[Shadowrun 05] - Changeling

by Chris Kubasic - (ebook by Undead)

  The gun fell onto the slab of ice. Peter grabbed it.

  “Peter,” he heard Eddy gasp. Peter looked around and saw Eddy floating with just his face out of the water. When he exhaled, small streams of water blew out of his mouth.

  Peter swam over to Eddy. He saw that his friend’s face was horribly burned; good flesh torn and scorched. His eyes were glazed over. He continued calling for Peter as if the two of them were still far away from each other.

  Peter dragged Eddy through the river with his left arm, and kept the gun in his right hand in case anyone else was around to cause them trouble.

  When he reached the south side of the river, he pushed Eddy up onto the cement walkway, and then dragged himself up.

  “Eddy? Eddy?”

  Eddy began to shake violently, then his eyes opened. They stood out in strong contrast to the charred black skin of his face. Peter could see thin silver wires, now revealed to the world.

  “Come on,” Peter said. He shoved the gun into the top of his pants and leaned down to pick Eddy up. “We got to get to Breena.”

  “No.”

  “Shhh.”

  “No, Peter. Peter. Peter. I’m all messed messed up. I don’t want to live no more.”

  “Quiet.” Peter lifted Eddy and carried him toward the stairs.

  “No. No. I’m all messed up. I’m tired. But I fixed it. I told them you geeked the slot.” He laughed and coughed water up. “Sorry.”

  “Shhh.”

  “You geeked geeked her. I didn’t tell about your friends. I just said I knew knew knew where the lab-coat was. They they said if I found found him, they’d get me fixed.”

  “Fixed?”

  “They got an operation now. They can fix fix fix my nerves. I can get fixed.”

  “Eddy. They… No. We can’t do that yet. We don’t know how half the brain works. They lied to you.”

  Eddy turned his face away from Peter.

  “Don’t worry about it. Breena will fix you. You’ll be as good—”

  Eddy’s voice cracked as he spoke. “No. No. I wish I were like you. You.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m a troll.”

  “But you know things. You made things happen. I’m just used used.”

  “I didn’t make anything happen.”

  “Yes. Yes you did. You said you wanted to find out how to to be human. Human. And you did. The suit said you did. I heard her. You did it, Peter.” Peter held Eddy a bit closer. “All these things happened to to to me. To me. I didn’t know why. You know why. You got it all figured out.”

  “No. No I don’t,” Peter whispered.

  “Peter, I can’t stand being alive anymore. Please please kill me.”

  Peter stared down at Eddy in amazement. “No!”

  “But I razzed you. Twice. I can’t even trust myself. I’ll do anything anything to feel like I’m in control. I can’t stand stand it. I want to die.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “I got to tell you something.”

  “All right.”

  “But first, you got to tell me… Are you angry angry angry about going with the mob? I mean, I know you want to go straight now. Do you wish it never happened?”

  Peter thought of the ork family. “It got me through my life. It got me to here, and now I can do something else.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t regret it.”

  Eddy moved his hand around and placed it on Peter’s chest. With an enormous effort he turned toward Peter. “Good. Good. Peter, remember those cops on the lake? When we first met?” Peter nodded. “I set that up.”

  Peter stopped walking.

  “I set that up. I wanted to work with you. You had something. I could see it. But I knew you’d get chewed up without help. I wanted to help you. And and and you did your research, right? That’s good, right?”

  Peter found his mind was a blank slate, clean of all ideas and comprehension. “I don’t know what to say, Eddy.”

  “Say you’ll you’ll you’ll remember me for how I helped you, not how I turned turned turned on you.”

  And before Peter knew it, Eddy had slipped his hand down to the gun, grabbed it, and brought it up to his chin.

  “No!” Peter screamed.

  Eddy pulled the trigger.

  30

  Kathryn rose up from her seat on the couch when Peter stepped through the apartment door. First she looked him up and down, then she looked into his face. “What happened?” Her concern made him want to cry.

  He was afraid to talk about it. “Um, where are Breena and Liaison?”

  “Packing. They say we’ve got to get out of here right away.”

  “No. We don’t.” A chill settled into him as he stood in the doorway. He began to shake.

  “You’ve got to get out of those clothes.”

  As she headed toward the bathroom to get some towels, Breena entered carrying a well-worn vinyl knapsack. “Recognize this code?” she asked, and pointed to the display on the telecom.

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “DO YOU RECOGNIZE THE NUMBER?”

  He stepped over to the telecom and looked down. The display listed a telecom code and the time the call had been made. Peter recognized the number as the code of The Crew. The call had been made about thirty minutes ago.

  “Yeah.”

  “Whose number?”

  “My former boss. In the Itami gang.”

  “He knows where we are,” said Breena tonelessly.

  “No. Eddy didn’t tell him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I spoke with him.”

  “Oh, and then you let the little rat go again?”

  “He killed himself.” Peter realized that Kathryn was in the doorway, holding a stack of towels. He calmed himself and continued. “He’s dead. The hoods are dead. All he told them was where Clarris was. He didn’t tell them about you, me. He told them Kathryn was dead. He just wanted to get back on their good side, so he gave them information he didn’t think would hurt me.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Kathryn. He kept his gaze away from her.

