Stranger souls s-26

by Jak Koke

  Burnout dropped the dwarfs body and stepped back. He knew he had violated some trust with Slaver, some fine line of command that had existed between them. Gone now. They both knew it, but he didn't know what either of them was going to do about it.

  "Let's go," Slaver said, not looking at him.

  Burnout nodded and followed the others out.

  33

  The jet-assisted Hughes Airstar blasted through the cool air over the Columbia River on its way toward Assets Incorporated. Ryan took several breaths to get his composure back. "Lethe," he said, forcing a laugh. "Don't scare me like that."

  "I assure you I am trustworthy," the spirit said. "My intentions are pure."

  Jane came on. "Is it there with you?"

  "Yes," said Ryan.

  "Maybe it can get some recon data on the target site so we can make adjustments to the blueprints. It'd be nice to have a current schematic."

  "What is the electronic spirit asking?" Lethe said.

  Ryan smiled at that. "She wants to know if you'd be willing to go back to the building where the Dragon Heart is being kept. We need to know the layout of the corridors and rooms so that we can use the information to modify the blueprints we have. It will help us plan out the run."

  The spirit's answer was quick. "Yes." Then it was gone, winked out like it had never been there.

  Ryan sighed. "Well, it's gone again," he said.

  "Where?" said Axler.

  "I think it's going to get the recon data Jane wanted."

  "Excellent," said Jane.

  "If we can trust what it tells us," said Ryan.

  The rest of the flight to the compound passed quickly, the scenery spectacular as the mountains rose around them. They had branched away from the Columbia when it met the Snake River, then had followed the Snake for just over an hour, before the canyon began to rise on either side. It was like two edges of a jagged cut in the flesh of the world. Now, Dhin was taking them up and up, until they rose up over the

  rim of a ledge in the eastern cliff face-a narrow flat space that had been paved and made into a secret compound.

  Ryan remembered Assets, Incorporated from a few of his missions before the Roxborough incident. But it seemed to have changed somewhat in the past year. Axler, Grind, McFaren, and Dhin were the only employees of the corporation that had been wholly owned by Dunkelzahn through various holding companies and false fronts. Nadja had just told Ryan that the dragon had left the entirety of Assets, Incorporated, to him in his will.

  So I own all of this, he thought, looking around as he climbed out of the helicopter. There was a warehouse of corrugated steel, a concrete airstrip, some metal sheds full of weaponry and ammunition, and an underground bunker.

  What a drekhole.

  But what did he expect? Assets had been created by Jane-in-the-box to be a front to run a special operations team. Also known as shadowrunners. Or criminals.

  Axler led Ryan inside the warehouse, which had obviously seen better days. Its panels hung askew, the metal rusting in places. Huge hangar-type doors opened into the haphazard mess of Dhin's rigger shop where oil, grease, and engine parts were strewn everywhere. Ryan saw the skeletal remains of an Aguilar attack helicopter and what looked like a mostly functional T-bird.

  Axler led the way through an innocuous door in the side wall. And into a small, functional changing room. Lockers and closets full of uniforms, disguises, and body armor of all sorts lined the walls. There was an adjoining room stocked with all but the heaviest weapons and ammunition, which Ryan knew were kept in separate sheds.

  Axler kicked off her boots and indicated for Ryan to do the same. He complied, then followed her through the far door and down the four flights of stairs and into the command center. McFaren and Grind greeted them as they entered the command room. It was clean and very modern, with a communications array to rival the security bay of any well-protected installation.

  There was a workout floor with weights, a sparring mat, and a simsense deck to hone skills in simulated real life. There was a large trideo surrounded by couches, a kitchen

  and dining area, plus a conference table and desks. McFaren had a separate room, down one level, for his magical work.

