Never Trust an Elf

by Robert N. Charrette

  Halfway down the block he found the sign that announced the Wayward Home Residential Apartments. He turned onto the walk and moved noiselessly up it and across the porch. The screen door was closed, but the inner door was open. He glanced through, satisfying himself that the hall was empty before entering.

  Upstairs, he found the door marked Number Seven and knocked twice, then three times, as arranged. He tried the knob and found the door unlocked, also as arranged. He entered and secured it behind him.

  Number Seven was a suite comprising a main room, a kitchenette, and at least one more room beyond a closed door. The main room was sparsely furnished, holding only a couch, a rickety dining set of table and three chairs, a freestanding bookshelf, and a single upholstered lounge chair. On the floor by the lounge chair sat a personal computer, its monitor crowned with a cybernetic helmet sitting upon a coiled datacord. The cord connected the helmet to a box jury-rigged to the back of the computer, from which another cord ran to the back wall and through a tiny hole to some unknown connection. The cord went through the wall, of course, because it would have been easier to drill than the painted metal sheathing of the inner door. No hinges showed on that door, but a triple set of locks did. The arrangement was secure enough to let the decker escape should anyone try to force his way through.

  "Good afternoon, Neko," a pleasant but androgynous voice said from the monitor. "Your sidecar's ready."

  Neko turned and found the screen still dark, but he spoke to the device anyway. "Good afternoon, Chromium."

  "Hey, if we're riding together, you may as well call me Jenny. That Chromium stuff is just for the shifty suits."

  "Very well then, Jenny." Chromium might be a name she used with the suits, but she still didn't trust him enough to meet him face to face. She was just being prudent. He didn't mind; most deckers weren't much to look at anyway. "Is everything ready?"

  "Hot-wired and revved. Lay your bottom on the seat, pop on the top, and we'll fly."

  "A moment, please."

  He prowled around the room, placing sensors in advantageous positions. The helmet would blind him to the room, and the sounds transmitted through it might overwhelm his natural hearing. Since he did not wish to be surprised, the sensors were necessary to warn him of any intrusion. Jenny would be watching his precautions through a concealed video pickup, but that didn't matter. She would have to understand that he also had to exercise prudence. Satisfied that he would have notice of anyone entering the room, he settled into the chair and lifted the helmet.

  It was light for its size, all plastic and composite material. The smooth outer shell covered a tangle of tiny wires and circuitry chips. Before trying it on Neko adjusted the inner headband, but then he had to take it off again and adjust it once more before it sat properly on his head. He felt the pinpricks of the neurosensor rods and saw the green LED register proper contact. Light leaked up from beneath the eyeshield, causing the innards of the helmet to glimmer.

  "Ready," he announced, then was swirled away into blackness, to be blown at hurricane speed through a ring of lights and blasted into a galaxy of stars, Below him. the Matrix unfolded in all its neon glory. His viewpoint hung suspended over a nighttime city, the like of which had never been seen on the earth. Giant icons in a bewildering variety of shapes and colors marked the cyberspace locations of the megacorps, and towered over the lesser images representing the computer systems of smaller companies. Flitting pulses of light whipped across the dark space, cars of data on benighted datapath roads. His ears roared with the rushing wind of the silence.

  "Want to see what you look like?"

  Curious as always, Neko replied, "Can you do that?"

  "Sure. I'll switch the feed to your screen over to the image monitor."

  The sparkling glory of the Matrix winked out, replaced by a plain gray field. In the middle of the endless gray stood a curvaceous chrome biker girl in shiny black leathers. A chrome cat sat on her right shoulder like a modern-age familiar.

  "You like?"

  "Appropriate," Neko murmured.

  The Matrix returned, and Neko's viewpoint now included the biker girl's spun-silver hair. He tried looking down to see his own chrome paws, but found that he could not. His viewpoint was slaved to that of the decker. Her hair remained as a visual reminder that he was there only as an observer.

  "Where to?" Jenny asked.

