Ragnarock

by Stephen Kenson

  "Close enough." Talon said. "Hmm, that means ol' Heinrich has been in Runenthing for something like, what, sixteen, seventeen years? That should put him pretty high up on the totem pole, so to speak."

  Trouble smiled. "Ha. Mage jokes. Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does. Seems that Hennie is one of the group's top dogs. Kind of weird that Saeder-Krupp ID'd him as being with Alt Welt."

  "Yeah, it is." Talon said. "That's one of the things that's bothering me. It isn't like S-K to slip up on something so basic."

  "You think Brackhaus might be trying to pull something?"

  "Could be. We won't know for sure until we . . . hello!"

  Talon sat up and looked at the display screen on the table.

  "There's our guy now." he said.

  The screen showed a view of the apartment building. Zoller was walking up the front steps, wearing a long, dark overcoat cloaked over the shoulders of his nondescript dark business suit. He had sandy hair and a full beard, just like in the photo with Dr. Goronay.

  "Val can you . . ." Talon began, but she was already zooming in on Zoller, whose image swelled to fill the entire vidscreen.

  "Can you tell anything about him?" Trouble asked.

  "From here?" Talon said. "No. And his place probably has too many magical wards for me to check it out astrally. We're going to have to make do with video surveillance for now."

  Zoller entered the building, and Val shifted the attention of the drone to one of the windows of the apartment they'd ID'd as Zoller's. The drone directed one low-power laser at the window pane and focused another on the iron grille-work outside. The vid-screen immediately began relaying the faint sounds of traffic and other activity outside the apartment. One by one, the sounds were masked out, until only a faint background hiss remained. The lasers read the vibrations in the window glass and the metal, translating it into sound. Val consciously blocked out the outside noises to focus on the sound inside the apartment.

  They could hear the door open and close as Zoller entered. As expected, he made his way into the small office Val's drone had scoped out earlier. He tapped the telecom on and sat down in a padded desk chair, sipping something from a steaming mug.

  Trouble got up from the bed and moved over to the small table with her cyberdeck. She sat down and jacked in to monitor Zoller's call. She had previously decked into the local telecommunications grid to tap Zoller's line.

  "Heinrich," a voice from the telecom said, slightly distorted by the laser mike, "arrangements have been made for the sale of the item. Contact me about the particulars and we can conclude our business."

  Zoller reached out and hit another key on the telecom.

  Suddenly, the vidscreen image from Val's drone turned to hard static. Val groaned and her spine stiffened for a moment, then she leaned over the side of the bed and started to retch.

  Damn it! Talon thought. He jumped up from the bed and scrambled over to Val's side. He held her head, keeping her from swallowing her own vomit, while fumbling for the cable plugged into her neural jack. He pulled it out as quickly as he dared, disconnecting Val from the remote deck and the signal from the drone. She coughed and nearly gagged as Talon turned her over, resting her head on his lap. He placed his hands against either side of her head and spoke the words of a healing spell, feeling the power pour through his aura and into hers like a gentle heat. The rolling chant was soothing, and Val's trembling and coughing began to ease.

  Talon glanced over at Trouble in case there was some kind of two-pronged attack going on. Whatever had dumped Val had apparently not affected Trouble at all, however. She remained jacked into her deck, head resting on her chest, eyes rolled back in her head, focused solely on the virtual world of cyberspace. Her hands danced across the keyboard of the cyberdeck like a musician playing a familiar tune.

  Val coughed again and opened her eyes, blinking a few times to adjust to the light of the room.

  Talon shifted around so she wouldn't be looking at him upside down. "What happened?"

  "Bughunter." she rasped out. "On one of the rooftops. I didn't see him until it was too late."

  Talon grimaced. Bughunters were people with a paranoid obsession about drones, believing the drones were spying on them. They thought spy-drones worked for the government, the corporations, the alien visitors from Sirius B, or whatever other crazy conspiracy theory was working its way through the sub-culture at the time. They did whatever they could to knock out any drones they could find. One of their favorite weapons were taser missiles called "bugzappers." which packed enough juice to fry a drone's onboard circuitry and to send a powerful feedback signal into the rigger who was operating it. The signal pulse from a bugzapper could induce an epileptic seizure and even be fatal if the rigger got hit really hard. Talon was glad he'd been able to unplug Val in time.

