Never Deal with a Dragon

by Robert N. Charrette

  “I am called Ghost Maker in some parts,” he said. “I may not be a pilot, but I know something about this stuff. Try anything and we will find ourselves relying only on the autopilot. Wakarimasu-ka?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Jack in and get us going.”

  Sam slid the datacord from its nesting place in the control panel. He had never been given the limited-access familiarization exercises with the datajack that the doctor had recommended on the day after his operation. He was scared. He had heard how a rigger melded with his machine, becoming a brain to direct the body of the vehicle. He had also heard that some couldn’t handle the transition, losing their minds in communion with the soulless machine.

  This machine was built strictly for rigger operation, a monument to the hubris so common among the pilots of powerful machinery. No one without a datajack could do more than request a destination and departure time from the autopilot. Hardly the way to make a fast getaway.

  These brigands wanted Sam to jack in and override the decision-making functions of the autopilot. Without the special vehicle control implants that would link a pilot’s cortex to the operations of the machine, he could do little more than make decisions about direction, flight altitudes, and when to take off or land. The autopilot would still do the flying. Without him in the link, though, the Commuter would communicate with Seattle air traffic control, following some controller’s directives and restricting itself to well-defined flight paths and low-risk maneuvers and speeds. The invaders wanted him to make their escape easier, and they cared little what it might cost him.

  Sam understood that this hook-up would only allow him access to a limited selection of controls, but it still seemed a dangerous risk. Sensing the man beside him becoming impatient, he decided that not jacking in would soon become an even greater risk.

  As Sam snugged the plug into the jack in his temple, pain flashed through his skull, but faded swiftly. Like an after-image, dials and control information appeared in his mind, projected onto his optic nerve by the aircraft’s computer. He could shift his head and “see” different portions of the imaginary control panel. Spotting the Help panel, he reached out toward it, mentally “pressing” the button. The computer fed him instructions on basic aircraft operation. The machine’s voice in his head was cold and alien, unlike the tones it gave through the speakers. The uncanny nature of his rapport with the Commuter unnerved him and the back of his skull began to ache.

  Bullets pattered against the armored cockpit glass in a hasty rhythm seconded by the Amerindian’s urgent, “Get moving!”

  Sam reached out to the control yoke. Whether it was real or a computer simulation, he no longer knew. He ordered the engines to rev, and pulled back. The counter-rotating blades of the Commuter’s twin engines spun faster, quickly creating enough lift for the craft to clear the pad. With the autopilot doing the real flying, Sam commanded the Commuter up into the night sky.

  “Where to?” he asked Ghost Maker.

  “North over the plex. For now.”

  Sam complied.

  They had been in flight for five minutes when Sam decided that the antiaircraft missiles he had been expecting were not coming after all. The Elf was evidently as good as his word. Calling up the radar, Sam could find nothing that looked like pursuit. He was equally surprised at the lack of challenges from the Seattle Metroplex air traffic controllers. The Elf decker must have inserted a flight plan into their computers as well, concealing the hijacked shuttle VTOL among the normal traffic.

  They were passing over a suburban residential district when Ghost Maker ordered Sam to extinguish the running lights and change course to head for the Redmond Barrens, that desolate sprawl of shanty towns and abandoned buildings. The autopilot attempted to turn the lights back on, but Sam overrode it.

  As they headed across the district, the lights of the apartments and homes of corporate salarymen became rarer, replaced by the garish neon and corpse-gray glow of advertising trid screens near the edge of the Barrens. Out beyond the commercial zone, the lights were few.

  Sam watched the Amerindian scan the darkness below. He wondered if his captor had augmented eyes to go along with his reflexes. Most of the adventurers and muscleboys who called themselves street samurai did. This Ghost Maker was certainly one of that breed.

  “Lower,” Ghost commanded.

  As Sam directed the Commuter to comply, the autopilot whined, “Altitude becoming dangerously low. Do you intend a landing?”

  “Shut it up.”

  Sam flipped the rocker switch to silence the cabin voice. “Are we landing?”

