by Jak Koke
"You notice any magic tricks on the vehicle?" he asked Lethe.
"No. There are no wards or magical traps of any kind."
He reached into the vehicle and gingerly pulled the note from the controls. And in the light of the just-rising moon, he read it.
"It's not over, Burnout. I've got your number. And some time, when you least expect it, I'm going to pay you a visit. You've got no cover, you've got no identity, you've got nowhere to run. Hide, if you think that will do you any good, but you've got to know I'll find you. When I do, Burnout, I promise, you'll die slowly. Circuit by circuit, synapse by synapse. You have no idea what you've done, and for that you have my pity. Still, pity won't save you, chummer.
"Until we meet again. By the way, tell Lethe hello. If I have my way, he'll burn in Hell right beside you for betraying the cause."
Burnout crumpled the note in his hand, rage boiling through him. But this rage was different from the hot anger he was used to. This was a cold hunger that would only be sated by Ryan's lifeless body bleeding at his feet.
Burnout stood in the moonshadow of the great pines, the dappled silver playing over the ground. "All right, Lethe. You're right. The Heart is no good to me, at least not without you, and Mercury isn't going to rest until we're both history. Tell me about this deal."
"It's simple really," the spirit said. "Though I think your hatred for this man is beginning to affect me. The deal is: you promise to help me take the Dragon Heart to Thayla, and I will deliver Ryan Mercury into your hands."
Burnout laughed. "What makes you think you can do what I can't?"
"Burnout, my friend, you do not know Mercury in the way I do. I have fought alongside him, I know his strengths and his weaknesses. I was there when he succumbed to the seductive power of the Dragon Heart and claimed it for himself. I knew then that he could never be trusted to carry the Heart to Thayla. Without that his life is forfeit to my goal."
"How do we defeat him?"
"Whenever you have faced him, you have confronted his strength. As much as I dislike the idea, it's time to confront him where he is the weakest."
"And just where would that be? As far as I can tell, Ryan Mercury doesn't have any weaknesses."
"In the sprawl named Washington FDC there lives a woman named Nadja Daviar. She is Mercury's one weakness. If you have her, then you have him."
Burnout's laughter carried in the night air, and all around the Bison the woods were deathly still. "Deal!"
27
Ryan woke from a nightmare, cold sweat streaming down his face, soaking his shirt and the cushion of the Mistral's passenger seat beneath him. He straightened up, then leaned forward and put his head against his knees.
His mind refused to let go of the dream. The pouring rain back at the top of Pony Mountain. The dense forest lit by flashes of lightning, shaken by thunder. Ryan fought Burnout again, but this time, the cyberzombie had gone down before his onslaught.
In his battle rage, Ryan lifted the metal body over his head and threw it against the trunk of the tree. Instead of feeling relief, the sound of Burnout's spine cracking had brought horror, and he'd rushed to the man's side, turned him over, and screamed.
It was Miranda's face looking back up at him.
Ryan screamed, a high-pitched wail that had become the sound of the engines as his subconscious reluctantly released its hold on his mind. Don't need an interpreter to divine the meaning behind that one, thought Ryan.
Ryan sat up in the Mistral's dark cabin, making the deja vu landing back into National Airport in FDC. He blinked away the tears and rubbed sleep from his eyes. Everything was set for keeping track of Burnout. Jane had put together a small group consisting of two mages and a samurai.
Ryan had left the note on the Bison as a last-second whim, a bit of psychological warfare to throw Burnout off balance.
Miranda's death was hitting him harder than it should, he knew that. Runs like this were dangerous and sometimes people died. Maybe I'm going soft. Regardless, he wanted out now. Dunkelzahn's mission would have to take a back seat to Ryan's persecution of Damien Knight.
Dhin's drowsy voice filtered through the cabin. "We'll be on the ground in five."
Ryan nodded. Readied his gear as they landed. The trip from the airport to the mansion was made in a haze. Ryan was dimly aware of the limo ride and of the smell of cherry blossoms, but everything else was clouded by a distant fog.
