by Kai O'Connal
“Look, we’re clean,” Cao whined. “We’re not staying here while your rebels or criminals or whoever shoot us up!”
Snap-boom! Another car behind them exploded. Elijah wondered briefly how many vehicles Kyrie had rigged.
“Dios!”
Elijah listened with half an ear, but his eyes never left the tableau behind them. The chaos was growing, which meant the guards were going to be feeling more pressure. That’s all they needed to do now—keep pushing it until they cracked.
—crack-whoosh!—
A rocket ripped past Elijah’s window close enough that the acrid exhaust warmed his skin and burned his sinuses. He dropped back into his seat, eyes watering. He hoped he didn’t crack before the border guards did.
“D-don’t move,” the guard told Cao, looking back behind them. Angry yowls were audible now, the razorcat beginning to react less by programming and more by feral instinct.
“They’re shooting at us!” As if punctuating Cao’s words, a burst of light-caliber automatic rifle fire pattered against the armored tailgate of the truck. The sound was short and sudden, as if a blower had shot gravel against a steel roof.
Cao gunned the engine. “Gods damn it, man, I ain’t dying sitting in line!” Her voice was even higher, as if she were getting younger and more terrified.
Elijah swallowed.
Engines, both the deep growl of big diesels and the high-pitched whine of hydrogen turbines, flared behind them. A crunchy metal-squeal whispered through the door seal and cut into Elijah’s eardrums. He cringed.
The truck lurched as the next truck back in line exploded. The crack of more rockets going past was almost buried. Elijah stopped concentrating on how well his spirits were doing behind them and looked ahead.
How much more pressure could the guards take?
Pineapple shouted down at the guard.
The guard dithered, looking back at the flames and smoke, then across at the Amazonia gate. The bus that had been in front of them was sliding beneath the raised gate. Elijah saw the indecision on his face.
Another car exploded.
“Go!” the guard shouted, slapping the sidewall of the truck. “Get out of here.” He tossed Cao’s chip through the window. It landed in Leung’s lap. Cao gunned the truck’s engine and dialed her window up. The truck lurched forward, shaking as Pineapple fell down at the sudden motion.
The Amazonian guards waved them through. In ten minutes they were on the road to Metropôle. Leung twisted to put his hands behind his head. “That was easy.”
Elijah watched out the window as black smoke climbed into the sky above the jungle canopy. In a moment, that same canopy would swallow them like a velvet bag swallows a jewel.
He hoped the spirits had done their job back there. He hoped nothing vital had been lost.
And he hoped he could avoid making eye contact with Kyrie for a while, because she kept nodding at him. As if she were glad that he also had some regrets about what he’d been forced to do on this mission.
He tried to think of the road ahead and of Rio. But it was hard not to look back.
The opening door was a welcome diversion from staring at the maggot inching its way across the floor. The operative named Douglas poked his head in and waited until the seated man looked up.
“They’re across the border,” he said.
“Intact?”
“Our reports say yes.”
“And we don’t have anyone in the jungle?”
“There wasn’t time.”
Hearn sighed. The maggot had gotten perhaps a millimeter farther. It was moving toward the map case on the table by the wall. He made a small gesture. The maggot spasmed, then sizzled and popped like spittle on a hot iron.
“I’ll move ahead with the ork—what’s her name, Bizet?—and attempt to keep an eye on them. When they get close, we’ll move. We should only have to wait a day or two more.”
Douglas ducked his chin. He glanced at the map. “More security?”
“We’d only stand out.” Hearn spread his arms. “We’re safe in the bosom of the Rocinha.” The motion pulled his sleeves up, revealing the black shape of a dark moon tattooed on the inside of his forearm.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The jungle swallowed all of the sky and most of the sounds. The road toward Rio was more or less a tunnel through trees and vines and fronds large enough to hide the entire truck. Kyrie watched the foliage above and around them from the crate-built cupola in the back.
“That was fun,” Pineapple said.
