House of the Sun

by Nigel Findley

  But the kids were gone when I looked around. The forensic boys had finished their work, and were piling into the car with the still-sulking kahuna. Saito was standing by the open driver's door of his car, watching me—and almost concealing his impatience—in case the "deputy" might want to waste his time with more dumb-hooped questions. I waved to him and gestured that he could take off if he wanted. He wanted, and I was left to breathe in the dust of his departure. With a sigh I started walking toward The Bus stop.

  I felt eyes on me, that creepy feeling that the academics say doesn't exist but that every nonacademic has felt many times. I stopped and looked around.

  He was standing, totally motionless, leaning casually against the trunk of some kind of flowering tree, watching me. Rapier-thin, he seemed to radiate a sense of pent-up energy, explosive movement. He was an elf, I was almost certain. From this distance I couldn't see his ears, but the morphology looked right. His eyes were hidden behind those radically styled shades that advertise they can stop a 12-gauge shotgun blast—reassuring only as long as the slag busting caps on you confines his aim to your sunglasses—but I could feel his gaze on me. I raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  He stepped away from the tree and jandered over toward me—slowly, casually—yet purposefully. (A contradiction, true enough. But that's exactly how he moved—with the lethal casualness of a predator.) I gave him the top-to-toe scan as he approached.

  Thin face, high cheekbones, a nose that an eagle would kill to possess. He wore his hair—red, streaked with silver gray—long, pulled back in a ponytail that reached the middle of his back. He was dressed in dark clothes—a slate gray synthsilk shirt, black pants wide at the thighs and tapering to the ankle. Expensive, high-quality clothing, but anachronistic in style. When was the last time you saw a shirt buttoned to the neck with no tie, and bloused cuffs? It was almost as if the elf had stepped right off the virtual pages of Gentlemen's Monthly Online, but from an issue twenty years old. Instinctively, I played "spot the heat." No luck—if he was packing anything larger than the smallest of hold-outs, he'd found a damn fine way of concealing it.

  He stopped a short distance away, and it was his turn to give me the once-over. It took no more than a second, and then he smiled.

  Suddenly, I realized I feared this elf.

  It was a disturbing realization. Hell, there was nothing overtly threatening about him. His smile seemed to be genuinely amused, not a power smile intended to impress or intimidate. His body language was, well, I didn't know quite what to make of it, but it wasn't threatening either.

  Yet the fear was real, chummer. For some reason, it chilled my guts like an ice-water enema. Some people you automatically like at first glance; others you automatically despise. Never before had I met someone to automatically fear. I think I managed to keep my thoughts from showing on my face, however.

  The elf nodded a greeting—a gesture with an Old-World formal air to it. "Mr. Montgomery," he said. His voice was a musical instrument, almost inhumanly perfect in timbre, tone, and resonance; any trideo personality would gut his mother for a voice like that. "I rather thought I might find you here."

  "Then you know more about it than I do," I told him truthfully.

  He found that amusing, and his smile broadened. "Well, there is always that possibility, isn't there, Mr. Montgomery? Or may I call you Derek?"

  "Why don't you call me Brian Tozer?" I said. Then—what the frag anyway—"But Dirk will do. Your turn."

  The elf nodded again, almost a bow, this time. "Quentin Harlech, at your service. But you can call me Quinn."

  I ignored the obvious opening.

  Harlech removed his bullet-proof shades—blue eyes, sharper than a monoblade—and looked pointedly around the area. "Quite fascinating, isn't it?" he remarked lightly.

  I shrugged. "If you understand it, I suppose."

  He laughed then, Harlech did. Not the sinister cackle that part of my mind had expected, but a full-throated, free rush of genuine mirth. "Oh, of course, Dirk, of course. Will you be returning with interesting reports?"

  "Huh?" Not overly witty, of course, but it was all that occurred to me at the moment.

  Quinn chuckled again. "Reports, Derek, you know. To those who sent you. Give them my greetings while you're at it, will you? But then, of course you'd do that even without my urging, wouldn't you?"

  Slowly, I shook my head. "Pardon the dumb question, but are we both reading from the same script here? Or maybe you're confusing me with another Dirk Montgomery."

