Poison Agendas

by Stephen Kenson

  "What is it?" she whispered, but before Orion could reply, she heard it.

  Mournful chanting echoed down the passage, steadily growing louder. Midnight stepped away from the metal canisters, and just in time.

  As if in response to the chanting, the dark stains on the floor seemed to shiver, become fluid, and then they began to move. They slithered toward each other, picking up each bit of garbage and rubble they touched. Then they swirled into a dark mass that flowed up over the canister closest to the floor. The metal hissed and popped where the liquid touched it until there was a loud crack, and a viscous yellow-green ooze poured out of the broken canister, becoming part of the dark mass surrounding it.

  "No . . ." Natokah gasped, as the bubbling goo rose, swelling in size. It flowed over another canister, which split open, adding more liquid to the mass. Acrid gas filled the air as the mass began to assume a distinct shape. "We have to get out of here!"

  "I'll clear the exit." Orion volunteered. He flattened against the wall as the liquid stretched up toward the ceiling like a pillar, then split down the middle. Kellan had an impression of eyes swirling in the mass.

  Orion spun into the doorway, weapons at the ready. As he stepped through, he collided with a shimmering wall that sprang into existence across the opening. There was a greenish flare of light where he came in contact with the wall, and he stumbled back.

  "What the frag?" Then he saw the shadowy shape standing on the other side of the mystic barrier. "We've got company."

  "Stay out of sight!" Kellan shouted.

  "Don't worry." said a muted voice from outside the barrier. "I already have what I want."

  "Who the frag are you?" Kellan demanded.

  "I'm Zhade." the voice replied. "And I owe you a big thanks. You made finding this place and getting inside really easy."

  "You've been following us?"

  "Not really." Zhade said. "Let's just say we've been on parallel paths. I just had the advantage of knowing when you would be here."

  The mass of fluid and debris shaped itself into two vaguely humanoid forms, each with two arms ending in three fingers, and a head with a recognizable mouth and eyes. They had no legs; they were just swirling pillars of fluid below the arms. They swayed there, eyeing the shadowrunners, who did their best to keep their distance, weapons held at the ready.

  "You killed Squeak." Kellan accused Zhade. At that moment, she very much wanted to see her opponent's face. Heedless of her own warning, she stepped out into the room so she could see the entrance.

  The shadowy figure stood there, faintly illuminated by the light from the barrier. Zhade was less than a meter from the entrance. He was dressed in mismatched leathers, all straps and buckles, with pieces of what looked like scratched and dirty plastic armor and a tattered plastic slicker worn over it all.

  "Who?" he asked, cocking his head.

  "Squeak." Kellan repeated. "The guy who found the data on this place."

  "Oh, yes, him." Zhade said. "I didn't need to kill him. Someone already had. I assumed it was you. So did the Brain Eaters, apparently."

  "Yeah, right." Kellan replied.

  Zhade shrugged. "I have no reason to lie to you. In fact, I have no real reason to continue talking to you." He made a broad gesture toward the creatures at the back of the room, as if he were gathering them to him.

  With a squishing, sloshing noise, each one bent down and retrieved two of the metal canisters. Then they flowed—first one, then the other—toward the glowing barrier.

  Orion raised his pistol, but Natokah called out, "Don't! It won't have any effect, and you might hit one of the canisters."

  "Excellent advice." Zhade sneered. The toxic spirits reached the magical barrier and passed through it as if it weren't there. Zhade stepped forward and took the canisters, cradling them gently in his arms as if they were children. Then the toxic creatures withdrew into the chamber with the shadowrunners.

  Kellan concentrated, gathering power. There was a foul "taste" to the mystic energies, as if the poisons in the air and the chemicals soaked into the concrete had tainted everything around them. She poured her will against Zhade's barrier and flung a manabolt spell at it. The barrier shimmered and rippled, but it held, and Zhade smiled wickedly.

  "Impressive." he said. "Given time, you might manage to break through. Too bad you won't have it. Good-bye."

  The shaman took a step back from the barrier and spoke an ugly-sounding phrase. Clouds of noxious green mist hissed out from around Zhade's booted feet as he walked slowly backward. Where the fumes touched the walls and ceiling, they began to eat away at the concrete and steel reinforcements.

