by R. L. King
She nodded, stopping her pacing again to regard him for a long moment. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone. Just wanted to know that.”
“Let me know if Scuzzy finds anything.”
“I’m sure you’ll hear him,” she said as she drifted toward the door.
“Dreja?”
She paused. “Yeah?”
“Are you going to turn this lot in for the bounty?”
There was a long pause as she lingered in the open doorway. She half-turned, not looking back at him. “No,” she said at last, and closed the door as she left.
Winterhawk returned to the front room shortly afterward to find Scuzzy still bent over Boyd’s head. The faint stench of decay had begun to permeate the air, but the decker appeared to be deep into his task and paying no attention to it. Winterhawk paused a moment to watch him, tensing as his traitorous mind once again served up possibilities of what might happen if Scuzzy couldn’t retrieve the data, or if it was hopelessly corrupted. His headache hadn’t responded to the painkillers; the brief rest hadn’t done anything to alleviate the lightheadedness or the growing feeling of unease. After a few moments, he moved on.
The others, all but Cosworth, who was apparently out in the garage tinkering with the Bulldog, were having a low, heated discussion. They all stopped and looked up as Winterhawk came in. The mage regarded them with a raised eyebrow. “Am I interrupting something?”
“We’re talking about how we’re gonna go after Kivuli,” Tiny said. “That bitch fragged us over, and we need to find her.”
Winterhawk noticed that Dreja was nodding agreement. Ocelot neither said nor revealed anything. “No,” the mage said firmly.
“Whaddya mean, no?” The samurai glared, clutching the armrests of his chair. “It’s her fault we’re in this mess. It’s her fault Boyd’s dead. You could find her with magic. Send one of your spirits out.”
Damn it, I don’t want to deal with this now. Winterhawk swiped the back of his hand across his forehead and matched Tiny’s glare with an icy one of his own. “I said no. We’re not going after anyone. As soon as Scuzzy downloads the data, we’re going where it takes us.”
“Look,” Dreja said, her old stubborn expression settling back over her features, “Tiny’s kind of an idiot, but in this case he’s right. You can’t let somebody get away with drek like that. They start thinking they can, they win. You don’t betray your team.”
“You too?” Why is it so hot in here? “Perhaps you didn’t hear me, so I’ll repeat: We’re not going after anyone. We’ve got a job to do and a limited amount of time to do it. We’re not wasting time on pointless side trips.”
“Pointless?” Tiny demanded. “So you’re just gonna let her get away with it?”
“We need to find her and figure out who she’s working for,” Dreja said. “If she’s gone off to report to someone, she could cause trouble with the rest of the run.”
Winterhawk closed his eyes for a moment. His head pounded in rhythm with his increased heartbeat; the three figures in front of him swam in his vision as his balance shifted, and he had to grab the top of Ocelot’s chair to keep from falling over. When he spoke again, his voice was sharp, harsh, and left no room for any dissent: “You also might have forgotten the fact that I’m the one who hired you for this job. That means I make the decisions. This isn’t a democracy. Scuzzy!” he called, his voice rising to a bark. “Anything yet?”
“Getting close,” came the decker’s distracted voice. “Don’t talk to me right now!”
Winterhawk turned back to the three others. “Now, then. I don’t want to hear any more objections. We’re going to wait for the data. After we’ve found the location of the objective, we’re going where it is and retrieving it. That’s the way it’s going to be. Anyone else want to discuss it?”
“Yeah. I do,” Dreja said, her voice rising, too. “I really don’t like leaving a loose end out there in the wind. Loose ends come back and bite you on the ass at all the wrong times. And besides, you might be paying the tab for this job, but you hired us for our expertise. We’re telling you it’s a bad idea to let Kivuli skate. You’ve been out of the shadows so long you don’t even remember the way it’s supposed to go down when things like this happen.”
“What she said,” Tiny said, his expression growing more stubborn. “It’s bad biz and a bad idea.”