It wasn't until Nadja stood before him on the mansion steps, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her soft cotton robe pulled snugly about her, that Ryan came back to reality. He tried to ask her about the meeting he had arranged with her and Carla Brooks and Jane-in-the-box.
"Shh," she said. "Tomorrow." Then she took him by the hand and led him into the house, upstairs to the bedroom and beyond into the master bath.
A huge tub full of steaming water waited for him, and as she stripped his clothes from his body, he thought of Pony Mountain in the hard wash of the rain.
Nadja dropped her robe, revealing her tightly muscled stomach, her hardening brown nipples. She gazed into his eyes and led him into the hot water.
As the heat robbed the strength from his muscles, easing the knots even as it stung his crudely bandaged wounds, Nadja kissed him softly. His forehead, his neck, his eyes, his lips.
She kissed him to hardness, and in the lazy liquid, she wrapped herself around him.
With a tenderness he'd never known, she made love to him. Carrying him to sweet oblivion. He let himself forget about Miranda, about Burnout. About Damien Knight. His cares and worries melted into the embrace with the woman he loved, giving him a measure of peace he'd seldom known.
After, he slept without dreams for the first time in his life. 22 August 2057
28
In the first gray light of the morning, Burnout belly-crawled through the boggy field at the end of the Missoula International Airport. The sound of VTOL transports screamed through the sky overhead as he moved toward the perimeter fencing.
Behind him, the abandoned Ford Bison slowly slipped beneath the surface of the swamp.
It had been a long and difficult drive from Pony Mountain in the dark. The distance was only about two hundred and fifty klicks, but the terrain was mountainous and extremely rugged. They'd come south on the eastern side of the Swan Mountains, then over the pass to the outskirts of Missoula, using abandoned and washed-out roads where people hadn't driven in over a decade.
As they'd approached civilization, Burnout had used the Bison's on-board telecom to call the airfield and get a rundown of all departing suborbitals bound for the FDC sprawl. Armed with that information, he and Lethe had managed to get to the far end of the strip, courtesy of Burnout's still functional GPS.
Now, he was moving silently toward the small guard post. The station was a crude corrugated steel structure, roughly the size of a small storage shed. It looked like an ancient outhouse, and the only thing that belied the image was the small satellite dish mounted on the roof.
The soft twang of some country singer filtered through the open windows, lilting about lost loves, dearly departed dogs, and missing money. One guard was a dwarf with a huge paunch, seated with his feet up on the desk, snoring loudly, almost in rhythm to the slide guitar. The other guard was a young human with Amerind features who took furtive drinks from a bottle inside a paper sack and kept paging through a Playtrog magazine.
Burnout scanned for cameras and stationary or track-mounted drones, but could find none.
"There are two watcher spirits," Lethe said. "But they won't see us."
"Good." Burnout moved up to the window in silence. He slipped inside, and with the butt of his Predator hit the human's temple, sending the body flying. The guard crashed into the metal wall, his magazine fluttering to the floor. As the man sank into unconsciousness, a small trickle of blood seeped from the side of his head.
The sleeping guard woke, but it was too late. Burnout had lifted him up by the neck and removed
his Colt Man-hunter. "Help me and you won't die."
The dwarf's eyes snapped open and filled with horror. Burnout could see the wheels turning behind them. The dwarf nodded.
Holding the guard, Burnout took a quick inventory. The desk, which was cluttered with hardcopy reports and candy wrappers, also held a small cyberdeck. That would be useful. Burnout turned. Something was nagging at him, and it took him a moment to place it.
He looked behind him, found the small radio on the big filing cabinet, just above him. Whining steel guitars and slow country vocals. With a quick swipe of his hand, the radio sailed across the room, shattering against the door frame.
The night went silent.
"Never could stomach that drek." He set the dwarf back in his chair, but didn't let go of his neck. "Now, tell me about runway security."
The guard shivered. "I can't."
Burnout just tightened his grip. "You can tell, or I can find it on the cyberdeck after you're dead."
"Ack!" the dwarf choked. "All right, I'll tell you."