  “Not yet. Head northeast.”

  Sam adjusted the craft’s heading, telling the autopilot that landing was not imminent and that the altitude was intentional.

  They flew for another ten minutes, making several more course changes, some to avoid the burnt-out shells of buildings and others to satisfy some unknown whim of Ghost Maker. When the samurai finally gave the order to land, Sam was glad to engage the Commuter’s automatic landing routine. The long minutes of dodging the darkened hulks had worn him down to where, even had he been familiar with the aircraft, he would not have wished to land it manually.

  “Damn it! Kill the lights,” the samurai snapped as the autopilot engaged the landing lights.

  Startled by the man’s vehemence, Sam complied, cancelling almost as quickly the Commuter’s complaints about safety and FAA regulations. The VTOL settled unevenly on a field of rubble, close by a row of boarded-up tenements. The samurai popped the jack from Sam’s head and urged him out of the pilot’s seat. Sam reached to cut the engines.

  “Leave them.”

  Sam shrugged and headed for the cabin. The others had already deplaned, leaving the interior empty save for the dead.

  “Why can’t you just leave us alone?” he heard Jiro say.

  The response came from the Ork. “Let’s just call it a little insurance.”

  The Renraku employees were hustled into one of the derelict buildings just as the Commuter lifted off again. From the doorless entryway, Sam watched as the VTOL went straight up until well clear of the low buildings, then turned south and shifted to horizontal flight mode. The Commuter climbed away into the sky, its dark bulk eclipsing the few stars that shone through the breaks in the cloud cover. A shadow ship, crewed by ghosts.

  The samurai materialized in the the doorway, silhouetted briefly before slipping inside. Once safe in the darkness, he spoke, “The veetole’s on its way out to sea.”

  “Think it was on the ground too long?” Sally asked.

  “We’ll know soon enough if it was,” he replied.

  In the silence that followed, Sam could hear the Ork changing magazines for his HK227. The other two followed his example, then silence fell again. It was less than a minute before the Ork complained.

  “We can’t just haul dis lot down de street.”

  “Cog is sending a car.”

  “We’re supposed to wait around? Frag it! If de badges or de Raku samurai are on our tail, we’re meat sitting here.”

  “We can’t move our guests safely without a car,” Sally insisted.

  “So who needs dem? We back on our own turf. De’re dead weight now.” The Ork’s slight emphasis on “dead” made it clear what he considered the proper disposal of the Renraku prisoners.

  “I think you underestimate their value.”

  “We did de job we was paid for. And we got de disks dat Ghost grabbed. Dat’s plenty. You’re looking for too many extra creds.”

  “I have expenses to meet.”

  “I ain’t paying your expenses with my life.”

  “You want to buzz now? Give me your credstick and I’ll give you your cut,” Sally said, holding out her hand. “Of course, you’ll only get the standard one on ten for leaving before the goods are fenced.”

  Sam could feel the tension mount as the magician and the Ork stared into one another’s eyes. Finally, the Ork looked away. He s
hrugged mumbling, “Job’s a job.”

  Sally smiled. “Don’t worry, Kham. This one’s going to finish just fine.”

  The Ork snapped her a sullen look as if he had heard it all before, then he vanished, grumbling, into the dark interior of the building.

  While they waited, Sam looked after Jiro’s wound as best he could, ripping up a piece of his own shirt for a bandage. The salaryman seemed dazed by the loss of his wife and still said not a word as Sam worked over him. Having done what he could, Sam sat down cross-legged on the filthy floor, his thoughts as dark as the room.

  Ghost appeared in the doorway again, startling Sam, who had not seen the Amerindian leave.

  “Car’s here.”

  Sally gestured to the door with her shotgun. “Let’s go.”

  The car was a stretched Toyota Elite, its opacity-controlled polymer windows set to dark. The driver’s window was down and a broad-faced Korean kid grinned a gap-toothed invitation. He flipped a switch and the rear door yawned wide.