“Fun?”
“Blowin’ them cars up.” The troll grinned, showing yellowed teeth the size of small rocks. “I was hoping we’d get some action on the Amazonian side, too.”
“Mr. Johnson came through.” Kyrie looked away from the troll at the endless green jungle blurring past. She checked the Ingram beneath her armpit and felt for the small grenades in her thigh pockets. A big Colt Manhunter was holstered on her right thigh, just in case. There were situations where one big bullet was better than a swarm of smaller ones from her Ingram. The Smartgun was an old and dear friend—but they saw other people.
“Mr. Johnson,” Pineapple said. “The man with the unlimited travel budget. I wonder how far he’s gonna send us.”
“This isn’t far enough?”
Pineapple shrugged. “It’s a nice vacation.” The truck shifted as he beckoned with one giant arm. “Saw some interesting people, blew shit up. Might get a postcard, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“But …”
“But what?”
“He’s an Aztech, ain’t he?”
“Probably. It was his jet.” Kyrie tapped the holstered Manhunter. “The serial number on this one is near the sequence Colt ran specially for Aztech’s security forces.”
“You know those numbers by heart?”
Kyrie’s hand brushed the gun’s holster. She couldn’t reach the scar beneath it. “Some things leave their mark,” she whispered. Then she looked around. Seeing nothing, she keyed her AR.
The passenger door groaned on rusty hinges as it opened. Elijah reached out and grasped the upper edge of the roof. Wind blew his hair around, and he squinted against the gusts. Pineapple grunted and stepped past Kyrie to grab the mage’s hand and haul him into the truck bed.
Elijah dusted himself off and looked around. His mouth curled into the briefest of moues before he selected a crate and sat down. He crossed his legs and his hands across his knees and regarded Kyrie.
“The meeting is in session?”
“Very funny.”
“Pineapple?”
Kyrie looked at the troll. He grinned. “I don’t fit in the front, kids. You want to pretend I’m not here, I’ll pretend I don’t hear anything. Fair?”
“It’ll have to be.” Elijah’s voice was tight.
“Mr. Johnson.” Kyrie spoke without inflection.
“Is most likely working for Aztechnology,” Elijah replied with a similar lack of inflection.
“That doesn’t worry you?”
“You would prefer Ares? Evo?” Elijah shrugged. “A job is a job, Kyrie.”
Something screamed in the jungle behind Elijah. Pineapple presented a long-barreled combat shotgun almost before the sound passed. Kyrie didn’t draw, but her hand was on the butt of the Manhunter. Her eyes were unfocused, trying to watch everywhere at once for any movement that seemed out of place.
“Don’t see nothin’,” Pineapple said after a moment.
“It’s a jungle,” Elijah said. He picked at his nails. “It will make lots of noise. And more, if Cao is to be believed.”
“How long we on this road?” Pineapple
twisted at his turret-like waist toward the rear, still presenting the shotgun.
“Hours.”
“Shithole.”
Kyrie watched Elijah. “You know Aztech beat Amazonia pretty soundly in their little war.” Her hand—her left hand—gestured at the jungle around them. “Hualpa isn’t going to like us poking around his back yard on Aztechnology’s coin.”
“Hualpa. The dragon.”
“Yes.”
“Hiding behind that tree, is he?”
Kyrie frowned. “It’s best not to underestimate those kinds of creatures.”
“True, though I doubt he even knows we’re here.”
“I’ll bet everyone he’s ever had taken out thought the exact same thing.”
Elijah looked away from his nails and met Kyrie’s eyes. “You agreed to come. You’ve been here before—in the Amazon.”
“Yes.”
“You got on the plane. They didn’t hide the tail art. They didn’t hide the clearances that got us into Argentina, or the passes that got us into Amazonia.”
“It’s easy to forge passes,” Kyrie protested. “That doesn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t matter!” Elijah brushed a leaf off his sleeve, then picked at the sap it left there. “We’re here. We’ll get the map, and we’ll get out.”
