Dead Air

by Jak Koke

  Lofwyr would find him and take him back. Or perhaps kill him outright.

  Michaelson had pleaded with Cinnamon. "I’m about to be discovered," he said. "I’ll pay whatever you ask, just get me out of here."

  "I must remind you that this line may not be fully secure."

  "It’s too late to worry about that, isn’t it?" he told her.

  Cinnamon frowned. "Let me make some calls. The cost is double what we agreed upon originally." She paused as if to give him the chance to object.

  He simply nodded.

  "You will not hear from me until just before I want you to move." She disconnected.

  * * *

  Now, five hours later, Michaelson sat up on the bed. He was fully clothed in his midnight blue pinstriped Zoe suit. On his desk, his briefcase was packed and ready. He told the lights to come on, then walked to the wet bar in the living room and poured himself a tall glass of ice water. The cold, clean liquid was the best water Claudio could find. Very expensive in this part of the world. But worth every drop.

  "You’re up quite late, aren’t you, Andreas?" The voice came from near the door, smooth and congenial.

  Michaelson jumped, spilling water down his front. What the frag?

  "Oh, did I startle you?"

  Michaelson turned to see Hans Brackhaus standing in the doorway. Brackhaus was a handsome human, moderately built and with black hair, blue eyes, and smooth white skin. His features were Germanic, the jaw strong, the nose straight and thin. The suit he wore matched the deep blue of his eyes exactly.

  Michaelson’s heart leapt into his throat, and for several seconds he couldn’t speak.

  Brackhaus strolled down the two short steps into the sunken living room and across the carpeting, his hand extended in greeting. "It is good to see you, Andreas."

  "Hans," Michaelson said, shaking the other man’s hand. Then he took a towel from the bar and dabbed at the water stain on his shirt. "What a surprise. What brings you here in the middle of the night?"

  "Urgent business, I’m afraid. You’re needed in Essen as soon as possible."

  "In Essen? But I haven’t finished evaluating the Magus Project. The scientists at Magenics are on the verge of some big breakthroughs, I think. But I’ve got several more days of work at least."

  Brackhaus shook his head. "I hate to be the bearer of ill tidings," he said, "but my orders come from on high, Lofwyr himself. I am to take over the Magus Project until you can return."

  The man’s blue eyes bored holes into Michaelson despite his congenial demeanor. "So, pack up right away. Just the essentials; the helo will take you to the airport in an hour. Claudio can follow in the morning with the rest of your things."

  Brackhaus paused, but didn’t release Michaelson’s gaze. "Oh, and I’ll need everything you have on the Magus Project."

  Michaelson nodded. What choice did he have but to consent? He walked to his desk and gathered up his briefcase. Then he went back into the living room and sat down, clicking the case open on the cherrywood coffee table.

  The Magus File hardcopy rested inside its binder. It was an Alpha-level security document, and only three copies existed—all of them on paper. Still, he couldn’t believe that Brackhaus didn’t have his own.

  "Thank you, Andreas." Brackhaus reached into the briefcase and took the magnetic binder. He punched in the access code to open it up. "Hurry," he told Michaelson, glancing at his old-fashioned wristwatch. "You only have fifty-five minutes now."

  And as Michaelson turned to walk back into the bedroom, hoping beyond hope that Cinnamon’s plan would somehow be able to get him out of this, brilliant orange light flashed behind him, reflecting red against the walls. He heard a searing crackle, like fire.

  He spun to see what had happened.

  Brackhaus held the smoking remains of the Magus File binder in his hand. Gray smoke wisped up from the blackened ash remnants of the pages that had fallen from the binder to the floor.

  Magic fire? Or... or something else?

  Brackhaus reached out to shut the lid of Michaelson’s briefcase. "The Magus File," he said, "is too sensitive to carry on a public suborbital, and we didn’t have time to get a company jet for you." The dark-haired man stood and brushed his hands together as if to remove the ashes, though Michaelson could see no black smudges or gray flakes.

  Then he realized he was just standing there, his mouth agape. Brackhaus must know, he thought. He must suspect I plan to defect. Frag me, the best I can do now is play along, do as I’m told and hope for mercy.

