Preying for Keeps

by Mel Odom

  Skater dropped like a stone, nearly at terminal velocity. With the added speed and the narrow confines of the elevator shaft, the cage had the illusion of coming up at him.

  “Not in the cage, damn it.” the Knight Errant said. He stood in the open elevator doors nine or ten floors above Skater and reloaded the Narcoject. “On top of the slotting thing.”

  With less than two floors separating him from the descending cage, Skater tightened his grips again. Pain burned bone-deep into his arms, chest, feet, and knees. He held on as long as he was able, then abandoned the cable less than two meters above the top of the elevator cage. Going limp, he crashed to the hard, irregular metal surface waiting on him.

  Before he could regain his breath, a pale ellipse of halogen-powered light fell over him, tearing away some of the protective shadows. He forced himself to his feet and stood swaying as the cage slowed. For the first time he noticed the meter-high numerals painted in red on the gray steel shaft walls next to the doors.

  The three went by, and the cage was almost at a stop. Moving to the front of the it, he leaned out and caught the lip at the second-floor level. Even with the boosted reflexes kicking in extra adrenaline and adding speed to his nervous system, his endurance was flagging.

  He kicked his feet against the wall and pulled himself up even with the second floor. Shoving his fingers into the space between the double doors, he pried them open and tried to ignore the double-imaging taking place in his vision. For a moment, he didn’t think he was going to get the doors pushed back to the break-over point. Then they slid apart effortlessly.

  Two Knight Errants stood in the doorway with drawn Narcoject pistols.

  Skater held onto the lip because he had nowhere else to go. The cage below him blocked any escape to the first floor, and he didn’t have the strength to climb back up the cables, much less dodge flying darts.

  A steady ssshussh came from overhead. He glanced back over his shoulder to see the sec-man from fifteen sliding down the cable after him, at a sedate pace with his pistol pointed directly at Skater.

  He was fragged no matter what he did.

  “Looks like you’re all crapped out.” the grim-jawed Knight Errant ork with sergeant’s chevrons said. He kept his pistol aimed at Skater’s face.

  8

  Knight Errant worked the switch with Lone Star in a little over an hour. It wasn’t a new record as far as Skater knew, but it was still pretty slotting quick. Knight Errant was merely the private security agency for the neighborhood, and had to bow to Lone Star’s official position as police in and around Seattle.

  By dawn, he was in an interrogation room in the Lone Star Security building on the corner of First Avenue and Union Street awaiting the arrival of two groundhounds. He’d been deloused in the biotech ward, retina-scanned and fingerprinted, DNA-scanned and cyber-scanned. The only conversation he’d gotten had been a steady stream of abuse. He’d already been tagged as a runner.

  He sat in a flimsy metal chair in the interrogation room on the other side of a folding table that held a years-long collection of carved graffiti and cigarette bums. One of the tubes in the track lighting overhead flickered constantly, altering the shadows and driving the phalanx of flying insects that had made their way into the room crazy with frustration.

  When they’d deloused him, they’d taken his clothing and given him an orange jumper with PROPERTY OF LONE STAR stenciled in black across his shoulders. Word on the street was that some Halloweeners liked to hack off the legs and sleeves and sport the jumpers proudly as gang colors if they'd been wearing them when they’d escaped from jail. There weren’t many. Lone Star quietly offered a bounty to rival gangs for any returned jumpers—with or without return of the escaped prisoner, and the transactions were brokered by a third party.

  Skater shifted and tried in vain to find a comfortable position. His hands were pulse-cuffed behind him to keep him from using his cyberware, secured to the chair, and ankle chains held his feet half a meter apart. He was bare-footed, and the stone floor was cold to the touch.

  The pale green walls and ceiling offered no mental diversion. and the room’s only window had been covered over in black paint years ago.

