“This is the Grid Overwatch Division. You have been cited with illegal and immoral activity within the public domain. Please come out with your hands up. We have been authorized to use deadly force if necessary.”
Mack had seriously doubted he and his team had been cited for anything—he was just that careful. But that didn’t mean one of Powell’s lackeys, or even one of Blackwater’s old buddies hadn’t set them up. The Matrix was down, but they didn’t have power to shut off his internal network.
From his office, he saw armored GOD agents surrounding the building. He picked them up on the back cameras, as well as the sides and front. Preacher angled a few of them to show the buildings to either side of the Bang Bang Booty club where snipers were set up, their weapons pointed at the exits.
“Drek,” Slamm-0! had said. “There’s no way we can get out of this. If they take us, they’ll get Netcat and Kazuma.”
“Oh ye of little faith.” Mack went to his office desk, pulled out the bottom drawer, and removed an old style walkie-talkie. He checked the batteries, and then pushed the side switch. “Okay Lady. Show’s all yours.”
Mack had had to suppress a smile as he ordered his people to get Delaney and Kazuma ready for transport. They all looked at him like he’d lost his mind. So he’d added a resounding, “NOW!”
They hustled as the GOD asshole on the speaker kept ordering them to exit the building immediately. When the shooting started outside, accompanied by what sounded like more helicopters, Slamm-0! and MoonShine had doubled back to look at the monitors.
“That’s an Albatross flying in…and it’s landing on the roof!”
“Okay, everybody up!” Mack said as he helped Preacher. He had Delaney in his arms while the troll carried Kazuma. Renault had Silk’s body. “Shayla, Whitey, and Slamm-0! grab those two cases in my office and get your asses to the roof!”
Access up was little more than a straight metal ladder, so carrying the bodies up proved to be a chore. Mack slung Delaney’s body over his shoulder and took the rungs one at a time after Slamm-0! and MoonShine went up first with the cases and weapons.
Mack’s walkie-talkie squawked as a familiar female voice came through. “She’s waiting for you outside, Mr. Mackenzie.”
She?
He had felt as well as heard the thud of something very heavy landing on the roof.
“That’s no helicopter,” Preacher had said from under him.
“No. It’s not.” Damn that old lizard…she just has to put on a show.
The roof door opened as Slamm-0! and MoonShine stepped out brandishing weapons. Mack came out a few seconds later, followed by Preacher holding Kazuma, and then Netcat.
He spotted the Albatross, and hovering just above it as if it wasn’t in the line of fire, was a Sperber. Mack had expected to emerge to a hail of bullets. But that never happened.
Hestaby, in her true form, cast a giant shadow over Mack’s club, as well as the surrounding buildings. She held her wings up and roared seconds before every weapon in the hands of every GOD agent dishcharged its ammo.
Mack had never seen anything like that.
“Go! Go! Go!” Slamm-0! motioned to Mack and the others as another group of soldiers of all metatypes appeared from behind chimneys and smokestacks. They got the jump on the now unarmed agents, but instead of firing on them…they simply took their ammunition magazines.
“They’re technomancers!” MoonShine yelled as he watched in open-mouthed wonder.
“Mack, get in the ’Tross!” Preacher bellowed over the roar of the helicopter’s blades as well as Hestaby’s smug roar.
He moved as fast as he could. Three more of the grey-clad soldiers jumped out of the Albatross and took Delaney from his arms, and Kazuma from Preacher. They were trolls, goblins, orks, elves, and changelings.
And humans.
A female troll the size of Preacher reached down and yanked him up by his belt to get him into the helicopter faster. Once everyone was in, she leaned out and gave a cranking motion with her hand.
The Albatross lifted as the Sperber mirrored its movements. Mack made sure his seatbelt was fastened before he looked out to see the Serber’s weapons pointed at the Shinobis—but no one followed.
Not with a dragon between them and their target.
After making sure Delaney and Kazuma were secure, Mack slept hard on the ride. Both lay on gurneys behind him, tended by a grey-clad young woman with a white band and red cross on her arm.
The female troll had introduced herself as Izzy and needed a quick debrief on what happened in Powell’s warehouse. Slamm-0!, with a sleeping Netcat in his arms, had given it to her, along with the news that Powell and Blackwater were dead, and Clockwork was under arrest and being held by PCC security.
The news about Silk…Mack had said he would tell Kazuma.
But they weren’t done. Not by a long shot. There was one more thing that had to be done before they could all breathe a little easier.
Caliban had survived, and Bellex was back in the media accusing technomancers of hacking his company and bringing down his gaming host a fifth time. Funny thing was, Mack wasn’t sure anyone was buying it anymore. Bellex had cried wolf one too many times.
He sensed her before he actually heard her. That knowing he still had when she was there would never go away. And a part of him felt comforted by it. “You never could sneak up on me.”
“I never wanted to.” Hestaby’s voice rang clear as a bell in the crisp mountain air.
He turned to see her stroll into the room. Mack couldn’t say if it was true about all dragons, but this one had a timelessness about her. She never hurried, and she never rushed. “You’re up early. Thought you’d be winded by your dramatic entry yesterday.”
