Shadowrun 43 - Fallen Angels

by Stephen Kenson

  "Where, then?"

  "Tir Tairngire," Jackie said. Eve's persona leaned forward slightly, tense with a decidedly unvirtual excitement.

  "Akimura is going after her, isn't he?"

  "It looks that way," Jackie replied.

  When the slow smile spread across the prefab face of the fixer's persona, Jackie knew it was in response to a deeply satisfied smile in the real world.

  "Tell me everything," the company woman purred, "starting with who Akimura is taking with him, and I'll see that it's well worth your while . . ."

  13

  They went into the Telestrian Habitat late in the afternoon, when most employees would be looking forward to finishing up their work day and returning to their homes in the upper levels of the complex. They went into the Telestrian Habitat late in the afternoon, when most employees would be looking forward to finishing up their work day and returning to their homes in the upper levels of the complex.

  Kellan was concerned that, as a human, she would draw undue attention. However, despite Orion's statements condemning the exclusivity of Tir Tairngire's immigration policy, there were plenty of humans on the streets of Portland, and even within the habitat. Though elves were certainly in the majority, they were by no means the only citizens of the Land of Promise.

  This must be what it's like to be a metahuman in a place like Seattle, Kellan thought. She felt as if she should offer some explanation for her presence. She felt distinctly out of place and edgy, and did her best to remember that no one they passed even suspected that she or her companions were anything other than what they appeared: corporate employees on their way to do a job.

  Her clothes didn't really help Kellan's comfort level. They had picked up what Midnight considered a suitable wardrobe for each of them that fit their cover story of being troubleshooters from NeuroTech. Kel-lan wore a light sweater that succeeded in concealing the slight bulk of the ballistic cloth tee-shirt she layered underneath it. Her dark jeans had several pockets, and she wore her own boots, now polished to a dull glow. An artificially distressed synthleather shoulder bag held her cyberdeck and other essential equipment—it even featured a NeuroTech logo subtly stamped into the strap.

  Orion looked equally uncomfortable in a pullover and sport coat combination, his long hair pulled back in the ponytail favored by most young elven corporate types, bound with a Celtic knot-work clasp. He wore dark sunglasses, which had the added bonus of allowing him to easily avoid eye contact with anyone.

  Midnight looked every inch the confident corporate businesswoman in a charcoal pantsuit and low-cut black pullover that showed just the right amount of cleavage when she buttoned her blazer. Her black hair was likewise pulled back, giving her features a chilly severity that should make anyone think twice before questioning her. Like Orion, she wore dark glasses with fashionable frames. She carried a shoulder bag much like Kellan's that contained a pocket secretary and some office props along with her real gear. Kellan also knew Midnight wore a form-fitting layer of body armor, just in case.

  While Midnight wore corporate drag like she was born to it, Kellan just did her best not to look out of place, wishing they could have taken Orion's suggestion and gone in after hours. At least then she'd know how to act. Fortunately, she also understood that people were supposed to feel a little uncomfortable approaching the Telestrian Habitat, so her reaction would seem pretty normal.

  The only other arcology Kellan had ever seen was the Renraku Arcology in downtown Seattle, which was older and had been severely damaged by the actions of a rogue artificial intelligence in 2059. The Tel-estrian Habitat wasn't quite as large, but it was still impressive. The complex covered seven city blocks and soared upward, level upon level. Unlike the near-perfect geometry of the Renraku Arcology, however, this one was designed with an eye toward nature. The rising levels of the habitat were terraced with broad stretches of greenery: grass, flowers and even neatly manicured trees. The walls weren't cold steel and glass; they were warm adobe and woodland colors, with a texture almost like natural stone. It was like the habitat had been carved from a mountain, retaining some of its native life in the bargain.

  It also retained the awe-inspiring quality of a mountain. Kellan couldn't help but gape a bit at the size and presence of it. The schematics Midnight had made them memorize didn't do it justice close up, and Kellan thought about the thousands of people who called this place home, all employees or dependents of Teles-trian Industries, living together in one big, happy corporate community, with high, thick walls to protect them from the outside world. Did that make them feel safer, being apart from the rest of the world's problems? She wondered what it would be like.