  "They're yours. Don't make them suffer too long." Zhade called out. Then the ceiling gave way outside the mystic barrier, and concrete, rock and dirt buried the entrance with a dull roar. A moment later, the barrier flickered out, leaving the shadowrunners' flashlights and the sickly glow of the toxic spirits as the only source of light in the room.

  "Kellan, the spirits," Natokah said, "we have to banish them! We have to—"

  The first spirit lashed out at Natokah, and he ducked as it left chemical scars along the wall where he had stood an instant before.

  Orion and Draven leapt toward the other spirit, slashing with sword and axe. Draven struck twice, then backed away with an oath as the blade of his axe began to dissolve. Orion's enchanted blade, on the other hand, carved chunks out of the spirit's shape. Inert fluids splashed to the floor as the spirit thrashed and wailed in pain.

  Natokah stood his ground near the wall, facing the other spirit. He spread his hands, traced a warding gesture in the air, and began to sing. The toxic spirit stopped in its tracks, as if an invisible barrier had sprung up between it and its prey. It struggled to reach Natokah, fought against the power of the shaman's will. Though the song wasn't familiar, Kellan knew Natokah was attempting to banish the spirit, forcing it away from the material plane, the mundane part of the world.

  Draven cried out as the second spirit's arm flowed across his left shoulder, burning wherever it touched. He managed to break free from its grip when Orion slashed through the arm holding the dwarf. The spirit sprouted another limb from the fluid mass of its body as Draven reeled back. Kellan could see burns seared across his chest and arms, his armor partially melted.

  The spirit focused its attention on Orion as the elf warrior danced around it, dodging in to strike with slashes of his gleaming sword, then leaping and dodging out of the way of the spirit's return attacks. Draven charged in with his half-melted axe to strike the spirit again. It batted the dwarf away with one tentacle-like limb. Draven crashed into the wall, losing his helmet and falling in a heap.

  Kellan cast a manabolt at the spirit fighting Orion, but the presence of the toxic spirits was contaminating the mana. Her spell was weak and had little effect, and the spirit remained focused on Orion. The elf ducked and rolled to avoid another noxious strike, counterattacking as he regained his feet. This time when he slashed, his blade stuck in the creature's body and was torn from his hands.

  The spirit lashed out, striking Orion in the shoulder. There was a sickening hissing sound and the elf stumbled back. He lost his footing on the slick floor and fell. The spirit towered above him, as if it intended to wash over the elf like a wave of burning acid.

  "No!" Kellan shouted. Suddenly, everything Lothan had taught her about banishing spirits crystallized in her mind. She focused her will on the spirit, held out her hands and pronounced the ritual of banishment.

  The toxic spirit stopped in midlunge, and Kellan felt the force of its malevolent will turn upon her. At that moment, she became fully, sickeningly aware of just how conscious, how deeply twisted, these creatures were. A wave of pure hatred for all living things, a burning desire to corrupt, to destroy threatened to overwhelm her. She steeled her will, and repeated the ritual of banishment.

  As if from a distance, she heard Natokah's song as the shaman struggled to do the same. Her words of power mixed with
the shaman's song as Kellan exhorted the spirit to be gone and trouble the world no more. It burbled and hissed, thrashing against her will, single-minded in its desire to destroy. Sweat poured down Kellan's face beneath her protective mask. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

  With a desperate surge of effort, Kellan pressed the attack and felt the spirit's resistance crumble. The toxic mass abruptly collapsed in on itself, subsiding into a puddle of noxious ooze. The last shrieks of the spirit died away in Kellan's mind as its connection with the physical world was broken and it fled into the depths of the astral plane.

  She saw that Orion had struggled to his feet. As the spirit collapsed, he seized the hilt of his sword and pulled it free. Then he turned on the spirit battling Natokah. The shaman fought valiantly, but he was down on one knee, arms raised to ward off the thing towering above him, which was struggling to surge forward and engulf him in its fetid mass.

