Dead Air

by Jak Koke

  He climbed in and Venny accelerated, rumbling out, heading up old Highway 5. That morning they’d flown into Oakland, then rented the Landrover to take them the rest of the way to Lake Shasta. They traveled north and into the Northern Crescent, that beautiful, disputed territory claimed by both the CalFree government and Tir Tairngire.

  The Landrover wound up into the mountains, among huge evergreen trees flanking the roadway. The old interstate was in need of serious repair in many places, but was clear of fallen trees for the most part. They saw only one or two other vehicles, both of them old pickup trucks packed with shamans or talismongers.

  The shamans of Shasta, or shaman wannabees, had been drawn to this region ever since the dragon, Hestaby, made her emergence—or whatever great dragons do when they suddenly appear. The talismongers merely came here to scavenge the area for magically active souvenirs or trinkets. The area was rumored to be strewn with arcane elements.

  Jonathon rode in silence, not really listening to Synthia and Venny chatter on about shamanism versus hermetic magic, about the nature of astral space. About the metaplanes and initiation.

  Synthia was in teaching mode and Venny loved to learn. The troll with beach blond hair and a surfer goatee was underestimated by many. He had saved Jonathon’s life more than once. Mostly by his prudence and sense of danger. But he could dance with the fastest samurai if he needed to. Jonathon had seen the big troll work out; they’d pumped iron and run together often, but Venny was faster and stronger. Maybe the troll couldn’t perform a triple forward flip on a motorcycle, but Jonathon would always need his help in a fight. And the prospect of fighting seemed extremely likely before this was all over.

  The gypsy camp was in its usual place on the south bank of Lake Shasta near Squaw Creek. They came upon the collage of old cars, junked buses, and tents set among the tall firs and pines next to the lake. The water shone a deep blue, glinting golden where the sun reflected off its surface. Jonathon suddenly envied his life with these people; so carefree and wayward it had been. Why did I leave ?

  He knew the reason as soon as he stepped out of the Landrover and started down toward the gathering of people next to the shore. He recognized each one, and knew their families. He and Tamara had left to explore the world, meet new people, pursue their dreams.

  The people here had given up on fulfilling their dreams, or edited them down so that they could realize them without leaving. He saw the ork family of Gahalp, the dwarven group called Brumington, and from them came a face he hadn’t seen in the flesh since he’d left prison. Not a Brumington face. Not a gypsy face at all. No, this face was the ruddy, black-bearded visage of Theodore Rica.

  Jonathon’s old tactical officer wore a blue-gray business suit that even the most traditional megacorps would accept without a second glance. Theo’s datajacks gleamed on his temple. "Jonathon," the dwarf said. "Good to see you." Theo pushed his small hand into Jonathon’s.

  "Theo, my friend." Jonathon reached down to embrace the dwarf.

  Theodore responded in kind, then stood back and smiled, a little surprised by the gesture of affection.

  "It’s rare in these times to have a true friend," Jonathon said.

  Theo was stunned into silence for a second, then he took a breath. "You look as though you’ve healed well," he said.

  Jonathon sighed. "Not all wounds are on the outside." His voice was barely a whisper.

  Again, Theo was left without a reply. He looked over at the others who’d accompanied Jonathon. "I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure . . ." Theo said, inclining his head toward Synthia, Grids, and Venny.

  "My apologies," Jonathon said, then he introduced them. Afterward, as they continued down through the trees to the edge of the lake—to the funeral pyre—Theo questioned Jonathon about Tamara in the years since prison, when they’d parted ways.

  "Too bad I’ve been so preoccupied with my work," Theo said. "Can you believe it? Theodore Rica promoted to a supervisory position in proactive security for MCT. Me, a convicted felon. Funny, neh!

  Jonathon felt a smile tug at the edges of his mouth despite his mood. "What does pro-active security mean anyway? Are you a corporate spy?"

  "Not exactly," Theo said, laughing. "But I decide who and what security resources go where, based on classified data. A lot of that data is obtained by special ops people."

  "Spies."

  "You scanned it."

  "They give you full control?"

  "I’m a fragging halfer," he said. "Working for MCT, one of the most racist corps." But he was smiling. "Sure, I’ve got full control. A lot of enemies, too, but full control, and as long as I have that, I can deal with the enemies."

