shadowrun 40 The Burning Time

by Stephen Kenson

  The street was lined with nightclubs, and Otabi went up to one whose name was proclaimed The Avalon in big neon letters. Roy waited until Otabi had actually gone in before he went to stand in the short line at the entrance. Within minutes, he’d paid the cover and went in.

  He didn’t take off his jacket, figuring its armor-cloth lining would come in handy if things got hot. He was painfully aware of how unarmed he was; if things did turn ugly, his only defense was to run. Of course, most of the clubbers around him wore considerably less, though sometimes they wore long coats over their scantily clad bodies.

  It was still early and not too crowded, but the music was already going full tilt, with a thudding bass Roy could feel in his bones. Multicolored lights cut through the dark, smoky interior and shimmered on the dance floor. He stayed close to the walls, trying to stay inconspicuous as he wandered into the main room, taking everything in.

  He spotted Otabi right away, but not on the dance floor. The sarariman was sitting and talking to someone at a table in one of the tiers that surrounded the main floor. The other guy looked Anglo and he was dressed like most of the other club-goers, but that was about all Roy could tell. He could see something lying on the table between Otabi and his companion, but he couldn’t make out what it was. Roy pondered whether to try and get closer, then decided it was wiser to hang back near the entrance, just in case.

  He watched as Otabi drew a slim plastic credstick from his jacket pocket—which he’d probably picked up at the bank earlier today—and handed it to his companion. The other man slid the package across the table to Otabi, who quickly snatched it up, then stood to leave.

  Roy walked away from the entrance so that Otabi wouldn’t make him as he exited the club. After waiting a few moments, he followed Otabi out without another look at the man sitting upstairs or betraying any other interest in the situation.

  Otabi went directly home with whatever he had picked up from the man at the Avalon. Roy guessed it was chips rather than drugs. Otabi just wasn’t the type to go for the organic stuff. He was probably into sims, maybe beetles. Roy knew that BTL-abuse was all too common in the high-tech, high-pressure corporate sector. The package could have contained something else, of course. Roy had no way of knowing without confronting Otabi directly, and he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  He could make an anonymous call to Knight Errant, who might send officers to investigate, but all they could do was question Otabi. Roy didn’t think they could get a search warrant based on an anonymous tip.

  Thinking he should call it a night, he started up the Spirit and headed back to the hotel, mentally working out what he should do next. He had no idea that he, too, was being followed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As Dan Otabi and then Roy Kilaro left the Avalon, neither one noticed the small object about the size and shape of a trashcan lid hovering near the roof of the building. Painted matte black, it blended into the shadows behind the neolux lights of the club. But to the small lenses clustered on its underside, the nighttime street was as bright as day. They picked up everything, from the sweat on Dan Otabi’s brow to the nervous glances on the face of the man tailing him from a careful distance.

  Valkyrie nudged the rotodrone forward slightly, staying near the rooftops as the two men headed down the street, Otabi well in the lead. She kept pace with the man following him, and his profile swelled to fill her field of vision as she zoomed the drone’s cameras in. Val was jacked into a remote control deck in Boom’s upstairs office. She looked asleep, but her senses and her nerves were linked to the drone’s systems, letting her see what it saw, controlling its movements with a thought.

  She flitted and hovered above the rooftops, past other night clubs as the two men headed for the parking garage. Val risked being spotted when she zipped the drone across the road to hover a short distance near the garage. Nobody seemed to notice the dark shape moving quickly overhead.

  She saw the second man get into a car, and zoomed in on the license registration. It could be useful later on. As he pulled out of the garage, Val revved up the drone’s motor and started following. Traffic was typical for a night in Boston, so she was sure she’d be able to keep up.

  "We may have a problem," Boom said as Talon came into his office.

  "Yeah, I saw him," Talon said. "Any idea who he is?"

  "Val’s still tracking him," the troll replied, nodding his head Val, who was slumped on the couch against the wall. A small remote-control deck was cradled in her lap, and a thin cable snaked up to the chrome jack behind her ear. Her eyes were rolled back in her head while her brain lived in the virtual world of the machine. Talon knew that Val was also recording any other interesting information the drone collected so they could go over it later.

  "The run might be compromised," Hammer said.

  Talon nodded. It was a concern they all shared. "Maybe, but let’s not hit the panic-button until we know more about this guy and why he’s following Otabi."

  "Aren’t too many reasons why he would be," Hammer said.

