by Mel Odom
"Hola, motherfragger!" Bearstalker yelled. "I'm going to cut your slotting arms and legs off." He swung again as Argent pushed up to his feet, cleaving the air less than a centimeter from Argent's left shoulder.
"Then I'm going to find out who you're working for." The blade picked up speed as the Amerind samurai launched himself into his kata.
Argent reacted to the martial arts moves, not bothering with trying for the Guardian in its thigh holster.
Going for the pistol would have thrown his reactions off, split his attention. And Bearstalker was too good with the sword to allow that to happen.
Bobbing and weaving, keeping his hands out in front of himself and looking for an opening, Argent stayed almost toe-to-toe with the bigger man. Trying to run, trying to open up more space between them, would have only gotten him flat-lined. Staying in close eliminated some of the moves Bearstalker had open to him.
"You're good, browncone." the Amerind said. "I'll give you that. Never figured on you dropping a vehicle down inside the mine shafts to use to bug out of here."
Argent didn't respond to the conversation. He kept his mind loose, relaxed, concentrating on the give and take of the sword. The latest blow came at his shoulder again, but this time he'd anticipated it well enough that he was able to slap it along the flat of the blade and push it further away.
Bearstalker brought the weapon back around even more fiercely, but the damage at been done. His kata style was looser now, in danger of deteriorating. "But now they're gone, Argent, and there's no way out for you."
The blade licked in at Argent's throat. He dodged it, then put his hands together and pulled his left thumb out of his hand with a slight twist. A monofilament garrote followed the thumb out, glowing slightly.
A monofilament whip and garrote were dangerous usually even to the joker who used them, Argent knew. A chummer had to be slotting good to use one effectively because even a loose swipe of the whip around a limb would amputate it in a heartbeat.
Argent kept his arms apart, out of harm's way, expanding the monofilament garrote between them.
Before Bearstalker could pull his sword back around in another slash, Argent trapped it in the coil of the garrote. The monofilament edges, molecule thin, canceled each other out in a haze of sparks.
Setting himself, knowing Bearstalker was caught off-guard, Argent yanked on the garrote and tugged the sword free. He flipped it away, out of reach, then tugged on the garrote and sent his thumb zipping back into place.
Recovering, Bearstalker launched a roundhouse kick at Argent. The big shadowrunner blocked the effort with an arm, but the impact rocked him back on his heels. Bearstalker brought a heavy hand against Argent's helmet. Meant to withstand gunfire and light explosions, the helmet came apart under the cyberarm's attack.
Bare-headed, Argent backed off a half-step to recover his balance. He went into his defensive kata automatically, blocking most of Bearstalker's blows and connecting with a few of his own. He tasted his own blood when Bearstalker hit him a glancing blow in the mouth. Even reinforced as his skull was, it wouldn't have handled the punishment the Amerind samurai was handing out.
Argent blocked another blow, pushing his opponent's arm up, leaving him open for the short jab to the face. Bearstalker's skin split under the impact, showing the white flash of bone and cesium underplating that had been used to reinforce his skull.
The Amerind staggered back, bleeding profusely. Mercilessly, Argent took the fight to him, blocking a weakly returned blow and smashing a hard right to Bearstalker's temple. Bone and subdermal plating crushed inward, cutting into the vulnerable brain tissue beneath. Instinct alone made Bearstalker bring the attack to Argent again. Executing a spinning back fist, taking full advantage of his cyberarms, Argent slammed his knuckles into Bear-stalker's cheek.
Bearstalker's head turned violently to the side, and the crack of his spine shattering at the base of his skull filled the room. Dead on his feet, his cyberware systems finally catching up to what his meat body already knew, Bear-stalker collapsed face down on the floor.
Staggering, winded from the pain of his wounds and the beating he'd taken, Argent crossed the room to the portable freezer. He looked inside long enough to ascertain the existence of the DNA samples, then plucked a high-explosive grenade from his combat vest. He armed it and dropped it into the freezer.
