Shadowrun 46 - A Fistful of Data

by Stephen Dedman (v1. 0) (epub)

  “It could be, though it doesn’t survive long in an inhospitable environment: you’d have to spray it directly onto the skin. The subjects were mostly vaccinated, or given infected slap patches.”

  “But you could use it as a weapon?”

  “Yes. And we haven’t found anything on this disk to say whether it was ever tested on humans, elves or dwarves. It might be safe for them, or it might be just as lethal.” Ratatosk nodded. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d want the Azzies to have. I say we destroy the vials, and send the data to the newsnets. Or direct onto the Matrix. And we might mention that they sent toxics in to kill squatters, while we’re at it.”

  “Are you crazy?” asked Lankin. “This could be worth millions!” He looked around the room, then drew his Fichetti and aimed it at Ratatosk’s forehead. “Put down the deck until we’ve sorted this out.”

  “He’s not jacked in,” said Zurich heavily. “And he doesn’t have the original disk. I do.” He popped it out of Didge’s much-abused CD player and placed it alongside the vials on a rickety soy milk crate that served as a table.

  Lankin’s gaze followed it for an instant—just long enough for Ratatosk, Mute and 8-ball to draw their own guns and Yoko to pick up a scalpel. Lankin looked around, inhaled slowly and lowered his pistol until it pointed at the floor. The other guns didn’t waver.

  “This is pointless,” Lankin said. “You’re assuming they’re just going to hush it up. What if they’ve made advances, found a way of keeping the patients alive?”

  Magnusson and Yoko glanced at Czarnecki, who shrugged. “That’s possible,” he conceded. “But after what they’ve done to try to get their hands on this stuff, I don’t feel like trusting them. And what if the treatment’s only fifty percent effective—or only ten percent? Even if it’s ninety percent, how many orks and trolls do you think are going to die trying it, just so they can look human?”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Well, that’s their choice, isn’t it?” asked Lankin finally.

  “Do you think so? How many will do it to please their parents? Or to improve their chances of getting a job? I think Ratatosk’s right about sterilizing the vials—but not about the disk. I’d be happy to see Aztechnology lose a few million for what they’ve done, but I’d much rather none of this data got out, in case it inspires someone else to kill orks and trolls in search of a cure for goblinization.” “We’re talking about millions of nuyen here!” Lankin protested.

  “We don’t all have your expertise when it comes to blackmail,” said Mute dryly. “What if the Hatter decides he could save millions by having us all killed?”

  “There are ways of guarding against that,” said Lankin. “But if you have a better idea, I’m willing to consider it.” “We sell it to someone else and let them use it to blackmail Aztechnology,” said Mute. “Another corp. I have contacts in Mitsuhama . . .”

  “No,” said Yoko coldly. “I think Ratatosk and the doc are right about the vials, and I don’t trust Mitsuhama. Even giving them the data would be dangerous. There might be enough information in there for them to engineer the virus with nanotech.”

  “Yamatetsu?” suggested Crane.

  Czarneeki shook his ugly head. “Not if I get a vote,” he said. “You want to give a Japanese corp something else they can use against metahumans? Maggie, you’ve been quiet. What do you think?”

  “I hate the idea of destroying data,” said Magnusson, “but I think you’re right—about the vial, at least. Even if I gave it to the biotech department at the university, it’d end up in corp hands before long. They sponsor so much of the research we do, it’s inevitable they’d find out about it before long. Same with all the hospitals with the facilities to deal with something like this, even the Centers for Disease Control. And I’m not sure that goblinization is something we should be trying to cure. To me, it sounds a lot like the old experiments where they tried to assimilate nonwhite children into white societies by separating them from their parents, or make them look Aryan by injecting blue dye into their eyes.”

  “People buy blue eyes every fragging day,” said Lankin. “Do you object to that, too?”

  Sumatra stood. “We don’t have time to spend arguing like this,” he declared, “and none of it’s going to matter if we can’t get the stuff past the guards. I say we take it outside now and meet up later, and then we can decide what to do.” He looked around the room expectantly.

  “That makes sense,” said Ratatosk slowly. “You said you had an invisibility spell, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Before you disappear, can I ask one small favor?”

