Shadowplay

by Nigel Findley

  Jurgensen drummed his fingers on the desktop. Sly thought she understood his dilemma. You’ve got some very real restrictions, haven’t you? You can keep me here, stop me from jacking out. But if you do, that means I can't get you what you want.

  Unless Jurgensen could trace her physical location, send a team over and capture her meat body as effectively as he’d caught her consciousness. But could he do that? And if he could, why hadn’t he done so already?

  “Look,” she said, “I’ll make you a deal. You get the data, I get protection. But I’m physically in Everett, the data’s in Fort Lewis. I’ve got to go get it. Which means you've got to let me go.” She held her breath. I’m in Puyallup, not Everett—my meat body, at least. Will he pick up on the lie?

  Jurgensen was silent for almost a full minute, almost as though he was consciously drawing out the tension. But then he nodded.

  “How do I get back . . . here?” she asked.

  “The easiest way is to try to reach Zurich-Orbital,” the military decker told her. “We’re watching all access routes. You’ll automatically get diverted here.”

  “I’ll be back,” she lied. “Now, can I . . .?”

  “You can jack out.”

  Again, Sly tried to break the connection. This time it worked. She felt the momentary disorientation as her real sensorium replaced the construct that was cyberspace.

  And suddenly she found herself in a world that seemed to be blowing itself apart. . . .

  18

  0727 hours, November 14, 2053

  Falcon ducked as another burst of gunfire from the street blew out what little glass was left in the window. He wanted to run, to get out of this trap. But run where? The Smeland woman probably had some secret back way out—Falcon certainly would if it were his place— but she hadn’t told anybody about it.

  According to her, they couldn't move Sly, though Falcon didn’t fully understand why. Something about Sly being linked to the Matrix and that she’d die if anybody jacked her out. That meant they didn’t have any choice. If they wanted to keep the attackers from getting to Sly, they had to do it here. They’d done the best they could to shelter her from stray gunfire, laying her down on the floor between the heavy couch and a wall, but their options were limited by the length of the cable connecting Sly’s cyberdeck to the splitter box and from there to the wall outlet. Falcon had asked if they couldn’t unplug the deck from the wall but keep Sly jacked into the deck, but both Modal and Smeland had looked at him like he was an idiot. Just asking, he’d thought bitterly at the time.

  He also wondered why the frag Smeland and Modal were still hanging. Modal he could almost understand; apparently he and Sly had some kind of history together, though it was hard to understand how someone as vibrant as Sly could have feelings for a person as cold and emotionless as the black elf. And vice versa.

  And what about Smeland? Sure, she and Sly had been chummers. But you don’t put your life on the line for every chummer, do you?

  And then there was him . . . He couldn’t bail out, which relieved him of making any decision. If there was a back way out, Falcon didn’t know about it, and the front door wasn’t an option. But, he found himself wondering, even if there was another way out, would I take it?

  Falcon crouched down beside Sly, looked into her pale, drawn face. No change. If it weren’t for the rhythmic movement of her breast, he'd have written her off as flat-lined.

  He twitched reflexively as Modal squeezed off another high-velocity greeting to the gunmen in the street. The elf was moving like a chipped jack rabbit, popping up at one window for a quick shot, then ducking down again before anybody could return fire. Repeating the process at another window. Sticking his own head up for a look-see didn’t seem like the healthiest thing to do, so Falcon didn’t know if the elf was scoring. At the very least Modal’s shots would be forcing some of the attackers to keep their heads down.

  The fire from the street had taken out all the glass, leaving the windows perfect targets for grenades. At first the ganger hadn’t understood why nobody took advantage of the opportunity. One frag grenade lobbed into the room from down below would have splattered all of them, at no risk to the attackers.

  But then he’d realized that’s not what the raiders, whoever they were, wanted at all. The odds were that they wanted to take Sly alive, and keep her alive long enough to squeeze from her the location of the datafile on the lost tech. So that meant no grenades. It also meant that when the attackers finally made it up the stairs and through the front door they’d be very careful about confirming targets before opening fire. That might make all the difference in the world for Falcon, Modal, and Smeland, who would have no problem identifying anybody coming in from outside as a bad guy. The attackers, meanwhile, would have to hold their fire long enough to figure out who was who, which would cost them.

