by Unknown
It was a large triangle, its apex facing southeast, with a courtyard and a tunnel-like street that led straight through it. When they reached the street tunnel, which was completely underwater, Pandur could only congratulate Jessi on her impulse to leave the Delphin behind. The tunnel was secured by a strong metal grill. The Delphin would not have got through to the courtyard as planned. At least not without brute force and the accompanying noise. And the many beams of light up above made it seem likely that surfacing there would have resulted in certain discovery.
Jessi didn't let herself be discouraged by the grill, but beckoned to the two runners to follow her. She wasn't impressed either by the fact that all the underwater doors and windows were secured by grills. She briefly took her bearings and then swam to a steel trapdoor located below what had once been a store window. It must have dated from the time before the Flood and was extremely rusty.
Festus wanted to rush to help her and bring his synthmuscles into play, but she was quicker. For the first time she showed what she could do as a mage. She briefly gathered her concentration, holding out her hand and presumably murmuring a spell behind the breathing mask. A purply-white fireball the size of an orange appeared above the palm of her hand, causing the water to bubble up. Without actually touching it, she pushed it in the direction of the trapdoor. It moved at a leisurely pace towards it, trailing seething, bubbling water behind it like the tail of a comet and bursting like a ripe tomato on the door. In the process it grew to almost half a meter across.
When the turmoil subsided, what was left of the pulverized door sank indolently into the silt.
In front of them lay a service tunnel containing a multitude of rusty pipes and big enough for a person to get through.
Festus gave Jessi the thumbs-up in recognition of her prowess and entered the tunnel first. However slim he might otherwise be, his bulging synthmuscles made him broad. If he could get through, so could Pandur and Jessi with no difficulty.
The tunnel at first went into the building horizontally but then led into a vertical shaft taking them upwards. The shadowrunners swung themselves up hand-over-hand, holding onto the pipes and paddling gently with the fins of their frogmen's suits. There was plenty of space all the way so they had no trouble getting through.
Festus was the first to surface. The shaft continued upwards into the upper floors of the building, but their destination was down below. Using the strength of his synthmuscles, Festus pulled himself with ease into a side-gallery and made room for Jessi. He hauled her up to him effortlessly. Then Pandur surfaced.
Festus and Jessi had already taken off their head gear. Jessi disappeared in the gallery to give Festus some room to pull Pandur up. He, too, removed his mouthpiece and mask. It stank of decay and chemicals.
"Very good." Jessi seemed pleased that everything had worked out so far. She slipped off the fins but kept the rest of the outfit on. Pandur and Festus followed suit.
Jessi took her cyberdeck out of its protective case, jacked in and called up information.
"The end of the gallery is bricked up," she said then. "We'll have to break through but we're on the right floor. That's where there's a way into the sealed basement housing the computers. Presumably it's guarded. We'll hold off until our client's forces attack."
Waiting was hard. Festus especially seemed restless. Or was it more? Pandur eyed him. Hopefully the rigger didn't suffer from claustrophobia - or did he? His cybereyes gave nothing away but his synthmuscles were twitching nervously. The twitching became more violent. Sweat grew on his brow. Pandur looked at him in surprise. He was immediately alerted. He had been through something like this once before. And on that occasion only a timely leap to the side had saved him from being literally torn to pieces by a similar muscleman. And that other shadowrunner hadn't been his adversary, either, but a friend and partner. Until he had gone crazy.
"What's wrong, chummer?" he asked cautiously.
Jessi turned to him. "He can't hear you right now," she said. "But he'll be okay in a minute - I hope."
"You take a rigger with you into the shadows and he pulls out?" Pandur asked, both staggered and annoyed.
Fucking drek, Red Cloud, is this your lauded Superman?
He thought about what would have happened if Festus had had a fit like this during the trip in the Delphin. "You as crazy as he is, chummer?"