  Kellan stopped wondering as they approached one of the habitat's entrances and she saw the armed guards on duty. They looked smart in their crisp, dark green uniforms, but Kellan's eyes were drawn to the machine pistols they carried. They affected a bored air as Midnight slotted a credstick into the reader by the door and they checked her identification. They were all right, so long as the intel their employer provided was legit.

  The guard nodded, Midnight removed her credstick, and he waved Kellan to approach. She slotted her credstick, then Orion did the same. The guards passed them through the doors with a wave and a slight nod of acknowledgment.

  Midnight led the way into the habitat. Kellan glanced sidelong at the entryway, fully aware from the plans they'd studied of the kinds of scanners that were no doubt checking them out down to their fillings. Fortunately, none of them had any enhancements likely to trip alarms. Kellan and Orion, both Awakened, had no cyberware or other implants, and Midnight's were commonplace for a corporate troubleshooter, especially one working with computer systems.

  Orion complained bitterly about having to leave his sword and other weapons behind, but Midnight said there was no way around it.

  "Any weapons will set off the scanners, and there will be a dozen guards on us before we can blink," she said. "We'd never get inside, and even if we did, we wouldn't get far."

  "What if something goes wrong?" Orion countered.

  "If it does," Midnight replied, "we'll be inside a corporate habitat that has a huge, well-trained security staff. Do you really think a couple of guns and a sword will make any difference at all if we screw this up?"

  Kellan thought about that as they made their way through one of the main lobbies of the complex. From the entrance, the Telestrian Habitat certainly didn't look dangerous, but she knew that looks were often deceiving—especially in Tir Tairngire.

  The lower levels of the habitat were semipublic, designed for shopping and recreation for the inhabitants and any visitors, thus laid out like a sprawling mall. The two floors above had numerous balconies overlooking the public spaces, where a riot of greenery grew in flagstone-bordered beds. Entire trees reached to the upper floors, while flowers bloomed underneath them. Many of the doorways were framed in broad timbers, carved with designs that seemed vaguely Native American, Celtic and something else all at once.

  Midnight led them past the shopping areas toward a bank of elevators. Telestrian employees moved past and around them, hardly giving them a glance. Kellan noticed there were fewer humans inside the habitat lhan out on the streets, and virtually no other metahu-mans in sight, but there were still enough humans to keep her from standing out. She even spotted a couple of dwarf technicians ambling off an elevator, chatting about some technical problem they were trying to solve.

  They were alone in the elevator car. As the doors closed, Midnight threw a glance at Kellan and Orion, and then at the corner of the ceiling before looking back at the doors.

  Cameras, Kellan thought. It wasn't safe here for them to speak openly, just in case someone was watching and listening. The same was probably true of most of the complex, at least in the public areas. Kellan leaned against the back wall and tried to look bored.

  They exited the elevator on the fourth floor, and Midnight led them down the hall like she had walked the route many ti
mes before. Windows on one side looked out over the street below and the vista of the city of Portland beyond. People were just getting out of work and the streets were filled with traffic and pedestrians, either headed home or on their way out for the evening.

  The guard sitting in front of the double doors at the foyer where the hall ended glanced up as they approached. Midnight produced her credstick once again with a smile.

  "We've got a work order," she said casually, and the guard took the stick and slotted it into the reader on the desk.

  "I don't have anything scheduled," he said, looking at the display.

  "Last-minute call," Midnight replied. "A problem with one of the intranet hubs. Mr. Telestrian wanted it looked at on the off-shift so it would be up and running again for tomorrow."

  The guard's eye flicked down to the display once again, reading the confirmation code, then back up at Midnight, who stood, cool and confident, like a loyal company employee without a concern in the world, certain of her place and her duty.