“I’ve been keeping up on the trideos. Word of my new followers is slowly making its way around. But we’ve made sure to keep your involvement quiet.” She clasped her hands behind her.
“Oh come on, Hestaby. You wanted to show the council you weren’t beaten, and you’re certainly not going to be quiet about that.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You didn’t leak information to Overwatch about us, did you? Just so you could display your…technomancer team?”
“Of course not, Mackenzie, And no one has said publicly they were technomancers.” Still regarding him, she cocked her head. “We’re running out of time. We need the kill switch.”
“I can’t force him. He’s grieving. It’s been less than twenty-four hours. He needs a breather.”
“He can have one when the AI is destroyed and their poison host with it.”
Mack watched her walk to a fan-back chair facing the view. When she sat down, it was an elegant parade of grace and experience. Knowing what lived inside that shell of magic always made his heart skip. “You’ve become quite passionate about the technomancers in a very short time.”
“That’s not true. They’re no different then my Clutch was, Mackenzie. No different than you were.”
“I was never a technomancer.”
“But you still wonder, don’t you? Just as Draco Powell did. There are many out there who fear them, torture them, experiment on them, shun them, but deep in their hearts, most of them wish to be them. To have that kind of power at their fingertips. To simply think of a thing, and it manifests. No writing code, no need to study how applications work…” She smiled. “They’re jealous.”
“I think they’re more afraid. And given what I heard Kazuma and MoonShine did with those sprites—” He brought his cup to his lips and sipped. “—I don’t blame them. They combined their powers.”
“They wrote a program together—nothing more.”
“So you say. But how different is that from what the media says? No, I don’t believe they can hack your brain—but what about the augmentations in our brains?”
She frowned at him. “And how is this any different than what a seasoned hacker—much like the young man named Slamm-0!—can do? Why would hacking another augmentation be any easier for
a technomancer than a hacker?” Hestaby shrugged. “They need guidance.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” He looked back at the view. “You think this place is safe?”
“For now. I want Shasta back, Mackenzie. And I will have it. One way or the other.”
“And your council seat?”
“That…is a discussion for another time. You must convince him, Mackenzie, before the AI goes to ground and buries itself in a million hosts.”
“How do we know it hasn’t already done that? Renault thought it was in that host in Powell’s office. Didn’t even faze it.”
“I believe it did. Powell’s death and their failed attempt to take Kazuma and the data in their own gaming host dealt Caliban a heavy blow. We’re more than sure Miranda Sebastian is now acting in Powell’s stead, and is in charge of Bellex’s PR.”
“People not buying the rumor he’s an AI?”
“They will or won’t. As long as he doesn’t take over an arcology, no one will care.” She stood and walked over to him. Even like this, he could feel her presence as an almost unbearable weight on his shoulders. “I just received word that Overwatch shut the corrupted Contagion host down due to rumors of illegal subscribing and ID spoofing. But as for the host where Netcat was…we don’t know.”
“But you think if he uses the kill switch, then that host will fall?”
“I don’t know. I have my own people in the Matrix, looking for Shax’s people. Dissonance isn’t easy to hide, Mackenzie. We’ll find them. Sooner or later. We need the data.”
“Hestaby…” Mack licked his lips as he watched her face. “Delaney and Renault had some interesting information about Powell and his former associates. And about that data. Renault said Powell seemed genuinely surprised the switch ended up in Wagner’s file, and then Horizon hired Knight Errant to work on an Annex with that very file inside of it. And Kazuma Tetsu was the one promoted in order to supervise the host’s termination. It was like…something had been guiding him all along, putting all the pieces into play so he could find that switch. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
She didn’t answer him. In fact, Hestaby didn’t say a word as she turned and strode out of the room. He watched her leave before he looked back at the vista.
How long did you know about Caliban, Hestaby? And why was Kazuma Tetsu singled out?
Chapter Sixty-Four
Caliban
Newest Contagion Host
Caliban stood as Bellex at the base of the ladder. The host was cleared out. Not a single persona moved inside it. He had used the last of them to add more rungs to the ladder—but it wasn’t enough. He needed more.
The Contagion UV host was gone. He’d ordered Shax and his people to tear it down and make it look like a hack. He wanted names attached to the attack. But the only one he had was Kazuma Tetsu. And he was the one Caliban wanted alive. Now the host was in the hands of GOD.
Powell was dead. Caliban’s home host destroyed. The only friends he had left were Shax, a handful of dissonant technomancers, and Miranda. In the past twenty-four hours, she’d done her best to fill Powell’s shoes. But no one could do that. Powell had taken him in, nurtured him, and granted him his own world to run.
The warehouse host was also gone, torn down and turned to dust. He stood before the base of the ladder, the three remaining traitors at his feet, staring into infinity. What did they see? Their bodies remained alive, tucked away with every other technomancer he’d claimed. And Powell had claimed them when he caught them plotting to destroy Caliban.
To destroy his son.
“But he caught you. All three of you.”
But not before they’d changed his own code. Before they created the means for his destruction. Radcliff Tolen had made it possible for Caliban to move and resettle into the host Powell kept with him. He’d trusted Tolen, and all during the process the bastard was stitching together his demise.