  Ryan quickly revised his opinion. Dunkelzahn had obviously seen fit to upgrade this base since Ryan had last been down here. Axler and team had far better facilities than he'd realized. Dunkelzahn and Jane valued them highly, and they had managed to rescue Ryan from a well-protected delta clinic in the heart of Aztlan-a hostile country under the best of circumstances. Ryan was starting to believe that they could actually pull off this run to retrieve the Dragon Heart.

  The trideo came to life in front of him, showing Jane's three-dimensional construct of the Atlantean Foundation building. The walls were a transparent gray, and the floor plan of each level showed the interior design, at least from when the structure had been built.

  Grind came up to Ryan, extending one of his metal hands. "Hoi."

  Ryan shook the dwarfs hand. "Good to see you, chummer."

  Grind nodded. "We've been going over Jane's data," he said. "We've got a few ideas for infiltration, but the detail on security is slim. We're hoping this spirit, Lethe, can help."

  "Me, too."

  McFaren joined them as they sat down on a couch. "He's not here yet," the mage said. "He?"

  "The spirit, Lethe."

  "Why do you call it a he?" Ryan asked.

  McFaren scowled. "I thought you would know," he said. "You've got the sight. It's a he."

  "Oh," was all Ryan said. But the mage's comment bothered him, as though his perception had been impaired somehow by what had happened to him at Roxborough's clinic. The freakish duality of his mind, of his past, which made no sense unless he considered that he'd been two people up until a few days earlier.

  Ryan suppressed a frown. "He should be back soon with the recon data."

  "Let's proceed without him for now," Axler said. She held a remote in her hand, which she used to point out the outer defenses. "Now, let's get the basics down. First of all, the

  Atlantean Foundation is a highly magical corporation with an interest in obtaining items and artifacts of an arcane nature. The Eugene facility is located in the Riverfront Research Park, right on the Willamette River. It's in the heart of Eugene, nestled between Franklin Boulevard and the west bank, surrounded by an arboretum of pines and maples and such. The arboretum extends for about twelve kilometers along the river on both banks. We could come in from up- or down-river and travel to the facility on foot using the paved pathways or through the trees."

  "Any local heat to worry about?" asked Grind.

  "Perhaps," said Axler, "but not more than elsewhere. Once we get inside the border, we shouldn't have to worry about cops, only corp security. We know the perimeter from the recent photos. Standard electrified cyclone topped with monowire."

  "Any drones?"

  "No drones," she said. "No cameras either. They saved those for the outer wall. There are paranimals, however."

  "What kind?"

  "Hell hounds," she said.

  McFaren shuddered, but said nothing.

  "There aren't very many, maybe five or six," Axler went on. "They patrol the space outside the building between the perimeter fence and the security wall." The pointer followed an open area just inside the outer fence. "The second obstacle is the wall," she said. "It's a five-meter-high cinderblock construction with our favorite Ares Sentinel track drones and security cameras."

  "Might also be spirits and watchers, or maybe a ward there," McFaren said.

  Ryan felt a presence around him, and he pushed his sight to see into the astral. Lethe had joined them. "He's right," the spirit said. "Tell him that there are air and fire elementals and several dozen watcher spirits."

  Ryan relayed the information, serving as translator for the big spirit. Jane joined them as soon as she heard that Lethe had come with new data. Ryan translated for the spirit, and Jane modified the 3-D hologra
ph in front of them to be consistent with the new information. Within a few hours, the

  detail had increased tenfold, and they had formulated an infiltration strategy.

  Their plan was far from perfect, and they didn't have all the data. Lethe had been reluctant to enter the chamber that held the Dragon Heart. The room was warded, and he hadn't wanted to break the barrier and warn the researchers of his presence. So Axler and Jane and Ryan went over the plan several times, suggesting alternatives, weighing options, and ironing out any potential glitches.

  Excitement gripped Ryan as they finalized the timetable; he was anxious for action. He worked well with these people. Especially Jane, who had an amazing knack for coming up with the simplest plan, which despite its simplicity included provisions for failure at any step along the way, and for escape after the item had been retrieved.