"Without him we wouldn't be here," she countered. "There was no alternative. And he's motivated right down to the last neurofiber of his reflex boosters to make this shadowrun a success - you better believe me."
Pandur took it as it was said, although he was of a different opinion. He objected to partners who couldn't be relied on. "What's wrong with him? Is he addicted and suffering withdrawal? Has he packed in so much cyberware that he's turned schizophrenic?" He knew that depressions were often the price paid for cybermania. And his experience with the other chummer had shown him that sometimes aggressive delusions could be the result.
Jessi shook her head so vigorously that her long blond hair flew around. "No, they fucked him and he wants his revenge. That's why he's here. He got hold of illegal chips that came from an experimental lab. It's his eyes, chummer, you understand, his damn cybereyes! He wanted to make them even better and booted a virus-infected chip. The nasty thing about it is that the virus not only produces data trash at irregular intervals, but makes the hardware send out biogenetic signals to the wetware. It's making him sick; brain rot, thought cancer, brain maggots - call it what you like! At any rate, his brain cells are changing and sometimes he flips right out, like now. "
Pandur shook himself. Then he put two and two together. "AG Chemie?" he asked.
"I already said our client suspects that they want to buy into the cybereyes market," was all Jessi said in reply.
Pandur stared at the rigger mutely. What could he be seeing with his motionless cybereyes? The purgatory of a cyberhell? Was he negotiating with the supreme silicon devil for the last scrap of his soul in exchange for a new set of super reflex boosters to be able to kick the high-tension trident out of the hand of some sub-devil?
Festus uttered a bestial scream and then slumped. The twitching had stopped. For a second, Pandur thought Festus had quit this vale of tears for ever. But then the rigger moved. He straightened up.
"Where the hell are the Warriors with their fireworks?" he asked in a controlled voice. He seemed to be back in command of himself.
"They must be about to attack any minute," Jessi answered evenly.
She seemed to have no interest in saying any more about Festus's behavior. Festus didn't pass any remark either. Perhaps he wasn't even aware that he had flipped out. Pandur shrugged his shoulders and returned to the matters in hand. In this world everybody had his own problems, usually big ones. He himself didn't talk about what was smouldering inside him. But he decided to keep a keen eye on Festus from now on.
The crump of explosions of the kind that are caused by striking rockets left no more time for discussion. The Warriors were flying their diversionary attack. Alarm sirens were shrieking throughout the building.
Jessi stepped towards the bricked-up end of the gallery, concentrated and set the purply-white ball that had helped her once already dancing anew above her palm. Hissing, it ate its way into the bricks and mortar and sent them crumbling with a dull implosion. An almost circular opening of a good half meter across was created.
The shadowrunners crawled through the hole, Jessi first. They straightened up and looked around. Pandur and Festus had drawn their weapons: Pandur his tried and trusted Walther Secura, Festus his CMDT Combat Gun with smartgun adapters, a pump-action shotgun which fired an ammo mix of 30mm cartridges and mini-grenades. Jessi reached into her breast pocket and produced an H&K Caveat. It seemed she didn't rely solely on her magical talent.
For the moment their alertness proved unfounded. There was nothing to be seen except for the smooth, naked walls of a corridor that stretched about twenty meters in one direction and
ten meters in the other before turning at both ends. The floor was carpeted, the ceiling, clad with ribbed plastic squares, provided indirect, yellow-white lighting. The rising and falling sound of the sirens had grown louder.
The shadowrunners knew they had no time to lose.
"To the left," Jessi commanded.
The three ran up the passage. Festus had taken the lead. If it came to it, he would have the fastest reflexes.
But no one stood in their way. Neither in this corridor nor in the transverse one was there anybody to be seen. None of the innumerable doors on both sides of the passage opened. Most sararimen had long since gone home and the megacon's security forces were occupied on the other side, although the detonations had now stopped. The GreenWarriors helicopters had started their return flight as planned. Had one of the drekheads responsible for security already guessed the attack was a diversionary tactic? The thought briefly flashed through Pandur's mind, but he suppressed it again at once because he didn't want to know the answer.