  The Renraku employees climbed in, taking the plush synthleather and velvet seat while Sally and the Ork settled into jumpseats facing their prisoners. Ghost slipped into the front seat on the passenger side.

  As soon as the doors closed, the driver babbled something in a street dialect from which Sam only made out the name Cog. Sally nodded and switched on the audio deck. The voice that came out was rich and deep.

  “Your friend’s call caught me just in time, Ms. Tsung. I’ve been unavoidably called out of town, but I am most happy to provide this small service before I leave. The driver is one of my regulars. You may rely on his discretion.”

  There was no more to the message, but Sally seemed satisfied with its content. At least the noises she made to the driver sounded agreeable.

  The privacy panel slid up from the seat, cutting off Sam’s view of the street ahead and the driver’s rear-view screen. The blackened windows wrapped them away from the world and held them in silence as the vehicle proceeded on its twisty path through the Barrens. Only once did something from outside impinge on them as a heavy thump struck the right rear quarter panel. Their captors remained unperturbed.

  Perhaps an hour later, the car slowed and the privacy panel dropped, revealing a litter-strewn alley lit fitfully by the intermittent violet flashes of a neon sign just out of sight on the cross-street ahead.

  The doors opened on both sides, but the car did not stop.

  “Out,” Sally ordered.

  Were they being released? Sam could hardly believe it. Crenshaw was up and out the door while Sam was still struggling from the embrace of the soft cushions. The Ork’s foot helped him on his way, sprawling him head-first into a noisome pile of trash. Sam emerged in time to see Sally leap gracefully from the car and five shadowy figures scramble into the vehicle. The doors snapped shut just before the Toyota cleared the alley mouth. It turned left, away from the neon sign, and was gone.

  So, their captors were not releasing them, after all. In fact, their numbers had grown. At least a dozen youths, male and female, were in the alley with them. In the flickering light, he could see that many wore fringed and beaded garments, and all wore feathers in their headbands. The smallest of the bunch sauntered up to the tall shape of the street samurai. A flash of neon threw his features into silhouette, revealing a profile as hawk-like as that of the man he addressed.

  “Hoi, Ghost Who Walks Inside. Welcome home.”

  He knew he ought to be hungry, but he couldn’t feel it. The sight of the bowl of krill wafers and soycakes their captors had left the night before only turned his stomach. The water bag, however, was flattened and limp, almost empty. Water he must have, even this tepid, foul-tasting stuff.

  The day had passed in a sweaty haze. Their captors had left them in a room with a single door and windows sealed with opaque rigiplastic sheets. A little light crept through where one of the panels had lost a corner. Sam’s attempts to peep though were rewarded with a limited view of graffiti-covered bricks. He recognized the general pattern of the taunts and protection slogans, but found the gang’s symbols unrecognizable. It was still enough to confirm his suspicions that this turf belonged to a gang of Amerindians.

  Jiro moaned, awake again. The salaryman had been drifting in and out of fitful sleep for hours now. “What is happening?” he murmured groggily. “I do not understand.”

  Crenshaw harumphed her annoyance. “Quit your whining. It gets on my nerves.”

  The woman’s utter lack of feeling was getting on Sam’s nerves. “I suppose you don’t object to what’s happened.”

  “I’ve been in worse situations.”

  “How could it be worse?” Jiro moaned. “Betty is dead.”

  “You could be dead,” Crenshaw retorted.

  “Perhaps that would be better.”

  “Don’t talk that way, Jiro,” Sam said.

  “What difference does it make?” Jiro said listlessly. “We will be killed by these…these…terrorists.”

  “Terrorists!” Crenshaw scoffed. “Kid, you don’t know the meaning of the word. These clowns are garden-variety shadowrunners. Their best card is that street mage, but they’re still petty criminals hiding from the bright lights of the corporate world and scavenging whatever pickings they can. They’re human rats.”

  “Even if they are not terrorists, they still hide from the law,” Jiro said weakly. “How can they let us go when we have seen their faces and heard their names?”