  "Okay," he said, removing the stick and handing it back to her. "You know the drill: if you need to leave the floor for any reason, you need to check out and check back in at this station." He glanced at his desktop. "I'm going off duty in a few minutes, but somebody will still be here."

  "Lucky you," Midnight replied lightly. "Hopefully we won't be here all night."

  "Good luck," the guard told them, and Midnight led them through the doors and into the corridor beyond. She gave Kellan a brief glance and a nod to say things were going according to plan, and then glanced around to get her bearings before leading them down the hall toward one of the offices. Once they were inside, Midnight closed the door behind them and locked it.

  "All right, kids," she said, unslinging her bag. "Let's get to work."

  "Is it just me," Orion asked, "or was that way too

  easy?"

  Midnight shrugged. "It helps when you have the boss countersigning your permission to get inside," she said. "Would you prefer it to be a little harder?" The elf shook his head. "Good. Then watch the door."

  Orion stayed by the door, flattened against the wall, while Midnight and Kellan went over to the desk and examined the workstation there. It was the standard setup: a flatscreen display with a manual keyboard and jacks for direct neural access, all connected to the complex's main host system. Midnight slipped under the desk and pulled the plug on the terminal's connector, while Kellan took out her cyberdeck and sat down in the chair behind the desk.

  She unreeled the deck's connector cable, passing it to Midnight, who plugged it into the system. Kellan took the electrode net and settled it across her forehead, making sure the connections were in place. She did an initial power-up on the deck, feeling the familiar tingle of the trodes that told her everything was functioning correctly. Midnight slipped out from under the desk and crouched next to Kellan's chair.

  "The file we're looking for is named Morningstar," she said. "Don't worry about decoding it; we can take care of that once we're out of here. Just find the file and copy it . . . and keep it quiet. If there's any noise or any trouble, get out of the system and we'll clear out of here, okay?"

  Kellan nodded, and Midnight gave her a smile that spoke of complete confidence in her abilities. "Okay then," she said. "Get to it. We'll keep watch."

  Taking a deep breath, Kellan tapped the go button on her deck, and the real world faded away in a shower of gray static, replaced by the sleek digital virtual reality of the Matrix. She was inside the representation of her deck, an almost featureless white room. The Telestrian terminal port looked like a stone gateway, carved with curving runes and covered in creeping ivy, in stark contrast to the sterile surroundings. Beyond it was a path deep into a primeval forest, a virtual representation of the Telestrian host system.

  Kellan stepped onto the path that would allow her to access the system. Once she stepped across the threshold of the gateway, the way she came faded into the background of greenery. Though Kellan was sure she could find her way "back," the effect was disconcerting. It was like stepping into another world, somewhat like what she felt in the forest along the border when the wyvern flew overhead. She was in unfamiliar territory, but she had ways of navigating it.

  With a thought, Kellan activated a search program on her deck. Instantly, a glowing form shimmered into existence in the air in front of her—a tiny sprite with silvery, shimmering wings. They buzzed, blurring in the air as she hovered close to Kellan's face.

  "Find Morningstar," she ordered the search program, and the sprite bobbed for a moment before zipping off into the shadows of the forest. Everything was silent once more, and Kellan waited.

  The moments seemed to crawl past, and Kellan was sure she could hear things moving out in the darkness of the woods. Security programs, she thought. They were sweeping the system, sniffing out the spoor of unauthorized users. She hoped her deck's masking programs were enough to keep her hidden, but she knew that the longer she spent in the system, the greater the chance the sentinel programs would detect something amiss and—

  Suddenly her sprite reappeared, hovering and bobbing in the air in front of her. Kellan reached out and brushed her hand across the glowing sphere of light around the tiny figure, and the clearing shifted around her. One path became softly illuminated, and Kellan moved toward it, toward the part of the host system isolated by her search. The branches and leaves closed in overhead, creating a kind of natural tunnel layered in shadows, lit only by the glow of her sprite.