Ocelot stood. He was eyeing Winterhawk with a mix of anger and concern. “What’s goin’ on, ’Hawk? Are you all right?”
The mage whirled and strode over to the window. He moved the closed blinds aside and glared out into the night, struggling to get himself under control. He’d had episodes before, and they’d passed. He just needed a few moments to focus without everybody wanting something from him—
“’Hawk?”
All at once, something snapped inside him. He spun back, his rage and frustration and fear all rising up on a vast tide that threatened to engulf him. “No!” he yelled. “I am bloody well not all right! I’m about as far from all right as I can be at present, and you lot prattling on at me isn’t making anything any better!” He fought to get his voice under control; his rational side didn’t like the sound of that sharp, bright edge that was coloring it, but right now he had no more power to affect it than he did to spontaneously neutralize the poison coursing through his body. He sagged again, dropping to his knees.
Ocelot moved in that swift way of his that seemed not to cover any intervening ground between his starting point and his ending point. All at once he was next to the mage, and like the others he stared at him with confusion. “’Hawk. What’s going on?”
Winterhawk focused on him for a moment, then dragged himself up, stalked over and flung himself into his vacated chair. The others were still staring, shocked. He could feel the burn of their eyes on him, and he wanted to run, or scream, or lash out at them with the full measure of his magic until they weren’t looking at him anymore. If everyone could just leave him the hell alone—
And then he stopped. The rage ebbed away as quickly as it had come, leaving behind nothing but despair and an unutterable, bone-deep weariness. He realized that, subconsciously, he had been living with some growing subset of this despair ever since he’d left the Johnson’s presence, and it was sapping his strength and will every bit as effectively as the poison was.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he muttered. He looked up at them, meeting their confused gazes in turn, lingering longer on Ocelot’s and Dreja’s than Tiny’s. “The bottom line is, I haven’t got time to waste. You’re right: it’s probably a good idea to find her. But I don’t have time. If I don’t finish this run and get this thing back to the Johnson, I’m dead in four days. Maybe fewer.” He dropped his gaze into his lap, clasping and unclasping shaking hands.
“What?” Ocelot and Dreja demanded at the same time, and Tiny sat up straighter in his chair.
Ocelot came back over and perched on the edge of the coffee table, his eyes searching Winterhawk’s face. “What the hell are you talking about? I think you better explain that.”
And so he did. Without looking at any of them, speaking in a dull and lifeless monotone, he told them the whole story: the auction, the abduction, Mr. Johnson’s meet, the poison, the time limit. None of them spoke; he didn’t know if they were looking at him, and he didn’t care. He kept speaking until he didn’t have anything else to say, and it wasn’t until he finished that he looked up to see what effect his words were having on them.
For several moments there was no sound save for the soft taps of Scuzzy’s fingers on his deck as they all just sat there, stunned into silence.
Finally, Ocelot said, “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Winterhawk shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I thought I could handle it. Maybe I thought you wouldn’t agree to the run if you thought I wouldn’t be able to see it through. I really don’t know the answer, honestly.” He swept his gaze around them. “So—that’s
it, then.”
“That’s what?” Dreja asked.
He didn’t get to answer, because at that moment Scuzzy looked up in triumph. “Got it!” he crowed, yanking the wire out of Boyd’s datajack.
CHAPTER 23
SAFE HOUSE
LOS ANGELES
SATURDAY MORNING
Winterhawk leaped from the chair and hurried to him. “Is the data there? It’s not corrupted?”
The decker grinned. “It’s all here,” he said, patting his deck. “Hang on, I’ll shoot it to you.” His fingers danced over the screen and then he punched an icon. “There ya go. You can look it over first, and then I’ll send it to everybody else.”
“Just send it to them now,” he said, digging out his AR-viewer monocle. “No point in hiding anything—we’ll all have to know before we leave anyway.”