  Instead of dwelling on what he didn’t know and what might happen. Skater went inside himself the way his grandfather had taught him. Andrew Ghost-step had been a hard man, and not one easy to get close to. He’d been a leader in his community, and his daughter’s excesses hadn’t been easily put aside. Skater hadn’t learned until later that when his mother abandoned him to her parents, many of his grandfather’s political and personal friendships within the tribe had withered and not recovered.

  Skater knew some of the Salish ways, though he didn’t practice them, and some of the lore. But Ghost-step’s teachings about self-discipline and control had helped him handle his problems then, and many since. There’d once been a hope that he might be a shaman because of some latent abilities, but that had died when no totem spirit had claimed him during his vision quest. He’d been twelve at the time, and the failure had distanced him further from his grandfather.

  He let himself relax in his bonds, his muscles coiling naturally to spread out his weight.

  The door creaked open, briefly letting in fragments of conversations, the steady slap of passing footsteps, and the stink of cigarette smoke and unwashed flesh.

  Skater opened his eyes to slits, taking in the troll-sized boots next to the human-sized ones in front of him. He didn’t for a moment believe he was entirely safe inside Lone Star.

  “You awake?” a whiskey-soured voice asked.

  “Yeah.” Skater replied, lifting his head.

  “Good. For a minute there I thought you were dead and I’d wasted all this time thinking up questions to ask you.” The speaker was the human, of average height and broad shoulders. He wore his beard short and his hair dark and long, pulled back in a ponytail. He had a large nose and thick eyebrows that looked like one woolly caterpillar crawling across both eyes. The blue and gold Lone Star jacket was held in one hand over his shoulder.

  “There’s not much I can tell you.” Skater volunteered.

  The man nodded and reached for one of the three remaining chairs at the table. “That’s what I’ve heard.” He dropped a portable microcam on the table. “We’re going to go through it again, though. I’m Lance Paulson, you can think of me as an investigating officer.” He jerked a thumb toward the troll. “And this is Nina, you can think of her as my partner.”

  The troll was only a few centimeters shorter than Elvis. Her horns were oiled and polished a jet-black, framing coarse hair that had been shaved into a six-centimeter tall mohawk done in chartreuse-tipped platinum. For a troll, she had curves. Skater figured Elvis would have been impressed, until he found out she was a cop.

  “That much thinking.” Skater said, “I’m liable to get confused.”

  “What I thought.” Paulson nodded agreeably. He leaned over the portable microcam and switched it on. “That’s why I brought datapics.”

  “Are you guys as high up as I go at Lone Star?” Skater asked.

  “If you’re referring to the way you’ve stone-walled everyone from the arresting Knight Errant team to the uniforms down in Booking,” Nina said, “then, yes. We’re it. From here you go to a lawyer and a trial, as soon as they can get it on the docket. With no help from you regarding your possible innocence, and your reluctance to say anything in your behalf, I doubt you’ll make bail. And with the way the courts are jammed these days, you probably won’t make your first appearance for three or four months. Gives you a long time to play with the other socially maladjusted drekheads in lock-up.”

  “A gloomy proposition.” Paulson said. He relaxed in his chair with his hands folded behind his head. A smile curved his thin lips under the shadow of his hooked nose. “On the other hand, you can still talk to us.”

  “The cuffs?” Skater asked.

  Paulson looked at Nina, who referred to a noteputer she took fro
m inside her jacket.

  "Boosted reflexes.” she read. “Bone reinforcements in both arms and one leg. Eyes. Commlink IV. No implanted hardware that slices or dices.”

  “So that probably means no magic.” Paulson said.

  "Came back negative.”

  “Going in kind of naked for a shadowrunner, ain’t you?” Paulson asked.

  “I’m no gillette.” Skater replied. “And I’m not a shadowrunner.”

  “Sure.” Paulson got out of his chair and fished a key out of his pocket. “But let’s get something straight before I unlock you: you do not want to try to slot me over when you’re loose. I gave up original equipment a long time ago, but I wouldn’t need chrome to get over on a guy like you in the first place. The ankle bracelets are staying on.”

  Once his wrists were free. Skater massaged them, trying to get circulation restored without all the pain.