  His hope was faint; everyone knew that mercy flowed like a glacier from the cold heart of the dragon.

  32

  Maria wiped sweat from her brow and climbed into the GMC Bulldog stepvan that Dougan had brought up from his condo in Laguna Beach. The van was a black delivery truck that Dougan had modified to carry his dirt-biking equipment. Wide and squat, with double doors on the side, it was perfect for shadowrunning.

  Behind Maria, Maurice let Bob Henry’s body down from his shoulder to the floor of the stepvan, laying the huge man’s dead mass as gently as he could. "I’m gonna pop that elf, but good," Maurice said, mostly to himself. He’d been mumbling about how many different ways he was going to geek Jonathon Winger. "It was him, I know it. Had to be, rigging a fragging drone or some drek like that."

  Dougan was outside collapsing the Nightgliders and packing them into the back of the stepvan. Showing no emotion, no remorse. All biz.

  Bob Henry was dead, cold flesh. His aura gone.

  Maria had tried to heal him after he took two hits from an unknown, unseen sniper, but one of the bullets had passed through his neck and spine. His heart had stopped, his breathing erratic.

  Bob Henry’s death was just beginning to register for Maria. The hit on Grids Desmond and his associates had been a fragging disaster. Somehow, Grids and company had seen through Owl’s cloak of invisibility; they’d been warned and ready.

  The run that Dougan had claimed would be easy was turning out to be a nightmare. They still hadn’t gotten the chip, had nothing that would appease Luc Tashika—the man who could reveal their criminal involvement in the so-called Lost Election. Tashika could destroy Maria’s life. Put her in jail. Away from her children.

  I won’t let that happen, she told herself. I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent it. She had never met Luc Tashika and she already hated him. She hated him for what he was making her do, for bringing her past back to haunt her.

  When Dougan was finished packing, he took the driver’s seat. "Ready?" he asked.

  "What now?" Maria said.

  "First," Dougan said, "we get rid of Bob Henry’s body."

  "Then I kill Jonathon Winger," interrupted Maurice.

  Dougan smiled. "You might get that chance," he said. "I have a plan to get Winger to come to us with the information."

  "Then we shouldn’t have to kill him," Maria said.

  Dougan glanced at her. "That’s right, we shouldn’t, under ideal circumstances. But we might. He’s dangerous and we’ve got to be ready to use lethal force if necessary." Dougan stared hard into Maria’s eyes. "Can you do that?" he asked. "If we have to?"

  Maria didn’t have to think about it. She hated killing, but she would kill to save her children. If it came down to that.

  "Of course, I can kill when I must," she said. But it wasn’t Jonathon Winger she was thinking about, it was Luc Tashika. He was the one she wanted dead.

  33

  Jonathon wound the limo along the twists and curves of Laurel Canyon, heading down to Sunset Boulevard and the strip, which was still packed with tourists and night partiers out for a wiz time. Synthia and Grids sat in the back, sullen and quiet.

  In the rearview mirror, Jonathon caught glimpses of the two. Synthia’s arms wrapped around herself, clutching Venny’s huge white tux shirt as if it could warm her. Grids still wore his black jeans, but he’d replaced the black Mickey Mouse shirt with a cleaner white one. No blood on it, though Jonathon notic
ed black smoke stains on his chest, and he could make out the bandage on his bullet wound underneath. Grids had never really come fully awake, and Synthia was lost in thought.

  Earlier, they’d stopped by the side of the road for a few minutes while Jonathon remote-piloted the two drones they’d left behind. The Condor turned up no sign of their attacker, but Jonathon could see Chico’s house burning down below like a giant bonfire. Sorry, Chico, he thought. I’ll make it up to you if you ever get out of Aztlan.

  Then he scanned the whole area. Finding no one in close pursuit, he told the autopilot of each craft to fly to his position. And when they landed, Venny helped him pack the two drones into the Westwind’s storage compartment. Afterward, they’d resumed their drive to Hemmingway’s.

  Now, Jonathon accelerated up onto the 405, heading south toward the old LAX. They drove in silence for almost half an hour before Synthia looked up. "You know, those were different runners than the first ones," she said. "This bunch had a shaman—a second-or third-grade initiate. Maybe higher."

