Shadowrun 43 - Fallen Angels

by Stephen Kenson

  The cubicle was unoccupied, writing materials laid neatly out on the angled surface of the desk— parchment, quills and ink—along with several envelopes, and packages wrapped in paper and twine or sealed with colored wax. All these items represented the personal storage node of her contact at Cross, the corner of the system where she'd placed her evidence of Toshiro Akimura's activities and movements.

  Jackie ignored the materials on the desk itself, knowing they weren't what she was looking for. Even with the security of the company's host system protecting her files, Eve would hide her information deep in the node, for fear that an internal competitor would steal her coup. Sliding behind the desk, Jackie's persona felt along the underside of the edge. As she'd hoped, the angled desktop moved slightly, indicating that there was something below. She ducked her head and looked, and saw it was locked.

  "We'll see about that," she muttered, withdrawing a silver key from her pocket and slipping it into the lock. She had to jockey it around a bit before the key caught. She gave a twist and the desktop popped open, the key vanishing back into the nothingness from where it had come.

  The space inside the desk was a yawning black void, like the darkness inside the hood of the guardian ice. Jackie stared into the apparent nothingness, looking for a means of access. Suddenly a tendril of darkness erupted from the void, wrapping around the slim form of her persona. It was followed by another, and then another, as if a monstrous kraken of shadows dwelled in the depths of the storage node. Jackie struggled, her cyberdeck interpreting her movements as commands to disengage, but the ice program held her fast. She was trapped!

  18

  The Federated-Boeing tilt-rotor hummed through the night sky over Tir Tairngire, dark treetops rushing past below, the moonlit mountains in the distance toward the east. Black, ragged clouds had begun to veil the face of the full moon overhead, but the VTOL moved swiftly, its running lights dimmed to the absolute minimum, guided solely by its instruments and the mind of the pilot plugged directly into its systems. The Federated-Boeing tilt-rotor hummed through the night sky over Tir Tairngire, dark treetops rushing past below, the moonlit mountains in the distance toward the east. Black, ragged clouds had begun to veil the face of the full moon overhead, but the VTOL moved swiftly, its running lights dimmed to the absolute minimum, guided solely by its instruments and the mind of the pilot plugged directly into its systems.

  Orion sat in the passenger compartment alongside Lothan, G-Dogg and Toshiro Akimura, watching the landscape below. Lothan was reading the Morningstar file on a dataslate, occasionally rumbling "hmrnm" as he read something of particular interest. G-Dogg double-checked his weapons, while Akimura gazed out the windows without speaking.

  "If you knew Midnight was after Kellan, why didn't you warn her?" Orion finally burst out. Akimura sadly shook his head.

  "I tried," he said. "As soon as I tried getting in touch with Kellan through the regular channels, Midnight set up a run on Nightengale's, letting Kellan believe I was the client. Then she paid the Halloweeners to cause trouble and claim they worked for me.

  She knew Kellan would have enough friends along to deal with them, and it made Kellan too suspicious to trust me when I finally did make contact."

  "But why wait so long? Why didn't you get in touch with Kellan before now?"

  "I did," Akimura said. Orion studied Akimura's face while he thought.

  "You're the one who sent Kellan her mother's gear."

  "Of course. When I didn't hear from Mustang after a certain period of time, I knew something must have happened to her, and assumed it was Midnight's work. I knew she would come after me next. So I used my connections to get work from a patron who was willing to invest in an ex-company man—a patron even Midnight didn't care to cross."

  "A great dragon," Orion said. "Dunkelzahn."

  Akimura smiled. "Yes. I was one of his most trusted fixers, which allowed me to build up a considerable reputation and network, but then things far bigger than me happened. My employer was killed, and though the inheritance he left me provided some security, I suspect Midnight saw an opportunity to make her move."

  "Why didn't you deal with her first?" G-Dogg asked, and Akimura shrugged.

