Never Deal with a Dragon

by Robert N. Charrette

  “You are aware that there may be no alternative to killing the Dragon? None of the plans we’ve considered offers a reasonable chance of success to safely obtain the evidence you want. Sanction may be the only means of stopping Haesslich.”

  Sam looked at her, imaging the fur-framed face behind the blonde mask of Karen Montejac. Did another face, that of Lofwyr, hide behind her words? Killing was a prerogative of the state. Any individual who took that right into his own hands was committing murder, and murder was a sin. Sam was not ready to add that one to the list his soul had accumulated in recent days.

  Lord, why have you made it so difficult?

  The others did not believe there was hope of bringing the Dragon to any justice other than their own rough brand. Were they so wrong? He knew what Haesslich was. He feared what he might do if left to pursue his schemes. Was Sam’s own soul worth more than the unnumbered souls who would be tainted or destroyed if Haesslich were allowed to live?

  He was tired to his bones. Maybe too tired. Theirs was the easier solution. Kill the Dragon and be done. But was it a moral solution?

  And if it came to killing the Dragon, how could they go about it? He had seen Tessien destroy Begay’s panzer, and Tessien was smaller, presumably less powerful, than Haesslich. It would take enormous firepower. Anything that would hurt the Dragon could also kill anyone near it. If innocents died, Sam and the others would be as bad as Haesslich. It was Ghost who’d suggested killing the Dragon. He was the warrior; he understood guns and tactics. Maybe Ghost could devise a way to get to the Dragon without involving other people.

  When Sam turned to where Ghost had been standing, the spot was empty. The Indian crouched instead by the door, an Ingram in his right hand. The others in the room had shaken off their lethargy and were also tensed for action. Sam reached for his own weapon.

  After listening a moment, Ghost announced, “Kham’s coming.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Sam reseated his half-drawn gun. A moment later, Sam heard the scuff of feet on the wooden stairs. The door opened and a slightly out of breath Kham stomped in.

  “You’re late, Sir Tusk.”

  “Dodger,” Sam chided. “Glad you decided to show, Kham.”

  “In your ear, Suitboy,” the Ork snarled, walking past him to Sally. “Just turned down an invitation to a party you might be interested in. A lot of Raku types, heavy metal boys, gonna be celebrating the coming out of a certain important person.”

  “When?” Sally asked.

  “Where? Sam asked.

  Kham threw Sam a sour look and again directed his words to Sally. “Shuttle to Sea-Tac lands at eleven. De last stop is the Raku arc where dey expect to board de guest of honor.”

  Dodger whistled. “The master worm calls and his puppy comes running. Alas for the plotters, Renraku security has tumbled to their scheme. They shall detain Hutten.”

  “Maybe,” Sam said. “I’ve heard that the corporations sometimes wait until a runaway tries to board an outbound plane before they step in to take him back. The added embarrassment can make a renegade more tractable. If they’re waiting at the airport, they may not know he’s running to the Dragon. We could make the snatch there.”

  Kham guffawed. “Oh dem Red Raku boys is waiting at de airport all right. Lotsa dem. Don’t need mega-muscle and heavy artillery for a flabby lab rat.”

  “If they’re ready for the Dragon, we can let them have him. Let them dance with the worm. If there are any pieces left after the fireworks, then maybe you can satisfy yourself. If Raku is loaded for Dragon, there’ll be no way we can snatch Hutten at the airport,” Ghost said.

  “Then we’ll have to get to him someplace else,” Sam announced. “This is our chance. Once he’s outside the arcology walls, we’ll have a better chance of grabbing him because arcology security won’t be in our way anymore. Kham, how exactly did you find this out?”

  The Ork never had a chance to answer.

  Automatic weapons fire punched through the curtains, stitching a line across the interior wall. Kham stood in the way of that deadly pattern. Collapsing across the table, he grunted in pain and surprise.

  A second later, the perforated drapes bellied inward under the impact of a chromed whirlwind of an assassin. Sally was bowled over as the invader tumbled into the room. Slicing his way clear of the entangling fabric with his twin spurs, the razorguy launched himself at the Ork. Ghost fired a burst with his Ingram, but the bullets sped through empty air.

