Tails You Lose

by Lisa Smedman

  TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

  When a shadowrunner managed to extract PCI's most vital employee, it was Alma's job as security expert to get him back—no matter the cost. But all the evidence pointed to the one person who couldn't have done it. . .herself. Branded a traitor, Alma has one shot at redemption: find the real culprit. But she's never faced an enemy like this one. This 'runner not only looks like Alma—she's also equipped with Alma's top-of-the-line cybernetic implants, and she's backed by the powerful magic of the Chinese underworld. Now, the expert in defense must attack—and risk it all to bring down a rival so much like herself that there can be only one shocking explanation. . . .

  CRUSHED

  The troll rose to his feet, lifting his knee from her chest. One cartilage-crusted hand was balled into a fist; he held it over her, maintaining the magical spell that pinned her to the ground.

  "You're a dead woman," he said in Cantonese.

  "No . . . I'm not," Night Owl gasped. She knew better than to believe his threat. Gangers didn't make speeches before killing someone. They just greased them.

  "You have angered Eldest Brother by cheating him," the troll said, eyes blazing. "You sold him property, then told the original owners where to find it again."

  "That wasn't me . . . who told. Someone else." It was the truth—but she didn't expect the troll to believe it.

  "You agreed to the contract," the troll continued in a grim voice. "You bore the ultimate responsibility."

  "I can pay . . . your boss back . . . twice what he gave me," she lied.

  The troll clenched his fist tightly, causing his bony knuckles to crack. Night Owl's vision swam with stars as the magical arms that were holding her squeezed the last air from her lungs She fought to take a breath, but it was as if she were underwater. Dimly, over the pounding that filled her ears, she heard the troll's final pronouncement—and realized she'd been wrong. Sometimes real-life gangers like to make speeches, too. . . .

  SHADOWRUN : 39

  TAILS YOU LOSE

  Lisa Smedman

  Once again, thanks to the B.C. Science Fiction Association Writers' Workshop for their aid in critiquing this book. Special thanks to Matthew Claxton, Fran Skene and Peter Tupper for their excellent advice and suggestions and, of course, to Leanne Taylor, both for her support and for always being able to suggest just the right plot twist.

  Year of the Rat

  Anxious not to be a failure, those born in the year of the rat use their intelligence and imagination to suceed. Charming, honest and practical, they are alert individuals who learn from experience. Their materialism is tempered by their sentimental natures; their tendency to be opportunistic is concealed by their grace and elegance.

  * * *

  Attracted to whatever is clandestine and secretive, those born in the year of the rat live for today. Restless and sometimes quick-tempered, they are calculating folk whose actions usually have an ulterior motive. Prone to gossip and grumbling, they obsessively hoard their possessions and often allow their reach to exceed their grasp.

  1

  Fidelity

  The tremor struck her left hand just as she was completing the first trigram of the I Ching. Three bronze coins with square holes at their centers clattered onto the countertop as her fingers sprang open wide and then fluttered like a moth in a flame. Cupping her left hand in her right, Alma activated the timer in her cybereye and watched the glowing red numbers that appeared in her lower right field of vision. Twenty-three seconds later, the tremor passed.

  When it was over, she flexed her hand once and then ran her fingers through the series of complicated gestures that were part of her daily tai chi routine. Her hand moved smoothly, fingers flowing through the forms with absolute precision. She sped the gestures up, and her hand became a blur. Her move-by-wire system seemed to be working fine, accelerating her reactions until her fingers flowed with the speed and grace of rushing water. Sighing with relief, she lowered her hand.

  The tremors had started six days ago, on February 17. She'd barely noticed at first—her hand would twitch once or twice and then return to normal. But they'd gradually increased in frequency and violence, and they now struck two or three times a day, preventing her from using her hand properly until the shaking stopped.

  Worried that they might be the first signs of temporal lobe epilepsy, she'd booked a scan with PCI's physicians the day after she'd first noticed them. She'd also spoken to Gray Squirrel, asking him if the experimental cyberware she'd been fitted with six months ago might be the cause of the problem. He'd promised to run some tests.