"Each corp has twenty people on the tarmac, but most of them watch the baggage. We don't get much traffic here, and it's mostly tribal."
"Good, come with me, and if you make noise, you die."
A quick nod from the dwarf and Burnout was loping across the tarmac in the lightening gray morning. He spoke under his breath to Lethe. "In less than twelve minutes, you and I will be airborne, and a few hours after that, we'll be touching down in Washington FDC."
Lethe's voice dropped into his mind. "How do you plan on bypassing FDC security? I don't know for sure, but it would seem reasonable that any of the airports there will be heavily secured. If you intend to hijack an aircraft, won't they be waiting for us when we land?"
Burnout laughed and lifted the dwarf so that movement would be quicker. "If I was going to hijack the aircraft, they'd be all over us, and this would be the shortest trip in history. Security at all the major FDC airports is definitely triple A. Even if I was planning to stow away somewhere inside the vehicle, we'd probably get nabbed within half a minute of landing."
Lethe's tone was dry. "I take it, then, that you plan to do neither of these things."
"That's right."
"What then?"
"Can't you read my mind yet, spirit?"
Lethe chuckled. "Not quite," he said. "I'm getting some of your thoughts, however."
Burnout said nothing as he came up behind a small hangar and stood in the shadow of some storage dumpsters. He peered around the corner. Across a hundred meters of runway and taxiway sat the main terminal building. Jets and suborbitals clustered around it like flies on drek. "Now, dwarf," Burnout said, "show me where the security is, and if you lie, I will know and you will die."
The dwarf gave Burnout the information he needed and was rewarded with a precise blow to the back of the head. The small man's body sagged into unconsciousness, and Burnout tucked it away inside one of the storage dumpsters.
Then he made his way toward the terminal, carefully skirting the highly secure areas. He didn't have much time; the Transworld flight he needed to board was just beginning its taxi.
"If you're not going to hijack an aircraft and you're not going to stow away, what are you planning?" Lethe said.
"The TransWorld plane is a Federated-Boeing 3800. She's got no VTOL capabilities, but she's fast. She's got the quadruple rear wheels like the old jumbo jets so the wheel wells are huge."
"You're planning to ride in with the landing gear?"
"Right."
"What happens when the pilot retracts the wheels?"
"I'll have to puncture one of the tires to make sure we aren't crushed." They were nearing the terminal now, and just ahead, the monstrous, single-wing jetcraft loomed as it began forward thrust.
"I think that this plan sounds…"
"Yeah? Sounds how?"
"It sounds like if you're not careful, you might just do Ryan Mercury's job for him."
Burnout laughed again. "Relax, I've done it before. Can't say as I enjoyed it, and there's no in-flight movie, but it will get us there." He accelerated, dodged under the belly of the craft, and jumped past the huge balloon tires, rapidly picking up speed. He latched onto one of the legs and climbed into the small landing gear cavity.
Within minutes he could see the ground rocketing underneath them, then pulling away. I'm coming for you, Ryan Mercury. And now I know how to hit you where it will hurt the most.
And her name is Nadja Daviar.
29
A sweet voice came to his ears. "Wake up, dear."
Ryan rolled in the soft silk sheets and slowly opened one eye. The display on his wristphone read 0912 hours. Nearly nine hours uninterrupted sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept so deeply, or for that duration. No wonder my brain doesn't want to wake up, he thought.
Nadja's kiss fell gently on his cheek. "Gordon brought up breakfast for us," she said. "I've already eaten, have some early business to deal with. Also, Carla is here; we can start the meeting as soon as you're ready."
Ryan's eyes snapped open. The meeting! Yes, he had much to tell them of Damien Knight. How could he have slept so long?
He sat up and swung his legs out of the big bed. The smell of real eggs and fresh bacon drifted in the air. The coffee aroma was pungent and strong.
Ryan's stomach rumbled. "We'll meet in a half-hour if that's okay. After I eat."
Nadja smiled. "In my study," she said. "I'll notify Jane." Then she was gone, leaving him in the room with the breakfast.