  “What?”

  “Can I see your cell phone? All of them, if you have more than one.”

  Sumatra hesitated. “What . . . why?”

  “I just need to know the number,” the decker replied. “Check the address book and log, any saved messages, that sort of thing. Someone in here has been calling the Hatter and telling him what’s going on. I just want to be sure it isn’t you.”

  Sumatra stared at him, trying to smile. “What makes you think it’s me?”

  Ratatosk shrugged. “Nothing in particular. But if you expect us to trust you with data worth millions of nuyen and a virus that can kill thousands . . .” The muzzle of his gun swung away from Lankin and toward the shaman. “I think this is a small thing to ask jn return.”

  The ork looked around the room. Some of the people seemed startled by the suggestion, but not outraged. The ork looked at the phone on his wrist, took a step toward Ratatosk, then vanished from sight.

  17

  Zurich was the first to react, making a grab for the vials and the disk—but they disappeared an instant before he reached them. Yoko leaped off her bed, arms outstretched, hoping to make contact with the invisible Sumatra, but he eluded her grasp. Crane, who was nearest the exit, tried to block the doorway, then fell backwards as the shaman head butted him and punched him in the stomach. He grabbed the curtain on the way down, but the thin plastic tore. Sumatra stepped on the rigger’s chest and face as he ran out. Crane rolled out of the way as Yoko and Mute came running out of the room, with 8-ball close behind them. Magnusson began praying in Aramaic as he conjured up a watcher spirit and sent it toward the ramp at the speed of thought.

  Mute stopped as soon as she was in the corridor, tossed her pistol into the air and grabbed it with her right hand while she drew her narcoject pistol with her left. She listened for the sound of Sumatra’s footsteps and the distinctive rhythm of his breathing, but there was too much background noise for her to pinpoint it. Dropping to one knee, she fired four shots along the corridor at about a meter above the ground, fanning them out in the hope of hitting her invisible target.

  “Did you get him?” asked Yoko.

  She was only murmuring, but Mute hurriedly cranked down the sensitivity on her amplified hearing. “Assume I didn’t,” she said. “Is there any way out other than the ramp?”

  “The stairwell’s still blocked,” said 8-ball. “He could get out that way, but not quietly. You head for the ramp; I’ll check out the stairs.”

  Yoko had sped away before the dwarf had quite finished speaking; he shook his head and began running toward the blocked fire escape. Mute headed off after Yoko, pausing briefly to check for any signs that her darts might have hit the shaman. Magnusson was the next to come sprinting out of the clinic, already breathing hard. Crane watched them go and decided to stay where he was as Lankin emerged from the crowded room and ran toward the ramp, his long legs enabling him to easily outpace the magician. A moment later, Czarnecki ventured out and crouched beside the rigger, examining his wounds. “Where does it hurt?”

  Crane groaned, waving a hand over his belly, chest, nose and forehead. The street doc nodded, helped him to his feet and guided him back into the clinic. Ratatosk and Zurich were standing guard over the wounded—and Rata-tosk’s deck, which held the only decrypted copy of the data from the disk. Crane looked up at
the elf wonderingly. “How did you know Sumatra was talking to the Hatter?” he asked.

  “I didn’t,” said Ratatosk. “I thought it was Lankin. If Sumatra had handed his phone over, I would have asked Lankin next.”

  Leila turned around as the watcher spirit materialized near the foot of the ramp. “Message from Magnusson!" it yelled. “Invisible enemy! No one and nothing to enter or leave! Block the ramp!”

  “What the—” Pierce spluttered, but didn’t object as Leila grabbed his arm and that of the elf on her right, forming a human chain across the ramp—the first of many. By the time Sumatra reached the bottom of the ramp, there were several chains of humans and metahumans of all sizes blocking his path.

  The shaman paused for breath, concentrating on maintaining his invisibility spell, and shoved the vials and the disk into one of the many pockets of his filthy armor jacket. Then he drew his silenced Fichetti and shot the nearest target through the eye. The ork slumped as the back of his head sprayed across Pierce’s jacket. Ulla, who was holding him up, flinched—but she didn’t drop him.