  Two days after making that promise, Gray Squirrel had been extracted from PCI. In the wake of the kidnapping, Alma had canceled her CAT scan. Getting Gray Squirrel back was much more important than testing for something that would take months to become full-blown. Even if the tremors were the onset of TLE, the corrective nanosurgery could wait for a few days. The area of brain tissue that had become dysfunctional was probably still very small. She was glad it was her left hand, and not her right, that had been affected.

  Alma reached for the three coins, sliding them across the countertop so that she could see them. All three had landed with Chinese characters face-down: changing yin. Together with the two lines that had already been cast, it formed the trigram for thunder.

  Just as Alma was about to begin the second trigram, her cellphone chimed softly. She picked it up and flipped open its screen.

  The face that appeared on the tiny monitor was a computer-generated, cartoonish image whose gestures and expressions were slaved with the caller's. Text below the cartoon listed the caller as UNKNOWN MOBILE UNIT. Whoever was telecoming her had blocked the caller ID function.

  Alma thumbed the audio-only respond button. She didn't want the caller to see her face—or her apartment. "Yes?"

  The voice that came out of the speaker was male and spoke English with a linguasoft-perfect accent. "Ms. Johnson?"

  Alma allowed a fraction of a second's delay before answering, despite the hope that she felt. Appearing too eager would be unprofessional, especially in front of a shadowrunner. "Yes."

  "This is Tiger Cat. I've uncovered some data on the 'package' that was stolen from your firm. How soon can you transfer payment?"

  Alma's heart beat a little faster at the good news. Forcing herself to remain calm, she activated her retinal clock. It was 8:07 a.m.

  "Are you near a cred machine?" she asked.

  "I could be."

  "Wait at least five minutes after this call ends, then slot your stick and call back. I'll give you an access number to key in, and you'll get the first payment. If your data checks out, a second payment will be transferred later."

  "My data's good as platinum. I guarantee it."

  The cellphone's screen blanked.

  It took Alma two minutes and eighteen seconds to access her corporate expense account and preauthorize the transfer of three thousand nuyen to a certified credstick. As she waited for Tiger Cat's second call, she stared out through a rain-streaked window at the city of Vancouver and sipped a glass of tyrosine-boosted soymilk. Fourteen stories below her apartment, banks of artificial grow lights inside the biodome that enclosed Stanley Park illuminated it from within, making it look like a gigantic, multifaceted light bulb. Beyond it, the twinned Lion's Gate and Dan George bridges led to the North Shore, where row upon row of overpriced condoplexes climbed the foot of a blue-green mountain that rose to meet the rain clouds.

  Alma picked up a remote and adjusted the window's polarization. The view of the city was replaced by a reflection of the tiny loft apartment that was kitchen and bedroom in one. Stark white walls, counter and furniture accentuated the room's minimalist look. The only images on the walls were framed cer
tificates of appreciation from Pacific Cybernetics, arranged in a neat row above a table that held a potted cinnamon-scented orchid. Beside the plant was an animated holopic of a dozen children forming a human pyramid in front of a gigantic logo of a rising yellow sun: the Superkids. Their tiny images knelt on a ten-centimeter-wide square of projection plastic, grinning up at the viewer. All wore bright blue-and-yellow New Horizons Incorporated T-shirts, and all were exuberant and happy—except for the boy on the bottom left, who looked pensive and troubled: Aaron.

  As the kids below steadied themselves, a girl at the top of the pyramid sprang into the air. She landed in a handstand and then lifted her right hand to wave while balancing on her left. Then there was a flicker, and the girl appeared back on top of the human pyramid as the holopic cycled back to the beginning again.

  The image had been captured more than two decades ago, on Alma's eighth birthday—one month before Aaron's death. Two months after that, the project was shut down, and the corporation that had given birth to the Superkids was torn apart.

