screen with a matte-black finger, “Bring up Bookmark Five.”

  There’s real tension in my chest and my gut as I do. The screen fills with a full-color image, a newsfax-type shot of some kind of corporate ceremony—a ribbon-cutting for a new building or some such drek. In the foreground are two slags in high-tone four-piece suits who’ve got drek-eating grins plastered on their faces as they cut a ribbon with an oversized pair of scissors. Both elves, one of them’s friend Timothy Telestrian. “Who’s the other guy?” I ask.

  “David Margeson,” Argent answers immediately. “Prez and CEO of Nova Vita Cybernetics. One of Timothy’s little puppets, that’s how Peg scans it.”

  “Yeah?" I say, but I’m thinking, so what? We already know NVC’s in Timothy’s camp. Argent wouldn’t attach so much significance to confirmation of a fact that doesn’t really matter. Which tells me there’s got to be something else, I scan the background of the image. A small knot of undifferentiated dignitaries behind Telestrian and Margeson, a couple of rows of them, but with only the front line clearly visible. Probably veeps and other suits from NVC. I give them only the most superficial scan, trying to concentrate on what little of the building shows behind them. If this is the Pillar Rock facility, maybe there’s something significant to be seen .. .

  “You missed it,” Argent almost whispers. “Enhance the image centered on coordinates five-twelve X, fifteen-fifty Y. Try four-X enhancement, for starters.”

  Assuming a two-K-by-two-K grid—the current standard— that’s the upper left-hand quadrant of the image. Frowning,

  I key in the command, and watch as the image zooms in. This is a newsfax file, the graininess of the enlarged image shows that clearly enough.

  But, graininess or not, I immediately spot what Argent’s on about. A face in the second row of suits and execs. Not even partially hidden, but with half of it in shadow from something overhead and out of the frame. The only human among a passle of elves. I recognize him instantly.

  “Nemo?” Argent asks.

  “Nemo,” I confirm. I lean closer to stare at the grainy image. Unbelievable—fragging unbelievable—that Peg’s search software would pick up on something like this. Frag, for a moment it totally slots me that tech can do something like this.

  But of course it doesn’t matter how we’ve found Nemo, only that we have—and that we’ve discovered some connection between him and NVC, and from there to Timothy Telestrian. “Who the frag is he?” I demand.

  “It took Peg a while,” the shadowrunner says quietly. “He’s not part of NVC, and like I said, he’s not part of any Telestrian organization.”

  “Then who?” My patience with this fragging Socratic method is wearing real thin.

  “When Peg dead-ended there, she cross-referenced this image with the rest of the newsfax image banks she could deck into. She found another holo—a really good one, a professional portrait. Apparently taken about a year ago when he got a corporate transfer to Seattle.”

  I snap my head around to stare at the image of Nemo. The feeling of familiarity, of impending recognition, is even stronger than when I first saw him in the Cutters safe house. I know him . .. Thoughts come together with an almost audible click. “He’s from Milwaukee, isn’t he?” My voice is barely louder than a whisper.

  “His name’s Gerard Schrage, but you probably haven’t heard it before. He was a senior veep in Corporate Services, Lone Star Security Services, Milwaukee.”

  “And his transfer?”

  Argent’s next words bowi me over. “Gerard Schrage is executive veep in charge of Lone Star Seattle’s Military Liaison Division,” he tells me.

  24

  I slump down onto the desk chair. That last one hit me like a knee to the pills. I feel like I’ve walked right into the middle of a play with the wrong fragging script.

  Argent is watching me, evaluating, probably wondering how long it’s going to take the Lone Star dork to get his legs back under him. I steeple my fingers in front of my face, pressing the palms together to still the shakes. Unmodified eyes wouldn’t spot it, but my state of mind is probably blatant as all drek to the runner’s modified optics. I take a deep breath, then exhale fully, trying to blow the tension out of my chest and the fog from my mind. “Maybe I’m just out of touch,” I say as levelly as I can, “but I didn’t know the Star even had a Military Liaison Division.”