  Jonathon was silent, listening to Theo, but not looking at him. Instead he watched Tamara’s body lying atop the stack of dried kindling on the small beach. She was draped in one of her old silk dresses, dyed a rich brown. Jonathon remembered when Anna had dyed the garment.

  Next to the unignited pyre, five or six gypsies danced on a temporary parquet floor, accompanied by guitar and a lamenting and intensely sad song. The beautiful voices hit high tones and drew the anguish out of them, the sound of it nearly bringing water from Jonathon’s eyes.

  Theo tugged on his arm. "Jonathon," he said. "I know her death is hitting you hard. Harder than any of us."

  He paused long enough to get Jonathon to look at him. "If you need anything . . . just punch up my number."

  Theo’s dark eyes were intent, deadly serious. "Anything, Jonathon. I mean that."

  Jonathon held Theo’s gaze. "Thank you."

  Theo reached up to slap Jonathon on the back, then turned to join the crowd. Jonathon went to find Synthia and the others. "I want to see her once more," he said. "And I need to talk to Anna before the fire begins. She still blames me for taking Tamara away from the vista—the clan."

  Synthia had been quiet since they’d left the car, and Jonathon wondered if he’d done the right thing by bringing her along. By bringing anyone. He didn’t want to have to deal with introductions and social convention.

  Synthia gave him a sad smile and nodded. Maybe she was worried about him. Maybe she was bored.

  Jonathon pushed the worry from his mind as he turned away and stepped up to Tamara’s body, resting serenely on the high pile of dry wood. He stood facing down at her and pulled back the brown and black silk scarf that covered her head.

  Her once olive skin was ghostly pale, and her lips were cracked and white. The doctor who’d removed her headware hadn’t done a clean job of replacing her skull; it jutted slightly where the cut had been made.

  "Oh, Tam," Jonathon whispered, his throat a tightened ball. "How did we end up like this?"

  Then he couldn’t hold it any longer; the sobs came from deep in his chest, wracking through him. Tears flowed down his cheeks. Damn.

  He felt an arm encircle his waist. Then another, covered in customary black wool, reached around to replace the silk cloth over Tamara’s face. "Jonathon," came a familiar voice, with an old inflection. "She is with God now. Come."

  Anna led him to a blanket spread in the sand a few steps away, next to the dancers. "Sit," she said.

  "Hello, Anna," Jonathon said, accepting the woman’s embrace. He wiped the tears from his face and paused for several breaths before taking a good look at the woman who’d been his surrogate mother for four years after the fire had taken his real one.

  She was human with black hair, streaked with gray, and the chocolate skin of an Indian. Wide, dark eyes stared into his, and the lines of her face had been etched from smiles instead of frowns. She had gained weight, and it looked good on her, gave her a solidity that her frail frame had lacked before. Everyone knew she could hold her own in an argument, and now she had a bit of mass to help. Jonathon approved.

  "It’s wonderful to see you again, Anna," he said. Then before she could interrupt, he continued. "I’m sorry for taking her away, but you know I couldn’t have stopped her." She put a finger to her lips. "N
o apologies, please. I was wrong to accuse you."

  A wave of relief spread over Jonathon, and his muscles relaxed. He felt tired, more tired than after a hard match. Exhausted.

  Anna supported his weight with her shoulder. "Watch," she said. "The dance has ended and Tamara’s soul will soon be released to God."

  As if on cue, a giant ball of fire erupted from the kindling beneath Tamara’s body. Soon, flames crackled and leapt, ripping away her mortal coil. The flames hissed and snapped, occasionally matching pitch with the static in Jonathon’s head so that as he watched, he imagined that he heard echoes of her whispers in those flames.

  Fatigue weighed upon him like a lead suit. But despite his exhaustion, he knew that Tamara’s soul could not be fully released until the hiss in his head faded. Perhaps killing Dougan Rose would accomplish that. Perhaps geeking Michaelson would. Perhaps nothing would.

  Nothing short of a bullet through his own skull.

  24

  In the parking lot of Long Beach International Airport, Hendrix sat in the driver’s seat of his modified Americar and watched Layla stifle a yawn. Jonathon Winger was scheduled to arrive on the shuttle jet from Oakland, but that should’ve landed a while ago.

