Shadowrun 43 - Fallen Angels

by Stephen Kenson

  "Wait!" Kellan called out. "Don't go! Don't leave me here!" she said, but the woman paid her no heed. She either didn't hear or didn't care as she rushed away, vanishing into the dark, leaving Kellan alone with the silent and still form of the elf lying on the stone floor.

  "No!" Kellan called out, struggling against the bonds that held her, but her movements were weak and feeble. Then, suddenly, she opened her eyes.

  "Take it easy, we're out," came a familiar voice from beside her, as Kellan raised one hand to rub her aching head and tried to get her bearings.

  She was sitting in the passenger seat of a car as the road outside the tinted windows flashed by. The headlights illuminated a dark stretch of highway, surrounded on all sides by thick trees. In the distance, mountains loomed up, black shapes against the deeper black of the night sky, lit by the stars and the fullness of the moon. The hum and motion of the car were vaguely soothing.

  "Are you all right?" Midnight asked from the driver's seat. She was handling the car smoothly, one hand resting on the steering wheel, eyes watching the road.

  "Unh. I think so," Kellan said, still rubbing her head. "What happened?"

  "You don't remember?"

  "No," she said, trying to think back. "I remember meeting the Rinelle in Portland. . . . What happened?"

  "They dosed you with a sedative," Midnight said.

  Kellan thought back. Vague memories surfaced of being led, blindfolded, of the dank odors of the underground, and the smell of rust. She remembered the brief touch of a drug patch, the warmth of it spreading into her veins before she could react, then sinking down into darkness just as she realized what was happening.

  "Why?" she asked.

  The elf gave a slight shrug. "They tagged you as a mage," she replied. "Said it was the only way they could be sure their safety wouldn't be compromised."

  "I don't remember," Kellan muttered. "Must have been strong stuff."

  "I honestly didn't expect you to wake up quite so soon."

  Kellan sighed. "I had this awful dream," she said. "Really weird."

  "What was it about?" Midnight asked, and before Kellan thought better about it, she was telling her— until she got to the part where she had recognized the woman who shot the elf in the back, taking the amulet from him. She trailed awkwardly off into silence.

  "Really? Then what happened?" Midnight asked.

  "I'd . . . rather not talk about it," Kellan muttered. "Where are we, anyway?" She looked around at the dark landscape passing by, but nothing was familiar.

  "Outside of Portland," Midnight said.

  "Salish territory?"

  "No, still in Tir Tairngire."

  "How long was I out?" Kellan glanced at the car's digital clock. It showed it was past midnight.

  "Over an hour."

  "But we're still in the Tir?"

  "Yes," Midnight replied.

  Why were they still in elven territory? The border with the Salish-Shidhe Council was just on the other side of the river from Portland. Even if they left the city on the eastern side, why not head north and out of the country as soon as possible?

  "Why are we slowing down?" Kellan asked instead, as Midnight slowed the car. She turned off the road, into what looked like a rest area to Kellan, coming to a stop once they were in the empty parking lot.

  "We're here," Midnight announced. "Get out of the car, and do it slowly."

  That's when Kellan noticed the gun in Midnight's other hand, pointed right at her.

  17

  Kellan's parents?" Orion asked. Kellan's parents?" Orion asked.

  Akimura nodded. "At least part of what Midnight told Kellan was true. Kellan's mother was a shadowrunner in Seattle who went by the street name Mustang. What Midnight didn't tell her was that Mustang actually worked for Cross Applied Technologies, and I was her partner. We worked undercover, operating in the shadows, but also funneling information back to the company. It provided Cross with an insight into the shadows, as well as a useful resource for shadow ops. So naturally, when we heard rumors about a top-flight magical researcher in Tir Tairngire looking to defect, the company was very interested, even more when they found out who it was.

  "Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Marc Thierault was one of the brightest new minds to come out of MIT&T's thaumaturgy program. Cross Applied Technologies helped pay for his education, but Thierault was an elf, and he was lured away from his corporate R&D job by an offer from Telestrian Industries."