“If Mr. Johnson even wants us out—” Kyrie muttered.
“I took his contract,” Elijah interrupted softly. “I didn’t say I trusted him.”
The first attack came an hour later, as they rolled through a serpentine valley with high mountains on either side. The canopy cleared enough that they could see the mist-shrouded tips of the mountains in the distance. The humidity was high enough that Kyrie felt like she was breathing through a wet towel.
“People live here?” Pineapple asked.
An arrow thudded into the packing crate between them. Elijah, still leaning against the bulkhead in the front of the bed, eyed the shaft and then looked to his left. “Perhaps you can ask them,” he said.
Kyrie stood. Her hand dipped the Manhunter out of its holster as she rose, but she kept it at her side. Pineapple already had the black-anodized barrel of his shotgun presented, and Elijah’s eyes closed as he conjured a spell.
More arrows flew out of the jungle, spanging off the sides of the truck or thunking into the crates. The truck lurched as one shattered against the driver-side window.
“It’s just arrows,” Elijah said a moment later. “Ignore them.”
Pineapple grunted as an arrowhead broke against his body armor. His shotgun barked once. The cloud of flechettes scythed through the leaf fronds like they weren’t there. A small, brown-skinned man holding a bow longer than he was tall yelped and leapt away. He’d been wearing nothing more substantial than a loincloth. More arrows replied.
The engine growled as Cao accelerated away. Pineapple fired again, then brushed at the stone chips caught in his body armor. After a minute, he twisted back to glare at Kyrie. “I could have handled that.”
“No need,” she told him. “They can’t keep up, and they’re no threat.”
“Would’ve been some fun.”
“It’s a long way to Rio.”
“Yeah,” the troll grunted. “A long, boring way.”
Pineapple’s shotgun boomed again, but the shot didn’t hit anything but leaves. He threw back his head and howled in frustration. Kyrie grinned. The last two hours had been composed of long stretches of quiet, punctuated by several crude ambushes launched from the unbroken forest around them.
“Why won’t they stand still?” he shouted while searching for a target.
“Would you?”
“I’m not a pygmy.”
Kyrie shook her head. “Relax. They can’t hurt us.”
Red-black blood pooled on the truck’s bed. Pineapple stood over Kyrie, one hand clamped over the tear in his sleeve where his body armor hinged at the elbow. Blood seeped between his fingers, dripping. He glared down at her.
“They can’t hurt us?”
“Guess you’re not bored any more, huh?” Kyrie said, ignoring his glare. “Besides, it’s just a cut.”
“What if it’s poisoned?”
“Elijah?”
The mage closed his eyes.
“It’s not poisoned,” he said a moment later.
“Still hurts.”
Kyrie laughed. “Here, I’ll wrap it up, tough guy.” She reached into the case she’d been sitting on and drew out a medpack.
“How long until Rio?” Pineapple eyed the forest around them.
“Hours. Still.”
“Shit. Hole.”
“I’m shooting the next one. See if I don’t.”
Elijah looked up at the troll. “They’re harmless, Pineapple.”
The troll held up his bandaged arm. “An arrow can still kill you, smart man.”
“They’re just defending their homes.”
“Then they should leave me alone, seein’ as I’m just passin’ through.” Pineapple had stopped shooting every time one of the tribes attacked. Arrows stuck out from both sides of the truck bed, embedded in the wooden crates or wedged between hard black plastic and bright green tie-downs. They covered the floor of the truck bed like a broken rattan mat. Pineapple’s huge combat boots crushed them into ever-smaller pieces every time he took a step.
“I don’t—”
Whatever Elijah didn’t was interrupted by a yowling, catlike yell from in front of the truck. All three of them turned in time to see a small, brown-skinned man swing on a vine and land on the truck’s cab. He rocked with the truck’s motion as if he’d been born there.
Incredibly, the three shadowrunners could only stare.
