Dead Air

by Jak Koke

  Jesse had run away from home, making for Los Angeles in hopes of realizing his dream of becoming a music star. But then he’d been pulled into the turf wars, and by the time Maria showed up, he’d formed Muerte and given up his music.

  Maria later learned that the Aztlani priests had been planning to sacrifice her as soon as she achieved her magical ability. It was a story she’d pieced together from bits and pieces of revelations Teresa let slip over the years. Maria had been one of many magically adept virgins the priests kept under the pretext of apprenticeship. To be sacrificed for the blood magi.

  Maria owed Teresa her life, and her magic. It had been too long since they’d seen each other. "I’ve missed you, mentor," Maria said.

  Teresa smiled. "Me too, child. Me too."

  The moon inched across the sky. "But I come not to visit, I’m afraid."

  "I thought not. What brings you?"

  "I need a medicine lodge tonight," Maria said.

  "Of course." Teresa spoke a few words to the nature spirit. "Carro will let you pass."

  "Thank you."

  "You’re welcome, my child. Perhaps you will come visit me when you have time."

  "I will."

  Teresa’s smile creases deepened. "May Owl fly with you." Then she was gone.

  Maria stepped past Carro, the nature spirit, and into the eucalyptus grove. The air stilled under the trees, and sounds of night creatures disappeared. No small animals would enter this place.

  A rope ladder hung against the trunk of one of the tallest trees, leading up about fifteen meters to a wooden platform. It had been years since Maria had been here. This was where she’d first beaten the Dweller on the Threshold, the first time she’d crossed over to the realm of Owl.

  The platform was triangular and about three meters on a side with no walls. It was high enough in the trees that Maria could see the tiny pinpoints of stars in the sky above. Feathers and twigs lined the edges of the triangle, and the trees supporting it were decorated with dried skins of small mammals—raccoons, mice, rats. The skeletons of crows and snakes and lizards hung in the branches and off the edge of the bier.

  Maria felt instantly at home. She wanted simply to meditate; to cross over and seek out the company of Owl for no other reason than to fly with her and learn. But she had no time for that now. She brought out the items they’d taken from the burned-out apartment.

  The underwear would be their best bet, but even so, she’d have to build the power of the spell to the very edge of her ability. She must not fail, for failure would mean the loss of crucial time. Time and the material link. She wanted to get back to her children. No, failure was unacceptable.

  Maria perched on the platform and steadied her breathing. She focused herself, bringing in the sounds and the sights of the grove. The starry sky above. The deep black below. And when she had achieved focus, she began to channel the currents and eddies of magic toward her, to build the ritual’s strength.

  Time stood still for her. Only the protection of the trees and the swirling, entwining ripples of the spell penetrated her focus.

  And when she was done, when the spell had as much power as she knew how to draw into it, she touched the man’s hair that she’d laid on the wood platform in front of her. And she saw his image in her mind as she slipped into the astral and took flight.

  Flew out across the night, in ever-widening circles. Owl might’ve been with her, just behind her awareness, helping her search. She scanned the astralscape with her senses, her acute hearing, her sensitive night vision.

  She rode the power of the spell as she soared out across the sky. And the spell weakened the farther she got from the medicine lodge. Then, like a flare in a dark cave, she saw him.

  Grids Desmond, mundane human.

  He was in a car, traveling up a hillside somewhere in the sprawl. Maria followed his progress from a distance, for there was an adept with him and she didn’t want to be discovered.

  The human and the adept came to a house. Maria recognized the location easily even though she couldn’t read the exact address. The house was in the Santa Monica Mountains above Hollywood, off of Laurel Canyon Boulevard overlooking downtown.

  There was a mage in the house, seemingly asleep. And someone else with her. Four of them in all.

  When Maria had determined that Grids Desmond was not going to leave the house, she decided to return to the medicine lodge. She didn’t want to tarry, to risk being discovered. She stopped in front of the residence only long enough to memorize the look and feel of the road and the other buildings so she could find it later.

  She came back to her body, exhausted and weak. Her watch read four-twenty in the morning. She climbed down slowly, and made her way out of the grove and back to the landing site. "I know where he is."