  As it was, though, nobody had made it up the stairs. Smeland sat cross-legged in a corner, jacked into her cyberdeck, directly controlling the security systems that protected her home. Early on in the assault, Falcon had heard the muffled boom as the attackers blew open the street-level door. Smeland, already jacked in, had drawn her lips back from her teeth in a grimace that was as much snarl as smile . . .

  And that’s when the firing had begun, the terrible rip of ultra-high-speed autofire, from just outside the upper door. It had gone on and on—for five seconds at least, much longer than it would take to empty any normal weapon’s magazine. The noise of the extended burst had been almost loud enough to mask the horrible screams from the stairwell. Almost.

  “Frag me,” Modal muttered. “Gun port?”

  But Smeland didn't answer him.

  The autofire weapon, which she was apparently controlling, had opened up twice more since then, presumably clearing the stairway of anyone trying to reach the upper level.

  Falcon saw Modal pop up again, fire off a couple of shots from his heavy pistol, then drop back into cover. Automatic fire from the street stitched the window frame and the opposite wall. “Where the frag’s Lone Star?” the elf demanded of nobody in particular. “They should be here by now.”

  To Falcon it seemed that the strange, almost tentative firefight had been going on for hours. Glancing at his watch, he was astonished to see that only eight minutes had passed.

  But eight minutes could be a fragging long time. The elf had a point: where was the Star? Normally a patrol car would be on the scene of gunfire within a couple of minutes, usually backed up all too soon by an armored Citymaster or maybe a helicopter gunship. Why not now? Unless it was because these slags had the clout to tell Lone Star to keep out of it? And with that kind of influence. they had to have other resources as well. Like maybe a mage or shaman on call. The way Falcon figured it, the only reason he and Modal weren’t already being chewed up by a spellworm was that the attackers had known—before they made their assault—that Sly and company had no magical assets. But now that the assault was stalled, he could picture somebody yammering into a radio, whistling up someone to remedy that oversight. And when that spellworm arrived, then the drek would really hit the fan.

  Smeland cursed viciously, jerked the deck’s lead from her datajack.

  “What is it?” Falcon asked.

  “They found the last of my sensors and took it out,” she snarled. “I’m blind.”

  Modal looked over at her. “That means they’ll be coming.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got one last surprise, but I’m going to have to guess on the timing.” She shrugged. “And who knows if it’ll be enough.”

  “Explosives in the stairs?” the elf guessed.

  “Flechette grenades in the ceiling.”

  “Ouch,” Modal said.

  “If I blow them while somebody’s actually there. After that ...” Smeland shrugged expressively.

  Something slammed hard into the door at the top of the stairs. Falcon saw the heavy metal shake with the impact, almost tearing loose from the hinges. He looked expectantly at Smelan
d.

  From somewhere the woman had acquired a small machine pistol. But she wasn’t paying it any attention. Instead, she was focusing on the door, her finger poised over a key on the cyberdeck.

  Do it! Falcon wanted to shout.

  “Not yet,” she muttered.

  A fusillade of bullets slammed into the door, but did no harm. It would take a lot more than that to penetrate so much metal. Falcon knew, but it was certainly the prelude to a renewed assault. The ganger checked the load of the machine pistol he’d picked up from the dead corporator in the Sheraton room. Fourteen rounds. That’d have to do; he didn’t have any spare clips.

  Another burst struck the door while a massive volley from multiple weapons came in simultaneously through the windows. Falcon ducked low as ricochets whined around him.

  “Holy frag. . . .”It was Sly’s voice.

  Falcon spun. The runner’s eyes were open, and she was struggling to focus. With a shaking hand, she reached up and tugged the plug free from her datajack. She started to sit up, but Modal was instantly beside her, pushing her down. “Keep your bloody head down if you don’t want it shot off,” he growled.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Later,” the elf told her, “if there is a later.” He turned to Smeland. “Where’s the back door?”

