Shadowplay

by Nigel Findley

  It still didn’t seem real. Maybe it wouldn’t for a long time—maybe not until she’d returned to Seattle and saw everything was back to normal. But did she want to go back to Seattle?

  She shook her head. Here in the middle of the Corporate Court’s computer system wasn’t the time or the place to worry about it. She reviewed things in her mind. Had she forgotten anything?

  Satisfied that she had not, Sly jacked out.

  32

  0613 hours, November 16, 2053

  It was like a bad case of deja vu, Falcon thought. Sly jacking in, doing . . . something. And then all hell breaking loose around her, with him afraid to jack her out before she was ready. Afraid not to jack her out, because the woman-plus-cyberdeck combination—tied to the wall, to the phone jack, and from there to the Matrix—limited their options so much. He didn’t understand what she was doing, not really. And the not understanding made it all worse.

  There’d been no real warning. Everything had been quiet, with Mary squatting on the floor next to Sly, watching her carefully. At first Falcon had thought that’s all it was—just watching. But then he'd kind of . . . opened up his perception—that was the best way he could think of it. Opened himself up to additional data, data that wasn't coming in through his normal senses. Kind of the way he’d been opened to the alternate reality of the plane of the totems. And then he’d understood that Mary, too, was using senses other than the five normal ones to monitor Sly and how her body was reacting.

  Twice he’d seen Sly twitch. The first time like somebody had touched her unexpectedly. The second time like somebody had goosed her hard—or like she was on some kind of drug trip gone bad. He’d wanted to jack her out right there, free her from whatever it was that was tormenting her. He’d turned to Mary, worried, questioning her with his eyes.

  But Mary shook her head. "She’s hurting,” the shaman said. “Hurting bad, maybe. But it’s not critical yet.” He’d wanted to yell at her, to say any hurting was critical after the abuse Sly had suffered from the black box in that small concrete room. But Mary just looked at him calmly. “This is important, right?” she said. And all he could do was nod.

  And it was then the gunfire started. The booming of single-shot weapons, the harsh ripping of autofire. Muffled by the closed door, but obviously coming from the barroom of the tavern.

  “What the frag is that!" Falcon demanded.

  Mary hadn’t answered at once, just rested her shoulder against the couch, closed her eyes, let her chin sink down onto her chest. He wanted to shake her, then realized that she'd gone astral—the same way he’d gone astral to find and rescue Sly. Falcon wanted to join her, but he didn’t know how. Not by himself, not without the help of Wolf. He tried to summon up the song he’d heard in the forest on that distant plane. He was able to remember it, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t feel it vibrating through him like before, was unable to sing along with it.

  Mary came back almost immediately, opening her eyes again, flowing to her feet. He knew at once from her expression that it was something bad.

  ”There’s heavy drek going down in the barroom,” she told him tersely. “Some new guys came in—strangers; none of the regulars knew them. They headed for the back room. Cahill”—that was the bartender, Falcon recalled—“tried to stop them. They shot him.

  “There were five regulars out front-drinking their breakfast here like they usually do—and four strangers. There’s a real pitched battle going on. Two strangers down, three regulars.”

  “What the frag do we do?” Falcon demanded. He looked around the room. The only door led out into the barroom—into the firefight. At first he’d liked the security that represented; nobody could come in from the street or through some alley door without the bartender spotting them and giving some kind of warning. Now he realized the single door turned the back room into a trap. No way out in an emergency. “Can’t you do something?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “You watch Sly,” she told him.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Summon a spirit,” she said, her voice as calm as if she was saying, “Get a drink.”

  “I’ll summon a hearth spirit.”

  “How?”

  She grimaced. “You want me to do it or talk about doing it?”

  “Go.”

  Falcon squatted down beside Sly, reached out and rested a hand on her forehead. The runner’s skin was cool, but not cold. There didn’t seem to be any tension in her body—as if whatever it was that had made her twitch was over. He didn’t know whether to take that as a good or a bad sign.