Scuzzy did as requested. Winterhawk slumped back into Ocelot’s vacated chair and immediately began perusing the data. The poison flare-up episode had quieted, mostly, leaving behind only the headache that was becoming a constant companion. He examined the files one after another, his breathing picking up; he wasn’t a religious man, but if he’d been one he would have been praying hard to find no surprises in them.
Most of the file was in the form of a video diary Boyd had kept while on a working trip to Australia to study local flora with his team. He described being caught in a manastorm-created earthquake, finding a hidden cave, and discovering an odd artifact that he could tell was ancient, magical, and powerful. He held it up: it was a carved figure of a stylized coiled serpent, intricately covered with symbols and figures.
Winterhawk’s eyes narrowed as he examined it as well as he could in the small window. Obviously he couldn’t sense any magic in it in the video, but he’d seen other examples of Aboriginal magical artifacts in his career. This one was clearly such an artifact, but its form—and especially the symbols—were like nothing he’d ever encountered before. It was possible the item was valuable—but it was equally possible that the dwarf had either found or created a fake in hopes of convincing Mr. Johnson to arrange the extraction.
Everyone else was still watching the video and examining the data. Ocelot looked up first. “So, Australia. And not just Australia: out in the middle of the fraggin’ Outback.” He tilted his head, eyeing Winterhawk critically. “Never been there, but I’ve heard it’s bad news if you’re not familiar with it. You sure you’re up to—”
“I’m sure I don’t have a choice, do I?” the mage snapped, shoving aside an AR window to get a better look at him.
Dreja was the next to emerge from the small forest of windows. She too looked at Winterhawk, but her eyes were narrowed. “This is a magical artifact we’re after,” she said, her voice even. “An Aboriginal magical artifact. And you want to find it and take it back to some Johnson we don’t even know anything about.”
Winterhawk sighed. He’d seen this coming for a long time, and hoped that whatever was in the file wouldn’t cause a problem with the idealistic ork. “Yes,” he said. There was no way to hide it: it was right there in the file.
Ocelot was still reading. “Wait, he left this thing with his sister, in a biker gang? So we’re gonna have to track down a bunch of bikers in the middle of the Outback? How the hell are we supposed to do that in the time we got? We can’t just call her up, right?”
“Nope,” Scuzzy said. “Matrix connectivity out there is crap. Once you get out away from the cities, you’re lucky if you can get anything at all. And it doesn’t look like this chica hangs out near the cities.”
“So how we gonna find her?” Tiny demanded.
Dreja shoved a map in front of them. “Here,” she said. “It looks like they’ve got a home base at some abandoned outpost or ghost town out near someplace called Kookynie.”
Winterhawk looked it over. “Even if she’s not there, we might find someone who knows how to reach her,” he said, sighing. “I was hoping for something a bit more definitive, but we’ll go with what we have.”
“The Outback,” Tiny said, looking dubious “Ain’t gonna be easy, gettin’ out there. I ain’t been there, but I’ve run with chummers who have. Nobody just goes out there for fun. You’re out in the middle of fraggin’ nowhere, there’s no water, and every damn thing you run into is tryin’ to kill you.”
“We’d better make sure we’re prepared, then,” Winterhawk said. “Are you sure this is all there is, Scuzzy?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I grabbed all the files in there. Can we get rid of this head now? It’s starting to really ick me out.”
Winterhawk ignored him. He turned back to the others. “So,” he said after a pause. “Where does this leave us, then?”
“What do you mean?” Ocelot asked.
The mage got up and began a restless prowl that took him from one side of the room to the other. “You all agreed to do the first part of the job, and you have. Not exactly the way I’d have planned it, but that’s not your fault. We got the data, and we know the where the artifact is. The next phase is to go to Australia and retrieve it.” He paused again, trying to decide the best way to continue. “Some of you have indicated to me that your participation in Phase Two of our little adventure is contingent upon what we discovered in the data. So, I guess we’re at a bit of a crossroads right now, aren’t we?” He looked straight at Dreja as he said it.
“So—” Ocelot began.