  “Don’t matter much,” Crenshaw shrugged. “The names are just street names, and the faces can be changed easily enough. These runners have no records in the databanks, so what’s to trace? They’ll let us go if we behave ourselves. All we’ve got to do is wait.”

  “Wait? The only end is death,” Jiro said in a flat voice. He lay down again and was asleep in moments. Sam wondered how the man did that. Crenshaw picked a soycake off the plate on the floor.

  “You should eat, kid.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Your loss.”

  Crenshaw popped the cake into her mouth and wolfed down a few krill wafers before upending the water container and draining it. Sam was appalled at her selfishness. Suddenly he wanted to be someplace else. Any place. Just so long as he was away from the suffocating presence of his fellows.

  He got to his feet and began pacing. Crenshaw watched him for awhile, but soon lost interest and her head sagged, too. Shortly thereafter, she began to snore.

  Sam wanted to escape more than ever.

  Without hope, he tried the door and was surprised to find it opened to his touch. Cautiously, he swung it wide. The outer room was as bare and dilapidated as the inner. Sally lay asleep along the inner wall. The door to the hall was open and he could see two of the gang’s warriors standing guard. They were chatting quietly in a language he didn’t understand.

  This room had windows to the outside world. Desperate for fresh air, Sam moved to the open one, beyond which a fire escape formed an inviting balcony. He was halfway through the frame before he noticed Ghost standing on the iron grillwork, leaning against the wall.

  “Wouldn’t be thinking of leaving, would you?”

  Sam stammered a negative response, surprised to realize he hadn’t been thinking of escape. Though he wanted to get away from his fellow Renraku employees, he had not thought of abandoning them. “I just wanted to get some air.”

  “You’re welcome to your fill of what passes for it around here.” The samurai seemed pensive as he leaned back against the wall and looked out across the sunset-painted stretch of battered tenements. Ghost said no more until Sam was beside him. “You really are a strange one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for one thing, you weren’t lying about trying to leave.”

  “I couldn’t run out on the others.”

  “So ka,” Ghost said with a knowing nod. “I can understand loyalty to your friends.”

  “They’re not my friends,” Sam blurted. To the samurai’
s raised eyebrow, he added, “We’re all Renraku.”

  “So ka. The bond to the tribe is even stronger.

  “My people here would never be called a tribe by those fancy ethnologists who wet their pants over the back-to-the-land dreamers out there beyond the plex. Those white-coats would call my kin a gang. But that doesn’t make them any less a family, a tribe that takes care of its own.

  “We’re not like the Reds that live out in the Salish-Shidhe. Those dreamers can’t see that life in the world these days means life in a city. Red Men have to take to the concrete the way they took to the horse, or we will pass from the land entirely.

  “Since the Whites came, some of us have fought them, some have welcomed them. Didn’t make much difference in the end. We lost control of the land and ended in misery, despair, and poverty. And then they threw us into the camps, where they tried to strip away our souls.”

  Sam could see the pain in the man’s face. Ghost was too young to have been in those death camps that had been President Jarman’s attempt at a final solution to the Indian problem, but he seemed to feel the anguish of the camps as his own.

  “When Howling Coyote came down from the hills with his Great Ghost Dance, he sure handed the Whites a surprise. Made the Man realize that Reds weren’t going to take it anymore. Broke their technology with his magic, he did. But that was then. The Whites have magic now, too, but some of my people don’t want to hear it.

  “The old men who led the Dance don’t understand what it did for us. It didn’t banish the White Man, as advertised, or the Black Man, or the Yellow Man. They’re still here. And so are their cities and works—weakened maybe, and pushed back by the magic and the power of the Awakened—but far from beaten. What the Dance really did was give us breathing room. It gave us a chance to beat the others at their own game.

  “It ain’t going to be easy. It’s going to take real warriorship, but my people are ready for that challenge. We’ll show them. In the end, we will win. But to win, we have to survive, and surviving means nuyen. You ain’t got the bucks, the Man don’t listen. There’s lots of loose creds waiting around for shadowrunners to liberate.”