  Dougan smiled. "How far?"

  "Close," she said. "Very close."

  30

  Hunger woke Jonathon from a deep sleep, and he found himself in Chico’s kingsize waterbed, snuggled next to Synthia. His stomach grumbled. Damn suprathyroid beast telling me it’s time to feed.

  His eyes opened to a dark room, dim shadows reflecting off the mirrored ceiling. Distant sounds of the city drifted in on the warm breeze coming through the open screen door. Careful not to wake Synthia, he slipped from the bed and walked, naked, up the half flight of shag-covered stairs and into the kitchen.

  As he walked, the jagged crackle in his brain faded into his awareness once again. Always there. Though it had let him sleep untroubled for a few hours. His headclock read 03:55:34 am.

  The kitchen matched the decor perfectly; even in the dim light Jonathon could see the avocado and gold flooring, the matching appliances and counter top. A full refrigerator said that Venice Jones had returned. Jonathon grabbed a can of Prohydrate liquid energy, and popped the top.

  Gulping the thick brew, he made his way back downstairs for a quick check of the other bedrooms. Both Venny and Grids were asleep in separate rooms, just down the hall from Synthia. Nobody is keeping watch. Would Venny leave us unprotected?

  He suspected not, and he searched with his headware for a signal. Sure enough, his vehicle control rig detected the Eurocar Westwind, outside and ready for remote rigging. The Westwind’s dog brain indicated to Jonathon that one of its drones, the AeroDesign Condor surveillance craft, had been launched. The other drone—a CyberSpace Designs Stealth Sniper in the trunk—remained at ready.

  Jonathon took another gulp of the thick, vanilla-flavored liquid and mentally switched to the Condor’s frequency.

  Suddenly he was floating high above the house, a sensor pod hanging below a huge helium-filled balloon, held in position by electric turbo fans. His eyes were sensitive holo-cameras, and his ears were algorithm-enhanced microphones. The night was as bright as day through the low-light and thermographic sensors; he zoomed in on the exterior of Chico’s house.

  The Westwind sat behind the Nightsky limousine in the driveway. The Nightsky’s tires had been repaired, he noticed, but the rear window still gaped like a jaggedtoothed mouth. The heat-vision highlighted the engine of the Westwind, and the house glowed a cool blue, with strips of yellow leaking out around the windows.

  Everything was peaceful and quiet. As it should be. As he hoped it would stay long enough for them to do what they needed to do here. Good.

  Venny had set the drone to autopilot, to maintain continuous surveillance of Chico’s property. It was to notify him if any large animals (including people) appeared outside the building. The balloon’s power cell had plenty of energy to last until daybreak when the solar panels would recharge it.

  Jonathon released control back to the autopilot. Then he made his way back to the kitchen, taking another gulp of his Prohydrate. They were safe for the moment. It was time to make a plan.

  A plan to discover the connection between Dougan Rose and Andreas Michaelson. Then take the next logical step. Killing everyone responsible for Tamara’s death.

  Tamara’s ghost requi
red no less.

  A tide of fatigue washed over Jonathon. And then a wave of disappointment in Dougan—his childhood idol—the man who was now his arch rival, according to the trid reporters and the newsfaxes. Jonathon had been in awe of Dougan Rose for years, admiring his awesome moves and ruthless fighting tactics, and wishing all the while—desperately wanting—to be just like him.

  Jonathan crushed the Prohydrate can in his hand. All that time his admiration was misdirected. Dougan might be a great linebiker, but he was also a thug. Nothing more than a murderer.

  He’s not larger than life, Jonathon thought. He’s small. And that was a disappointing thought.

  Once Dougan was dead, Michaelson would be next. The S-K exec would probably be even harder to get to. And connecting him to Tamara would require the help of a drek-hot decker. Yeah. Jonathon would have to hire some shadowrunners. A fragging brilliant idea! he told himself. But where ?

  Then suddenly he realized he knew where to contact runners. The Fixx.