  Orion's sword flashed, once, twice, three times in the blue-white light of the flashlights lying on the floor. The toxic spirit thrashed and twitched as Orion cut apart its body while Natokah leashed its will. It collapsed with a slosh into an inert heap of sludge and refuse.

  Natokah started to get to his feet, then his eyes rolled back into his head and he pitched forward, slamming into the floor. Midnight was at his side before Kellan could reach him, pressing slim fingers against the side of the shaman's neck.

  "He's alive."

  The spirits were gone. Orion looked at the rubble choking the only exit from the bunker and turned to Kellan.

  "Can you can recall that elemental?"

  Kellan shook her head. "I was only able to bind it for one service."

  "Then we're trapped, and as good as dead."

  Chapter 19

  "Like fraggin' hell." Kellan declared. She stepped into the middle of the room, away from Natokah's unconscious figure, and faced the entrance, fists clenched at her side, eyes narrowed in anger and concentration. Dammit, it wasn't going to end like this! She felt magical power building all around her, hot on her skin.

  "Kellan, what are—?" Orion began, but Midnight hushed him.

  Kellan was barely aware of her fellow shadowrunners. She called to mind one of Lothan's first lessons, in which he had taught her how to levitate objects.

  She'd started with small things—her phone, a book—and progressed to larger ones. Still, she'd never moved anything heavier than Lothan himself, and the rubble probably weighed tons. But Kellan didn't think of that. All she was thinking about was how she was responsible for this mess. She was the leader of this team, and she wasn't going to give up without a fight!

  Her temperature spiked as magical energy surged around her. The amulet at her throat felt suddenly hot and heavy against her skin. Kellan hurled her will against the debris blocking the entrance.

  For a moment there was nothing, just the labored sound of Kellan's breathing. Then some dust and pebbles shook loose from the rubble, pattering to the floor. Kellan gritted her teeth. Come on, come on! she thought, pressing with all her will. Orion's words echoed in her head: We're as good as dead.

  "Come on." she muttered. She was drenched in sweat. It felt like her amulet was burning her skin, but she used the pain to focus her concentration until everything narrowed down to the pile of ferrocrete and metal in front of her.

  Kellan threw up her arms and yelled, "Move!" and an invisible force suddenly blasted the rubble clear of the entrance, shoving it aside like a bulldozer. A fresh cascade of dirt and dust poured down, but a gap had opened, big enough for them to climb through.

  Gasping for breath, Kellan staggered back, clutching her temples against the splitting headache stabbing her brain. Orion grabbed her around the waist with one arm and steadied her against his uninjured shoulder. The elf looked at the passage blasted through the rubble and then down at Kellan.

  "Damn." was all he said, clearly impressed.

  Kellan, Orion and Midnight somehow managed to haul Draven and Natokah out of the underground chamber and back to the clearing outside. Zhade was long gone. Midnight pulled off her breather mask as soon as they set their unconscious teammates on the ground outside and flipped open her pack. She handed Orion and Kellan a couple of slap-patches each.

  "Put these on," she said, "and one onto each of them." nodding toward the others. "They're broad-spectrum antitoxins." They immediately tore open the packaging and applied the patches, while Midnight assessed the team's injuries with a portable medkit.

  After she applied the patch to Natokah's neck, Kellan turned to Orion.

  "Your shoulder." she said, reaching out but then pulling back, not daring to touch it. Part of the elf's jacket was literally melted away, and his exposed flesh was covered with a blistering burn.

  "It's all right." he said quietly. "I'll be okay." But he kept his teeth clenched. She knew it must hurt like hell.

  "We're lucky." Midnight pronounced, continuing to study the medkit readout.

  "Lucky?" Kellan said incredulously.

  "Yes, lucky no one's dead," Midnight replied, "and nobody looks to be fatally injured, either."

  "What about Natokah?"

  "Mostly exhaustion, I think." Midnight brushed a stray strand of black hair back from her face and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "He used a lot of magic in a short period of time. He's worn himself out. He might have internal injuries, but I can't tell with this equipment."

  "Kellan?" Orion turned to her. "What do we do?"

  Kellan just stared for a moment, looking from Orion to Midnight and back. After all that had happened, he was still looking to her for direction, for her to take charge.