The transverse corridor ended at a massive steel door.
"The way into the security section," Jessi whispered.
The eye of a vidcamera was pointing at them. Festus turned it into an unseeing eye with his Combat Gun. There was a console with an ID scanner attached to the door. It would only let through people who could identify themselves with the right ID chip. The exception proved the rule.
One of the exceptions was Festus. He pounded the door with a mixed burst from his Combat Gun. The door seemed to understand this language and sprang open. There wasn't much left to see of its lock.
The corridor continued beyond it. The only difference was that the walls and floor were made of aluminum painted light-blue. Despite a dark-blue carpet, their footsteps sounded hollow. On the right there were elevator doors.
The elevators could be used without a code, as Pandur found when he passed his hand over the sensor field on a door. Lights and sounds signalled that the elevator was on its way. Just a moment later the elevator door opened. The shadowrunners stepped in. Festus continued to cover the corridor until the door closed.
Jessi had touched the sensor key for the second basement level and the elevator started moving. Her information was that there were jacks in several of the offices down there where they could plug in.
Pandur had slung his cyberdeck over his shoulder. If there were no complications, he would enter the matrix in just a few minutes. For the first time in more than two years. He didn't know what sort of Ice awaited him but he was reckoning with anything. There was still a slight chance that he wouldn't come across any Black Ice here deep within Chilehaus. If it was true, however, that AG Chemie was involved in illegal experiments and killer viruses, it would have been positively criminal negligence from the point of view of the company to dispense with Black Ice. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He'd soon be wiser.
The elevator slowed down, came to rest and the door slid open. Two company men stood facing them, assault rifles slung over their shoulders. They had been waiting for the elevator. They were just as surprised as the shadowrunners. The men went for their guns, but Festus with his reflex boosters was a lot faster.
He didn't give them a chance, sticking them to the walls of the corridor. The immaculate light blue of their uniforms developed red patches, creating a psychedelic effect. A design to vomit by.
The runners rushed along the passage until they reached the first door leading off it. It was closed. Festus had his Combat Gun solve the problem. The door sprang open.
On the nearest desk lay a naked woman, her legs apart. In front of her stood a fat, sweating man in a light green frilled shirt, his pants round his ankles. It was pretty clear what he was doing. Had been doing, since the couple had frozen into an absurd sculpture. The woman's clothes were scattered all round the room.
"Don't get all uptight, folks, whatever you do," Festus said, grinning. "Stay real cool. Little break'll do you good, Fatso. Overtime, huh? Nice working atmosphere, really." When the man moved his head slightly, the rigger went on, "Don't even think of pressing an alarm button. You hear me?" He pushed the Combat Gun into the fat of the man's buttocks. He looked into the staring, frightened eyes of the woman. "Goes for you, too, lady. My rod's bigger than loverboy's. And it doesn't dispense any feelings of delight whatsoever. So ka?"
"Don't come the big macho!" Jessi hissed at the rigger. " Isn't it enough for you that you've ruined the sararis' orgasm?"
"If they're good, I won't hurt them and they can carry on afterwards. If they've got the nerves for going on screwing when the sirens are howling, they'll surely manage the rest. After this little fright I bet it'll be twice as much fun. It'll be the super trick of a lifetime!"
Pandur had meanwhile taken a look around the room. Except for a notebook, there was no computer, and of course the notebook wasn't linked up with the matrix. "This place is no good."
"Where's the nearest computer that's connected to the network?" asked Festus, giving the man another prod with the gun.
The sarariman, a big guy with slightly greying black hair and much older than the woman, was totally unnerved. And you couldn't blame him. "In... in... room... next door," he stammered.
"Pull it out," Festus ordered. "Pants stay down."
The couple separated. Festus pointed his Combat Gun at the woman when she tried to grab her underwear, and shook his head.