The man eyed them, his face twisted into a sneer. His hair was black as night and cut shaggy, with bits of grass and other greenery woven into its braids. His cheeks were smeared with what Kyrie took to be mud, and he wore one of the locals’ longbows across his shoulders. He shrugged it off in a fluid motion and nocked an arrow, aiming at Pineapple’s chest.
“Um—”
The local drew and released in a single, lightning fast motion. The arrowhead shattered, but the shaft caught in a tear in the fabric covering the troll’s body armor. The arrow stood out like it had gone inches into the troll’s chest. He looked down at it, then up at the local.
The troll’s face split into a huge grin.
Elijah’s stunball blew the man off the cab and to the side. He flew into a stand of palm-style fronds that seemed to cushion his fall, but he didn’t get back up.
“Just defending their homes?” Kyrie asked, staring at Elijah.
“What?” He glanced from Kyrie to Pineapple. “He shot him.”
“I know,” Pineapple said. “Ballsy little fucker, wasn’t he?” He wrapped a giant hand around the arrow shaft and tugged it free. Then he tossed it over the truck’s side. The engine labored as Cao downshifted to start up a hill.
Kyrie eyed the troll. “Didn’t you just want to shoot them a minute ago?”
“I know.”
“And now…?”
“Ballsy,” he said with a shrug of one massive shoulder. “I like ballsy.”
Pineapple reached out a large hand and shoved the little man off the side of the truck. He flopped the ground and rolled, carried by the truck’s momentum, before jumping to his feet and shaking his fist at Pineapple. The troll shook his great head and looked back at Kyrie.
“Okay. Ballsy only goes so far. Now this is just annoying.”
“Kill a couple of them. Maybe they’ll get the point.”
“Naw.” The troll ducked as another volley of arrows whistled overhead. “No reason to shoot ’em. They don’t know we’d wipe them out in about f
our seconds flat.”
“School ’em?”
Pineapple just grinned. “It’s only a couple more hours.”
Kyrie opened her mouth, then thought about it.
Then she closed her mouth and huddled a little deeper between the crates she was hiding behind. Yells announced more locals swinging—literally swinging, on vines—into action.
“A couple more hours…”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The sigh Pineapple let out was audible even in the truck’s cab. Kyrie shifted her weight off the door armrest she’d been leaning against and ducked forward to look out the thick windshield. The canopy of the jungle gave way like a tunnel’s exit, and sunlight streamed through high cirrus clouds. The land between them and the end of the valley was thick with small tilled plots and shanties.
“Lovely,” Leung muttered.
“At least the trees aren’t trying to kill us,” Cao grunted. She stepped on the accelerator, gunning the truck along the dirt path that led toward the edges of the city that were just becoming visible. The canyon opened into the plains where Metropôle began.
Leung sat up. “Oh sweet Jesus, I can almost taste it.”
“The food?” Cao took her eyes off the road long enough to raise an eyebrow at him.
“The net.” Leung’s eyes sparkled. “Can’t you see the glow? Wireless nodes, hidden processors.” He breathed in deeply. “Oh god, I missed civilization.”
Leung projected a rough map. It showed the three icons for Rio, Metropôle, and São Paulo. They were connected by an ocean of blue. Kyrie checked the legend; blue was the urban area called Metropôle.
“You’re joking,” she whispered.
“Welcome to one of the most incestuous sprawls in the world,” Cao said. She rolled her shoulders, drawing back her cowl enough to let Kyrie see the goblin’s chin and cheeks. She was smiling, exposing yellowed and near-sharp teeth. “Welcome to my first home.”
Kyrie reached for the door handle. “I’m getting in the back.”
Traffic quickly bogged down. The truck pulled into a narrow street overrun with foot traffic edging around the near-stalled vehicles that were trying to edge past endless decrepit, thrown-together buildings. Shanties, really. Everything looked jury-rigged. Kyrie had been in slums before, but this was different. This was bigger. It went on forever.