  Alma's body was still as athletic as ever under the black tights and red silk kimono she wore while relaxing at home, but her face had grown leaner since childhood. Straight, shoulder-length hair cut in blunt bangs framed Eurasian features. Her cybereyes were natural-tint models with brown irises, and the augmentations to her hearing had been done without removing or altering her natural ears. Her softlink chipjack was hidden at the nape of her neck. The rest of her cyberware and bionetic augmentations lay deep under her skin. In her line of work, it didn't pay to advertise advantages. Surprise was too effective a weapon.

  When Tiger Cat called back, she took a moment to center herself and then greeted him with a simple hello. Then she punched the credit transfer's authorization number into her cellphone. She heard the faint beep-beep-beep of numbers being keyed into a cred machine. Tiger Cat thanked her with a purr in his voice.

  "I managed to find out what happened to the 'package' that went missing," he said. "It's being shipped to Hong Kong by Swift Wind Cargo aboard the Plum Blossom. The ship is loading this morning at Vanterm 5. It's a short turnaround; she's due to sail at 4:40 this afternoon."

  "Will the package be going on board with the crew?" Alma asked.

  "No—as cargo. It's sealed inside a container." Alma blinked. Sealed inside a container? That was alarming news. An ocean crossing would take a week, at least—longer if the ship was delayed by a storm. Container ships didn't have insulated holds.

  "Won't the package . . ." She searched for a way to say it obliquely but couldn't find a word that would convey her worries adequately. She opted instead to be blunt. "How will the package manage to stay alive?"

  She heard a faint chuckle before Tiger Cat answered. Unlikely as it was that anyone was listening in on their conversation, he stuck to the prearranged code. "The integrity of the package won't be compromised. It's being shipped inside a specialized stabilization unit—the type hospitals use when a transplant patient has to be put on ice for several days when a vat-grown organ isn't immediately available. Don't worry—the folks who have your package are making sure that it's handled properly."

  Alma nodded to herself. No wonder Gray Squirrel hadn't been spotted anywhere in the three days since his extraction. He was on ice—literally. At least he was still alive.

  "Where's the container now?"

  "It was loaded on a truck this morning. It's probably already at the terminal."

  "What about the four individuals I inquired about?" Alma asked. "Were the stills I provided from the securicams any help?"

  "I recognized one of the faces: the male with the prominent teeth. He's a local runner by the name of Wharf Rat. He's heavily involved in smuggling—he's got a network of contacts along the waterfront. Grabbing your package was a bit out of character for him, but I suppose he got the job because he knows whose palms to oil at the shipping companies. Someone had to turn a blind eye when an extra piece of cargo the size of a coffin was stuffed inside the container.

  "Two of the other runners were just low-grade muscle that Wharf Rat hired off the street—none of my connections even knew their names. They haven't been seen locally; it looks as though they've left town. I wasn't able to find anything at all on the fourth person."

  "I didn't expect you to," Alma conceded. "Her digi-pic didn't give you much to go on. Where is Wharf Rat now?"

  Tiger Cat's cartoon image shrugged. "Nobody knows. He's disappeared."

  "What about the people who hired him?"

  "I located someone who's cozy with Wharf Rat, and she says the client was a typical Mr. Johnson. Untraceable—end of story. Should I keep digging?"

  Alma frowned. Part of her job was to find out which of Pacific Cybernetics' competitors had hired the shadowrunners, but for now the important thing was getting the "package" back.

  "I'll let you know," she told Tiger Cat. "Do you have anything else for me?"

  The cartoon shook its head. "That's it. When can I expect the second payment?"

  "When the package has been recovered."

  "Can I call you back tonight?"

  "Tomorrow," she said firmly.

  "Agreed."

  Alma thumbed the cellphone's disconnect icon and was just about to close the phone when she spotted a text message scrolling across the monitor. She read only part of it—HI AL. HOW'S YOUR DAY GOING? HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT WHO I AM YET—before angrily erasing the rest.