  The elf sighed and made a disapproving tsk-tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. "Basely spoken, Mr. Montgomery," he said. His tone of voice sounded more disappointed than anything else. "Dissembling so clumsily? It suits you ill, sir."

  I showed him my empty palms. "Chummer," I said quietly, "I haven't got a fragging clue what you're talking about."

  "Of course you don't, of course you don't," Quinn said patronizingly, and he laughed again. "And of course you don't know that the game is up," he went on sarcastically. "You don't know that your cover's blown, and that you're wasting your time. I've seen to that, you know. You really should tell your master that." I saw his gaze flick down to my deputy badge, saw his expression change subtly. "Both your masters," he amended.

  Before I could speak, he turned away with a final, "Well, good day to you, makkaherinit."

  "Hey, just a fragging moment," I called after him.

  Or that's what I tried to call after him, at least. I tried to draw breath . . . and couldn't. I tried to move . . . and couldn't. I tried to blink my fragging eyes ... and couldn't.

  Magic, obviously—a powerful paralysis spell. Harlech must have cast it on me to give himself walking-away time. That's what I guessed later, at least. At the moment there was only one thought running through my mind.

  I was fragging paralyzed, and I was fragging terrified. Spirits, have you ever been paralyzed? Let me tell you it's not the way you think it'd be ... or not the way I thought it'd be, at least. Maybe there are some kinds of paralysis spells that control only voluntary muscles, that leave the involuntary functions alone. Not this one. I couldn't breathe, in or out, and I couldn't even hear my pulse. Every muscle fiber in my body seemed frozen in the position it held when Harlech cast his spell or whatever it was.

  I watched him stroll away; then he was out of my field of vision, and I couldn't move my eyes to follow him. I was stuck there, staring at some turf and a flowering tree—the tree was slightly out of focus, and I couldn't even focus my eyes—and I started wondering if that was the last sight I was ever going to see. The elf had implied that he didn't want me dead, which meant he'd eventually drop the spell... but soon enough? How good was his estimate of the anoxiatolerance of a thirty-something erstwhile shadowrunner who's not in the best of fragging shape? By the time he dropped the spell and my cardiovascular system got back on the job, how much of my brain would have suffocated? Not a pleasant thought ...

  My vision was starting to tunnel down, and little floaty stars were drifting around the dark periphery of my visual field. In growing desperation, I tried once more to draw a breath . . .

  And fragged if it didn't work this time. I filled my lungs, a great whooping inhalation. (Who says orgasm is the best experience in the world? I'm here to tell you, chummer, it's breathing . . .) My heart kicked in, a triphammer beat in my ears. I fell to my hands and knees and just relished the sensations as my chest and diaphragm did what they were supposed to do. The little floaty stars and the black tunnel receded, and eventually the aftertaste of terror followed them. By the time I could think of anything beyond personal survival, the elf was gone without a trace.

  16

  I sat in the back of The Bus, morosely watching the assortment of (meta)humanity sharing the vehicle with me. Mostly working-class Hawai'ians, I figured, but there was a significant minority of younger people I tentatively labeled as the kids of corp vacationers. (Did mummy and daddy suit know their little darlings were riding a fragging bu
s instead of cruising in a limo? Not that it mattered ...) The "recently dead" look seemed to be back in fashion, with bleached skin, black-dyed hair, and makeup to give the eyes a sunken look. Anything that could be pierced was pierced. The only thing that set these pre-suits apart from sprawl guttertrash was the quality—and obvious expense—of their clothes. Oh, sure, they wore the de rigueur biker jackets and weathered jeans. But their jackets were real leather, not synth, and they'd obviously bought their jeans prefaded and preslashed.

  * * *

  And then there were the T-shirts and sweatshirts they wore under their jackets—emblazoned with logos from fashionable corps. I don't know jack about fashion, really, but I do know how much a trendy label adds to the price of something. I sighed. In the grand scheme of things the only difference between cows and some people is that cows don't pay mega-cred to get branded. Maybe it's time to cack us all and give the cockroaches their shot ...

  It was continuing to be one of those days, all in all. Through no fault of my own, I'd gotten myself mixed up in the affairs of kings, corps, and dracoforms. I'd witnessed an assassination, I'd been shot at repeatedly, and I'd almost asphyxiated under a paralysis spell. And the day wasn't even over.