  Grind and McFaren dressed in their disguises, got fake System Identification Numbers from Jane, and left right away. They needed to be on site first. It took a few additional hours for Ryan and Axler to prepare everything and get underway. A thrill raised the hackles on Ryan's neck as Dhin lifted the helo from the tarmac. Axler was strapped in next to him, a look of stone-cold determination on her pretty face.

  Ryan smiled; it was a good plan. One that took into account almost every contingency. Almost. There was just one thing that bothered Ryan. One intangible that could frag everything to hell. Lethe. They were relying on the spirit for entirely too much, and Ryan wasn't ready to completely trust him. The spirit was alien and very powerful; there was no way of knowing his real motivation. His real intentions. If Lethe wanted to double-cross them, it would be far too easily done.

  34

  Jane-in-the-box surveyed her sensory feeds. She was in the brushed steel cube of her box, the video and audio feeds of her team spinning around her as she changed point of view and checked the inputs from each runner.

  Axler and Dhin were with Ryan in the approaching helo, the night wrapped around them like a black velvet blanket. They were vectoring down from Willamette Pass east of Eugene. Their estimated time to target was nine minutes. Jane didn't have a feed on Ryan, though she could contact him by his wristphone if necessary.

  Grind and McFaren were already on site, presumably with the spirit Lethe. It had been early evening by the time McFaren had managed to get inside under the newly created identity of Dr. Jack Rinehart, a leading researcher from the Illuminates of the New Dawn magical order. Dr. Rinehart wanted protection from the Atlantean Foundation until he could cut a deal with them for the sale of an item he deemed to be very powerful.

  Grind was along as his personal bodyguard, and Lethe was the item. Or at least he was supposed to make the mundane African sculpture that McFaren carried look like ancient magic.

  Jane hoped it worked. McFaren had asked for asylum from IOND, claiming the powerful magical order would gather a group of initiates to kill him by ritual magic. The AF facility was the only place he knew whose members might be able to create a hermetic circle powerful enough to protect him.

  Through Grind's headcam link, Jane could see that he and McFaren waited inside a huge circle of painted Sperethiel and chalk powder symbols. Three resident research mages

  were inspecting the item in the corner of the larger chamber, and so far, so good.

  Besides the mages, there were only two guards with them. Lethe only had to convince them that the item was magical until Axler and Ryan got on site. A few more minutes. All feeds were strong. Time for a little Matrix run.

  Jane slipped down through her virtual gateway and into the electronic skies of the Lake Louise private grid. She paused briefly to stretch her virtual muscles, then blasted out through her special datalines, and into the heart of the Tir Tairngire Matrix without a hiccup. She'd been here before, had a legit front as an investment property manager, though her host operated as a virtual machine on a powerful mainframe that was operated by a Eugene-based company called Synerman Technologies.

  It was a cheap and easy way to avoid decking through the Tir's defenses every time she needed to break into the country's electronic landscape. Which was getting to be all the fragging time.

  Jane popped out of her virtual host and into the Eugene LTG. Most of the structures were still standard UMS iconology-octahedrons and planar explosions of data colored blue and purple. The power company-Eugene Water and Electric-looked like a large elven hand holding two bolts of lightning in a closed fist. The lightning flashed alternately yellow and blue, but under the facade, everything was the standard geometries.

  Jane logged on as a request for a billing update, a standard octahedral datapacket. She moved in past the probe IC without hitch, then she changed tactics. Using her analyze utility, she scanned the universe of databanks and subproces-sors hanging in front of her. One of the SPUs was the one she wanted.

  She sleazed her way in past the tar baby IC and assumed control of the subprocessor. This SPU wasn't heavily guarded because it didn't need to be. It only monitored systems; it didn't control anything. Jane smiled. That was the beauty of her plan. She would minimize the lethality by making several seemingly innocuous penetrations that would work synergistically. Each move was easier than a direct

  penetration of the host, and the results would hopefully be the same.