  Mary walked to the center of the room, already humming a calm, unhurried song under her breath. She began to move rhythmically in some kind of jerky dance, singing all the while. He watched her with his eyes, tried to extend his new, unfamiliar senses as well.

  To his meat eyes, nothing seemed to be happening. But with those strange, arcane senses he’d never known he had, it was obvious that something was going down. He could feel a flow of energy, initially from Mary herself, but then shifting so that the flow came from outside—apparently from the structure of the building and from the ground on which it was built. It formed a swirling vortex around her, totally undetectable by the normal five senses, but obvious to his heightened perception.

  Mary’s song changed, took on words—words that weren’t English or Cityspeak, but that he could somehow understand. “Guardian of hearth and home,” she was singing, “protector from the elements, protect us now. Go forth now, great one, shelter your children.” She pointed to the door.

  The vortex changed, drew itself together into something almost humanoid in shape. Still invisible, still unheard, but still easily assensed. And the shape walked through the closed door into the barroom.

  Mary stopped her song, let her shoulders drop. Wiped a sheen of sweat off her forehead with the back of a small hand. “That’ll help for the moment,” she said quietly, “but there are more strangers coming. And they’ve got their own shaman with them.”

  “So what the frag do we do?” Falcon had his machine pistol out, was nervously flicking the safety off and back on again.

  “Bail out, that’s the smart thing,” the young woman told him.

  “But how? Out through there!" He pointed to the door to the barroom.

  Mary didn’t answer him directly, just crossed to the back of the room. Ran her hands over the wall. Falcon couldn’t see exactly what she was doing, but a section of the seemingly solid wall swung open—a small concealed door leading into darkness.

  “Where does that go?”

  “Into the storeroom,” she answered, “then there’s another door out into the back alley.”

  She gestured to the other door. “Let them chew each other up. We just bail.”

  He hesitated, looking at Sly. The decker seemed totally at peace, like she was asleep—or dead. He felt a moment of panic until he saw her breast rising and falling in a slow, relaxed rhythm. “No,” he said at last. “I’ve got to let Sly have her shot. I owe her that.”

  “Even if it kills us?”

  He didn’t answer—couldn’t answer.

  “What if someone comes in the other way?” Mary pressed. “The door to the alley isn’t hidden. They could try and flank us.”

  At last Falcon saw something he could do. He flicked the safety off his machine pistol one last time, made sure it was cocked. “You stay here,” he instructed. “Watch Sly. Don’t jack her out until she’s done. You hear me?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He shrugged. “Watch our backs. And anything else I can figure out.” Before she had a chance to argue, Falcon had ducked through the small concealed door. “And close this after me,” he added.

  The storeroom was small and dark, cold and smelling of stale beer. Stacked against two walls were wooden cases—no doubt containing bottles of liquor—and metal kegs. There were two doors, opposite each other. One led to the barroom; the other, latch
ed and barred, had to lead to the alley. The concealed door swung shut behind him, and he heard a lock click. He turned to see how well concealed it actually was, feeling reassured that not the slightest clue of its existence was visible.

  He listened at the locked door, the one to the alley. Nothing. But did that mean anything except that the door was too thick for him to hear surreptitious movement outside? He hesitated, wishing for the ability to go astral like he’d done before. He tried to conjure up the sensations he’d felt on the plane of the totems and later, the oneness with the song of Wolf. It wouldn’t come.

  Well, waiting around wasn’t going to help anyone. He snapped open the latches, raised the bar. Listened again— still nothing. Opened the door, and ducked back into the shelter of the wall. Again nothing—no grenade rolled and bounced into the storeroom, no high-velocity bullets stitched the darkness. Crouching low he stepped into the alley, pulled the door shut behind him.

  As far as he could see and hear, the alley was empty. Nothing moved near him. Nobody pumped lead into his body.

  Which way? Left or right? The Buffalo Jump was on the north side of the street, near the east end of the block. Which meant the nearest street was to the right. If he ducked around that end of the block, he was taking a real risk of running into the support that Mary had said was converging on the front of the tavern. He headed to the left, moving fast.