Ryan ate and showered, wishing he could take time to enjoy both activities. But he was anxious for this meeting. Anxious to hear what Carla and Nadja and Jane would have to say. He dressed quickly in comfortable pants and a loose cotton shirt and walked down to Nadja's study.
Gordon Wu met him outside. "I'll tell her you're here," he said, turning to the telecom.
"Is her study secure?" Ryan asked.
The man gave him a puzzled look. "Of course, sir," he said. "It is swept by the Secret Service once a day." Wu winked. "And after they leave, Miss Brooks' staff sweeps it again." He gestured for Ryan to enter.
"Thanks." Ryan stepped through the door and into Nadja's private workspace.
In front of her desk, which was still piled with papers and disks, Nadja had arranged three high-back leather chairs in a semi-circle around a huge tridscreen. Two of the chairs were occupied, and the trid screen showed a fourth chair, identical except for the fact that it existed only in the virtual reality of the Matrix.
Carla Brooks looked up to meet Ryan's gaze as he entered. Her white hair was cut close to her scalp, a dusting of platinum stubble over her deep black skin. She wore a sharp Zoe business suit and was carrying weapons underneath. "Hello, Quicksilver," she said. "It's good to see you back alive. I think Quentin Strapp has some more questions for you, and he'd be very upset if he had to ask them of a corpse."
Ryan laughed. "Good to see you too, Black Angel. After this meeting, I think we'll have something to tell Strapp that will make him very happy."
Jane looked out through the tridscreen, her blonde hair shining. Her puffed-out cartoon lips pouted as she spoke. "And just what is that?"
Ryan met her eyes as he walked over to take his chair with the three women. "I know who killed Dunkelzahn," he said.
Nobody said a word.
And in the silence, Ryan's magically enhanced hearing could actually pick out the individual heartbeats of two of the three people sitting around him. The only reason he couldn't pick out the third was because while the trid did Jane enough justice that Ryan could hear the minute squeak of red leather when it rubbed against red vinyl, Jane hadn't bothered programming in a pulse for herself.
It was Carla who finally broke the silence. "How?" It was a whisper.
Ryan leaned back in the comfortable chair. "Let me tell you a story," he said. "It starts way back before the Crash of'29… "
Ryan spilled the whole scenario to them. Eve
rything Alice had told him about Damien Knight's hatred for Dunkelzahn. All about the Nanosecond Buyout and the hold Knight had over Kyle Haeffner.
Jane listened with anger evident on her face. That anger growing as Ryan unraveled the story.
Carla watched him in silence, a look of astonishment dawning on her dark features.
Nadja simply gazed at him and nodded. Ryan could see her sharp mind making various connections, could see all the implications of what he'd said fall into place. "Ryan, you of course realize the vast repercussions of your accusations. What surety do you have?"
Carla broke in. "Yes, even if your information is accurate, it's all circumstantial. You've established motive. We know he had the capability and the opportunity. But that doesn't mean he did it."
"Ryan," Nadja said, "do you have any specifics on how it was pulled off? How did he plant the bomb or the magic ritual or whatever it was that killed Dunkelzahn?"
Ryan gave her a pleading look. "None. Carla's right. All the evidence is circumstantial, but with someone of Damien Knight's power and influence, I doubt any direct evidence will ever present itself. He's too smart, too savvy to ever leave any discernible link that would point to him."
Carla straightened up. "The evidence is compelling, and it should be reported to Strapp and the Scott Commission immediately. But I don't want it getting to the press."
Jane's icon looked at her. "Tell Strapp? Tell the Scott Commission? And just what do you intend to say? Hey, Quentin, one of your primary suspects just told me that someone else did it. So how about we stop investigating Ryan, and start investigating Damien Knight, someone who has a rock-solid alibi? After they threw you off the Commission, they'd lock you up in an asylum."
Carla started to respond, but Nadja cut her off. "Jane's right. We all know Ryan, and we know enough to trust him completely, but that's not going to cut it with Strapp."