  Kham stirred on the table and rolled over in time to see the razorguy coming for him. “Ridley, you crazy—”

  “Eat this, Tusker,” Ridley screamed as he sliced down and through the Ork’s upraised arm and into the meat of Kham’s thigh. The Ork howled and hit the floor in a welter of blood. Ridley didn’t spare his fallen foe a glance before vaulting over the table.

  Sam had no doubt about the razorguy’s next target; he could see his own image reflected in the mirror eyes. He fumbled for his gun, knowing that even if he managed to shoot the wildman, the drug would not take effect before Ridley butchered him.

  Time seemed to move with excruciating slowness. Sam watched Ridley land and absorb the shock on flexed knees. At the same instant, Sam saw Ghost beyond him, raising his Ingram. Ridley straightened, rising up from the cover the table had provided. Sally, recovering from her collision with the razorguy’s initial rush, was also rising, right into Ghost’s line of fire.

  Sam’s hand closed on the grip of the Lethe. Ridley stepped forward, raising an arm tipped with silver death. There was a roaring in Sam’s ears as he watched the bloodied blade begin its descent.

  The chrome arm connected, but not with Sam. Jaq yelped with pain as she swept the lethal limb away from Sam’s head with her own arm. Ridley, knocked off balance, recoiled, turning his eyes on Sam’s rescuer.

  The delay was all Ghost needed. First one, then the other, of his Ingrams sent slugs crashing into the half-metal body of the razorguy. Ridley spun under the impact, but most of Ghost’s bullets had missed his meat. Sparking and bleeding, Ridley turned again toward Sam, a feral snarl on his face. Ghost’s next bursts sent the razorguy jerking spasmodically against the wall. He rebounded, leaving a gory smear, and collapsed to the floor.

  One gun already holstered and a 25-centimeter Bowie knife replacing it in his hand, Ghost knelt by the shattered assassin.

  “Tusker ain’t gonna talk now.” Ridley coughed blood, but he smiled. “Not bad for an Injun, wuss. Bet you can’t do it to my face.”

  “You’re in no shape to fight.”

  “They’ll rebuild me, trog-lover, then I’ll eat your heart.”

  “To rebuild you, they’ll need a brain,” Ghost said softly as he shoved his blade up under Ridley’s chin, through the soft tissue and into the base of his skull. The razorguy spasmed once.

  The stench of excrement swept over the sharp odor of expended propellent. The room was quiet again.

  “Any more?”

  “There were two in the hall,” Dodger said, reslinging his Sandler machine pistol. “They have gone the way of all meat.”

  “Car and driver in the street,” Sally said. A secondary explosion punctuated her words. “Now that it’s quiet again, I’m going to take a nap.” She slid down against the wall, leaned her head against the window sill, and closed her eyes.

  Sam walked around the table to where Jaq was tending Kham. The Ork was a mess. Blood was everywhere. “Is he…?”

  Jaq shook her head. “Not yet. His armor stopped the bullets. The bruises won’t be bothering him much. The arm is nearly severed and the major muscles of the leg cut up pretty bad. He’s going to be spending a lot of time in hospital.”

  “Can’t you do anything?”

  “I’m no miracle worker. He needs a doctor, and a good one at that.”

  “There goes our muscle power,” Ghost said. The only sign of his recent deed was the blood covering his right hand. The knife was nowhere to be seen.

  “What do you mean?” S
am asked.

  “Kham’s boys won’t run with us if he’s down. Without those extra bodies, there’s no way to pull it off.”

  “What about your tribe?” Ghost’s instant stone-face told Sam he’d said the wrong thing.

  “They have no stake in this.”

  Ghost was right, of course. The warriors wouldn’t risk their lives for someone who was not a member of their tribe. Ghost wouldn’t stop Sam from asking, but the Indian’s followers were unlikely to risk their lives to satisfy some Anglo’s idea of justice, especially if he were ignoring the good advice of their chief.

  There were, however, others who did have an interest in the matter at hand and who had no need for Ghost’s approval. Help from them entailed another whole set of obligations, but Sam saw no other way to get the force he needed in time to take advantage of Hutten’s departure.