  "The drone?" he said, knowing the answer.

  "Skragged. I didn't get anything on the telecom call, and there's probably nothing to recover from the drone at this point." Whatever the bughunters didn't destroy, the urban scavengers would be quick to pick up.

  A knock came at the door, and Talon reached for the Slivergun resting in his shoulder-holster.

  "Room service!" came Boom's voice from outside, and Talon relaxed as the troll squeezed his massive frame through the door, followed closely by Hammer, each of them carrying paper sacks spotted with grease stains.

  "Whew!" Boom said, wrinkling his broad nose. "What's that smell?" In a second he took in the sight of Val lying with her head in Talon's lap, looking pale, and the crackling static on the vidscreen, with Trouble tapping away on her cyberdeck in the background.

  "What happened?" Hammer asked.

  "We lost the recon drone." Talon said, helping Val up to a sitting position. She steadied herself by gripping his arm. "A bughunter came along unexpectedly, right in the middle of our boy making a telecom call."

  "What about?" Boom said, closing the door behind him and then setting the food on a side table.

  "Hopefully, we can still find out." Talon said, jerking his chin toward Trouble.

  "Are you okay?" Hammer asked Val.

  She nodded and swallowed hard. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be all right. The bugzapper packed a real jolt and I've still got a little dump shock from Talon pulling the plug. Still, it beats the alternative." She shuddered a bit in memory of it.

  "Let's get you, and the floor, cleaned up." Talon said. "Maybe by the time we're ready to eat, Trouble will have figured out a way to pull something out of all this."

  * * *

  As it turned out, Trouble got more than Talon expected. Once she'd logged off and jacked out of the Matrix, the rest of the team brought her up to date on what happened to the recon drone and Val. They sat around the table eating slightly cold sausages with peppers and onions, along with some crusty rye bread. Val took one look at the food and turned a bit green, preferring to quietly sit and sip some water. As they ate, Trouble described what she'd been able to track down in the Matrix.

  "Zoller's mysterious call was to one Rashid Hasur, a black-market dealer in 'rare antiquities' in Europe and Northern Africa. Apparently, Hasur is in Germany to help arrange an auction to sell an item Zoller and the Runenthing have: a rose-quartz crystal, carved in the shape of a heart and etched with some kind of runes. Dr. Goronay authenticates it as the artifact he helped unearth, and the Runenthing thinks its magical."

  "So the Runenthing is only interested in the artifact to sell it." Talon said.

  Trouble shrugged. "Seems like it. From the sound of what Hasur said to Zoller, it's likely to net some serious nuyen on the black market. They're setting up the auction for two days from now in Essen. All sorts of big noises with an interest in 'antiquities' are supposed to be there."

  "Frag, then Brackhaus could just go there and buy it himself if he wants it so bad." Val said, setting her glass on the table.

  "That's what he's paying us for." Talon told her. "And probably a lot less nuyen than he'd have to pay at an auction, especi
ally considering that Saeder-Krupp already considers this little trinket theirs. Takes a lot of stones for Zoller and his bunch to think they can auction it off in Lofwyr's own back yard."

  Trouble looked thoughtful. "Maybe they don't know where it really came from."

  "Doesn't really matter." Talon said. "What matters is: can we get into wherever they're holding this auction, get the crystal and Goronay, and get out without any trouble?"

  "Sounds like we're going to an auction, then." Boom said with a grin.

  "Got it in one, chummer. Trouble, let's start looking at that info. We've got a shadowrun to plan."