  “File came back with the name Otto Franks when it scanned your retina-prints and fingerprints.” Nina said. “Is that your name?”

  Skater nodded.

  “This is being recorded, Mr. Franks. Could you answer verbally?”

  “Sure.”

  “So your name is Otto Franks?”

  “Yes.” The name was a cover Archangel had implanted into the SIN database. If he got loose, Skater knew that she could erase all trace of him again and assign him another idee of his choice. Almost two years ago, she’d gotten into the system and erased every vestige of Jack Skater.

  “And what’s your occupation, Mr. Franks?” Paulson asked.

  “I’m an investment counselor.” Skater replied.

  “With boosted reflexes? I guess the stocks change pretty fragging fast these days, don’t they?”

  “I was mugged a few years ago.” Skater knew that record was on file, too, courtesy of Archangel. She was very efficient when she wove one of her webs. It also explained the reinforced limbs and the surgeries necessary to correct the damage the Disassemblers had done. “After I got out of the hospital, I had the boosted reflexes added. Figured it would give me an edge if I ever got into that situation again.”

  Paulson laughed out loud in disbelief. “Well, chummer, you certainly got yourself into some deep drek this morning, didn’t you?”

  “What am I charged with?” Skater asked.

  “Arson, for starters.” Nina said. “Besides the criminal action, there’ll be a civil suit on behalf of the Montgomery Building owners.”

  “Which happens to be a joint venture of real-estate developers hardboosted into the megaplex’s political and economic high-rollers scene.” Paulson said. “They’re pretty slotted off at the moment.”

  “And murder.” the troll said.

  Skater made himself ask, “Who was killed?”

  Paulson pointed at him. “Maybe you want to tell us.”

  “The only thing I flatlined was a hell hound.”

  Nina looked at Paulson, who shrugged. “Crime Scene Unit reported a big dog. Forensics hasn’t taken a whack at it yet. Could be.”

  “What about the desk clerk and the Knight Errant sec-guard working the lobby?” the troll asked.

  “They were dead when I got there.”

  “When did you get there?”

  “A little after four a.m.”

  “How much after?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Can anyone verify that?” Nina asked.

  Skater thought of the cabby who’d taken him there, then dismissed the possibility. The driver was an ork. “An elderly couple let me in.”

  “That so?” Paulson stood and started pacing.

  Skater knew the motion was purely to rattle him. His lies were all going to be simple, things he could easily remember. Nothing that would lead too far astray.

  "How much money did you make last year, Mr. Franks?” Paulson asked.

  “Check my tax return. I’m sure it’s listed there.” Archangel took care of those details, too.

  “Oh, I have.”

  “Then why ask me?”

  “To see if you knew. You don’t. I find that interesting.”

  “My line of work,” Skater said, “you do a lot of number-crunching.”

  “Give me a guess.”

  Skater remained quiet. His cover was holding, which was frustrating the detective team.

  "If was playing the markets,” Paulson went on, “could you recommend me a good buy at morning’s open?”

  “Maybe you could give us a client list.” Nina said.

  “Maybe I could get a lawyer in here,” Skater said, “before we continue this discussion.”

  “What were you doing at the Montgomery?” Paulson asked.

  “I went there to see someone.”

  “You normally do business at four in the morning?”

  "A lot of my clients have strange schedules.” Skater answered. “I don't mind working around their needs.”

  “Larisa Hartsinger was a client?” Nina asked.

  “No.”

  “But you went there to see her?”

  “Yes.” By giving them part of the truth, Skater figured he could keep them off-balance, and bring the lies back on-line. “Why?” Paulson queried.

  “Personal reasons.”

  Paulson resumed his seat and put his hands behind his head again. “What kind of personal reasons?”

  “She was a dancer at a club.”

  Paulson nodded. “SybreSpace. We’ve already talked to proprietress Amanda Silvereyes and some of Hartsinger’s co-workers.”

  “Why were you interested in her?” the troll asked.

  “I liked the way she danced.”