  "Let's start with double-checking some of the earlier data."

  "Don't trust me?"

  "It's not that. There are some ramifications in the Laverty files that I'd like to investigate."

  "Chilled enough. Let's fly."

  They did, soaring above the Seattle Matrix construct. With a dizzying shift in perspective, they dove, pulling out to whip along a datapath. They screamed along for barely a second before the Matrix winked off and then on again. As they rose up from the datapath, Neko could see that the Matrix landscape had changed. The Aztechnology pyramid, so prominent a moment before, was nowhere to be seen. Some of the others were still there, but seemed changed in size.

  New icons had appeared, among them a cluster of crystalline structures that looked like glittering snowflakes.

  "They look like ice."

  "And ice they are," Jenny confirmed. "IC-type ice, intrusion countermeasures. The kind of ice that'll burn you if you touch it the wrong way."

  "But it's so beautiful."

  "Sure is."

  "We're moving toward them."

  "That's were you wanted to go. Second one to the right is Laverty's."

  "Then these are the council's data systems."

  "Fast boy."

  They slid around the edges of the first icefiake and dropped down toward the second. Their point of view continued down, sliding around the major axes and gliding past the interwoven sub-branches, until the multifaceted arms of the structure stretched over them. Neko expected to slip into shadow until he remembered that the only shadows in the Matrix were the ones that had been designed into someone's interface. They halted before one of the lowest arms. It was plain compared to most they had passed.

  "Laverty's public office system," Jenny said.

  Then they were inside. It seemed like they were standing inside a glacier, but no earthly glacier had ever been composed of lattice walls. A pair of black-gloved hands appeared before Neko. The hands stripped off their gloves and flexed long, tapered fingers of chrome.

  "Pick and choose, Neko. The files look clean."

  "Let's start with a correlation of multiple locations for public activities by anyone named Laverty."

  "You ain't got the bucks and I ain't got the time for that."

  "Can you confine it to the last hundred years and weed out anyone with no connection to the old United States or the Tir?"

  "Sure. That narrows it down some, but it's still big."

  Neko frowned. "So ka. Then start with Sean Laverty himself. Where does he spend most of his public time? Only pull locations he's visited more than once in a year or where he has a business interest."

  "Null perspiration."

  A scrolling list of locations superimposed itself over Neko's view of the crystalline lattice. With only a few exceptions, all of Laverty's public appearances were in Australia, England, Ireland, the former United States of America, and the former Dominion of Canada. "What about the business interests?"

  "Doesn't have any direct connections," Jenny said. "Supports a lot of charity organizations, though."

  "Same places?"

  After a moment, Jenny said, "Yeah."

  "What kinds of charities?"

  "See and learn, curious cat."

  Flashes of news reports replaced the Matrix imagery. They flew by too fast to absorb, but Neko got a sense of Laverty's involvements. Disaster relief, medical charities, work with the underprivileged, relief for the SINless. It all had a curious ring. The man had seemed too wise to the ways of the shadows to be a squeaky-clean philanthropist.

  "Jenny?" The images stopped. "This Xa
vier Foundation shows up a lot. Let's look into that."

  "It's guarded."

  Instantly suspicious, Neko asked, "Black ice?"

  "Naw, just shades of gray."

  "Then let's start with the public stuff."

  "Okay. I'll patch through to the public base."

  She was as good as her word, and soon Neko was able to scan whatever he wanted to see in the public records of the Foundation. And what he saw was most interesting. The organization had been founded in the late twentieth century by a man of unknown age, but described as being in his twenties. That man would be in his eighties today. He was something of a recluse, understandable for one described as the heir to an unspecified fortune. There was one picture, taken in connection with the opening of a hospital in Portland, Oregon, sometime around the turn of the century. Though originally a photograph, the image had long since been rendered into a datapic. The most curious thing was that this young man, also named Laverty, looked exactly like the red-haired elf Neko had met. No older, no younger. Of course, the man in the picture didn't have pointed ears; or rather, those ears didn't show, being covered by beautifully coifed hair. The resemblance was too close to be father and son, unless the son had had reconstructive surgery. An unlikely possibility.