  “Well, Jaq,” he said. “Looks like we’ll need some of your people after all.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The ebon boy in the glittering cloak raced along the pulsing paths of the metroplex air traffic control computers. He ran unerringly, headed for a destination he had visited before. Up a flight of stairs and through a shining door he went, making his way among the hierarchy of subsystems and past barriers as though they weren’t there. Reaching the command center at last, he dipped a hand into the data stream and left behind a command. Then he was gone, slipping out past countermeasures that never knew he was there.

  The Aztechnology airport shuttle would be delayed on the Mitsuhama pad. In its place, a Federated Boeing Commuter tilt-wing shuttle with Aztechnology markings would land precisely on time at Renraku Pad 23 at 10:42 P.M.

  A stop at the transmitter controller belonging to Hadley’s Hacks made sure that the launch signal went out along with the regular traffic between the innocent Mr. Hadley and his roving cabbies. With that signal, Sam’s plan went into motion. The snatch team was headed for their destination and he needed to be there to meet them. The ebon boy spread his cloak and launched himself into the dark sky of the Matrix, soaring toward the great blue pyramid of Renraku.

  He circled the construct cautiously, looking for any hint that the system was at other than normal status. Seeing nothing after three passes, he alighted near the same back door he had used during the expedition with Sam. He entered with the code he had stolen and was relieved to find the node quiet. In his excitement, he had forgotten to activate his masking program, and he did so now. Then he rested for a moment, considering the best path to the security systems monitoring Landing Pad 23.

  The arcology was still being built. It stood to reason that certain security systems had to be installed during construction. Installation meant plans, and to Dodger, plans meant a map. He ran a path through the elevators’ maintenance monitors, to the systems used by the installers, and back up their lines to the master plan.

  Dodger slid into a subprocessor and satisfied himself that the pattern of energy pulsing in the walls was the one he sought. Fingers tapped display instructions as the ebon boy waved his hands in pseudomystical gestures. A map of the control system for security monitors glowed into existence. Another gesture, and the image scrolled and expanded, highlighting the intermediary junction between his current location and the subprocessor overseeing slaved security nodes guarding Landing Pad 23. He scanned the path and set out again, leaving his handiwork to dissolve back into nothingness.

  Two nodes later, he noticed an odd translucency to the constructs. Everything appeared as though overlaid with a deep, almost mirror-like, polish. The ebon boy halted and stared at his own reflection in the walls of the message center. The pulsing circuitry characteristic of the architecture’s construct imagery seemed to be retreating, vanishing under the glare of reflective surfaces.

  Turning to flee, the ebon boy came featureless face to featureless face with an ivory girl, her jet cloak sparkling with highlights as though made from inky diamond.

  “For myself, there was hope of your return.”

  Dodger could not find words.

  Fingers flew, seeking the correct program initiations to escape the node, as the ebon boy’s head twisted in search of an exit. A hand slapped at the escape pad, but the mirrors only flashed brighter.

  “For myself, there was desire of your company,” the girl said, her voice more seductive than any Dodger had ever heard from a fleshly woman. She reached out a hand to caress his cheek. “Come.”

  And they were elsewhere.

  The new construct was walled with myriad jet dark mirrors, each a small segment of the walls, floor, or ceiling. There was no apparent entrance or exit. The ivory girl, her slim Elven body hidden by the folds of her cloak, was almost invisible where she stood in the center of the chamber. All he could see clearly was her elegantly shaped head. Though the head had neither hair nor definite features, Dodger was unassailably convinced of its beauty and femininity. She was a cyber siren, calling to his soul, anima to his animus, a part sundered from him by flesh but now here and waiting.

  If only he could move and take her in his arms.

  “He’s not all there, you know,” a new voice said.

  Dodger was suddenly aware of another persona in the construct. On the far side of the chamber stood another female figure, her outlines blurred and refracted as though encased in water ice. She looked to be wearing biker leathers, though made of chrome rather than black synthleather. Her long platinum hair hung in a sheet down one side of her face, obscuring the left lens of her golden wraparound sunglasses.