  The decker keyed a quick command into her cyberdeck. With a click and a whir, a section of the wall near one corner swung open like a door. “There’s a ladder, then a concealed door to the alley.”

  “T. S., you go first,” Modal ordered. “Get out, and just keep on going. You’re next, Sharon Louise. And you”—he stabbed a finger at Falcon—“you get her down and out right fragging quick. I'll cover.”

  Falcon could see that Sly wanted to protest, but he grabbed her shoulder and started dragging her to her feet. “Move,” he snapped. Almost as an afterthought, he snatched up the cyberdeck, tucked it under his arm.

  Smeland’s finger punched down on a key, and the room rang with multiple explosions from the stairway. Explosions, and more screams. A rain of splinters spattered off the metal door. Falcon cringed, imagining the whirling storm of metal darts filling the stairwell, flaying flesh from bone.

  While the overpressure from the grenades was still echoing from the walls, Smeland darted through the concealed door. Falcon followed, dragging Sly through the door.

  There was a small anteroom, a circular hole in the floor leading down to a similar room on ground level. Smeland was already at the bottom of the metal ladder, beckoning for them to hurry.

  “Go,” Falcon told Sly. “Move it!”

  The runner still looked partially stunned—dump shock, wasn’t that what deckers called it?—but she still moved fast. She swung halfway down the ladder, then dropped the last meter and a half to the floor.

  His turn. “Catch.” He dropped the cyberdeck down to Sly, didn’t wait to see whether she caught it safely. He grabbed the sides of the ladder, pushed his feet against the outsides of the vertical bars, then let himself slide down. As he hit the bottom, Falcon heard another explosion and the chatter of gunfire from the room above.

  Something suddenly blocked the light, plummeting toward him. Falcon flung himself back, just in time to avoid Modal. The elf had decided to jump down, not even bothering with the ladder. “Get the frag out of here!” he screamed. To punctuate his words, the elf raised his pistol, emptied the clip up the ladder. A shriek from above confirmed his marksmanship.

  Smeland was opening a door in the wall facing the ladder. Sly was right behind her, Falcon ready to follow the two women out. He looked back over his shoulder at Modal. In the gray light of dawn flooding in from outside, he saw blood pumping from a gaping wound in the left side of the elf’s neck.

  Smeland darted through the door, Sly close on her heels. Falcon hesitated. Modal had ejected the spent magazine from his pistol, was trying to fish a replacement out of his pocket. But his left arm was virtually useless, seeming to refuse the orders his brain was sending to it. He’s dying, Falcon realized. Now he’s dying, too.

  “Modal!” he shouted. When the elf turned, Falcon tossed him the machine pistol. Modal dropped his own gun, plucking the new weapon out of the air with his good right hand. Turning, he triggered a short burst up the ladder. No cry this time, but Falcon could hear the bullets slamming into flesh and bone.

  “Come on!” It was Smeland’s voice, from outside. Falcon turned and ran, Modal close behind.

  Emerging into a wide alley, he was startled to see sitting there a big old Ford, vintage twenty-thirties, its engine running. Smeland was behind the wheel. Sly beside her. The back door was open.

  Falcon flung himself into the big rear seat, then reached out to help the wounded Modal in after him.

  But Modal had turned back to face the building, machine pistol raised.

  The elf’s instincts were right on. An instant later, a figure appeared in the doorway, a heavy shotgun braced against his hip.

  Modal fired first, a long burst that blew the figure’s throat open and turned his face to a pulpy mass. Already dead, the attacker’s final spasm made his finger clench around his weapon’s trigger. The big shotgun roared.

  The blast caught Modal full in the chest, hammered him back into the car. He remained upright for an instant, then slumped to the ground.

  “Frag!” Falcon scrambled across the car seat, leaned out and grabbed the elf under both arms to drag him bodily into the Ford. He couldn’t reach the door to shut it, but who gave a frag anyway? “Boot it!” he screamed at Smeland. With a squeal of tires, the car took off, the acceleration throwing Falcon against the seat.