  Answers always led to more questions. Neko smiled. That was how he liked it. Before the Awakening, this Laverty had run an operation that had sponsored many "special children."

  "Jenny, I think we have to look deeper into this operation."

  "You think you got something?"

  "Let's see, shall we?"

  "I think I like you, Neko. You're almost nosy enough to be a decker."

  "Curiosity can be a curse. It can take you where you'd rather not be."

  Jenny laughed. "Sure, but if it's all tame, there ain't no fun."

  They rose through the crystalline lattice and raced along icicles of dazzling beauty. Despite Jenny's forebodings, for several moments it seemed that nothing was in their way. Then the bubbles frozen in the icicles around them began to flow, converging toward them. "Uh-oh," Jenny muttered.

  "What is it?"

  "We've been spotted."

  Neko's perspective shifted dizzily. "What's happening? What are you doing?"

  "Running for cover. I had to load a lot of cutters for this run, so I'm not packing any heavy fighting programs."

  The perspective shift halted with jarring suddenness.

  "Drek!" The frustration in Jenny's voice was clear even through the voice modulator.

  "Hello, Jenny."

  Neko heard the words in his head but saw no source. He craned his head, trying to force the interface to shift perspective. He wanted to see who was addressing them. Slowly Jenny shifted her orientation, meeting with the intruding interface.

  They were faced by an ebon boy in a glittering cloak of silver sparks. The icon was smaller than Neko expected. Had it been real, the figure would have been almost his size.

  "Sorry, Jenny," the ebon boy said. "Even your boss' connections don't get you in here. Goodbye." The boy waved a hand and a jolt like a roundhouse punch jarred Neko. The screen went dark. From the other room, a crash signaled that Jenny had been affected as well. Neko ripped off the helmet and ran to the door. He knew he couldn't breach it, so he started to work on the locks. Behind him, the computer spoke with Jenny's voice.

  "It's okay. Just a little bit of dump shock."

  "What happened?"

  "We got kicked out."

  "Another decker?"

  "Yup."

  "Can we go back?"

  "We could, but we won't. At least not me. You can try somebody else, but I don't think they'll get anywhere against the Dodger."

  Neko wasn't sure he had heard correctly. "That was Dodger?"

  "In the electrons."

  Neko was shocked, but not really surprised. He'd known Dodger was a decker and that Dodger was connected to Laverty. Who better to defend Laverty's secrets? The guardian decker's swift response to invasion suggested the importance of what was being protected. "He's that good?"

  "The Dodger used to be good. Now he's special." Special? Indeed he might be. Special enough to be one of Laverty's "special children"? Laverty seemed to have been born in a time when elves were not yet supposed to exist. Was the same true for Dodger? Zip's testimony said so.

  Elves older than magic. That went counter to the accepted theories about the awakening of magic and the beginning of the Sixth World. Clearly, the elves had secrets. It could well be that one of those secrets was immortality. Kham could be right about the crystal and what it represented.

  Stealing that secret from the elves would be a coup, and using the secret would be an even greater one. The runners who achieved it would be immortal—not just among the shadows. They would live long after their deaths in the tales that inspired those who came after. Sure, it would be dangerous, but Neko knew he would not miss this run for his life.

  Neko wondered what his old master would think.

  16

  Agnes Tsossie, the security manager of Andalusian Light Industries, cowered before Glasgian like the human worm she was. She was right to fear his anger; she had not properly discharged her duty. For the moment, however, he would not express that anger. He would wait until he was satisfied that he knew the reasons for her failure, and had confirmed that the situation offered no threat to his plans. Until then, she remained a useful tool for his use. If she performed well in cleaning up the mess, he might even let her live. After all, it was her first failure.