  It was Miller time with a vengeance. Of all the things I could think of, what I most wanted right at that moment was to head back to my doss, flop down on the bed, and watch eyelid movies for twenty-four hours. Maybe by the time I woke up again, things would have started looking a little better.

  Problem: I didn't have a doss at the moment. Or, more correctly—I had two dosses, but they were about as compromised as it's possible to get. Maybe I should just head on back to the Iolani Palace, ask for political asylum, and throw myself on the mercy of the Ali'i. Maybe King Kamehameha needed a haole courtier or a eunuch or some damn thing.

  Sitting there in the back of The Bus, I scanned through the memory of my pocket 'puter. I still had a couple of aliases stashed away in the little box's optical chips. They were all on a par with the one I hadn't needed to check into the Ilima Joy: good enough for low-level, routine drek, but certain suicide if I tried to travel on them.

  I tried to think back to when I'd snagged the Ilima Joy room. Had I used one of those aliases? I knew that the desk clerk hadn't asked me for ID, but . . .

  But didn't the credstick with which I'd paid have an ident stored on it, just in case? I thought so. Okay, so assume that ident—"Emory Archambault"—was compromised. Quickly, I set myself up another "blind" credstick, this time under the name "Mike Bloemhard." When that was done—a matter of minutes—I started watching The Bus stops and figuring out exactly where I was.

  * * *

  Two transfers and twenty minutes later, I was in a Bus rolling northwest on Highway 99. When I hit Pearl City—older than Ewa, apparently, but better maintained—I swung down off The Bus and started trolling the backstreets for a place to flop. In the west another perfect sunset was burning its way down behind the skyline. Tropical twilight is always short, and maybe ten minutes later the streetlights were coming on to hold back the night.

  Maybe Pearl City hadn't been such a good bet, I started thinking after another half hour or so. All the hotels I'd found, even the ones well off the beaten track, were surprisingly high-tone. Sure, they were old, but they'd been seriously gentrified, like the New Ritz Hotel in Seattle, using their age as a selling point instead of a drawback. Typically, places that invested that much cred into the physical facilities wouldn't have scrimped on the electronic side, either. It wouldn't take much in the way of data back-checking to figure out that "Mike Bloemhard" was as much a fiction as "Neil the Ork Barbarian." For a moment I debated hopping The Bus back to Ewa—at least I knew I could find some sleazy flops there—but quickly discarded the idea. If Kat and her little friends had bugged my bike, it just wasn't a reasonable risk to go anywhere near where I'd dumped the Suzuki. So I walked on.

  I must have been tired—that's the only excuse I can come up with—tired and emotionally battered. Otherwise, I like to think I'd have noticed the Renault-Fiat Euro van creeping up on me a little sooner.

  The puke green van was no more than ten meters away when my cerebral cortex finally got with the program and tagged it as something to be concerned about. Just in time, too. In my peripheral vision I saw the passenger-side window roll down and spotted the movement inside the cab. Reflexes kicked in, and I flung myself to the sidewalk.

  The weapon the van's passenger was aiming went off—a dull pum noise instead of the usual sharp crash—and I felt something split the air above my falling body. A myopolymer net appeared—magically, it seemed—immobilizing and incapacitating a datafax kiosk a meter or two behind me.

  I hit the sidewalk hard, rolling to try and absorb the impact. My sartorial splendor downgraded itself yet again, but at least the light armor underneath saved me from losing much skin. I did another tuck-and-roll into the shelter of a parked car. My Manhunter was in my hand, safety off and finger on the trigger, but I kept it down, out of sight. The slag in the Eurovan had taken his first shot with a netgun, meaning he wanted me alive—for the moment, at least. It didn't make sense for me to return fire and escalate matters to a more lethal level. Cautiously, I raised my head above the hood of the car behind which I was crouching.

  And all nonlethal bets were immediately off. The side door of the Eurovan slid back, and three laser sights winked on in the darkness beyond. I dropped flat to the ground, as autofire stitched the car and blew out the windows, showering me with transpex. Over the rattle of gunfire I heard another door open on the Eurovan. The passenger's side door? Probably—the guy with the netgun was taking advantage of the "suppression fire" to come and finish me off.