  The clearing she stepped out into appeared small, surrounded on all sides by the towering trees, and Kellan suddenly noticed it was night, despite the fact that sunlight had been filtering through the trees when she'd entered the system. Now the circle of sky in the midst of the trees was black, spangled with stars and lit by the glow of a crescent moon. From what she'd learned about Telestrian Matrix iconography, the nighttime setting suggested a higher-security node within the system.

  Lush grass covered the surface of the clearing, along with a scattering of fallen leaves. In the middle of the clearing stood a low pillar supporting a carved stone bowl about a meter across. The pillar rested in the intersection of four large flagstones set into the ground. At the corner of each stone sat a statue of a wolfhound, pale gray stone gleaming almost silver in the moonlight.

  With a thought and a flick of her wrist, Kellan dismissed the glowing sprite. From a pocket, she withdrew a filmy length of black cloth, like a shadow you could hold in your hand. She flung the shadow cloak around her shoulders, activating the stealth program to conceal her from any guardians of the forbidden glade. Then she approached the stone bowl.

  When Kellan set foot on the flagstones, the eyes of the statues flared with greenish light. Her breath caught in her throat and she paused in midstep, ready to flee or to fight if she had to, but the stone hounds did not move. The light died as quickly as it had appeared, fading until it was gone. Kellan allowed herself to breathe once more. She said a quiet and fervent thanks to Jackie Ozone for setting her up with custom software.

  She stepped up to the pillar and looked into the bowl. It was nearly filled with clear, shimmering water. The inside surface of the bowl was intricately carved with a design that reminded Kellan of a complex printed electronic circuit. She bent her head close to the surface of the water, observing the reflected glimmer of the stars and the moon, and for a moment marveling at the programming skill that went into creating it. Hidden inside her shadow cloak, she herself cast no reflection.

  "Morningstar," she breathed, setting up faint ripples across the surface of the water. The system responded to her invocation of the file name, and the ripples set the reflections of the stars swirling in the depths of the water. The reflections coalesced, becoming a bright point of light concentrated in the center that sent out ripples of its own as it broke the surface, floating as light as a cork. Kellan reached out to take it.

  Her fingers stopped scant centimeters away and she pulled back her ha
nd. This was too easy. There had to be more security protecting the file. Even if the file was encrypted, it should be harder to take in the first place. Kellan looked around the glade, but saw nothing. She looked down into the water, and there still was nothing there but the glimmering light of the Morningstar file she'd called up. There was no sign that anything had detected her presence or alerted (he system. She reached out once again, and saw the reflection of her hand, reaching from below to take the file as her real hand reached from above.

  Kellan stopped again and drew back her hand. She looked at the hound statues, standing silent and still. She could feel something, a sensation of being watched. Even though their hardware and software did much of the work, deckers like Jackie Ozone claimed they developed a sixth sense for what was happening in the virtual world. For the first time, Kellan really understood what they meant. She knew that the system suspected her; she didn't have much time.

  Wrapping her hand inside her shadow cloak, Kellan reached out a third time. This time, there was no reflection in the now-still waters, no sign she was there at all. She gently plucked the glowing light from the surface of the pool, sending out the slightest of ripples. Quickly, she tucked the file away in a pocket, and her cyberdeck downloaded it to its storage memory. The file was fairly small, and was hidden away in a moment. Kellan turned and slipped away from the glade and past the hounds as quickly as she dared.

  Through the darkened woods, this time without the light of her sprite to guide her, she found her way back to where she'd entered the system. Her persona waved a hand as Kellan commanded the cyberdeck to log off. A doorway, framed in ancient carved stone and covered with clinging ivy, appeared out of the shadows. Kellan breathed a sigh of relief and stepped through the doorway to complete the log-off function. She was on her way back to the real world and safety.

  Leafy tendrils shot out across the exit, and Kellan ran into them. They flexed like steel wire and she felt them grab at her arms and legs, wrapping tighter and tighter and as she struggled. Kellan heard a sound behind her. She whipped her head around toward the dark woods and saw the two hounds emerge from the shadows of the trees, their eyes burning with a greenish light.