  "Of course they were different," Grids said. "You destroyed the first group."

  Jonathon and Synthia both laughed.

  "What?"

  "You’ve been chipping too many action sims," Jonathon said.

  Synthia spoke, "My hellblasts might’ve wounded them, but I was targeting the car. So we could get away. I know the black fragger isn’t hurt, and the blond, she was some sort of adept, I think. We might’ve slowed them down, but they’ll be back. And if they find us . . ."

  Grids’s voice was hoarse. "They were after me," he said. "They must know about the chip and are trying to kill me because of it."

  Jonathon shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "They could’ve killed us all with another pulse of that minigun. I think hitting you was an accident. They were obviously professionals. If they wanted us dead, they wouldn’t have followed us, they’d have killed us outright.

  "They probably know about the chip, but don’t know where it is. They need us alive so they can force us to tell them how to find it." Jonathon took the old LAX off-ramp, weaving in and out of the CalTrans barricades and the signs releasing the Free City of Los Angeles from liability.

  "Entering the Coastal Restricted Area," Synthia said, looking through the glass. "Where only the deranged and insane go in the middle of the night without a corporate army."

  After they were past the barricades, Jonathon accelerated onto the dark freeway and tried to catch the shadow of Synthia’s face in the rearview mirror. "Do you think it was the shaman who found us?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Had to be," she said. "How else?"

  "So we have two separate groups of shadowrunners after us . . . why?"

  Neither Grids nor Synthia could answer that. "Not enough data," said Grids.

  "Speaking of data ... Did you get a chance to check if your smartframe—Goofy—managed to translate any more?"

  Grids nodded. "Venny and I stopped by my hidey-hole for my stuff. But Goofy hasn’t got the whole manuscript finished. More than half is still left."

  "Did you bring what it got so far?" Jonathon asked. "And can I see it?"

  Grids sighed. "Might not do you much good," he said.

  "A smartframe doesn’t process it linearly; it’s finished translating the image in the center of Tamara’s vision because the focus is better, so we have the middle part of each page converted to text, but not the words on the top, bottom and sides."

  "What a fragged-up way to—"

  "That’s how a parallel machine works, chummer," Grids said, an edge to his voice. "Try getting an old Cray III to crank on it one instruction at a time. Take till fragging Christmas."

  "Whoa," Jonathon said. "Okay, I scan. I scan. You’re the hardware guru."

  "Fragging right."

  Jonathon glanced into the rearview again. "Syn, next time Grids gets shot, remind me not to argue with him. Puts him in a foul state."

  "I am not in a foul state!"

  Synthia and Jonathon laughed.

  A few minutes later, the freeway ended at the wrecked old airport. A three-meter-tall cyclone fence topped with barbed wire blocked their way. The husks of old burned-out cars and trucks were piled up in front of the fence, stacked two or three high to form a near solid wall of rusted steel and cracked macroplast. An effective barricade.

  The freeway curved left, but the narrow gap in the barricade was on their right. Jonathon turned on the pitted asphalt and came to a stop about five meters from the fence. He flashed his lights, then turned them off, signaling the security that they wanted in. Venny stopped the Westwind behind the limo.

  A minute went by before a couple of orks with padded synthleather jackets and obvious combat shotguns appeared and approached the limo. On the surface they looked like gangers, maybe part of the Steppin’ Wulfs, but they were too much alike; their armored synthleathers were nearly identical except for the designs. Like uniforms.

  One had a multicolored thunderbird up his front, and the other some dripping red Japanese characters. Their black boots matched perfectly. And the weapons gave them away; each carried a combat gun—a bulky Mossberg CMDT—plus a Scorpion machine pistol in a thigh holster and sword for up-close work. Everything was too clean for gangers, too pristine to have been used recently.

  Thunderbird stood in front of the car while the other came up to Jonathon’s window, shining the bright beam of a flashlight into the car. "I don’t know you and this car neither," the ork said. "So sell it to me, chummer. Make me believe I should let you through."

  Jonathon looked into the light arid smiled. "You like combat biker?"