  Mentally, I reviewed my tactical options. It didn't take more than a fraction of a second—there were only two, and only one of them involved staying alive. Before I could think about it too much and immobilize myself with fear, I forced myself to my feet, put my head down, and ran. Directly away from the car, jinking and weaving, but concentrating more on pouring on the speed and opening the distance. Ideally, I wanted to keep as low as possible, to minimize my exposure, but speed was more important than anything else. Without looking, I squeezed off four shots from the Manhunter back over my left shoulder.

  Bullets whipcracked by my head. Ricochets whined off into the darkness. I felt something pluck at the collar of my shirt—now that was too fragging close.

  On this part of the street the buildings, largely light-industrial facilities, were separated by narrow walkways ... or, more accurately, breezeways. I faked right, then cut hard left, and hurled myself headlong down one of these darkened passages. I yelled with pain as something slammed into my left shoulder blade—a love-tap with a baseball bat. The impact was enough to throw me off balance for a second, and I caught my right elbow a nasty crack on the corner of a building. I howled, my right hand and forearm feeling like they'd been dipped into molten lead, but I kept on running.

  The firing continued behind me—no more pums, all the cracking of real-and-for-true guns—but nothing came close. I tore down the walkway/breezeway like a boosted sprinter and hung a skidding right when I reached the end.

  An alley—a fragging, noisome, garbage-strewn alley. Even though I knew I couldn't really spare the breath, I cursed out loud. Was it just me, or did everyone's life seem to gravitate to drek-choked alleys and dumpsters? I pounded on. The gunfire had stopped behind me, but I could hear the echoes of pursuing footfalls. I risked a glance over my shoulder and was rewarded with a momentary glimpse of two figures bursting from the breezeway. One was big and hulking, with klick-wide shoulders; the other was small and wiry. Moko and Kat, two of the runners connected with "the big worm?" A pretty safe bet, I figured. Both of them popped some caps in my direction, but the visibility was drek, and the range was extending. I sprinted on, until the air was like knives in my lungs when I breathed in.

  Questions churned through my mind as I ran. First off ... how the fragging hell di
d they track me? They might have put a tracer on my bike, but I'd dumped the bike ...

  Hold the phone. A tracer on the bike was an obvious play, but I'd also given Kat and the others plenty of chances to put a tracer on me, hadn't I? Frag, it doesn't take much these days, not with the microminiaturized drek on the market. A casual pat on the shoulder and you've transferred a self-adhesive tracker the size of a pinhead.

  If that was the case, the "why" could only have to do with Ryumyo—assuming it was Ryumyo who'd done the morphing trip on my telecom screen—and his warning to stay out of matters. So what had I done almost immediately thereafter? I'd run to the fragging Ali'i, hadn't I? Not a particularly good way of keeping my nose out of trouble. When the big worm realized I hadn't taken his friendly advice, he'd decided to send Kat and her little friends out to settle things once and for all. (What was with the netgun if they were simply going to open up with lethal ordnance the moment the nonlethal takedown failed? Obviously, the ALOHA runners were planning to cack me anyway, but their primary plan was to bag me and then put a pill in my ear in private. When I inconsiderately refused to be bagged, they went to Plan B: Hose the place down.)

  Kat and Moko were still on my hoop, maybe fifty meters back but closing the gap. (Fear and adrenaline can do wonderful things, but they can't make up for too many months as a couch-tuber.) They weren't firing indiscriminately anymore. Hell, they didn't have to; they knew they'd catch me eventually. Panicking seemed to be the only logical plan at the moment, so that's what I did. Wildly, I started looking around for somewhere to make my last stand.

  And that's when guns opened up behind me again. Not Moko's and Kat's—someone else's. The two ALOHA runners were packing SMGs of some kind; the reports and cyclical rates were unmistakable. The guns that suddenly cut loose were something very different, with a much higher cyclical rate of fire. Not miniguns—the reports were from small-arms rounds—but with a similar rate of fire, sounding like giant zippers. Standard SMGs stuttered in response, but the zippers spoke again, and the SMGs fell silent.