  He could hear gunfire splitting the night. More than just the minor firefight that Mary had said was raging in the front of the tavern. This was more autofire, punctuated by the resonating booms that he’d come to associate with grenades. A real fragging urban war was going on somewhere. What the frag was happening? Was it like the ambush at the docks, where Modal had said multiple teams—all corp, the elf had guessed—were scrapping it out? It made an ugly kind of sense. Sly kept talking about the prelude to a corp war. Had it started, and already spread to Cheyenne? Frag, why not? Everything else is . . . what was Modal’s word? Fugazi!

  He ran on, crouched low, machine pistol held out before him, steadied by both hands.

  Something was there! He felt the movement before he saw it. Above him, on one of the rooftops. He flung himself aside.

  The crash of a powerful rifle shot, hideously loud. A round slammed into the wall next to him. Exploded violently. Fragments of ferrocrete lashed his bare face and hands. One splinter tore into the skin just above his right eye, temporarily blinding him with pain and blood. He brought his pistol up.

  Falcon could see the sniper, a blacker silhouette against the black of the sky. The figure stood on top of a singlestory building near the west end of the block. A faint blue glow, something electric. A sniper-scope—light amplification. The sniper was working the bolt on his rifle, jacking another round into the chamber. Bringing the rifle back into line.

  Yelling with fear, Falcon clamped down on the trigger. The machine pistol chattered, bucking in his hands.

  He saw the bullets striking sparks from the parapet in front of the sniper. Heard a double cough of agony, as multiple impacts drove the air from the gunner’s lungs. The silhouette swayed, dropped. Something fell from the rooftop, to crash and bounce on the alley floor. The rifle!

  He sprinted forward, scooped up the huge weapon. Flattened himself against the wall directly below the sniper’s position. Maybe he’s only wounded, Falcon thought. Maybe he’s got a sidearm as well. ... He looked up, wiping blood from his right eye.

  It took a few seconds for his vision to adapt. Then he saw something hanging over the parapet. An arm. Something warm dripped onto his upturned face.

  Blood. Not his own.

  The sniper was down. If not dead, then incapacitated. For the moment.

  Falcon looked at the rifle in his hands. A massive weapon, bolt action, with a magazine three times the thickness of the one—now empty—that fitted his machine pistol. The barrel was long and thick, with some kind of Strange porting arrangement at the end. A muzzle brake. He stuck his finger into the muzzle, which was still hot from the passage of the bullet. The bore of the gun was wider than his finger. What did that make it? A fifty-caliber? What the frag kind of rifle was fifty-cal?

  Then Falcon remembered something else Modal had said after the dockside ambush. Something about a Barret sniper rifle, wasn't that it? Nineteen-eighties vintage? If this was the same gun—and how many of those could there be on the streets?—didn’t it mean it was the same corp team as the one that had hosed Knife-Edge’s ambush? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. . . . He’d heard that somewhere. But could he believe in that now?

  No! Everybody was an enemy.

  He raised the rifle to his shoulder, tried the balance. It was a heavy, cumbersome thing, with an integral bipod mounted under the barrel. It had to weigh at least thirteen kilos—a massive weight to pack around, and useless for snap-shots. Thank the spirits. . . .

  There was no digital display showing the number of rounds remaining, but a mechanical indicator on the side of the magazine told him the gun had four shots left. At first he thought the nightsight was dead, broken in the fall to the alley. But then he found the small toggle, easily within reach of his right thumb. He flicked it, and the scope lit up. Through it, the alley was bright as day, just a little grainy, like the view through a cheap portacam.

  Falcon dropped the now-useless machine pistol. Hefted the Barret again.

  He jogged to the end of the alley, stopped. Used the nightsight to scan the darkness. No figures lurking in the shadows, concealed by the darkness. He rounded the corner, headed down to the main street. Crouched low again and looked around the corner.