  "I can think of a few," Boom put in. "He could be a cop looking into the break-in at Otabi’s place, or one who got suspicious about it. Depends on whether Otabi reported it to Knight Errant. He could be a friend Otabi asked to come along and keep an eye out for trouble. . ."

  "Or he could be corp security, watching Otabi because he’s a possible risk," Talon concluded.

  "Yeah, that’s the most likely one," Boom said.

  "And since it’s Cross we’re dealing with, there’s one other possibility," Talon said. "He might be a Seraphim." The Seraphim were well known in the shadows for their ruthless efficiency in protecting their employer’s interests.

  "I don’t think so," Boom said. "We caught on to him too easily. From what we saw out there, he’s too amateur for Seraphim. If they were running a tail on Otabi, it’d be a lot harder to spot than that."

  "You’re right," Talon said, "but that doesn’t rule out the possibility that he’s corporate security of some kind. Have you got the security logs?"

  The troll nodded and tapped the surface of his desk as Talon and Hammer came around to look over his shoulder. The dark glass surface of the desktop lit up with four images of the man following Otabi, digital stills taken from the security cameras placed throughout the club. Boom manipulated the controls and zoomed in on the images, refining the resolution. The man was human and Anglo, or so he looked. Probably in his twenties, with a shock of short, coppery hair. He wore a dark leather jacket over nondescript street clothes.

  "I don’t recognize him," Talon said. "I don’t think he was in any of the personnel files Trouble pulled on the Cross MV facility."

  Boom ran a quick image-comparison program. "Nope, no matches. He’s not in the personnel files for the facility at all."

  "Could he be wearing some kind of disguise?" Hammer asked. "Not necessarily just make-up, but some kind of spell?"

  Talon shrugged. "Maybe. I couldn’t risk checking him out in the astral. He might have noticed me if he did have some kind of magic. Aracos might have seen something, though. Aracos?" he said to the empty air. There was a shimmering like heat waves rising off hot asphalt, and a golden-feathered falcon materialized, alighting on Talon’s shoulder.

  "Aracos, did you notice this guy?" Talon pointed toward the display on Boom’s desk.

  "Yes," the spirit said, its thought-voice carrying to everyone in the room. "He’s a mundane, no magic on him, either, at least not that I could see. He was definitely interested in what was going on between you and Otabi—curious, intrigued, and a little apprehensive."

  "What about cyber?" Talon asked. "Any of that?"

  "Not much," Aracos said. "Some implants, mostly in his head, like yours."

  Boom tapped the glass with one huge finger. "You can see the jack," he said. "Probably just some headware, then."

  "Doesn’t sound like corporate security," Hammer said. "It also doesn’t look like he’s packing, although it’s hard to tell from
these pictures. He might be carrying something concealed under that jacket, but I can usually tell when a guy’s carrying, and he doesn’t look it."

  "So who are we dealing with here?" Talon said. "A friend? An amateur? Maybe even a private investigator?"

  "Dunno," Boom said. "We need more to go on."

  "I’m going to give Trouble a call," Talon said. He mentally accessed the menu of his headphone and had it dial Trouble’s cell-number. A small bell icon flashed in the corner of his field of vision as it dialed. There was a faint click as it connected, then Trouble’s voice sounded in his ear through the subdermal speakers. "Hi, leave me a message. . ." It was the answering function of her phone.

  "Hey," he said, "this is Talon. I’m at the club. Call me back." Then he disconnected.

  "She didn’t pick up? That’s not like her," Hammer said, a note of concern in his voice. He’d known Trouble the longest.

  "She’s got her phone turned off for some reason," Talon said. "We’ll just have to wait till she calls back."

  They went over some other angles from the security cams, and ran a more thorough check through the personnel files Trouble had lifted from the research facility. They didn’t turn up anything useful. Then Val stirred and pulled the cable from her jack, letting it spool back into the control deck. She arched her back and stretched her arms overhead with her fingers laced together.

  "Drone’s on its way back in," she said. She picked up the deck and went to sit down closer to Boom’s desk. "I tracked the guy back to Otabi’s apartment complex. He watched Otabi go in, then drove to the Westin Inn out on Route 2. I’ve got visuals of him and the car, including the plates. Trouble can run them and see if anything comes up.

  "Another thing," Val went on. "From the way he followed Otabi here and back, I’d say he’s got some sort of tracer on his car. He stayed back a good distance most of the time, being careful not to be seen."