  9

  Speren Silverblade had no trouble whatsoever fitting in at a gathering of some of Europe's wealthiest and most influential people and their various proxies and representatives. It hadn't taken long for Duke Jaromar's contacts to learn about the auction: the duke was well-known as a lover of elven history and culture, a collector of fine art, so the invitation would have come his way even had Speren not inquired. Jaromar was more than willing to pass over this particular opportunity as a favor to the Princes of Tir Tairngire, and gave his invitation to Speren, to attend as his representative.

  Speren had traveled from Pomorya to Essen in the Rhine-Ruhr megaplex and could hardly imagine a contrast more jolting. The megaplex embodied all that was wrong with modern culture and society, as far as Speren was concerned. It was overcrowded, filthy, and stank of industrial chemicals, petrochemicals, and the huddled masses of humanity that lived in it. The buildings were ugly blocks of ferrocrete, glass, and steel, the roads choked with traffic, the streets jammed with people, and the shadows filled with scavengers, both human and otherwise.

  After his visit to the pastoral and peaceful islands of Pomorya, Speren could hardly wait to complete his work and leave the teeming city behind. He found it hard to believe that Lofwyr, the unacknowledged lord of the megaplex, actually allowed it to exist in such a state. Still, who could really understand the motives of dragons, especially those as Machiavellian as the CEO of Saeder-Krupp?

  Fortunately, the setting for the auction was considerably more civilized than most of the megaplex. Helsingen was one of the classiest sections of Essen, and the site of the auction was in the recently built Altstadt Hotel, which prided itself on maintaining the charm and elegance of a bygone era. The hotel was done in late nineteen-century German style, with elaborate scrollwork and floral patterns decorating the walls, fine Persian carpets, and liveried servants to attend to the needs of the guests. Behind the façade of pleasant civility was a formidable security presence. Speren spotted alert security guards among the other hotel employees, along with carefully concealed surveillance and security equipment and magical wards to ensure privacy and shield the hotel against hostile sorcery. The guests of the Altstadt could be assured of privacy and discretion, which was just what the current gathering called for.

  Speren chose to dress accordingly for the occasion. Under his hooded cloak of midnight blue, with its lining of ballistic cloth capable of stopping small-caliber rounds, he wore a white silk shirt with ruffles at the throat and wrists. His blue vest matched the color of his cloak and was woven with a golden pattern of twining leaves. Black trousers and his black leather boots completed the ensemble. Speren wore his sword at his side, drawing no small number of looks from the hotel's security. Still, it was not an unusual affectation in the company of so much wealth, and Speren would not even consider leaving the sword behind when dealing with a matter of such importance.

  He presented his invitation to the usher at the door and entered the ballroom where the auction would take place. Most of the invited guests were already in attendance, milling about and talking or waiting patiently in their seats for the auction to begin. There were various corporate executives, including a small group of Japanese who stayed close together and spoke in low tones. Speren spotted a few French aristocrats, clad outlandishly in puffy velvet doublets, hose, and floppy hats decorated with feather plumes. Members of some old-money European families were on hand as well, somber in formal evening wear. The air was electric, filled with tension as the guests milled about and exchanged pleasantries, waiting for things to get going. The illegality of the occasion only added to the excitement. For many, the sheer naughtiness of their activities was part of their entire reason for being there.

  For his part, Speren had no intention of bidding on the item for sale. Although his mistress could certainly afford to pay whatever price was needed, her instructions had been clear. Speren was not only to recover the artifact, but to find out more about what became of Dr. Goronay, who was nowhere to be seen in the ballroom. He preferred not to involve himself in the bidding unless absolutely necessary.

  Settling down in one of the chairs well away from anyone else, Speren rested his hands on his knees and calmed himself in meditation. He focused his thoughts and felt the material world slip away as he descended into a deep trance. His spirit slipped free from his physical body and into the astral plane.

  As he expected, the ballroom was awash in emotions of expectation and greed. The dark, crude auras of most of the attendees were in stark contrast to their outward air of sophistication and nobility. Speren drifted up above his physical body, which remained sitting quietly in meditation below him, thinking how easy it was to recognize true nobility when one was possessed of the ability to look into others' hearts. A quick survey of the room turned up nothing of particular interest. A few of the auction attendees carried minor magical items on their persons, but certainly nothing of any concern.