  All the streetlights were dead—maybe shot out. The only light came from muzzle flares and the spray of tracers. A scene right out of some wartime nightmare. He used the nightsight again.

  Even with electronically enhanced vision, Falcon couldn’t make much sense of what was going down. It looked like a major pitched battle, with shooters hunkered down behind parked cars and firing from positions on rooftops or from windows. There were at least a halfdozen bodies sprawled in the street, dead or so badly chewed they weren’t moving. Not shadowrunners, he didn’t think. The bodies and the live combatants Falcon could see had a kind of regimented sameness to them, like they'd come out of an identical mold. Corporate street ops? Megacorp soldiers? It seemed likely. He guessed that at least three factions were involved, yet he couldn’t be sure. Maybe somebody trained in small-unit tactics could understand what he was seeing, but Falcon was only a fragging gutterpunk ganger, for frag’s sake.

  The situation seemed static. Everybody had some kind of cover. Nobody was advancing, nobody retreating. Probably those who were dead had been the brave or the foolhardy ones, trying for some kind of territorial advantage. Or maybe they’d just gotten caught out in the open when the drek hit the fan. He settled the Barret against his shoulder, steadied it against the corner of the building as best he could. Found a small thumbwheel, turned it. Saw the scene jump into close-up as the variable scope changed its magnification. Saw a glowing set of cross hairs superimpose themselves over the image. He settled the cross hairs onto the back of a street op hunkered down behind a car on the same side of the street as the tavern. Remembered how this gun had blown a flaming hole right through the armored torso of the street samurai Benbo. Started to tighten down on the trigger, anticipating the sniper rifle’s brutal recoil. . . .

  Then loosened off on his finger. Who the hell do I geek? Falcon asked himself. Four shots remaining. There were at least five times that number of prospective targets. So what good would it do if he dropped four of them? After the first shot, at least some of the shooters would turn their own gunsights on him. One shot, maybe two if I’m lucky. Then I go down. . . .

  He backed off a little, maximizing the cover provided by the corner of the building. What should he do?

  Falcon couldn’t stop the fight, didn’t know if he wanted to. And he probably couldn’t even affect the outcome in any meaningful way. If I splatter four
out of twenty gunners, so what?

  What was his purpose here anyway? To protect Sly and Mary long enough for the decker to finish what she had to do.

  So that was his answer. He decreased the scope’s magnification a little, increasing its field of view. Then he changed his point of aim to the front door of The Buffalo Jump. Settled his finger on the trigger. At the moment, everyone was pinned down. But if anybody broke cover, made a dash for that door, then he’d fire. The first person to head for the tavern dies. Falcon told himself. And the second, and the third and fourth, if he could stay alive long enough. Again, it might not make any difference in the grand scheme of things, in the final accounting. But it was something.

  He waited.

  The firefight raged on. Bullets slammed into parked cars, smashed masonry from buildings. A grenade launcher coughed; a car blossomed into a fireball, pouring black smoke into the lightening sky. Three figures that Falcon could see were hit, collapsing into the road.

  Where were the fragging cops? he wondered angrily. Don’t they give a frag that there are armies blowing up the city?

  But these are megacorp armies, he reminded himself. Couldn’t some megacorp just as easily have bought itself the police department? Frag, it happened in Seattle often enough—a large donation to the Lone Star Retired Officers Fund, or whatever fragging cover story suited the moment. The Barret was getting really heavy, the muscles in his forearms starting to quiver with the strain of holding it steady. He considered flipping down the bipod, then discarded the idea as cutting down his mobility too much. The gunfire rose to a crescendo.

  And stopped.

  Just like that.

  One moment the air was filled with high-velocity ordnance, the paling of dawn lit, strobe-like, by muzzle flashes and the occasional explosion. The next moment, utter silence.

  What the frag was going down?

  Falcon could still see heavily armed and armored figures crouching down under cover, weapons at the ready. But nobody was firing, nobody was advancing or retreating. They just seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what?