  Argent chuckles at that and relaxes a little. I get the feeling I’ve passed some kind of test, maybe because I didn’t say “we” when talking about the Star. “It’s new, at least in Seattle,” he allows. “I didn’t know about it either. Apparently Schrage is the first veep, and it’s his job to build it up.”

  “Build it up to what?”

  “I assume to the same level as other Military Liaison Divisions across the continent,” he says. “And yes,” he adds, answering the question I’m about to ask, “there are others. Not in Milwaukee—I suppose that’s why you haven’t heard of it—but in DeeCee, and a big mother in Atlanta."

  “And just what the frag are they supposed to do?” I want to know.

  The shadowrunner’s smile fades slightly. “That’s the big question, isn’t it? Officially”—and he hits that word real hard—“its job is just what the name implies: liaison between Lone Star’s constabulary duty and the local military. It’s the ML group that’s supposed to coordinate crisis planning— civil defense crap, natural disasters, and all that. Should martial law ever be declared, the ML team is supposed to make sure Lone Star assets work with the National Guard or the army or whoever to prevent any overlap that would iet anything fall through the cracks.”

  “That’s officially,” I say.

  “What the official mandate doesn’t explain,” Argent continues, “is why the existing Military Liaison Divisions are so fragging big and well-funded. Going just by the official mandate of their operations, the Military Liaison outfit in Atlanta could get by with a couple of managers, a drekload of low-level data clerks, and some fancy computer systems. But what they’ve actually got are comm specialists, logistics people, weapons and tactics teams, and just shy of a hundred officers ... all of whom have been seconded to ML from SWAT and FRT outfits.”

  “Sounds like a fragging private army. ..The touch of outrage in my voice draws an amused grin from Argent. That makes me realize I shouldn’t be so surprised that Lone Star has some kind of private army. Every megacorp has its “extended security assets”—or whatever the euphemism du jour is at the moment—whether they openly enter them in Desert Wars or not. So why should Lone Star Security Services Corporation be any fragging different? It’s just another mega.

  But what’s slotting me up is my belief that the Star should be different. I can scan why MCT and Ares and Shiawase and the rest use private armies to protect and promote their biz interests around the world—either by kicking the snot out of other private armies or by overthrowing national governments who have the temerity to get in their way, or whatever. That’s just the world we live in today, priyatel. So why not Lone Star?

  Because it is Lone Star is what my emotions answer. Maybe it’s just some kind of illusion I want to maintain, some drek-headed belief that I don’t work for a greedy, grasping megacrop—I work for Lone Star, chummer, for the good of my fellow man. Yet how different is Lone Star from the other megacorps? When you get right down to it, isn’t law enforcement just another product or service? The Star doesn’t keep the peace and enforce the law because doing so is a Good Thing. It does it becau
se a variety of governments pay it good nuyen to keep the peace and enforce the law. The Star is just another corporation making profits by meeting a demand in the marketplace.

  So why wouldn’t the megacorporation that is Lone Star look for other ways to make money, to promote its biz? And if those other ways require a private army, would the corp shy away from them because fielding a private army goes against some moral or ethical stance? Not fragging likely.

  Glancing at Argent, I see him still watching me closely, but with a hint of something new in his expression. Something that might be understanding, or sympathy. Pity, even. And if there’s one thing in this whole fragging world I don’t need, it’s pity—or even sympathy—from shadow-seum like fragging Argent. So I bury my reactions as deep as I can, and do an internal check to make sure my expression’s frosty, just this side of outright aggro.

  “Yeah,” I mutter, but still loud enough for Argent to hear. “Yeah, makes sense. I always figured cleaning the drek off the streets and out of the shadows can’t pay well enough to keep a big corp going.”

  “The way I scan it,” Argent says, not reacting one way or the other to my attempt at nonchalance, “Military Liaison is a resource Lone Star hires out to national governments, corporations, other organizations—frag, maybe even policlubs—to act as a more or less unattributable force to slot with and destabilize rival countries, corps, societies or whatever.”

  “Kind of like shadowrunners, huh, priyatel?”