  James Telestrian gave an elegant shrug at the glance directed at him. "Thierault was a brilliant researcher," he said, "and Tir Tairngire needed people like him.

  He understood that, and the importance of creating a homeland for our people."

  Akimura allowed that observation to pass without comment. "Not surprisingly, Cross didn't see it that way. When Thierault absconded to Tir Tairngire, they protested, but the Tir government refused to acknowledge corporate extraterritorial rights, and declined to give him up. The company ultimately decided Thierault wasn't worth causing trouble with the Tir. At least, not then."

  Telestrian spoke up, leaning forward with his elbows on his desk. "Dr. Thierault specialized in the study of conjuring, with an emphasis on powerful spirits and the astral metaplanes. His theories were cutting-edge; they were supposed to give us new insights into how spirits were summoned, and where they came from.

  "One of the limits on conjuring is the difficulty in bridging the distance between the astral and physical planes. Dr. Thierault theorized that certain places and times offered stronger interfaces between the two planes, making it easier to conjure more powerful and capable spirits."

  "A few years before the Kano hypothesis, too," Lothan murmured.

  "His research even turned up an area in Tir Tairngire, in the Cascade Mountains, where the background mana was stronger than normal," Telestrian continued. "He wanted to test his theory, to see if it was possible to summon a more powerful type of spirit there."

  "What happened?" Orion asked.

  Telestrian shrugged. "Before we could plan the operation, the Council of Princes issued an edict.

  Thierault's research was to be suspended, and the project scrubbed."

  "Why?"

  The elven executive smiled tightly. "We didn't ask. You don't question the Council's rulings, and they didn't feel the need to explain themselves. Thierault was supposed to be assigned to other, less sensitive research."

  "And he didn't like that," Orion guessed.

  "To put it mildly. He protested, but, as I said, you don't question the Council's decisions. I didn't know at the time why they cut off his research, but it was clear that the project was Thierault's passion."

  "So he started looking for a way out."

  Akimura picked up the story. "And that's where we came in. Cross offered to get Thierault out of Tir Tairngire, along with his research. All would be forgiven, and he would come back to the corp as a vice president of R&D, with the chance to finish his research. Mustang and I were given the assignment of getting him out of the country. There was just one potential hitch."

  "The Council became aware of Marc's . . . discontent, shall we say," Telestrian added. "So they assigned him a bodyguard named Aerwin Dir Tanari to keep an eye on him for 'security reasons.'"

  "Midnight," Akimura said, and Telestrian nodded. Akimura picked up the narrative again. "What the Council didn't plan on was Midnight having her own ambitions. She was supposed to be keeping Thierault safe from any outside influences, but she was also learning all about his research. Thierault was a magic geek, all too willing to discuss what he'd discovered and had been forbidden to talk about to anyone else. So, when we made arrangements to slip into Tir Tairngire and begin surveillance on Thierault to look for an opportunity to get in contact with him, we were surprised when his bodyguard got in contact with us.

  "At first we thought we were fragged, but Aerwin offered us a deal: if we would help to get her out of the country, as well as Thierault, she would help us arrange i
t. Naturally, we were cautious, in case the offer was some kind of trap to lure us out into the open, but she gave us enough information to make us believe it was genuine, and she did arrange to put us in contact with Thierault.

  "What I think Aerwin didn't expect was for Marc and Mustang to hit it off so well. She'd been leading Thierault on a bit, dangling the promise of some romance in front of him, I suspect, but from the moment he met Mustang, he didn't have eyes for anyone else. And the feeling was mutual. I know Mustang had a hard time of it, because she tried to stay professional and not get involved, but she couldn't manage it. The two of them became . . . involved. I really think Mustang was thinking of getting out of the biz once the run was over. At the very least, she knew they would be working for the same company, and that meant they would have a chance to be together."

  "Wait a minute. Then Thierault—?" Orion interjected.

  "Was Kellan's father, yes."

  "Kellan's father was an elf?" Orion asked. "But how come—?"

  "Not all the offspring of elf-human couplings are elves," Lothan said gently. "It does explain Kellan's considerable magical talent, however, among otha things."