  "I attempted it a few times, but Midnight wasn't an easy target, and, honestly, I had bigger things to worry about. Dunkelzahn's fixer network imploded, and a lot of people in the shadows didn't like learning that they could have been working for a dragon any time I hired them. I hadn't heard anything about Midnight for years—I didn't even know her by that name. She wasn't working under the name Aerwin, and I'd lost track of her—same as the Tir authorities, I imagine. I had stopped expecting trouble from her, and when I realized she was still on my trail, it was almost too late. I was very lucky to avoid her first attempts to get the amulet.

  "When I realized that she was really after the amulet, I knew I needed to keep it away from her. I didn't know what destroying it would do, and I wanted a safe place to hide it—someplace from which I could eventually retrieve it. So I went to Seattle to deal with Midnight, and I sent the amulet to Kellan, along with a note and a few spare items of her mother's equipment I'd held on to. I figured it would be safe in Kansas City for a while. I didn't expect Kellan to come to Seattle looking for the truth—though I should have; she's her mother's daughter."

  "If you knew she had come to Seattle, why didn't you contact her as soon as she got here?"

  Akimura gave Orion a long look that spoke volumes.

  "Oh—the clinic. The records Kellan saw. . . ."

  "I found Midnight," the fixer said, "or, more accurately, she found me. I made the nearly fatal mistake of underestimating her a second time, and I almost didn't survive my error. Midnight left me for dead— hell, I was dead, technically—but I had backup plans in place. DocWagon tracked me down by following the signal from an implant Dunkelzahn had paid for, and delivered me to a discreet cyberclinic. My treatment was paid for in advance from a deeply buried escrow fund set up for just such an emergency.

  "They practically rebuilt me," he said, slowly flexing one hand in front of his face as if seeing it for the first time. "Replacement tissue, cybernetic reconstruction, backup organs, cloned parts, gene therapy—the works. It took months of slow convalescence, surgery and therapy, and it was necessary to let the world think I was dead, or else Midnight easily could have showed up to finish the job. As it was, I had to leave the clinic immediately when she discovered I was alive. I suspect that's when she put her plan into motion, with Kellan at its center.

  "She'd already gained Kellan's trust by then, and was managing the situation so that Kellan wouldn't trust me, so she could—"

  Lothan's horned head suddenly came up, as if he could hear a sound imperceptible to anyone else. He held up one hand for silence, the other hand setting aside the dataslate and closing around the Staff of Candor-Brie.

  "We have a problem," the troll mage pronounced, nodding toward the front of the VTOL.

  The four of them looked out the cockpit windows to see dark clouds gathering to blot out the night sky. Lightning tinged a bluish violet flashed between the clouds, lighting up the darkness, followed by an echoing boom of thunder.

  The pilot called back from the cockpit. "Make sure you're strapped in!" she said. "This is going to get rough!"

  "This storm is not natural," Lothan said. "There is magic at work."

  "Can you do something about it?" Akimura asked, already making sure his safety harness was in place.

  "Let's see," the troll replied. He clasped both hands around the staff planted on the floor between his booted feet, and closed his eyes. The crystal atop the

  Staff of Candor-Brie glowed faintly in the dimness of the cabin as the first blast of wind hit them.

  The VTOL listed to the side, engines roaring against the force of the wind. The turbulence jostled the cabin, slamming the passengers against their restraining straps as the wind howled outside like a living thing, clawing to get at them. Another flas
h of lightning lit up the sky.

  "We're not going to be able to keep flying in this! Damn, I wish we had Max at the controls," G-Dogg muttered.

  The turbofan engines whined as the VTOL listed again. Lothan opened his eyes, the light within the crystal on his staff fading away.

  "I've never encountered power like this before," he said. "There is a force behind the weather, but it's too great for even my arts to counter it—not from here, anyway."

  "I have to find a place to set down before we get knocked down!" the pilot shouted. "Everybody hold on!" The lightning flashed again, this time perilously close to the vehicle, the smell of ozone sharp in the air as the crack of thunder rolled over the cabin, and the wind shook everything inside. The pilot struggled with the controls, using sheer muscle power to wrestle against the storm, in addition to the force of her will, which directed the VTOL's systems in the landing procedure.