  Breena wasn’t having any of it. “And you believed him?”

  He took a fierce step forward, towering over her. “Yes. I believed him. Now, if you want to run, that’s fine. But there’s no need. He didn’t reveal anything about this place. I’m sure of it.”

  Liaison had come in and was standing next to Kathryn.

  “What’s up?”

  “The Prof’s friend told the Itami gang where Clarris is.” She turned to Peter. “I assume that means they want him, too. And they’ll go get him.”

  “Look,” said Liaison, wandering into the center of the room, and turning around to address everyone, “I know I’m pretty slow on some of this human interaction stuff, but could you guys humor me for a minute?”

  Peter couldn’t help but smile. “What?”

  “Kathryn,” she said, her tone somewhat exasperated, “you just said before you don’t need to find this lab-coat. You don’t want the operation after all. Still true?”

  Kathryn nodded.

  “And Profezzur, I never did figure what you were getting out of this, but do you need him?”

  Peter thought of the My Cure chips sitting behind the plant. “I’d like to see him, yes.”

  Breena threw up her arms. “Like…!”

  Liaison raised her hands and silenced her lover. “How important is it to you?”

  Peter thought of Eddy dead in his arms, now buried in the Chicago River. And Thomas, dead in the Shattergraves. Landsgate a ghoul. Jenkins. Jenkins. Jenkins. So many people dead already. His need to show his father his work paled against the lives lost. And yet so many years of work… Even his father was obsessed with it, willing to break his contract with Cell Works just so he could keep searching for a way to stop people from being born metahuman. Did Peter need to see that man?

  His gaze lighted upon Kathryn’s face. So beautiful, str
ong. Slotted up, but still wonderful. “No.” He surprised himself. It wasn’t just because he’d found a friend in Kathryn or because of the grief for those who had fallen, but everything. The sum total of his life thus far. Looking back on it, it seemed more man enough to stand on its own. “No,” he said again, and laughed. He felt tears welling up in his eyes and suppressed them. “No, I don’t need to see him.” A lightness filled his chest. He looked at Kathryn. Her smile grew slowly, full of pride and pleasure.

  “Then what’s it matter what the Itami gang is up to? We’re done. It’s all over.”

  Peter felt a slow snake of relief work its way up his spine. Could it be over? Was he finally released to wander through life without the past clinging to his shoulders?

  “No,” said Kathryn. “Not quite. There’s one more thing. I don’t want him for the operation. That I’ve resolved. But I want my position at Cell Works back. Itami wants Dr. Clarris so Garner can bring him back as a prize. I want him for the same reason.”

  “Oh,” said Liaison, her face slack for a moment. Then she smiled with clear understanding. “So ka. Let’s do it.”

  “Wait a minute, Kathryn. There are some problems,” said Peter. “First, Garner dug up data on you, and then so did Itami. It won’t be enough for you to get Clarris. The gang will turn everything over to the board. They’ll bleed you.”

  “Then I’ll need something to prevent them from doing that.”

  Peter stroked his chin. “Oh, that’ll be tough. Wait a minute! The reason they’ve got you is because they’ve got records of you helping Clarris escape and then hiring your own shadowrunners to find him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Garner is their stress point at Cell Works. If we get data on him—specifically, get his ties with the gang, then all the data cancels out. We blackmail them on that end. They flash their LEDs, we flash ours. I’m sure Liaison could help us in such a venture.” Liaison blushed.

  “Maybe,” said Breena, starting to pace, slowly getting drawn into the logistics, “But if Red here really did help the doc escape—I assume the doc knows this?”

  “Yes. We discussed it in detail.”

  “When he’s dragged in to Cell Works, whether you get him or Itami, he’s going to download and send you packing.”

  “Unless,” said Peter, “he had a reason to lie.”

  Kathryn nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “What would that be?” Breena asked.

  Peter shook a finger at Kathryn, suddenly very excited. “He was probably as surprised that he didn’t end up at Fuchi as you were, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this was ail a plan. He was supposed to be able to keep in contact with you.” Kathryn nodded. “He probably hasn’t had the opportunity at ABTech, but if you were to make contact with him, he’d listen.”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  Peter rhythmically clapped his hands together. “All right. I think I’ve got a plan.”

  “Are you going to be drunk again?” asked Liaison with a smile. Apparently she’d liked that shag at Crusader.

  “No. A very sober scientist. Just like Breena suggested earlier.” He walked over to Kathryn and took the towels from her. “Liaison, you work with Kathryn tonight. You two track down every bit of electronic data that Garner might have lying around. Stuff at the office, on his home computer, anything you can deck into. And you get that personal information for Breena’s spell. And Breena, can you do an astral check on ABT?” She gave him a look. “If you think you should.”

  “Won’t do me any good. If they’re slotting around with fetuses inside of grieving women, the background count there won’t let me see a fragging thing, that I’m sure of. But I can get the spell set,” said Breena. “What about you?”

  “Me?” said Peter, walking off to the bathroom to dry off. “I’m going to make a special present for Dr. Clarris.”