  Speren's astral form glided over the room, an invisible wraith, passing through curtains and walls like they were no more than smoke. His quarry was nearby; he could sense it. The hunt was drawing to a close. He stopped short of the hotel's outer wards, which protected the outside walls of the building from casual astral intrusion. His interest lay inside the Altstadt.

  In the small conference room behind the main ballroom, Speren spotted two men talking. One was a dark-skinned Arab with neatly trimmed black hair, a small goatee, and dark eyes that gleamed with avarice. He wore a cream-colored suit with a red handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket, like a splash of blood on snow. His aura showed a touch of nervous tension almost blotted out by the overwhelming sense of greed. This was a man to whom profit and the pursuit of profit were everything, a true player in the shadowy world of buying and selling. Still, he was of little interest to Silverblade.

  The other man, however, caught his attention at once. He was tall, with Nordic features, dark blond hair, and a full beard. His winged brows and sharp, hooked nose gave him the look of a bird of prey about to swoop down and attack. His aura was a bland mask of studied calm and disinterest, but Speren examined it carefully and saw the true fires lurking within. This man was more than he appeared. He was a powerful magician, as powerful as Speren himself, perhaps. The cane he carried lightly in his right hand held an enchantment, making it a focus for the magician's powers. This was one individual Speren would need to deal with carefully.

  Fortunately, the magician was not using his own abilities to view the astral plane at the moment, so Speren remained invisible to both men as they spoke.

  "Quite a turnout for such short notice." the magician said. "You've done well, Rashid. Very well."

  The Arab accepted the compliment with a slight incline of his head and a flicker of pleasure through his aura. "My thanks, Herr Zoller. Of course, it is as much the bait as the skill of the fisherman that draws in the fish. The merchandise you are offering has drawn considerable interest."

  "Yes." Zoller said slowly, tapping the head of his cane against his open left hand. "Hopefully not too much interest."

  "No, no." Rashid said in soothing tones. "My associates and their clients are individuals of the utmost discretion. You can be assured that our business has not traveled beyond our circle. We will have no trouble."

  Zoller's aura hardened like his stare. "We had best not, Rashid. We had best not.
" He held the smaller man's gaze for a few long seconds before turning away and resuming tapping his cane. "How long before we begin?"

  Rashid glanced at the gold watch he wore on his left wrist. "Only a few more minutes. We should be nearly ready."

  "Very well." Zoller said. "I will get the item."

  Excellent, Speren thought, as Zoller moved toward the door.

  "What about this professor who found it?" Rashid asked just as Zoller was reaching for the doorknob. Zoller stopped and turned back to the other man.

  "I'll bring him as well. He can authenticate the piece and help to drive up the bidding."

  "And afterward?" Rashid asked.

  Zoller's aura darkened again. "That is not your concern." he said. "Keep your attention on the business at hand."

  "Of course, Herr Zoller." the fixer replied with an oily bow. Zoller turned and left the room, and Speren's astral form followed close behind. With luck, Zoller would lead him directly to the hiding place of the artifact and Dr. Goronay. Then, while the two men were on their way to the auction room, Speren could return to his body and take the steps needed to secure both of them for his Prince.

  Zoller made his way down the hall and out, over to the wide bank of elevators of the main lobby of the hotel. The floor was done in white-veined black marble, the walls in dark green wallpaper that complemented the brass fittings and framework of the elevators, whose doors were covered with elaborate scrollwork. He tapped his cane impatiently while waiting for the elevator car to descend. Speren felt much the same. He wished he could move on ahead, but there was little point until he discovered where Zoller was going.

  When the elevator car finally arrived, Zoller took a step forward to enter, then suddenly paused on the threshold with a strange look on his face. Speren noted a flicker in Zoller's aura as the man hesitated for an instant before turning away from the elevator and allowing the door to slide shut behind him. There was a look of concern on his face as he reached into his overcoat to produce a small cell phone.