  Jane spooled out a smartframe she had programmed for this run; it would sit dormant until the time was right. Then it would trigger the system, making it look like one of the power substations was failing. If the smart frame didn't work, her next job would be much harder.

  Jane sneaked out of the host, gracefully logging off, and back through the Eugene LTG to look at the research park construct. It was a windowless fortress tower made of white ivory that stretched up into the sky like a virtual needle. There was a single door at the base.

  The tower construct held the security hosts for several buildings, including the AF structure. Jane knew she could get into the Atlantean Foundation host through their central system in Atlanta, but she was sure that would be harder than this. That corridor was clogged with ice and might take too long for her to punch through. Besides, she didn't need access to any interior data; she just wanted a look at their security for a few CPU cycles. Also, she suspected that this ivory tower sculpture was less formidable than it appeared. Merely a facade to scare off newbie deckers.

  At least she hoped so as she moved up to the entrance. She released a huge net and intercepted a datapacket that was headed for the single door, then had her deck analyze it before letting it go. She repeated this a few times; she still had a few minutes before her dormant smartframe came out of its coma. After six tries her deck found one with the right destination code-headed for the AF security subsystem.

  She kept her standard octahedral facade, but used the data-packet's destination as she approached the door and tried to log on. The system asked for a passcode and a validation, which Jane's deception algorithm provided. After a long pause, the door slid upward and let her inside.

  Inside, the iconology changed and Jane followed suit. The theme was an office building, not the most original metaphor to be wasted on such a vast amount of computing power. But that didn't concern Jane in the least. She merely changed her persona to match, becoming a floating memo-one of the ancient kind written on actual paper.

  She located the AF structure and surveyed it. Getting into

  the central host would be difficult, though not impossible for Jane. Just potentially ugly.

  She had no intention of things getting ugly, however. She didn't need to access the central host, merely the subsystem that fed data to the closed-circuit security rigger. If there was no rigger and the drones were on autorecognition-unlikely, but possible-Jane's job would be even easier.

  She positioned herself, and was ready when her smart frame triggered the false alarm. A simple matter of tricking the power company's subsystem to register a faulty reading. The EWEC system sent out a standard warning message.

  "A power
loss has been detected in the substation that feeds electricity to your building. One of the transformers is out and will have to be repaired. Meanwhile, power will be rerouted to the auxiliary substation. There should be no interruption of service, but a slight power surge is possible. The Eugene Water and Electric Company takes no responsibility for any damage that occurs to electronic devices during this transition. Thank you."

  Perfect. Jane rushed into the midst of the priority messages and data instructions that came along with the message, and sleazed her way past some hefty-looking black ice, showing in the carpeted hallway like paper shredders. But they didn't sift the incoming data closely enough; the priority status fooled them. So far, so fragging good, and now Jane felt a rush of emotion. This run was just starting to test her, though it was still far easier than her run against Roxborough's system.

  So far, she reminded herself. Don't get overconfident now.

  As if on cue, she felt the burning sensation over her skin just then. That feeling of being watched again. Alice again? Or just paranoia?

  Jane ignored the feeling. If it was Alice, she'd talk to her after the run. If it wasn't, then Jane would have to recook all her chips to get the ghost feeling out of her deck.

  Then she was in the security subsystem. It took only a microsecond to set up a delayed power surge in three cameras and one drone. The power to the electric fence would also cut out for few minutes. She had set up a blind spot in the defenses, to become active exactly when the power company switched to the new substation. It would look like a power surge had burned out the electronics.

  Once the smartframe was planted, Jane instigated a full retreat, as fast as possible. She had one more stop to make before she left the Matrix. The fire station was going to be an easy target. First, however, she wanted to get back to her box and check on the run's progress.

  She was almost out when Alice manifested in front of her. Then Jane was no longer in the Eugene LTG, she was no longer in the Matrix at all. She was walking on a rain-slick black road in the mirrored canyon of Wonderland City. Alice stood under a street lamp, looking up as she pulled a cigarette from her mouth.