Then he ran toward the edge of the second floor looking down over the first. He didn't pause when he reached it, leaping downward. The HE grenade went off before he touched the floor, destroying the DNA samples and throwing a gust of super-heated air over him.
He landed off-balance and tucked himself into a paratrooper's roll. As he came back up to his feet, he spotted movement ahead of him. His hand swept down for the Savalette Guardian in the counter-terrorist drop holster on his thigh. Pulling it up in front of him, the smartlink flaring through his synapses and putting the cross hairs in his vision, he leveled it and killed the two secguards firing at him from the shadows.
Nothing else appeared to be moving inside the building.
Knowing that there was no way he'd make it out of Pueblo on foot, and that there was no way he'd be able to catch the Rat without wheels, he spotted one of the motorcycles laying abandoned on the building's floor. He crossed over to it and lifted it, not noticing any damage that would keep it from running.
The motorcycle was a Harley Electraglide-1000, a model that he was familiar with. He straddled it, then thumbed the engine to vibrant life. More of the VaulTek security people closed in from outside, their lights slashing through the shadows and smoke that filled the warehouse.
Argent gunned the engine and popped the clutch, squirting the big bike through the hole he'd made entering the building. He stayed low over the handlebars as gunfire slashed through the air around him. The BattleTac monitor was blank on his wrist, cut off from the sat-link Peg had provided earlier.
But he knew where he was.
Riding squealing tires around the next corner, avoiding the glaring headlights of the sec vehicle coming at him, Argent headed for the street where the Travers twins had blown through to the mine shafts below.
There was only one way to attempt to catch the Rat running through the plex's underbelly.
64
"Sir, I have a confirmation on that report: Aaron Bear-stalker has been geeked."
Clay Ironaxe stood at the edge of the pit that had been blown into one of the mining shafts under the plex, glaring down into the darkness. A few of his men moved below, hanging from ropes and playing lights around. The news of Bearstalker's death hit him like a hammerblow. The loss was more than just a valued and trusted employee; he'd been the best friend Ironaxe had ever had. "Who did it?"
"Argent, sir." the sec guard answered over the limited radio contact they had established after the sat-link had been blasted out of existence.
"Where is he now?" Ironaxe demanded.
The sec guard answered hesitantly. "He got away, sir."
"I want that man found, and I want him flatlined." Ironaxe shouted. "Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir."
Ironaxe let his breath out through his nose, hoping to expel all the anger and fear trapped inside him as well. Failing to trap the runners, watching them virtually slip through his fingers in the last few minutes had been intolerable. The helpless feeling surging through him reminded him too much of the way he'd felt while in the hospital waiting to have his body cybered so he could move again.
Ray Hawksclaw came up beside him with a coyote skin over his head and shoulders and wearing true leathers, dressed in the more traditional clothing of the People. Fetishes hung from a rawhide necklace, his belt, bands around his biceps, elbows, and wrists.
Ironaxe pointed into the hole. "Get a road built leading down into there now. It doesn't have to be fancy, just something I can get some vehicles down."
The shaman nodded, then selected a fetish and began to sing.
Ironaxe watched as the earth b
elow rose and breathed, cracking and splitting as it formed a steep incline that linked the broken street to the mine shaft floor below. He accessed the radio. "Where are those fragging vehicles?"
"Here now, sir."
Lights from the approaching GMC Multi-Purpose Utility Vehicle played over the area, chasing away the night with their foglights and searchlights. The MPUVs held a favored world opinion as the most popular combat vehicle. Armored and fast, on road and off, they stood the test of working as personnel transport to light scout. Tonight, Ironaxe intended to use them as attack craft.
The Devil Rat the shadowrunners had dropped from the sky had been a fragging surprise. And taking his sat-link out the way they had allowed the APC to get to ground intact. When the rigger handling it had driven it off into the hole, dropping nearly twelve meters, the Devil Rat had even survived that when Ironaxe felt certain it wouldn't.
Still, the APC only had a few minutes' headstart. The Devil Rat's top speed off-road was 45 kph.
Ironaxe knew because he'd had a dataslave check out the specs when he'd first learned of it. The MPUVs could do almost twice that. They wouldn't get away.