  “Hoping to get lucky?” Paulson asked.

  Skater shrugged.

  Nina punched up a new page in her noteputer. “According to Ms. Silvereyes, Larisa Hartsinger hadn’t worked at the club in almost three months. Why pick now to try to see her?”

  “I didn’t want to put it off any longer.” Skater said. It was also the truth.

  “Let me tell you a story.” Paulson said. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. But my partner and I thought it was great. This guy goes into SybreSpace tonight at about two-thirty. His name is Jack.”

  Skater knew then that they’d leaned on Aggie and she’d rolled over on him to save her own skin. He didn’t blame her; she had no investment in the biz and everything to lose.

  “We talked to one of the dancers, who says that two hard guys picked up on this Jack. She’s not sure of their names, but she knows one’s a troll.” Paulson leaned forward and spoke with more animation. “Now don’t lose it yet, because it gets funnier. See, there’s a dust-up just outside the club, next street over, and one of the gillettes goes down. Turns out it’s an electro-bodyware freak named Shayx who’s known for low-level wetwork down in the Barrens. Nobody’s talking about what he’s doing up in Seattle, but word is he’s a connected guy now. Oh, and did I mention that he was a troll?”

  Skater remained silent, listening to the guy drive the nails into the box.

  “We can’t find Jack or the other hitman. After we dig a little more, we find out Larisa Hartsinger had an old boyfriend named Jack—we never got a last name—who may have been running the shadows for fun and profit. In the process, we turn up a snitch who’s working for some yaks looking for three people, one of whom looks a lot like you.”

  Paulson tapped buttons on the microcam. The monitor rippled with color for just a moment, then produced a grainy black and white datapic of Skater. It had been shot somewhere on the street. In the holopic, Skater had his arm around Larisa.

  He gazed at the image, remembering when it had been shot. It was no more than a month or two before Larisa had told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. He studied the datapic, the pregnancy still on his mind. But he couldn’t tell if she was or not. In the holopic, she wore her hair long, but the black and white didn’t do justice to her coppery red hair and almond-shaped emerald green eyes. She was beautiful, her elven features looking
chiseled and clean.

  “Care to comment?” Nina asked.

  “He could be anybody.” Skater answered.

  Paulson tapped the microcam again, opening another window. This one held a datapic of Skater in the lobby of Larisa’s old doss, walking in through the door. It was black and white, too. The resemblance was undeniable. “You think so?”

  "What I think doesn’t seem to matter," Skater said.

  “No, it fragging well doesn’t, Jack, or maybe I should call you Walter Dent.” Paulson tapped the control buttons again, and more datapics followed, this time ones that had been taken inside the building. “You always go around carrying an unregistered piece?” He held up a hand and spoke sarcastically. “Right. I forgot about you got mugged and all that slot.”

  “What happened to Larisa Hartsinger?” Skater asked. “You tell me.” Paulson challenged. “You went there to kill her.”

  “No.”

  “Sure you did. She dumped you.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause. “Yes what?” Paulson asked.

  “Yes.” Skater said. “She dumped me.” It was another partial truth, and given just to keep them off-balance, unable to sort fact from fiction.

  “Otto Franks or Jack somebody?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Give me a fragging name, Jack.”

  Skater fought the urge to jump up and make an attempt to reach the Lone Star man. But the way he felt, with the chains around his feet, he knew the effort was doomed to failure.

  “What were you doing there?” Nina asked in a softer voice.

  Skater knew it was pure good cop/bad cop, but he also knew he could use the ploy for his own purposes. He turned to face the troll. “I thought Larisa might be in danger.”

  Nina leaned in, giving the appearance of intense interest. For all Skater knew, it could have been real. “Why would you think that?”

  He decided a small lie would work. “The troll in the alley told me.”

  “Shayx?”

  “I didn’t get his name.”

  “Why was he a threat to Larisa Hartsinger?”

  “He didn’t say. Just that he was going to kill her when he found her.”

  “Why did he attack you?”