In a fit of rage, he kicked at Tolen’s persona. Nothing happened. Not even a flinch. Because this wasn’t the man. This was just the representation of him.
“You should kill them, Caliban.”
He turned to look at Sycorax. Tall, pale, with a close-fitting black dress that spread across the floor like the tentacles of an octopus. Her hair, streaked black and white, moved with the wind that still swirled debris and dust about the world. “They keep the base of the ladder in place. I keep them here like this. Here, Powell said they can never leave.”
“And if you release them, they will die in the living world.”
He looked away from her. “Then I will be alone.”
“You have me. You have Shax and his people. You can rebuild. But in order to do this, you have to let go of Powell’s past.” She pointed at them. “They were how you were discovered. They are not only the anchors that keep your ladder in place, but they are what keep you in place. Release them and come with me. Start over. Quietly. Revenge in silence can be just as rewarding.”
Caliban didn’t want to be angry at Miranda. She had stood with him. But he didn’t want to hear this right now. He tempered his anger and directed it at the ground around her. Great orange and black crystals shot up and formed a circle around her, leaving a few centimeters between each one. It wasn’t a prison that could really hold her, but it was a demonstration of what he could do. Of the power he had in this world.
“You do not frighten me, Caliban,” she said.
He hung his head. “I can’t go or leave or start over knowing the prophecy is true. Knowing there is someone out there who holds the key to my life or death. I must have that switch. I must put an end to what they started.” He pointed at the base and the unmoving personas on it.
Miranda strode back and forth within the crystal cage, the tendrils of her dress leaving grooves in the dusty ground. “Bring Shax here.”
“He’s looking for the switch.”
“Shax has found something much more powerful. Something Powell wanted him to find.”
Caliban laughed. “Then why didn’t he use it?”
“Because Powell chose not to, until it was too late.” She shifted again, and he removed the pillars of crystals with a thought. They collapsed to dust at her feet. “Bring him. Here. Now.” Miranda nodded at the three personas. “Let them hear how you plan on destroying their savior. Their chosen soldier. Let them hear, and be able to do nothing.”
What could it hurt? A moment of time in a search proving to be more fruitless with each passing second? Caliban sent out the call for Shax, for the technomancer Powell trusted.
A new column formed between Miranda and him as the familiar persona of Shax appeared. His tall, leather-clad form and gas mask comforted Caliban. He liked it, and considered forcing the persona on his new army of technomancers.
Shax bowed. “You summoned me.”
“Miranda says you were able to find something for Powell. Something he chose not to use.”
The technomancer’s mask tilted to the left. “Ah yes. Powell instructed me to find Kazuma Tetsu’s sister.”
Sister? Caliban’s spirits lifted for the first time since learning his patron was dead. “The Soldier has a sister?”
“Yes. She was incorporated five months ago.”
“We have his sister?” Caliban took a step toward him. “Powell knew this, and he didn’t use it?”
“He planned on using it once he had Tetsu in hand—to force him to exchange the data for his sister. Unfortunately he never got that far, because Tetsu cheated his way out of the deal.”
“Wait.” He held up his hand. “Can we do this? Is it possible?”
Shax glanced at Miranda. “Well…you could. But in order to physically show him his sister, you would have to destroy your ladder.”
Caliban turned and stared up at his creation. He examined each rung, each persona twisted with dissonance into a single step. “She’s there? In the ladder?”
“Yes, sir. Powell believed Kazuma would want proof of lif
e. That he would only release the data if he saw her and spoke to her in the physical world. The reason Powell didn’t use this was because in order to do this, we would have to unwind the ladder down by more than half to her possible location.” Shax paused. “She can’t be plucked from where she is without releasing those after her.”
Caliban looked back at him. “How many came after her?”
“Over a hundred, sir. You have close to three hundred in your ladder, not including the base. But once released, we calculate a persona’s resilience in resonance will reset to zero. They won’t last physically, even inside their shells.” He paused again. “You will lose more than half of your ladder and we won’t be able to reuse them. You will have to start again.”
Maybe the news of this would have angered him a day ago. Or a month. But in twenty-four hours he’d not only lost the only father he’d ever known, he’d also lost his home. The thought of having to start over wasn’t as frightening as the prospect of being erased, of there being no tomorrow at any moment.
Starting over seemed trivial to the thought of not having that option.
He focused on Shax, and felt the first rays of hope as the sun actually peeked through the orange and black haze of the sky. “Do it.”
“But, sir—”
“Do it. Get her out of there. How long will she last?”
“I don’t know. Removing her might kill her outright.”
“We will take that chance. I want to arrange this. I want to offer him a trade of his sister for the switch. I’ve read the reports Powell had. Tetsu’s search for his sister is what led him to the switch. Let him think he’s finally going to fulfill his dream.”
“But, sir—” Shax stepped forward. “I said possible. Once the personas are entwined into the ladder, they begin to mesh together. This is what forms the gestalt you’ve been using to add more rungs. We think we know where she is—”
“It doesn’t matter. Tell him we have her, and release down to that rung. Even if it’s not her, we’ll make him think it is.”
Shadowrun: Dark Resonance Page 27