  Hendrix and Layla had been sitting in airport parking for nearly two hours, watching and waiting. And as the sun made its inevitable way toward the horizon, Layla had turned on the car’s tiny trideo to pass the time. Now, a brunette biff with glittery gold eye shadow was reading the news.

  "In the aftermath of the bombing at the home of former LA Saber, Tamara Ny, Lone Star is still searching for suspects," the biff said, her voice smooth and melodic.

  "In related news . . . the whereabouts of LA Sabers’ star linebiker, Jonathon Winger, is still unknown, but an unidentified source claims he attended the private funeral of teammate Tamara Ny in the Shasta Lake area of the Northern Crescent today. Coach Kalish of the Sabers had no comment about Winger’s ability to play in the upcoming final match against the New Orleans Buzzsaws for the world championship."

  A clip of a dwarf with a green mohawk and about fifty piercings on his face—ears, nose, cheeks, eyebrow, lip—came on. "Winger’ll show. No pansy-peckered slag could keep ’im from ridin’."

  Then the biff was back with her smooth tones, saying, "Jonathon Winger’s rival, Dougan Rose, also seems to have gone into seclusion. Neither could be reached for comment. Meanwhile, the rivalry between the fans has escalated, resulting in riots across the continent. . ."

  Hendrix tuned it out and focused on Jonathon Winger’s Mitsubishi Nightsky limousine—a sleek black vehicle, sitting in a row of identical limousines. Nothing distinguished Winger’s Nightsky from the others; the only way Hendrix knew they were watching the right one was the number on the license plate. Mole had slashed his way into some CalTrans node to get that data.

  The Nightsky limos rested like black beetles in their patrolled elite parking stalls. They had satellite uplinks and dark tinted glass, plus two sets of rear wheels for an exceptionally smooth ride. It also made them harder to disable.

  "Mole," Hendrix said into his telecom, "can’t you get anything from the security cams inside?"

  "I told you," came the dwarf’s synthesized voice. "No can do. Too risky to crack into. The airport is crawling with black ice. Even though there’s no cred to steal, the big corps don’t like their flight schedules made public, and they pay heavy to keep that drek locked down. Don’t worry, the elf will show, and I’ll wager Grids Desmond is with him."

  "Here’s Juju coming back from the terminal," Layla said, bristling in her seat. She’d been sitting there with that faraway stare that meant she was seeing the mage on the astral plane.

  Hendrix slapped the button on the trid to turn it off. "He’s back? What did he see?"

  "He says Winger just got off the shuttle. Grids is with him, plus a female mage of some power and a big troll who Juju thinks is an adept. The mage wasn’t perceiving astrally, but the troll nearly spotted him."

  "That’d be Venice Jones," Hendrix said. "Winger’s bodyguard. Physical adept, an initiate, according to the scan sheets Mole gave me. He’s going to be tough."

  "Pah!" Layla spat out the car’s open window onto the asphalt.

  "Just remember the objective," Hendrix said. "We track them discreetly, devise a plan of attack, then hit them."

  Earlier, Hendrix had tried to get one of his microburst transmitter pods to attach itself to the underside of the vehicle, but several of the Nightskys had sophisticated proximity alarms that detected the pods and went off, blaring and auto-dialing Knight Errant. Hendrix and Layla had retreated to the far side of the parking garage until the team of cops had left, hopefully under the impression it was a false alarm. Personal-response service from Knight Errant must cost Winger some heavy nuyen.

  So now they’d have to resort to the old fashioned tracking method—following in a car. It was more reliable than using a drone. And besides, Hendrix didn’t trust drones; they could give a distorted picture of things. Distances seemed skewed and sensations like smells and touch were difficult, if not impossible, to get from a drone.

  Besides, even the most stealthy of drones couldn’t blend in as well as their car. It was an old model Americar, modified to be faster and more maneuverable without looking out of place. Plus, Hendrix himself had installed a few choice bits of weaponry.

  "Grids mustn’t get killed," Hendrix said "until we know what he’s done with the simsense recording."

  "What about the others?"