  Liaison jacked into the Matrix, armed with the Cell Works passwords and data about Garner that Kathryn had given her. They giggled like schoolgirls as they ripped through his private and illegal dealings. Then Liaison was off to France to dig up ID on a tall scientist from Geneering.

  Breena gathered her supplies, then called Zoze for some transport and some slick shadowrunners. When her tasks were complete, she went to sleep. She wanted to be well-rested when the time came to cast the spell.

  Peter borrowed Breena’s portable and slipped in a My Cure disk and spent the night typing. The work made him giddy, and every once in a while his laughter was louder than Kathryn’s and Liaison’s.

  He felt a hand against his face, and he thought for a moment it was his father.

  When he looked up, it was Kathryn smiling down at him.

  “Morning,” she said.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “Exactly. That’s the wonder of it.”

  She laughed.

  He pulled himself off the floor, very sore and stiff. “How’d you two make out?”

  “Wonderfully. I can see why Itami picked Garner. He’s ambitious enough to be everywhere, but clumsy enough to be controllable.”

  “And the letter?”

  “Just finished sending it.”

  Breena sat on the floor behind him, pouring some powder from a leather pouch into a silver bowl. “I did an astral check on ABTech when I woke up. It’s just as I thought. The place is crawling with horror. I ducked back without even going into the place. If they got mages, they’re a dark bunch.”

  Liaison sat on the couch, legs tucked under her. “I was just in the Matrix a minute ago. No word yet of anything gone haywire at ABTech.” She held out a small walkie-talkie. “Here. You can use this to contact me if you need me in there.”

  “Will you have to drop the illusion if the run gets hosed? I’ve heard about the astral link between the spell-caster and the spell…”

  “I’d rather keep you under disguise,” said Breena. “And in that place—there’s no way they’d trace the link at first. It’s like trying to see inside of Lake Michigan. As long as you’re out of there fast when the shooting starts, everything will be all right. Well, Binky, ready to be pure human?”

  Peter glanced at Kathryn and found her looking at him. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw disappointment in her eyes, as if she didn’t want to see him as anything but a troll. “Yes, I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

  Breena picked up a color fax print with the image of a man’s face on it. Thomas Waxman. She pressed her fingers into the silver bowl and then raked the powder over the fax. Then she held her fingers above the fax, which she kept horizontal with the ground to keep the powder on the paper, and spoke a few words so softly that Peter could not hear them.

  Electricity formed around her fingers. The powder jumped off the fax and up to her fingers, then back and forth between the paper and Breena’s hand.

  The light dazzled Peter. He thought of his plunge off the bridge and of falling through life. He saw the magic before him in a different light than he had before. Before it had been a tool, a strange tool, but no more than a tool.

  Now he realized he didn’t really know at all what it had to offer. How did it really mix with the way the body was built? Cutting himself off from the magic of the world was an option, but too easy.

  As he watched the light grow brighter around Breena’s hand, he thought of the cells in her fingers, the DNA within the cells, the magic genes along the DNA. Genes that let her tap into the way of the world in a manner forgotten for a very long time, if, indeed, magic had ever existed before. The magic let her connect directly with the world. Magic was not a tool. It was the thing that joined flesh to the air, and through the air to the powder. And to everything.

  The differences between objects, people, broke down. And then the differences were built back up. Not through power over each other, but through the individual patterns drawn on identical templates.

  The powder gathered in the light a
nd floated around her hand. She turned to Peter and said, “Bend down.”

  He did so, and she gently touched her fingertips to his face.

  The sensation startled him.

  He closed his eyes, for he thought he might laugh or cry. He did neither, fearing either one might ruin the magic.

  In his dazed state all Peter could think was “Of course!” as if a secret truth had been revealed to him, the exact nature of which stayed in a corner of his mind, just out of reach and full comprehension.

  He felt Breena pull away from him, but the sensations stayed. The odd feeling passed down his neck, along his chest, and down his legs.

  And then Breena cried out.

  Peter opened his eyes and looked down at her. She sat doubled over on the floor. Liaison rushed to her side and put her arms around Breena’s shoulders. “There, there,” she said, and kissed Breena’s forehead.

  “What? What is it?” asked Peter.

  “There’s a backlash sometimes,” said Liaison. “Spells don’t always work right.”

  He turned toward a mirror that hung on the wall. He still saw himself, but the image of another person flickered over him. The second man was more than two meters tall and had receding sandy blond hair. He wore a very classy suit.

  The image was handsome. But Peter didn’t think ft was him. The troll in the mirror—that was him.

  “It keeps flickering. Didn’t it work?”

  “I see it, too,” said Kathryn.

  “Same as the invisibility,” Liaison said quietly, still holding Breena. “You know what the truth is, so the illusion doesn’t hold. Profezzur’s not really different. How we see him has changed. But it should work just fine for people who have no reason to be suspicious. It’ll even fool cameras. It just took a lot out of Breena.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  “I think so. It’s always hard to tell. But you better go. She’s going to have to keep focusing on the spell to keep it going. It’s going to drain her…”