  "I—I don't know." she said, glancing down. She looked at the shadowrunners who almost didn't survive her leadership, who still might not, if they didn't find a way out of Hell's Canyon. It was hours still until sunrise. Who knew what other Awakened predators might be out there in the wilderness? Who knew if Zhade left behind any other surprises for them?

  She looked back up at her teammates: Orion looking hopeful and a bit lost, Midnight as composed and calm as ever, patiently waiting for Kellan's answer. She swallowed her fear and doubt. There wasn't time for it right now.

  "Can we move them?" she asked Midnight, indicating Draven and Natokah with a nod.

  "I think I can bring Draven around." Midnight said briskly, moving over to the dwarf. She applied a stim-patch to the side of Draven's neck, over the artery. In fairly short order, the dwarf regained consciousness with a groan.

  "Don't try to move yet." Midnight said. "You've got some burns ..."

  "No fraggin' kidding." the dwarf grumbled through gritted teeth. "Hurts like hell."

  "I can give you some beta-endorphins for the pain." Midnight said, picking up the medkit. Draven's hands felt around on the ground next to him.

  "My axe?"

  "It got melted." Kellan said.

  Draven closed his eyes and sighed. "Ah, they just don't make 'em like that anymore." Midnight applied a painkiller near the edge of the burn, and the tense lines in the dwarf's face soon eased.

  "We should move to the edge of the clearing and get some rest." Midnight suggested. "Draven's in no shape to travel right now and I don't want to risk bringing Natokah around. We can set a watch, and let them rest as much as possible. We can take stock of things in the morning."

  "What about Zhade?" Kellan asked.

  "What about him?" Midnight replied. "We've got to worry about ourselves right now. This run is a wash, Kellan. Zhade took or destroyed whatever was left here. We need to cut our losses and worry about getting back to civilization in one piece, and then making it back to the metroplex."

  Kellan opened her mouth to object, then closed it. She was so tired, and she felt unsteady on her feet. "You're right. Let's stay here for tonight and see how things look in the morning."

  As Midnight cleaned and dressed Draven's wounds and made Natokah comfortable, Kellan and Orion organized what little there was to their camp.
Kellan volunteered to try building a fire, but Midnight recommended against it. So the shadowrunners used their thermal foil blankets to keep warm and ate their dried food in silence in the dark.

  Dark and cold suited Kellan's mood. Midnight was right: they were lucky nobody was killed. They were damn lucky they weren't all dead. Zhade's spirits would have finished them off if Natokah hadn't helped her banish them. The only thing she gave herself credit for was getting them out of the bunker—and even now, they still might not survive.

  She wondered about Zhade. How had he found out about this place? He knew who Squeak was, but claimed he didn't kill him. Why bother lying to someone you're planning to kill? Zhade had nothing to lose by confessing to the warez dood's murder, yet he didn't. Was he working for someone else? And for that matter, what was in the canisters he took?

  Eventually, worn down by questions that had no answers, and by the drain of her magic use, Kellan fell into a fitful and dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Kellan bolted awake and grabbed for her gun when a hand gently shook her shoulder.

  "It's me." Midnight hissed, and Kellan relaxed slightly. The elf was crouched at arm's length, and Kellan could just make out her features. Though Kellan had no idea what time it was, it clearly wasn't morning yet.

  "Something's coming."

  Kellan was about to ask what when she heard it: the distant sound of engines, high above, but getting closer. She threw aside the thermal blanket and scrambled to her feet. Shadows moving nearby told her the others were already awake.

  "We need to—"

  Before the words "take cover" could leave Kellan's mouth, a thunderbird LAV appeared over the treetops, turbofan engines roaring. A bright spotlight stabbed down into the clearing, ripping away the shadows and leaving the runners completely exposed and pinned in its glare. Kellan threw up a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding light.

  As she wondered whether they should stand their ground or bolt for cover, the air shimmered and the translucent image of a woman dressed in a dark camo jumpsuit appeared. Her fiery red hair was cut short and dark wraparound glasses covered her eyes as she hovered a meter off the ground.