  They came in at a sharp angle, but their descent leveled out as the ground rushed up toward them. The clearing in the foothills of the mountains was barely large enough to hold the VTOL, but the pilot managed to set them down in it with only a few branches dislodged by their descent. They hit the ground with a rough bump, but it was a far better landing than reasonably could be expected under the circumstances. Everyone in the cabin simultaneously sighed with relief.

  "Now what?" G-Dogg asked.

  "We're grounded," the pilot answered, "until I can see if we took any damage, and until the weather decides to let up. 1 can try and radio back to headquarters for help, but . . ."

  "Then we go it on foot," Orion responded with a look at Akimura, who nodded in reply, unfastening his safety harness. Lothan and G-Dogg quickly followed suit.

  "Wait here for us," Akimura told the pilot, who shrugged.

  "Not like I can go anywhere, anyway," she said.

  "And maintain radio silence until we make contact, just in case there's someone listening in."

  Jackie Ozone cursed as the trap ice squeezed her persona in an ever-tightening grip. The tendrils felt icy cold as the pressure seemed to squeeze the breath out of her. Jackie knew full well they were only false sensory impressions, but they felt entirely real.

  Well, we can dispense with stealth. Jackie switched her deck from stealth to cybercombat mode. The silvery cloak around her persona dissolved, replaced by gleaming armor of polished chrome with flat black highlights. She pulled one hand free, and a slim silver sword materialized in it, blazing with light.

  A slash of the blade severed one of the black tendrils, sparks crackling from exposed circuits within, the broken end dissolving into a shower of pixels before vanishing altogether. Several more of the tentacles waved and grabbed at her as Jackie struggled to get free. She slashed again, but watched with dismay as (he first tendril she severed began to grow back.

  Self-repairing, she thought, great. She couldn't afford to dance with the ice program. If she didn't take il out quickly, its repair subroutines would allow it to keep fighting until either the system allocated more resources to dealing with her, or she got tired enough to make a mistake. She needed to end things quickly and decisively.

  Fingers flashing over the keyboard, thoughts moving faster than even she could register, Jackie shifted processor capacity from her persona's defense to offense. It was risky, but she couldn't fight a defensive battle. She made some adjustments to her attack programs, taking what she knew about the host system into account, along with the particular model of ice. If she could just hit the right section of its code. . . .

  The chrome armor receded to become a simple breastplate and gauntlets over her silver-white clothes, while her gleaming sword slashed through the restraining tentacles. Several of them dropped away, and Jackie's persona was free. She could have used this chance to log off the system before the ice could entrap her again, but if she left now, there was no chance of getting the same level of access in time to accomplish her goal. The system was on alert, and there was no time to waste. It was now or never.

  Jackie's sword morphed, becoming a silvery recurve bow, shot through with circuitry. She drew back the string, and a gleaming arrow appeared across it. As her persona took careful aim, Jackie was adjusting the program, tweaking its parameters on the fly, synching it up with the target. The black tentacles drew back, writhing, then launched themselves en masse at her as she let fly.

  The shot went straight and true into their midst, disappearing into the black void from where the ice issued forth, swallowed up by the darkness. The tendrils slammed into Jackie like a dark wave, causing her to drop her bow, surrounding her in a crushing mass as they wrapped and squeezed. She saw black spots across her vision as she gasped for breath, fighting the urge to jack out of the system. She couldn't run, couldn't use all her defenses, otherwise it would all be for nothing. She had to hang in there. Just a little longer.

  Come on, she thought, her vision starting to darken, c'mon! Then there was a crackling sound like glass splintering. From the depths of the void, a silver-white coating of circuitry spread out along the tendrils, from their bases to their tips, covering them completely and freezing them in place. They stopping moving as they were covered, and Jackie exerted the full strength of her deck's processor against them.