When the shaman stumbled away, finished with the task given him, Ironaxe waved the MPUVs forward.
He ousted the man in the shotgun seat of the lead vehicle, then belted himself in and ordered the driver down the newly erected incline.
Before they'd rolled more than a few meters, multiple hits from an airborne autocannon left pits in the street and blew chunks out of the nearby buildings. The MPUV driver froze into place.
Ironaxe looked up to see the unmarked helos in the sky above him. It didn't take much skull-sweat to figure that mercs working for Villiers and for Nakatomi occupied those machines. If they'd belonged to the team of shadow-runners there to take Andi Sencio and her group from the Underground Awakened, they'd have put in an appearance much earlier.
But they were there now.
Slapping the console in front of him, Ironaxe said, "Go."
The driver engaged the transmission again and started down into the yawning mouth of the cavern below. Jerking and bouncing, the suspension taking a beating, the MPUV made the incline and pulled onto the uneven mine shaft floor.
The headlights and foglights lit up the cracked walls of the mine shaft. Mounds of debris, some of it decades old or older, some of it freshly dropped from the ruined street above, lay scattered over the tunnel.
The shaft was nearly ten meters wide, allowing plenty of room for the APC to maneuver.
They had room to move, Ironaxe silently agreed as he freed a Colt assault rifle from between the seat, but the people aboard that APC weren't going anywhere. He was going to see to it personally.
65
Argent cut the Harley Electraglide hard right to avoid the sudden blistering hail of heavy machine gun fire that tracked across the street toward him. The motorcycle's front tire hit the curb leading up to the sidewalk at less than optimum incline, causing the handlebars to shiver and almost tear free from the big shadowrunner's grip. If his hands and arms had been normal flesh and blood and unaugmented, he would have lost the Harley. As it was, he had to make sure he didn't pull the handlebars free in his attempt to maintain control of the bike.
On top of the curb, he rode in close to the building, staying with the sidewalk. The stream of bullets from the attack helo overhead swept the sidewalk, chipping huge holes in the plasticrete surface, then raking up onto the buildings only centimeters behind Argent.
Shifting up again, Argent twisted the accelerator tighter. The Harley's high-performance engine responded without fail, making him feel like he was holding onto a rocket running a nape-of-the-earth course. He pulled ahead of the helo, pushing past the pilot's estimation of his speed.
He flashed past three streets, ramping over the curbs on the opposite side. By now the helo pilot would have had time to call in for reinforcements. Argent didn't have a clue whether the helo belonged to Nakatomi or Villiers. In the end it didn't matter because he was sure either CEO wanted him geeked.
Headlights gleamed at the other end of the street, letting him know the search pattern had grown tighter.
A glance in his side mirror showed more ground vehicles racing up behind him. Without warning, the two groups opened up on each other. Heavy machine gun fire and cannonfire from firmpoints on the vehicles slagged the center of the street, the buildings around it, and each other.
A flying piece of plasticrete debris smashed into Argent's side with bruising force despite the Espirit armor, nearly toppling him from the Harley. He fought for control and remained upright, then geared down as he approached Naylor Street.
The motorcycle still carried enough momentum and weight that it slewed widely around the corner.
Argent leaned deeply into the turn, dragging his knee twice against the street. Stubbornly, the runflat tires held traction, shrilling in protest.
Lights from an approaching van blazed across Argent, momentarily blinding him till his cybereyes adjusted. He fought the motorcycle, careening out of the way of the van. The van's bumper missed his head by centimeters, whisking hot air across his face. The curb came up suddenly and the Harley's back tire smashed into it.
The motorcycle bucked violently, plunging up into the air and fishtailing as Argent threw his weight back to pull the front end up. He came down hard, but he came down on the Harley, still rolling. Gearing down, he got the transmission tight again, then twisted the accelerator to pull it more under control. The van wrenched around behind him, the driver trying to follow. Instead, a sudden salvo of cannonfire reduced it to a flaming heap that smashed against a nearby wall.