  From behind them he heard a yell, the words lost as they sped away. From ahead came gunshots. Something slammed into the metalwork of the car, but whether it was a bullet or a gunman who didn’t get out of the way fast enough Falcon couldn’t be sure. Sly returned fire, the reports of her big revolver punishingly loud inside the car. Then the immediate emergency seemed to be over. The ganger debated doing something about the door. But then Smeland threw the car into a screeching left turn, and the door slammed shut under its own weight.

  “How is he?” Sly had turned and was leaning over the back of the passenger seat.

  Falcon didn’t have to reply; she could see the answer as well as he could. The elf’s entire chest was a mass of blood and torn flesh. He’d been wearing a padded jacket, perhaps armored enough to stop rounds from a light submachine gun. But against a blast from an assault shotgun—at less than ten meters? Not a fragging chance. The elf might as well have been wearing a T-shirt for all the protection the jacket gave him. He was dead, Falcon knew, if not now then soon. And whatever time he had left wasn't a blessing.

  It turned out that Modal was still alive. The elf’s chest heaved. He coughed, blowing pink spray from his lips. Falcon wanted to turn away, wanted to vomit, but with an ultimate effort of will, he controlled both impulses.

  Sly knew. The ganger could tell from her face. She reached down, grabbed the elf’s hand, squeezed it hard.

  Modal’s eyes flickered open, focused on Sly’s face. “How is it, Sharon Louise?” he asked. He coughed again, bright arterial blood leaking from his mouth.

  Falcon could see Sly blinking back tears. “Good,” she said huskily. “Good.”

  “I’m not afraid, Sharon Louise.” Modal’s voice had a terrible bubbling tone to it. “I’m not afraid, and I’m not sad. I should be, don’t you think? Isn’t that part of it, after all?” He took a breath as if to say something else. But a sharp spasm convulsed his body, and the air hissed wordlessly from his lungs.

  That’s two. The thought was enough to chill Falcon to the marrow. Two people dead, dying in my arms like the old fragging cliche'. How many more before this is fragging over?

  PART 3

  Out of the Bucket

  19

  0850 hours, November 14, 2053

  They were alone now, just Sly and the kid Falcon. T. S. had offered to help her out, to see he
r through this, more for old times’ sake than anything. Though Theresa had tried to hide it. Sly knew she was relieved when Sly refused the offer.

  Smeland had driven her to a particularly unpleasant part of south Redmond, where she claimed to have a good place to hole up until things settled down ... if they ever did. When T. S. pulled up at the curb, Sly was searching for the words to ask the last big favor she needed from her chummer. Fortunately for her, T. S. beat her to it.

  “You can have the car,” Theresa said quietly. “It’ll be hot. Whoever those gunners were will have the tag number. They’ll get the word out, but it should be able to get you far enough to boost another ride.

  “And I can handle . . . him,” she said, indicating Modal with a jerk of her head. “I’ve got friends who can take care of it.”

  Sly nodded wordlessly, not knowing what she would have done with the body. She wouldn’t have wanted to just dump Modal’s lifeless form, but what other choice would she have had? She was relieved when Smeland solved the problem for her.

  Smeland’s destination turned out to be an ork “hall,” an old store that had been “remodeled” into communal housing. Theresa had gone into the building, to emerge a couple of minutes later accompanied by three burly male orks. All three were wearing gang-style leathers, but Sly didn’t recognize the colors. (He probably knows, she thought, with a glance at Falcon, but didn’t bother to ask.)

  The orks opened the back door and dragged Modal’s carcass out. Totally unconcerned about the other people on the street, mostly orks, the biggest of the three had slung the elf’s bloody body over his shoulder, then carried it into the hall. Sly was looking around nervously, waiting for some bystander to react, to interfere, maybe to run off to call Lone Star. But, if anything, the general reaction was complacency, if not utter boredom. And that, she thought, is about the scariest comment on the Barrens that anyone could make.