  “Out of my fraggin’ way!” Sumatra shouted, trying to drown out the persistent watcher spirit. There were only a dozen people between him and freedom, and he had twenty-nine shots left without needing to reload. “I can shoot all of you if I need to!” He backed up the threat with a mass agony spell, and watched as most of the crowd let go of each other and cowered—all except Pierce, Leila, Didge, Ulla, and the corpse that Ulla was still propping up. Feeling himself slow down as the drain from his spells sapped his strength, he aimed at Ulla, and felt something sting the back of his neck. He turned to see Mute standing behind him, a narcoject pistol in her hand. Yoko stood beside her.

  “You talk too much,” said Mute, smiling. Sumatra tried to aim his pistol at her, but it seemed far too heavy to lift, and his target was fading into the shadows that were closing in on him. He didn’t see Yoko grab him as he fell face forward toward the concrete, or feel it when Ulla stepped forward and kicked him in the groin.

  Mute aimed her pistol at the ork’s head, but Yoko kicked it out of her hand. “No,” she said softly.

  Mute looked at her incredulously, and Ulla growled as she reached for her knife. “No,” the adept repeated. “Not in cold blood.”

  “We can warm his blood up first,” suggested Pierce. “There’s a microwave in the kitchen.”

  “We take him with us,” Yoko repeated. “Lankin can interrogate him later, or Magnusson can do a mind probe. He may know something useful.” She lowered the shaman’s body to the floor and patted it down, searching for the disk and the vials. Mute untabbed his jacket to look for concealed pockets, and gasped as she saw the pendants hanging around his neck. Most looked like talismans, but one was horribly familiar.

  Yoko looked over her shoulder. “A peace sign?” she said, as Mute grabbed one of the pendants.

  “No. Mercedes Benzene wore a pendant like this.” She bit her lip. “Just like this.”

  The adept decided not to ask. She found the vials in one of his bulging pockets—to her relief, they were still intact— and the disk a second later. Holding these, she walked back to the clinic.

  “What should we do about this guy?” asked Didge, crouching beside the dead ork and closing his remaining eye. “Does anyone know his name?”

  No one replied for several seconds. “He’s been here only a couple of weeks,” said Pierce. “Hiding from someone. Boanerges woulda known—he knew everyone’s name—but I don’t.”

  This was followed by another lengthy silence, which Pierce finally broke by saying, “I’ll take him up to the morgue, okay?”

  Mute nodded.

  “What about Sumatra?” Pierce continued, looking covetously at the shaman’s boots. “Should we keep searching him?” “Go ahead,” said Mute. “Take whatever you like. He won’t be needing it.”

  8-ball examined the pendant, then handed it back to Mute. “It looks like Mercy’s,” he admitted. “You think he’s the one who betrayed us?”

  “He was prepared to sell a bioweapon that he knew killed orks,” she replied dryly. “It’s in character.”

  8-ball shrugged and followed her back to the clinic, where Czarnecki was bandaging Crane. Apart from the still-unconscious patients, the only other people there were Yoko and Magnusson. “Where’s everyone gone?” he asked, looking around the room.

  “Packing,” said the doctor. “We just had a call from Didge. The mere who searched her wouldn’t give her back her pocket computer. It’s years old, and it was cheap when it was made, but she talked to their commander— Wallace?—and he said it was their orders. Any medical gear, and anything with a memory, they take back to their boss. It’ll be returned after it’s been searched—at least, that’s what they’re saying. But they’ll also want to search your car, 8-ball, and take Ratatosk’s deck, the disks from the library, and everyone’s pocket secretaries and medkits and that sort of thing. And if they take my equipment away from me for a few hours, I don’t think our patients are going to survive.”

  8-ball winced. “You think there’s something else in the vault that we haven’t found yet?”

  “Maybe. Whether or not it’s worth anything, I wouldn’t know. And I don’t think the Hatter really knows, either . . . or if he does, he’s not told the meres.”

  “And even if this drek is all there is, since we can’t trust Sumatra to turn anyone invisible, we have to think of another way to get it past Wallace,” said Crane.

  Yoko opened her eyes and glanced at Magnusson, who seemed to be praying softly. She blinked and peered into the astral, and saw a spell fly from the magician and circle the vials. She hastily closed her eyes again.