Argent raced through the streets, winding the Harley's engine out. He scanned the band of vehicles and secmen ahead of him ringing the pit in the street, digging into their positions as they were attacked by a pair of helos in the sky. Some of them started to turn toward him, realizing he wasn't stopping. He aimed the Harley at the flesh-and-blood spectators.
Bullets ripped into the broken street, tracers smashing like fireworks against the plasticrete surface and leaving pitted areas behind. Most of the secmen scattered before the approaching motorcycle, but a big man in armor with obvious cyberware reached out with big synthferrous hands hooked like claws.
Argent didn't hesitate, letting off on the accelerator for a moment while he downshifted. Bullets struck his armor and the motorcycle, leaving vibrations in their wake. The big shadowrunner downshifted again, losing a little speed, then red-lined the acceleration and popped the clutch. The Harley's gears protested the mistreatment with a metallic howling and racheting that made Argent certain he was going to leave engine parts scattered behind him.
Instead, the front end of the Harley came up in a wheelie. The heavy metal boy before him reached out, confident of his cyberware systems.
It was one thing, Argent knew from personal experience, to be braced properly and have the strength to lift a motorcycle. It was another to have that motorcycle in motion. The Harley slammed into the secman, driving him backward even as his hands seized the front tire.
They went over the edge of the pit, airborne, the engine screaming as the rear tire tore free of traction.
The secman's weight pulled the front of the Harley down. In the brief time he was airborne, Argent spotted the inclined trail that someone had built to allow vehicles into the mine shaft. The Devil Rat was running, but pursuit was closing in on it somewhere. Even if the pursuers weren't able to take the Rat down, Argent knew, they might be able to track it.
Then the Harley started falling, the heavy metal boy pulling at the wheel and slamming a big hand up to grab the center of the handlebars. The secman smiled, baring augmented teeth that he'd chosen to deliberately leave looking like edged steel.
66
Arm burning with the effort, Argent drew the Guardian from its holster and fired pointblank into the secman's face. He didn't stop until the pistol was empty. Even then, the corpse didn't drop away be
fore the motorcycle slammed into the mine shaft floor.
Argent came off the motorcycle with the impact, feeling it roll forward under him. He twisted in the air, struggling to find his balance and go limp at the same time. His augmented balance, improved by the move-by-wire systems, allowed him to start coming around. If there'd been enough time, he'd have been able to land on his feet.
Instead, he came down hard on his side, losing his breath to the impact. He moved immediately, using the cyberware that kept him ambulatory in spite of the shock to his flesh and blood nervous system. On his feet, using the low-light capabilities of his cybereyes, he spotted the motorcycle draped across the nearly headless corpse of his opponent.
Autofire ripped into being from above, chiseling rock from the mine shaft walls and ricocheting from the stone surfaces. A couple slammed into the Espirit armor.
Argent had lost the Guardian during the fall, his hands opening automatically to try to save himself.
Unable to find it in the time allowed him, he grabbed the Harley and righted it, satisfied that the motorcycle had only accumulated a few more dings. He straddled it and thumbed the ignition, listening as the big engine turned over a few times before catching.
Dropping his foot on the gear shift, he put it in low and shot across the mine shaft in the direction he'd known Summertrees would head. Bullets erupted into the spot he'd just left, tearing into the dead man.
He switched off the motorcycle's headbeam and depended on his low-light vision to guide him through the shaft. The light would have announced his presence behind Ironaxe's pursuit crew before he wanted them to know he was there.
He drove hard, manhandling the Harley. His team was up ahead, riding guard on Sencio and her people, laying their hoops on the line, trapped between the secrets of three corps at war with each other. As long as he breathed, his place was with the team.
The mine shaft walls flashed by, a constant panorama of cracked stone scarred by machines and pickaxes. Rubble littered the mine shaft floor, some of it big enough to be dangerous. He accelerated in the long runs of the shaft, then tapped the brakes when he had to go around a corner. Dust and grit clung to his face, masking it. He tasted blood and earth, felt the heat of his wounds pounding through him, the buzz of the holes in his arm.