  He pulled another Prohydrate can from the fridge and walked toward the bathroom as he thought about it some more. He sat on the toilet and sipped his drink. The Fixx was a place as well as an event—a sort of continual party for shadowrunners, hosted by Dexter Hemmingway—a paranoid ex-military type with nuyen out the wazoo.

  Hemmingway was not a fixer, nor a shadowrunner of any kind, except in his own mind. He was a shadowrunner wannabee; he didn’t run any shadows himself, but he liked keeping tabs on the shadow community. The party at Hemmingway’s fortress at the old LAX airport never stopped. Hemmingway had the nuyen to blow and he liked the company of shadowrunners, even though he never left the safety of his fortress. The Fixx had become a constant in the LA sprawl.

  All they had to do was get inside. And with Venny’s help, Jonathon didn’t think it would be too much of a problem.

  Jonathon downed the last of his drink and was reaching for the toilet paper when he heard the Condor’s alarm go off. Something was approaching the house. Fragging-A! he thought, I’m naked and sitting on the drekker.

  He concentrated to bring calm, then picked up the Condor’s signal and switched to remote rigging so he was now looking down on the house. He focused in quickly, and noticed several people-sized heat signatures crawling along the outside deck by the pool. Seemed to be about four, but they were invisible to the low-light cameras.

  Magic.

  Jonathon finished with the toilet paper and stood, contacting the Westwind to give it the launch command for the Stealth Sniper. The Condor was only a surveillance drone and did not mount any weapons. The Sniper, though, was another story.

  As the drone went through its launch sequence, Jonathon ran down the shag-carpeted stairs calling out, "Venny! Intruders, intruders! I saw four of them coming through from the pool patio. One must be a mage; they’re cloaked by some sort of invisibility spell."

  No answer.

  The Sniper drone’s autopilot informed Jonathon that it was in flight and hovering in near silence, waiting for him to take control.

  "Venny?" Jonathon reached the troll’s room and stuck his head in.

  Still no answer.

  A huge, rough hand pulled Jonathan off his feet. "Quiet," rasped the big troll as he pulled Jonathon into the room with one smooth motion. "You’ll give us away." Grids was sitting on the bed, looking dazed and pumped full of painkillers. He was awkwardly holding a huge Colt Manhunter as if he could barely lift it. Synthia was nowhere to be seen. Jonathon whispered, "Have you woken Syn?"

  Venny shook his head, and Jonathon started to move back into the hall to get her when a barrage of automatic gunfire suddenly blew out the windows down the hall. "Frag!" Jonathon yelled as more glass crashed down amid the chatter of machine guns. "Synthia, wake up! Get down on the fragging floor!"

  Venny’s hand clamped down on Jonathon’s shoulder as he tried to lunge into the hallway. "You stay here," he said. "I’ll go. You rig the drones. I can’t do that."

  Jonathon nodded, then crawled into a corner, trying to hide behind a huge orange beanbag chair as Venny clicked into hypersense mode. Jonathon concentrated as the troll checked the hall with the aid of a small mirror. Then Venny plunged into the hall with his Uzi III and was gone.

  Jonathon remote-interfaced with the Sniper and became a sleek beetle, about a half-meter long, with a rotating set of turbines that kept him in the air. The world was warped through the Sniper’s cameras, flattened and focused forward. He moved silently forward, hearing the sound of guns and screaming voices through the Sniper’s pickup mikes.

  As the Sniper flew in rushed silence to a position just off the patio, Jonathon quickly switched to the Condor to see where the intruders had gone. High above, looking down with clarity and perfect hearing, he saw only heat signatures huddled against the sliding glass door.

  His awareness came back to the room. "Two are outside," he whispered. "The others must be—"

  Before he could finish, an explosion shook the house, a flash of red lighting the walls and etching shadows on Grids’s frightened features. Then a wave of heat and smoke rolled through the hallway.

  Grids ducked behind the bed, fumbling with his pistol.

  Jonathon popped his awareness back into the Sniper, hovering off the edge of the patio. He readied the sniping gun, a silenced Barret 121-like weapon with a 24-round armor-piercing clip. Once the mounted weapon was activated, Jonathan saw a target superimposed on the view in front of him.

  He targeted one of the heat signatures and opened up, the single-shot weapon giving off a muffled spitting sound as it fired.