  Surveying the damage in the corridor, he took in the bullet holes, the explosion scar, the smoke stains, and the rusty blotches. A small battle, but a battle nonetheless. A battle that should never have taken place. "You have an explanation, I trust," he said, without deigning to look at her.

  For a moment she said nothing. Gathering her courage, he assumed. She was competent in her field, and though he had never told her what had happened to her predecessor, she would know. When she did speak, her voice was marvelously well-controlled.

  "As you have seen, sir, they broke in along the north perimeter, bypassing our alarms. Judging by the debris, their equipment was very sophisticated, well beyond what one would expect for a random group of shadowrunners. The conclusion must be that they were a corporate strike team. Our budget for defensive systems precludes complete security against those kinds of resources. We were unable to take any prisoners, so, unfortunately, I cannot confirm for you who the raid's sponsor was."

  Giasgian waved his hand dismissively. "I don't care about the details or about your excuses. What I want to know is how they knew to strike at all."

  From the corner of his eye, Giasgian watched her smooth her hair back in a nervous gesture. "I cannot answer that without knowing their objective. Without prisoners to question, that piece of data will remain unknown."

  He turned and stared at her, letting his disdain show. "They came in from the north, did they not? Less than a hundred meters from the north wing of the light assembly building. They were headed toward Basement Level Four, were they not?"

  Tsossie was not a pretty woman and her frown made her less so. "Possibly. They never reached it, though, so we can't be sure that it was their target. We have so many potential targets in the facility."

  She knew where they were headed as surely as he did. He could see it in her eyes. "Basement Level Four."

  She shook her head in brazen and open disapproval of his categorical statement. "I know you have ordered increased security in that area, sir, but your concerns are not known to outsiders. They would not know you place a high value on whatever is down there. Your desire to keep your new project secure seems to be prodding you to unwarranted conclusions."

  Such cheek! He opened his mouth to put her in her place, but she didn't give him the chance.

  "We may have had a perimeter breach, but none of the raiders escaped; therefore we have lost nothing. Your projects, including that in BL4, are still secure.


  I will not deny that a threat exists, but I am prepared to see that security remains good. I could do a better job, however, if I knew what I was guarding. I could be more confident in evaluating the threats we might be facing or in mounting more effective countermeasures."

  Indeed, she might. But she might also use the knowledge to her own advantage; if she hadn't done so already. Being a mere human, she sought her own advantage, no matter how fleeting it might be. Perhaps she had been involved in the raid herself, tipping off the unknown sponsors to Glasgian's treasure. If so, she was a fool. Sooner or later, he would find out and, if she was guilty of treachery, she would regret it for the rest of her short life. Petty, fleeting advantages. Such ephemera were attractive to norms, he supposed, because their lives were so short.

  "As to more effective countermeasures, I shall handle that. I will arrange for additional magical security. You have no problem with that, I trust?"

  "None, sir."

  Perhaps. Perhaps not. "I will have Madame Guiscadeaux report to you in the morning. She is a student of mine and I have implicit faith in her skill and loyalty. You will treat her as you would me."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And as to your level of knowledge, you have all that you need to know," he told her. "Unfortunately I do not. I must know who sent them."

  "I cannot tell you that at this time. We have the lab technicians analyzing the raiders' equipment, but the preliminary reports are not encouraging. They were professionals."

  "I did not expect them to carry identification cards."

  "Of course not, sir. No one would. But corporate raiders are often equipped with products of their own corporation or its trading partners. Easy access, I suppose. These were carrying products of more than one megacorporate family; an attempt to appear as independent shadowrunners. We found nothing that was reliably incriminating, although a preponderance of the circuits in their equipment have manufacturing marks belonging to Miltron. I cannot place enough confidence in that report to target Miltron for reprisals." Miltron? The name was unfamiliar, but that was not surprising. No one could remember all the companies on the globe. Tracking the megacorporations was hard enough. One couldn't always know all of their subsidiaries, trading partners, and suppliers. If she saw fit to mention the name, she would know about the company. He decided to let her enlighten him. "Miltron?"