  Akimura went on. "It took time to arrange things to get Thierault out of the country, and to clear an extra extraction with the company. We also had to set up the right opportunity, and Cross wanted proof of the value of Thierault's theory."

  "What kind of proof?"

  "The practical kind, of course," Akimura replied. "So we arranged to take Thierault to the Cascade Mountains so he could try his experiment, then immediately get out of Tir Tairngire, before we were discovered. Everything went smoothly until Aerwin turned on us. She shot Marc in the back and took the amulet he was using as part of the summoning ritual. I went after her. We struggled, and I managed to get the amulet, but then the Tir Peace Force showed up. We had to run. We barely made it out in one piece. Naturally, the whole mission was a disaster, and Cross disavowed us. We went to ground in Seattle, but kept moving, working the shadows. It was a couple of weeks later that Mustang found out she was pregnant.

  "She decided she couldn't end the pregnancy, and I respected her decision. She did what she needed to do to protect her baby and, when Kellan was born, she gave her to her sister in Kansas to raise until she could retire from the business, set herself up with a new identity and raise her daughter herself.

  "What we didn't count on was Midnight. Aerwin hadn't given up on getting Thierault's research, and she hadn't forgotten what happened in Tir Tairngire. She was in exile, on the run from the Tir authorities, but she found plenty of work in the shadows in Seattle and elsewhere. Eventually, she tracked us down and made her move.

  "Mustang left Thierault's amulet with me for safekeeping, which is what kept it from Midnight when she ambushed Mustang. I never heard from Mustang again."

  "Midnight . . ." Orion began.

  "Killed both of Kellan's parents," Lothan concluded, "and will do the same to her, if we don't act, and quickly. Toshiro, I think we've explained enough. We need to figure out where Midnight and Kellan are headed."

  "I know exactly where they're going," Akimura said with a grim nod. "Where this all began, so Midnight can finish what she started." He turned to Telestrian. "We can get there on our own, but it would be faster and easier if we had help."

  The elven executive gave the fixer an appraising look. Certainly, it would be easier for him if the whole affair never came to light, but would he try to keep it quiet by helping them, or by ensuring that they never got the chance to tell anyone else what they knew? He tapped a control on his desktop.

  "Javin, have a VTOL standing by," he said.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Thank you," Akimura said, and Telestrian nodded.

  "Aerwin manipulated my son to suit her ends," he replied, "and she turned on me back then, too. It's past time for some payback. And I'm sure I'll give you the opportunity to repay me at some point," he said with the hint of a smile.

  "I'm sure you will."

  "Were are we going?" Orion asked, as Akimura and the others headed for the door.

  "To the Cascade Mountains—the place where Kellan's father died, where he summoned one of the most powerful spirits the world has ever seen, and where it has been trapped for nearly twenty years."

  "Midnight, what the hell is going on?" Kellan asked.

  "Get out of the car," Midnight repeated, gesturing with her pistol for emphasis. Kellan did as she was told, unbuckling her safety harness and opening the car door, as Midnight did the same on her side. Kellan slid out of her seat and stepped out of the car, Midnight mirroring her motions, keeping the gun trained on her the whole time.

  "It was true, wasn't it?" Kellan asked. "The dream, what I saw, it was true."

  Midnight didn't respond, moving around the front of the car, never taking her eyes off Kellan. They were as hard and cold as chips of black stone.

  "Take off the amulet and hand it to me slowly," she said. "Now. Don't try anything foolish, Kellan. At Ihe first sign of any magic, I will shoot you. I'd prefer to have you along for this, but it's up to you."

  "The amulet," Kellan said softly. "You took it from him. . . ."

  "Yes, and it was taken from me. Now . . . hand it over, unless you want me to take it from you the same way." Midnight held out one gloved hand.

  Kellan reached up and slowly unfastened the chain, closing the clasp again after she'd taken off the necklace. She dropped the jade amulet into Midnight's outstretched hand, which closed around it in a tight fist, golden chain spilling out around her fingers.