  Again, I can’t read whether I’ve scored or not. The man just shrugs his muscular shoulders and gestures vaguely with his metal hands. Maybe he doesn’t mean the gesture as a threat, but it’s a good reminder to me of what might happen if I push him too far. “Similar concept, perhaps,” he says mildly. “Unattributable assets, with skillsets you don’t want to get caught having on-staff. But from what Peg’s dredged up, it’s quite a different animal from even the best-trained, best-equipped team of shadowrunners.”

  “Why?” I want to keep scoring points off him, but my curiosity’s too strong on this one.

  He grins, and again I think the big runner’s reading me like a fragging trideo listing. “It’s the military connection, Wolf,” he explains. “Full-on military, and that’s the big difference. You take a good shadow team—like my old squad, the Wrecking Crew. We’d be like a Special Forces fire team.

  Tough as snot for infiltration, sabotage, and hit-and-run actions. But pin us down in a toe-to-toe, stand-up fight with a single squad of army regulars, and we’re fragging rat-bait, and that’s all she wrote.”

  “Why?” I ask again. “Lack of military discipline?”

  Argent gives me another slow, speculative look, and this time I scan the message in those modified optics just fine. Are you going out of your way to slot me off, or are you just a natural drekhead? those eyes are wondering. “In the Wrecking Crew—and in any first-tier runner team— discipline’s just fine,” he says quietly, “Don’t believe what the trideo shows to the contrary, particularly when the programming’s sponsored by corps who’d like to stamp out popular sympathy for shadowrunners before it even gets started.” I nod slowly—that’s an angle on the trid’s treatment of runners I hadn’t really considered before, but it makes a lot of sense.

  “No,” Argent’s saying, “it’s resources and logistics. The Wrecking Crew was four people . . . and that was including Peg, so cut it back to three guns, one of them a shaman. A standard UCAS light infantry squad is ten riflemen and a sergeant—eleven guns, and one of them a mage. On a mission, we’re usually limited to as many rounds as we can hump in on our backs. The squad’s probably got logistic support—a bunch of guys in an APC or scout panzer whose sole job is to deal out replacement magazines to people running low.

  “As for weapons, we’re limited on most runs to only what we can more or less conceal.” He grins wryly. “Your comrades tend to take a dim view of people packing belt-fed GPMGs around the streets of the plex, trust me on that one.” His humor fades. “So that means SMGs, mainly, maybe assault rifles if the circumstances allow it, and once in a fragging blue moon, a light machine gun.

  “The squad? Assault rifles all around, probably with all the toys . . . including grenade launchers. Depending on the mission, maybe one or two are packing assault cannons, and there’s always one slag humping along a heavy machine gun or maybe a fragging minigun if they’re feeling really militant.” The runner shakes his head. “As I said, it’s a big difference, Wolf. And that’s the Wrecking Crew stacked up against a single squad. From what Peg dug up, the ML outfit in DeeCee can field a platoon—that’s four squads, with a combat mage for astral support.”

  Argent shrugs again. “Face it,” he says quietly, “there are some missions where a shadow team’s the only way to go. But for big-time destabilization, or staging a coup, or something like that, you need the milspec weaponry and the military communications channels and force coordination.” Again, what the runner’s telling me makes perfect fragging sense. And again, it disturbs the drek out of me. “Are you saying this ...”—I reach for the name—. . this Schrage . . . Are you telling me he’s got a platoon of regulars he’s hiring out to any takers?”

  “Not to just any takers,” Argent corrects. “He’d be very selective about whose cred he takes. Probably not for any moral or ethical reasons, but I’m sure ability to pay’s a big criterion. And also whether he can do it without getting made.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” I growl impatiently, “whatever. So, does he have that platoon?”

  “Not that Peg could find out,” the runner replies. “There are about sixty names officially assigned to Seattle ML, but I don’t think they’ve got the same special training background as the guys in DeeCee. I’d guess most of them are managerial or clerical ..He pauses, visibly shifting to another train of thought. “Maybe you can confirm that, Wolf."

  "How?”