  “Could we hide it in one of the body bags?” Mute suggested.

  “They’ve probably thought of that one—or the Hatter has,” said 8-ball. “And they’re soldiers, so they won’t be squeamish. Maggie, do you know any invisibility spells?” “No,” said Magnusson. “The closest I have is a physical mask. The best we could do would be for Mish to call up a city spirit and hope that its concealment powers were enough to get it past the sentries and the eye in the sky. It’s the latter that worries me.”

  Crane nodded. “It should. If they’ve upgraded the sensors in that the way they did in the Condor, I don’t think you’d have a chance.”

  “Could you or Zurich jam it?”

  “Not at that altitude.”

  “You’re saying we’re fragged.”

  Crane shrugged. Mute looked at him, then asked, “Where is their rigger?”

  “In one of the vans,” said 8-ball. “Why?”

  “Crane, if you had his rig, could you take over the roto-drone? You’re not too badly injured?”

  “I’m fine,” Crane replied, “but how’m I supposed to get ahold of his rig?”

  “Hijack the van.”

  “What?”

  Mute turned to 8-ball. “Will it be guarded?”

  “There’ll be some guards,” said the dwarf cautiously. “Not many. Most of the soldiers who’re still standing will be searching people who’re coming out. Didge will know how they’re positioned. What do you have in mind?”

  “I should be going, not you,” said Mute, as Yoko washed her face and looked into the bathroom’s ancient, cloudy mirror. “You’re still not fully healed.”

  The adept shrugged. “I feel better than I look,” she said, examining her cracked and blistered skin critically. She was wearing Leila’s track pants and a T-shirt she’d borrowed from Ratatosk, but had kept her own black armor jacket, wrapping duct tape around the elbows and cuffs to make it look secondhand. Her feet were bare. “And yes, I know that’s not difficult at the moment, and it’s a pity we can’t both go—but they said only two women at a time, and one of them has to be Mish.” She wiped her face and hands on a tiny but rapidly expanding microfiber towel, which she then wrapped around her head like a bandana. She led the way out of the bathroom, then stopped and turned to face Mute. “And I think
Leila’s going to do a better job of creating a diversion. She’s a good actress with a fine pair of lungs, while you don’t like drawing attention to yourself. That’s why you’re called Mute, neh?”

  “It’s short for Mutant. I have twelve toes.”

  “Oh. But since it is your plan ... if you really want to go, I’ll toss you for it.”

  Mute stared at her, then shrugged. “Okay, if you—” The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air into one of the empty bedrooms. She landed on her back on an old army cot, which collapsed under her weight. Before she could move, Yoko was straddling her and had pinned her wrists to the cot.

  “If you go, neither of your guns will be loaded,” said Yoko, her tone mild. “If you reach for a gun instead of a knife, by the time you’ve remembered you have no ammunition someone might have shot you. Or they might have shot Crane, because unlike me, you’re not tall enough for him to hide behind, and then we wouldn’t have a rigger and your plan—and it’s a very good plan—wouldn’t work. Neh?”

  “Wakarimasuka, ” Mute whispered.

  “Good. Let’s go.” She took a step back, helped Mute up, and they walked to the dining hall, where Magnusson, Mish and Crane were waiting. “Everyone ready?” the adept asked.

  Wallace looked at the four people who walked up the ramp and across the rubble to the sidewalk—two well-dressed middle-aged human men, and two elf women who looked as though they’d taken their clothes from a trash can. Lori, standing behind him, inhaled sharply as she peered at them in astral. “What?” Wallace murmured.

  “Three of them are Awakened.” she said. “Two have auras you could read by. And the man on the right is .heavily cybered.”

  “What sort of cyber?”

  “I can’t tell, but it’s all through his body, not just his head. Could be wired reflexes, or skillwires.”

  Wallace nodded, studying the man’s face. He was beardless, his black hair was cut short revealing a widow’s peak and two datajacks, and his cheekbones and nose hinted at Native American ancestry. Apart from that, and a slung Ingram smartgun, he was as devoid of distinguishing features as a custom-made federal agent.