  The bullet was on target, but was deflected at the last second by an invisible magical barrier. Frag! Jonathon fired again, moving the drone as the gun coughed a second time.

  One of the runners fired a shotgun blast into the space where he had been. Missed.

  And Jonathon’s armor-piercing round hit home this time, passing clear through the runner’s shoulder and shattering the glass door behind him. Jonathon circled up and around as the shotgun went off again. Way off the mark.

  Jonathon targeted and fired once more, but in the split second before the gun went off, a massive shape appeared between the Sniper and the two people. It was a towering monstrosity made of metal and concrete. The round was lost in the hard flesh of the summoned creature.

  He moved again and continued to fire at the pair, hitting the wounded one once more before forcing them both to duck inside. They tried to see him, but couldn’t make out the matte black beetle-shape in the dark. The house behind them was burning, flames shooting from the bedroom window where he and Synthia had slept.

  Syn?

  Bringing the Sniper around to the side, Jonathan tried to focus through the sliding glass doors, but he couldn’t see through the orange flames. Then someone was shaking his meat body, and he barely had the time to click the drone to autopilot before Venny lifted him to his feet.

  "We’ve gotta get out," the troll said, wrapping the duster around Jonathon. "The place is going to burn."

  Jonathon nodded. "Did you get Syn?" he asked.

  "I’m here," came Synthia’s voice, sounding tired. All she had on was one of Venny’s huge tuxedo shirts, which came down to her knees. "I’m a little shook up, but that’s about all."

  "You take the lead," Venny said. "Take Synthia and Grids in the limo. I’ll follow you in the Westwind."

  Jonathon nodded quickly, then he pulled his Predator II and glanced into the hall.

  Nothing but the hungry tongues of fire lapping at the dry wood.

  He took two seconds to switch into the Condor’s aerial view, checking the path from the front door to the car. Nobody, but he did see three figures rappelling down some ropes from the pool patio to the ground below.

  "Let’s go," he said, then he was running through the smoke and the fire. Up the stairs and across the living room, then out through the front door and down the flagstone path to the drive. He jumped into the driver’s seat of the limo and jacke
d in.

  Next came Grids and Synthia, panting and struggling to keep up. Then Venny sprang from the burning building, sprinting at an unreal speed. Grids and Synthia jumped into the Nightsky’s cabin and pulled the door shut behind them as Jonathon accelerated down the drive and away.

  Venny drew up behind him in the Westwind, and soon they were heading back down into the brown smog of the sprawl. The troll’s face appeared on the limo’s telecom. "Where to?" he asked.

  Jonathon thought for a second. "The Fixx," he said.

  "Hemmingway’s?" Venny asked.

  "Dexter is a part-owner of the LA Sabers. He knows me, likes me even. He might help us out."

  The troll nodded. "Sounds primo, chummer. The Fixx is a better place than most for what I think we’re about to do."

  Jonathon breathed a sigh. He was naked except for his duster, which no longer looked too new; it was taking on the look of the genuine article. Well, he thought, they certainly won’t have any problem searching my body for weapons.

  31

  Michaelson couldn’t sleep. He lay, fully clothed, on his unmussed bed and stared, wide-eyed, at the plaster ceiling. Thinking about his last conversation with Cinnamon and the upcoming events. Events that would change his life forever.

  He recalled Cinnamon’s beautiful face. Her brown eyes narrowing, the smooth white skin around the edges of her mouth crinkling as she frowned. "Moving the extraction to tonight creates some enormous problems," she told him, tossing her golden hair. "The runners I’ve hired are on another job. Plus I have yet to arrange for an appropriate hiding place."

  Cinnamon did not have to elaborate on that last. Michaelson had heard tales that Lofwyr kept tissue samples of his high-ranking employees in magical stasis. Samples that could be used to locate or destroy their donors by ritual magic. Insurance against defection.

  The original plan was for Cinnamon’s team to get Michaelson out, then immediately make the transfer to MCT and their heavy security. Mitsuhama should have the capability to protect him. If he had to wait a day with Cinnamon, he’d be vulnerable.