"Move." He gave the man a gentle shove with his weapon and the two of them stumbled ahead of him to the connecting door that led to the next room. As unintentionally comical as the two were, Pandur basically felt sorry for them. The man, after all, had enough presence of mind to free himself from the pants bunched up around his feet as he walked out.
It all seemed like a big joke to Festus. At the moment he was far from being the intelligent rigger who merged with sophisticated electronics and bent complex machines to his will. His Combat Gun at the ready, he defined himself solely by his weapons, the smartgun adapters, his synthmuscles, his reflex boosters and was nothing more than a mean razorclaw. Street samurai were as hard on others as they were on themselves. And they were damn hard on themselves.
The door was locked. Coded maglock.
"Don't try to tell me you're not allowed next door!" Festus bawled at the man.
Instinctively the man reached into the breast pocket of his frilled shirt. The movement came so jerkily that it was almost the last movement of his life. But Festus had enough faith in his reflex boosters and his smartgun link to his Combat Gun to wait and see whether the drekhead would produce a weapon or try some other trick.
It wasn't a weapon but a key card the man now held up with a questioning expression on his face. He didn't seem in the least aware of the danger he had been in.
Festus nodded and the man inserted the card in the slit of the maglock. The door sprang open. His Walther Secura at the ready, Pandur kicked the door wide open and flung himself into the room. He whirled around. There were two desks, a few monitors, a printer and a scanner, as well as a seating area with three armchairs and a low table. The desks were tidy. There was no one in the room. No sararis, no con guardsmen.
"We've got everything here we need," said Jessi, who had followed him in. She pointed to the jacks under the monitor. " What're you waiting for, chummer?"
She didn't seem to be planning to accompany him into the matrix. Pandur was glad. She would only have been a hindrance. Her cyberdeck from ALDI REAL's bargain basement was hardly the appropriate pass for AG Chemie's network.
Festus waved the two sad figures into the room with his gun, walking behind them and closing the door. The whine of the sirens was no longer as loud and nerve-jangling. Then it stopped completely.
The rigger looked for something to tie the two up with and helped himself to the cords of the drapes. Jessi went over to help him and in an instant the couple were bound together belly to belly in a soundly wrapped parcel.
"No smutty stuff," Festus warned them. "It's just
not the sort of thing you do when others are watching, comprende?"
The couple had submitted themselves to everything without a murmur, but now the woman started sobbing. The man made a clumsy attempt to comfort her by kissing her on the cheek. There wasn't much more he could do anyway.
Meanwhile, Pandur had brought his cyberdeck into position. He jacked in.
Pandur had last been in the matrix two years ago. He had sworn never to go back in. He didn't want to run the shadows again, he'd had all he could take of everything, even virtual reality.
And now he was back to where he had stopped two years ago.
Going back because you know it's right is a praiseworthy thing. Going back because all other paths are blocked is depressing. One day someone who had survived it all might look back. "There was another chummer," he would say. "One Thor Walez - called himself Pandur. He dived into the shadows. He liberated himself from the shadows. He dived back in. And then the shadows devoured him. Yep folks, that was that Walez guy. He just didn't make it plain and simple."
And suddenly he found himself on the path. There was no going back, no hesitating, no soul-searching, no bemoaning, no graveside speeches, no legends to be told in some distant time by dogs and robots around the campfires of ruined and overgrown megaplexes.
No time for crazy ideas! All drek shit! Hey chummer, we're dealing here with perfect control by high-tech, with electronically guided processes with undiluted high-tech, with high-tech in all its self-appointed magnificence, with the cosmos that has created itself.
And where's the fun, the romanticism, the lust for adventure?
Lust for adventure? Fun? Romanticism? Drek, shit! Hey, chummer, what is all that? An indefinable amassing of electrons? Bullshit crap! Everything's clearly defined here!
Even death! Death is a master craftman composed of electrons.