  The ork gave him a puzzled look for a second. Then he stepped back, a doubting sneer on his tusked face.

  "No," he said. "You ain’t. . ."

  "Yes, believe it, chummer. I’m Jonathon Winger. And I need to speak with Dexter."

  The ork broke into a broad smile. "Well, I’ll be fragged," he said, then turned to Thunderbird. "Reece, this be Jonathon Winger. Right here in this fragging limo."

  Reece disbelieved at first, but when he realized his friend wasn’t joking, he lost his composure. He stepped around the car and approached Jonathon. "Man, you’re the greatest. I can’t believe you’s here, what a fraggin’ mind blow. You’ve gotta kill Dougan Rose tomorrow, frag him up the daisy-eatin’ hoop of his." Reece paused for a breath. "Nuthin’ ’gainst elves, y’know. Just Rose, he thinks he’s the best. But you’s wiz, primo compared to him."

  Jonathon smiled, and said, "I plan to destroy him."

  He wasn’t lying. "But right now I need to speak with Dexter."

  "You know Mr. Hemmingway?"

  "We’ve met once or twice at parties; he’s got a big share of the team."

  "I’ll call him," said Reece. Then he started subvocalizing, his lips moving but not saying anything. No doubt he was getting authorization on his headphone. After a minute, he looked down at Jonathon. "You got any ID? You know, just for the boss."

  Jonathon searched the pockets of his duster, feeling the panels of hard polycarbonate armoring. He hoped he still had those credsticks. He was relieved to find everything still there.

  Jonathon handed the credstick to Reece, who walked over to a nearby car. He reached in, apparently to slot the stick, then was back within a few minutes.

  "Convinced me, Mr. Winger," the ork said. "Follow me."

  "The car behind is with me," Jonathon said.

  "Of course."

  Reece and the other ork led Jonathon through the gap in the wall of junked cars and trucks. Then a wide gate in the cyclone fencing opened inward to let them through. Jonathon noticed the track-mounted security drones that patrolled the fence, complete with cameras and guns. This place was tight.

  "You stay between the yellow flags, Mr. Winger. Nice car like yours wouldn’t want to test out the ’crete. We lost a truck to a new sinkhole just t’other day."

  "Thanks, chummers," Jonathon said. He drove slowly out onto what used to be a ma
ssive expanse of concrete on what was once LAX. Most of the buildings and runways had buckled during the ’28 quake, and what was left standing had been flooded in the tsunami of 2045. Now, wide areas of cracked runway had collapsed into polluted sinkholes filled with ocean water. Many places were below the waterline. The water itself was black, but Jonathon caught glimpses of garbage and machinery in the water.

  "Toxics must love this place," Synthia said.

  "Oh, that’s reassuring." Grids sounded apprehensive again.

  After a half-kilometer or so of winding around and between large puddles or mini-lakes, Jonathon pulled the limo onto a wide stretch of concrete in front of a massive metal building. The wall of the building stretched left and right as far as he could see. Rows and rows of cars and motorcycles, all in operating condition, rested there with several tractor rigs, one or two helicopters, and several large stepvans.

  "This place looks like it’s rocking," Jonathon said.

  "Now, why is it we came here, again?" Synthia asked.

  "Shelter and safety first and foremost. Hemmingway will probably oblige me because he wants me to stay alive, at least until after the final match tomorrow night. Secondly, I want to hire some runners to help me hit Michaelson."

  Both Synthia and Grids turned to face Jonathon. "What?" Grids said.

  "Excuse me?" said Synthia.

  Jonathon parked the limo next to a Toyota Elite, not quite as nice as his Nightsky, but the rear window wasn’t shattered either. Venny pulled the Westwind’s small but powerful frame into the spot on the other side of the Nightsky.

  "You heard right," Jonathon said. "We need to start putting some pieces together, and the best way is to strike at the heart. Michaelson."

  "You want to try to take down a senior exec of one of the most powerful megacorps on the globe?" Grids sounded baffled, as though such a thing was beyond possible.

  "Not take him down, at least not right away. Just raid his office, get some data that will connect him to Tamara’s death."

  "Don’t you think we should wait until Goofy finishes deciphering the Magus File?"