“So,” Winterhawk said, resuming his pacing, “I need to know who’s still in and who isn’t. Regardless of what you decide, I need to get moving. Now you know why. It’s not really an option for me to quit at this point. But the rest of you—”
“I’m in,” Scuzzy said instantly. “Hell, I shoulda started doing runs in the meat a long time ago. I didn’t realize how much more fun it is out here.” He cocked his head at the tea-towel-covered lump on the cookie sheet. It was beginning to seep. “You know, aside from the disgusting severed heads and ghouls and stuff.”
Ocelot looked troubled. “Yeah, frag it, I’m in too,” he said after a long moment. “I don’t like it, ’Hawk. I don’t like any of this. But I ain’t gonna leave you on your own.”
Tiny appeared to still be examining the AR displays. “Gonna cost you extra,” he said. “You ain’t payin’ me enough to go all the way to fraggin’ Australia. I got expenses, you know?” He looked up and met Winterhawk’s gaze; there was challenge in his own, almost as if he were saying, you ain’t got much choice, do you?
Winterhawk didn’t answer right away. He moved with preternatural calm until he was standing in front of Tiny. He kept his expression and his tone utterly still. “Suppose you tell me how much more you want.”
Tiny looked like he was going to answer, then got a look at something in Winterhawk’s eyes that the rest of the group couldn’t see. “Uh—” he protested, scrambling. “Hey, back off, chummer. I’m not tryin’ to screw you over or anything. What do you think I am, anyway?” He thought a moment, then ventured, “Another ten?”
Winterhawk remained still for a beat, just long enough to make his point. Then he nodded. “Ten is reasonable,” he said. “For each of you. On completion.” When Tiny started to say something else, he held up a hand. “I’ll leave the funds in escrow with Ocelot. That way if things…don’t go well for me, you’ll still have your payment. Is that acceptable?”
The samurai nodded, satisfied. “Yeah. I’m good.”
The mage dropped back down into his chair and leaned forward. “Just you left,” he said softly to Dreja. “I need an answer. We should already be on our way.”
She didn’t answer for a long time. Then she stood up. “Make your arrangements,” she said. “I need some time to think.”
Winterhawk nodded as if he expected it. “Not too long.”
“Yeah.” She left the room and disappeared into the back of the house. After a moment they all heard a door close behind her.
Winterhawk hovered over Scuzzy at the kitchen table, watching as the decker stru
ggled to work out the fastest and least problematic way to get a group of individuals all sporting highly illegal modifications to Australia in the shortest possible timeframe, when a message flashed in the corner of his AR display:
The mage glanced up at the others. Ocelot was prowling around the front part of the house, working off his restless energy. It was obvious he wanted to discuss the situation more, but hadn’t made any move to do so yet. He caught Winterhawk’s eye, but didn’t hold his gaze. Tiny sat on the couch, his big gear bag open, the components of his Ares HVAR spread out over the coffee table as he checked and carefully cleaned each bit. “Keep working,” Winterhawk told Scuzzy. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Dreja stood in front of the window in the house’s other back bedroom. She didn’t turn around when Winterhawk came in. He waited for her to speak.
“You know,” she said, still without turning, “When your friend called me about this job, I was going to turn it down. The second I found out you were involved.”
“I had the same reaction when he suggested you,” he said.
She did turn then, studying him with expressionless calm. “Everything I ever heard about you made me hate you. And then that job, where you and your little group of vultures beat me to that carving—”
He shrugged. “I can’t help what I am.”
“No,” she agreed. “Some of it, you can’t. But you never tried to help the rest of it, either. People like you just go through life like everything’s just there for the taking.” Her lip curled around her tusks. “I mean, look at you. Is there any privilege you don’t have? You’re human. You’re male. You’re attractive. You have money. You’re a mage. And you just accept all of that like it’s the way things are supposed to be.” She paused. “You never had to worry about where your next meal was coming from, did you?”
“Not really, no,” he said softly.