  "Good," she said. "Now, start walking toward the tree line." Midnight responded to Kellan's confused, frightened look with a tight, cold smile. "It's okay. As long as you behave yourself, you don't have anything to worry about. If I intended to shoot you, I'd have done it long before now."

  "So it was the amulet all along," Kellan whispered, numb with shock.

  "Of course. It's nothing personal, Kellan, just an opportunity too good to waste."

  "I trusted you."

  Midnight shook her head sadly. "Kellan, if I have taught you anything, isn't it that you can't trust anyone?"

  The elven woman's head was perfectly lined up in the crosshairs of the targeting scope projected over his field of vision, zoomed in close enough to make out her features: the cool, confident expression, and the wary way she watched the younger, human woman who walked ahead of her. Though the full moon was the only source of light out in the wild lands, light-intensifying electronics made everything as bright as day to the sniper's cyber enhanced vision.

  "I can take her from here," he said quietly, subvo-calizing into the pickups implanted in his throat.

  "Negative," came the reply, transmitted through bone-induction speakers in his skull. "Not until we get a go order from the home office."

  "I've got a clear shot."

  "And you'll have others. We're to take no action other than surveillance until we get the order. Monitor their progress, but stay out of sight, and don't get trigger-happy. Understood?"

  "I copy that," the sniper replied reluctantly. It was such a good shot. He allowed the crosshairs to linger for a moment, just enjoying the feel of having a target dead to rights, knowing he could put a bullet through her before she even knew what was happening: one shot, one kill. Of course, that also took some of the fun out of it, the target never knowing it was coming.

  With a sigh, the sniper allowed the targeting lock to slip, and shifted his weapon back to his shoulder, hunkering down in the cover of the tree line. The two women were definitely headed upcountry, which suggested his unit's intel was right. Getting into elven territory and into position hadn't been easy, but now at least it looked like it was going to be worth it, once they got the order to go ahead.

  Then it would be over, just like that. They wouldn't know what hit 'em. Bang.

  The Cross Applied Technologies sniper slipped back into the shadows of the trees to rejoin the rest of his team, keeping a c
lose eye on the two figures headed up the mountain, and being careful not to be seen.

  Jackie retreated from the sentinel ice safeguarding the subsystem she needed to access, in order to design a better response to its demand for verification. Her second attempt had been a makeshift effort, an improvisation. She needed a more carefully customized response.

  Though it added risk to her operation, she decided to leave the Cross system for the relative safety of the open Matrix, for as long as it took to put together a better response. Her cloaking programs had gotten her inside once, and, so long as nothing else compromised the system to put it on alert, she was confident they could do so again, though she didn't want to test that theory too many times if she could avoid it.

  Working in virtual space, she began assembling the components of the new program from the software she had on hand, using what she knew about Eve and the Cross systems. She had to work quickly, but not as fast as when the ice was looming directly in front of her. In less than five minutes she was satisfied with the result of her work, and reasonably confident it would do the trick. There's only one way to find out. She turned back toward the Cross host.

  As expected, her cloak allowed her to slip past the watchful presence of the stone angel once more, through the main rotunda and up the stairs to the corridor off the main system. Once again, the guardian ice emerged from the shadows of its alcove to challenge her.

  "Password," it intoned in its deep, cold voice.

  This time, Jackie's persona reached into her pocket to produce a perfectly red and shiny apple, which she held out to the ice with a flourish. He plucked the fruit from her hand, and the decker held her breath, preparing to act. This time, if her spoof didn't work, odds were good the ice would trigger an alert and she'd find herself in combat.

  The hooded figure raised the apple to the dark void of his face, as if smelling it. Then he suddenly engulfed the apple in his hood, and swallowed it with an audible gulp. There was a pause, and Jackie tensed.

  "Password accepted," the ice said, stepping back into the shadows of his alcove. Jackie breathed a sigh of relief, and hurried down the corridor, looking for one particular cubicle. She scanned quickly through executive departments and meaningless names until she found the one she was looking for, about halfway along the subsystem.