  For the past three months, some crank caller who had gotten her cellphone number had been hacking their way into the phone's daytimer memo function and leaving annoying messages. Alma had tried blocking the incoming calls, but without success—the caller must have used a different jackpoint each time. She'd even switched the cellphone's number—twice. The crank messages were especially annoying now, when she needed to keep the phone clear for Tiger Cat's calls.

  Alma snapped the phone closed, set it down on the counter, and consulted her retinal clock. In seven hours and fifty-six minutes, the Plum Blossom would sail. Swift Wind was a large shipping firm; it would have hundreds of containers on the pier. In order to search them quickly and unobtrusively, Alma would need someone with astral capability. She'd also need technical support and a vehicle big enough to carry the stabilization unit out of the terminal, once it was located.

  First and foremost on the long list of preparations, however, was the I Ching; the casting that Tiger Cat's call had interrupted was only half complete. She picked up the coins and listened to them clink together as she shook them in her cupped hands.

  The coins and a text-based copy of the Book of Changes had been a gift to Alma on her twelfth birthday, from the couple who had fostered her after the Superkid creche was broken apart. The coins dated from the mid-19th century but were not particularly valuable. Alma had considered them no more than curiosities that were fun to play with, until the day they predicted the deaths of those foster parents in a suborbital crash, back when she was seventeen. She'd consulted the I Ching every day since then and had committed each of the sixty-four hexagrams to memory.

  About a year ago, Alma had the coins tested by a talismonger to see if they were magically active. He'd confirmed that the coins were exactly what they appeared to be: ordinary coins. Even so, their prophecies were unerringly accurate. More than once, the warnings they had given her had prevented her from making a terrible mistake.

  Alma held the coins over the counter, deliberately stilling the anxious voice that insisted she immediately rush out and find Gray Squirrel. She shook the coins and let them fall, studied the result, and then repeated the process twice more. Each time, two coins landed face up and one face down: fixed yang. The trigram for sky.

  She pondered the result: sky over thunder—the hexagram Fidelity. She could recite the overall judgment by heart: Strength comes from outside and guides those who are loyal from within. Although those whose fidelity is true are blameless, fidelity alone does not guarantee success. Those who deny what is true will not
benefit from their actions.

  It was an odd prophecy, considering the task that lay before her today. Did it mean that her own fidelity to her corporation would give her the strength she needed to succeed? Or had she overlooked some truth, and was failure thus indicated?

  The reference to fidelity could apply equally to herself or to Gray Squirrel—the "package" that was being shipped to Hong Kong this afternoon. She knew the researcher well enough to be certain that he was innocent of any collusion in his extraction. He was as loyal to PCI as she was. Gray Squirrel and Alma had become good friends over the years that both had been working for the corporation, and they had grown even closer after Alma had volunteered to beta-test the REM inducer.

  Their lives shared many parallels. Both had been separated from their families at an early age: Alma at the age of eight when the Superkids project was shut down and she was sent halfway across the continent to live with strangers in Salish-Shidhe; Gray Squirrel at ten when his parents sent him to live with an uncle in Aztlan in a misguided attempt to toughen him up. Both had been ostracized by the other children at their schools when they refused to hide their superior prowess and intellect. Alma's cybernetics made her an oddity at the "back to basics" boarding school she was sent to—a school that didn't even have Matrix access. Gray Squirrel's keen intelligence and passion for science and math set him apart from the fitness-obsessed trainees at the paramilitary Eagle Warriors Academy that his uncle insisted he attend. Both Alma and Gray Squirrel had started their childhoods as part of a close-knit circle of siblings, and both had entered adulthood looking for something to fill the empty holes that their school years had gouged into them.

  Each of them had found that something at Pacific Cybernetics. Surrounded by peers who respected their talents, each had risen swiftly through the ranks. They were part of a group of dedicated professionals who spent more time together, sharing triumphs and struggles, than most families.