  The tentacles shattered, gleaming shards raining down before dissolving into random pixels and then nothingness. It'd worked: she'd been able to use the IC's own self-repairing subroutine against it, introducing a flaw, like electronic cancer, disabling the program from the inside out. Where the ice once was, Jackie could now see a set of stairs leading down, the inside of the virtual desk now lit from within, rather than pitch dark. Cautiously, her persona slipped down the stairs to find out what lay beyond.

  The VTOL landing did not go unnoticed. Some distance away, a man lowered a compact pair of electronic binoculars after the aircraft dropped down below the tree line.

  "Crash?" a dark-clad figure at his side asked, and he shook his head.

  "Unlikely. No smoke, so it's a safe bet they managed to put down."

  "Who are they?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know, but this party is starting to get crowded." He keyed the subdermal microphone implanted in his throat, transmitting on a scrambled frequency. "Gabriel to all points," he said, "we've got more company—a tilt-rotor with Telestrian Industries markings, put down a couple klicks from my position. Keep sharp and report in as needed, but do not, repeat, do not engage unless absolutely necessary. We wait until we get the go order, people."

  Gabriel waited to get confirmation from the members of his team, and then signaled again.

  "What's the status of our visitors?"

  A voice replied through his subdermal induction speakers. "Headed up the mountain. I'm keeping them in sight."

  Gabriel nodded. "It's a good bet the newcomers are headed the same way. We'll join up with you. Keep them in view, and give me regular updates on their progress, but stay out of sight." He closed the channel, than spoke over his shoulder to the other member of his team close at hand. "Let's move out."

  Gabriel glanced back in the direction where the VTOL landed. This was hardly the first mission he'd carried out for Cross Applied Technologies where he didn't have all the information, but he was starting to get a bad feeling about it. This mission was looking anything but routine, and Gabriel didn't like unexpected complications. He stowed his binoculars, grabbed his gear and headed for the rendezvous. He hoped orders from HQ came through soon. The faster they got this over with, the better.

  19

  If you intend to kill me, why don't you just get it If you intend to kill me, why don't you just get it

  over with?" Kellan asked.

  "Kellan," Midnight replied in a tone of mock concern, "I told you, if I wanted to kill you, I would have done it by now."

  Which means you need me alive for something, but what? She still didn't know what Midnight wanted with her amulet, or what they were doing out here in the middle of nowhere.

  K
ellan wanted to kick herself. How could she have trusted Midnight so completely? Dammit, how could she still trust anybody in this business? Lothan already had taught her, quite graphically, that no shadowrun-ner could be trusted, not even those closest to you.

  Except maybe Orion. As Kellan thought about him, about the way they'd left him behind to suffer an unknown fate, she felt a cold fury welling up.

  "You set it up, didn't you?" she accused Midnight, stopping to turn and face her. "You sent the Telestrian security to the safe house to take out Orion, didn't you? You set up this whole thing!"

  "Keep moving," came Midnight's curt reply, emphasized with a wave of her gun.

  "Or what? You'll shoot me? I don't think so. You need me for something."

  "Not so much that I won't shoot you the minute you become more trouble than you're worth, Kellan," Midnight said coldly. "Don't overestimate your value. I'm perfectly willing to leave you here and take my chances. So don't be foolish, and keep walking."

  Kellan looked Midnight in the eyes, and, this time, she was absolutely sure that she was telling the truth. So she slowly turned and began heading back up the incline ahead of them.

  "You set up this whole thing, didn't you?" Kellan repeated. "I mean, it's no coincidence that we ended up here," she waved her hand, taking in the whole of the dark woods and mountainside.

  "Perhaps I just saw a good opportunity," Midnight replied coyly.

  "No," Kellan shook her head. "It's more than that. It's something about this place, about Tir Tairngire. Was the run for Telestrian even real?"

  "In a manner of speaking," Midnight said. "Timothy Telestrian thinks it was real. I convinced him I could get information to blackmail or embarrass his father, and he wanted that badly enough to make certain arrangements and not ask too many questions."

  "But what we took from the Telestrian system couldn't have embarrassed anyone."