  “Who are you, Maiden in Ice?”

  “My friends call me Jenny. You must be the Dodger.”

  “Guilty, Lady Jenny. Have you any idea where we are or what she is?”

  “She?”

  “Our lovely hostess.”

  “Your interface circuitry’s gone bad, Dodger. Lovely is hardly the word I’d use for the most wizard hunk of beefcake I’ve ever seen.”

  Dodger listened to her words, staring the whole time at their hostess. This was not an ordinary manifestation of the Matrix. “I believe my circuits are fine. Jenny, I begin to suspect that we are in the presence of history.”

  “Swell. I just want to go home.”

  “Home,” a lovely contralto voice said, but Dodger suspected that Jenny heard a bass, masculine voice.

  One mirror panel of the wall lit up, a brilliant white that focused into an image of Holly Brighton, international simsense star. “I’m so glad you could join me tonight,” Holly’s face said before her image froze.

  Another panel on the opposite wall flashed on, and an aged, flabby man stood on a bare stage backed with curtains. “We have a really big shew for you tonight,” he announced as the image locked into immobility.

  A third panel blinked on. This time it was an intense-eyed young man in what looked like turn-of-the-century chic. He stood in some kind of conference hall and pointed at the picture recorder as he said, “Evil, pure and simple, by way of—”

  The rest of the panels flared to life, images flickering on and off with eye-searing speed. Dodger couldn’t make sense of any of them until, after a few moments, they slowed. Each panel flashed its own random series of images from the arcology’s security cameras and internal broadcast channels. One slowed further, picture rolling over picture, until it settled on an image of a flight deck. Another flickered to a halt on the identical scene. A third followed and a fourth until all had frozen on the same picture. Surrounding him as completely as had the mirrors were thousands of images of Landing Pad 23.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  On Landing Pad 23, Crenshaw was getting a little nervous. It was 10:38 and still no sign of Verner. “Addison,” she called on her communicator, “any sign of Matrix penetration?”

  There was a delay before he answered. “Don’t think so. A few glitches in the system, but nothing that looks like an enemy decker. Nothing’s tripped the triggers in the subprocessors around the pad.”

  “Contact me the minute anything shows
. Crenshaw out.”

  Verner’s team was running a deep enough game that by now they should have a decker in place on overwatch. Could Verner’s decker be so good that he’d slipped standard arcology IC and Addison, too?

  She stepped out onto the landing deck where she could crane her head around to check the observation deck. The wind whipped her hair across her face, but the strands did not sting her replacements as they would meat eyes. A slight adjustment reduced the glare of reflections and let her view the small group of people watching the pad from the warmth and safety of the

  Transparex-shielded lounge. Sato stood next to the brass rail, hands clasped behind his back. To his left were his special bodyguards, and to his right were Marushige and Silla. Crenshaw frowned at the unwanted presence of the security director. This was supposed to be her show.

  A squad of white-uniformed ground crew scurried out of the operations control room, heading for their stations. The shuttle would be on its approach. A slight stir traveled among the passengers waiting behind the boarding barrier. Anticipation, she thought, but not that of tourists eager for vacation. Except for Hutten, every one of those people was a Renraku security agent, substituted for the real shuttle passengers at Crenshaw’s orders. They had been told to expect runners before or during the shuttle landing.

  And where were those runners? Crenshaw’s feed from the arcology air traffic monitor reported only the Aztechnology shuttle inbound. Ground perimeter patrol was observing only normal traffic. The double squad of Red Samurai standing in reserve inside the building effectively blocked off any approach Verner’s people could make from inside, assuming they had penetrated the arcology earlier.

  She walked over to the group by the boarding barrier. Hutten stood near the middle. The shadowy lighting of the pad threw his features into high relief, lending them a savage cast she had never noticed before. Suitable, she thought. He’d been acting like a bear stirred out of its den in midwinter ever since she’d approached him that morning to say Hart was concerned that he make his meeting. Despite Crenshaw’s assurances that she was part of Hart’s operation, he probably feared some kind of set-up. He was right, of course. But he wasn’t the target tonight. His turn would come later.