  “Recognize some names, maybe. I’ll get Peg to run off a list.” And, just as abruptly, he switches back. “So the answer’s no, he doesn’t seem to have the same kind of force together, not yet.” He shrugs. “Maybe it takes more than a year to organize a private army.”

  “No,” I say quietly. Argent looks at me questioningly. “No,” I repeat, a little louder, but still more to myself than to him, “I don’t think that’s it.”

  “Then what?”

  “Maybe he’s not going the same route,” I say, thinking out loud, the ideas as new to me as they are to Argent. It’s like I’m listening to another part of myself, deep down in my subconscious, that’s already worked out a lot of this drek, and now I’m just repeating it to the shadowrunner. It’s a weird, schizoid feeling, and I hope my subconscious isn’t going to make a fragging habit of it.

  “What do you mean, Wolf?” the big runner presses.

  “I’m not quite sure,” I admit. “But if I wanted to set up some kind of fragging army—and keep it secret from the general public—I sure as frag wouldn’t want to do it in Seattle. Much too small, priyatel, let me tell you.’’ Sounds funny talking about the sprawl as small, but for drek like this it is.

  Argent shakes his head. “Doesn’t scan,” he announces. “Other corps have got private armies in and around the plex and it doesn’t slot anybody up or cramp their style.”

  “It's different. Argent,” I insist. “This is Lone Star.”

  “Which we all know is oh-so-different from all the other megacorps,” he almost sneers.

  “No, it’s not different,” I concede, and it grinds me to do it. “But for frag’s sake, does Jane Q. Public on the streets of Bellevue see the Star as different from MCT or Fuchi? You bet your hoop she does, chummer. The Star’s the cops. MCT’s a megacorp. There’s a big fragging difference in the way they’re perceived, the way they’re treated by the news media . . . everything.” I glare at him, and he gets the kicker that I’m not about to articulate in words: That’s the way I always saw it, priyatel, and I was in a better position to scan the truth than your general-purp
ose civilian. But did I see the truth? Uh-uh.

  He doesn’t move for a few seconds. Nothing. Not even a blink. Then he nods unwillingly. He scans the logic of what I’m telling him, but seems unwilling to accept it. He doesn’t like who I am or what I represent any more than I like him. I’d rather gargle with toxic waste than accept anything he says without a struggle, so why should he be any different? “Lone Star does it in DeeCee and Atlanta,” he points out, but his heart’s not in it.

  “Yeah, well, that’s DeeCee and that’s Atlanta,” I fire back immediately. “They’re both national capitals, with all that implies. More corporate presence than Seattle, with more private armies. Who’s going to pay much attention to just one more private outfit?”

  Then a new thought hits me. “Also, ML’s supposed to be liaison with the national military, right? If there’s already a major military presence, and ML’s in tight with it, it’s hard to spot the distinction, neh? Who’s going to notice an extra platoon at a full-blown army base? Only the real higher-ups know that Zebra Platoon—or whatever the frag—is actually on the Star’s payroll. But what have they got for camouflage here in Seattle? The fragging Metroplex Guard. Yeah, right.”

  Argent’s nodding slowly. If I keep hitting him with enough arguments, he’s got to go along. Then yet another idea strikes. “And maybe Schrage and his little chummers don’t need a fully geared-out platoon,” I point out. “Clients who want that heavy a hammer can hire it out of DeeCee. Maybe Schrage is after clients who want something a little less blatant. Still military, but not regular ordnance.”

  Argent gets it too. “Bioweapons?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I say, even though I’m convinced it’s more than that. “Let’s say Schrage wants to expand his repertoire with this retrovirus. Maybe some client’s asking for the capability, or maybe he’s going to use it as a big selling point in next year’s marketing campaign—it doesn’t really matter. He approaches Nova Vita Cybernetics, which just happens to have a jim-dandy little number for sale. On the Tir side of things, friend Timothy Telestrian’s got this big proxy fight thing going on, and cutting a major deal with the Star would earn him big credit and big face.” I shrug. “Who knows, maybe he’s thinking of putting pressure on the Star after the fact, to help him out directly with daddy James . . .