  "Expendable if necessary," Hendrix said. "Especially that mage. I don’t want her around when we hit them. That’s gotta be Synthia Stone, Winger’s girlfriend. She’s an unknown quantity. Without Juju Pete online, we’re vulnerable to magic."

  Layla snorted. "Have it your way."

  After a few minutes, four people who looked, at a glance, like Japanese tourists approached Winger’s limousine. They got in, one of them taking the driver’s seat while the others climbed into the rear compartment.

  "Let’s roll," Layla said, a wide grin on her face. She was happy for some action after the long wait.

  Hendrix fired up the Americar and pulled out, keeping two cars between them and the Nightsky. Layla brought a pair of Ares binox to her eyes. "It’s hard to see through the tinted macroglass," she said, "but I think they’ve dropped the illusion. That was a troil arm that slotted the credstick in the paypole."

  Hendrix merely nodded. Drekking mages, he thought. He hated not having the edge, and without Juju here in the flesh, he and Layla were potentially overmatched. Juju could engage in combat with spirits and astral creatures while projecting astrally, but his ability to affect the physical world was limited.

  They followed the Nightsky up the Cal 405, then onto the Santa Monica freeway. They were three cars back, sandwiched between a Eurovan and a go-ganger wannabee when the limo suddenly accelerated. The sleek black machine leaped forward and swerved across three lanes.

  Hendrix punched the gas, and the engine roared, shooting them into quick pursuit around the Eurovan and into an open lane. That limo wouldn’t be able to outrun them with speed.

  The Nightsky lunged left, then cut right, across two lanes to take a quick exit. Hendrix followed on its tail, pulling the wheel sharply to careen around a Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit before jumping the edge of the exit ramp. They landed firm on the pavement, only seconds behind Winger’s car.

  "Chase in progress," Hendrix told Mole through his head telecom. "Repeat, chase in progress."

  "So much for stealth and guile," Layla said, laughing as she pulled out her laser-sighted Ingram smartgun and slapped in a clip of armor-piercing rounds.

  "I don’t like this," Hendrix said. "But we can’t lose them now. Full frontal. Repeat full frontal. Take them all down if you have to, just leave the simdecker alive."

  "My pleasure," she said, then aimed for the tires and fired a burst.

  "Mole, you copy?"

  "Here."

  "We�
�re engaging the targets. You’re on."

  "I’ve got a couple smartframes active and ready to intercept emergency calls, but I can’t do much about direct-to-satellite connections. Should give you ten, maybe fifteen minutes."

  "Eons," Hendrix said, pressing the button to activate the Vengeance minigun recessed into the Americar’s front grill. The weapon fired seconds later, shaking the whole vehicle as it sprayed sparks up the roadway and off the armored hull of the Nightsky.

  Two of the rear tires went flat, but the limo sped on, screeching around a corner and accelerating down a garbage-strewn street. They were in East Hollywood, the porno district. The area was filled with BTL junkies and cyberwhores, surgically altered to look like Honey Brighton, Maria Mercurial, or anyone you wanted.

  Hendrix kept up easily. The modified Americar was quicker and more maneuverable than the limo. He fired the Vengeance gun again, chewing up the rear of the limo. But most of the rounds went wide as the troll driver swerved back and forth.

  As they hit a straight section of road with no turns, Layla fired her Ingram and flattened one of the remaining rear tires just as the limo tried to pull a quick turn into an alley. The driver cut the corner too sharply, tipping up and sideways. It skidded on its left side, grinding sparks from metal against asphalt, then crashed into a lamppost before slamming back down on all its wheels.

  The streets vacated around them, the residents sensing a fire fight. Some watched from the windows and alleyways as the smell of gunpowder mixed with the stench of human refuse. Others merely shrugged and tried to ignore the scream of the minigun and the rending of twisted metal.

  No one tried to stop it. Happened all the time. People here knew the rules of the street. Get in the way, die. Stay clear, live. Even Lone Star rarely made it down here, and when they did, nothing changed.

  Hendrix readied the minigun for another burst, sighting the plexan-shielded macroglass of the rear window. Perhaps the plexan would hold for a few seconds, but this was a minigun. He fired, rocking the Americar again, hearing Layla curse because it ruined her aim on the driver. Then the sound of the Vengeance gun deafened him, just before his audio limiters cut it off.