  "Sounds like a pro," Hammer said, but Val shook her head.

  "Dunno about that," she replied. "I mean, he was careful, but it didn’t look like he was operating with back-up or any kind of plan except to follow Otabi to see where he went."

  "And that brings us back to not knowing enough about him," Talon said. "Val, let’s download the sensor logs from your drone and see if that tells us anything." The drone had returned and landed on the roof of the club, so Val copied the logs onto chips that they slotted into Boom’s desktop computer. Unfortunately, the logs didn’t reveal much more than they already knew. By the time they were finished going through them, Boom’s desk vidphone beeped.

  "Maybe that’s Trouble," Talon said as Boom tapped the answer button. The voice that came over the desk’s speakers wasn’t Trouble’s, but it was familiar.

  "Chummers, it’s Ethan. I can’t talk long, but we’re a go. I’ve nearly got the information we need. It’ll be ready on schedule, so proceed as planned. Hunt out."

  There was a click as the caller hung up, and the line went dead. Boom shut off the phone with the touch of a button.

  "Man," Val said, "he’s even more far gone than I thought."

  "Yeah, the personafix program worked fast," Talon said. He turned to Boom. "Any chance he could be faking it? That the guy trailing him tipped him off?"

  Boom pondered for a moment before shaking his head. "No, you saw how Otabi reacted to getting that chip. Unless he’s the greatest fragging actor in world, there’s no way he’s faking it, even if he knew what the chip was for. The guy who sold me the program promised results, and he’s good. While slotting that chip, Otabi really believes he’s Ethan Hunt, corporate shadowbreaker, working undercover to expose a ring of corporate spies, get the girl, and save the day, all in a couple of hours plus commercials. According to Val’s fly-over, it doesn’t look like Otabi’s shadow actually talked to him, either."

  "So, it looks like we’re still a go then," Talon said. "So long as nothing happens to compromise Otabi between now and then. We’ll have to keep a close eye on things, but we’ll go ahead like we planned tomorrow night. With any kind of luck, maybe we can turn the fact that someone suspects Otabi to our advantage. We set for now?"

  Boom nodded.

  "I’ll see you all tomorrow," Talon said, walking to the door. "Boom, if Trouble calls, fill her in and ask her to track down what she can about our mystery man. I’d at least like to know his name and who he works for before this all goes down. And ask her to call me, okay?"

  Trouble rolled over and looked at the cool blue numerals glowing on the face of the clock with a sigh: 11:24 p.m. She really, really didn’t want to get up, but her sense of duty was greater than her desire to stay in bed. She picked up her cell phone to retrieve her messages, which scrolled across the tiny screen. As she read them, she sat up and thumbed the phone off.

  "Hmmm?" came a voice from the other side of the bed.

  "Ian, I have to go," she said softly. Suddenly he was completely awake. He sat up, the sheet falling from his bare chest. His sea blue eyes were filled with concern.

  "Go? Why? Is something wrong?"

  "No, just work," she said.

  "Can’t it wait for a while?" He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and playfully pulled her back against him.

  Trouble sighed. "I wish it could, but this job will be over soon." She leaned over to plant a lingering kiss on his lips. "When it’s done, I’ll have a lot more free time."

  "Then hurry up and get it done," he said with a smile. He kissed her again and started to get up himself.

  "You can stay if you want," Trouble said quickly. "I’m not kicking you out."

  "I should be going anyway. I’ve got some things to do, too."

  He didn’t say what, but Trouble knew he was talking about the terrorist Knights of the Red Branch. She picked her clothes out of the pile scattered on the floor, intermittently handing Ian the ones belonging to him. In short order, both were fully dressed. Trouble picked up the shoulder bag holding her deck and other essentials while Ian shrugged into the shoulder harness with the heavy Ares Predator pistol he favored. It was the type of gun he’d taught Trouble to use and that she still carried. He threw his long coat over it to conceal it.

  "I’ll walk you down," he said gallantly at the door. Trouble made sure the maglock engaged before they went down the hall to the elevators.

  "So how much longer do you think this job will take?" Ian asked as they stepped onto the elevator.

  Trouble hit the buttons for the lobby and the parking garage. "Not long," she said.

  "Good." He took an optical chip from his coat pocket and pressed it into her hand. "Call me when it’s done?"

  She looked into his eyes. "I will."

  The elevator pinged, and the doors opened. Ian stepped out with a look of regret. "I’ll see you later, then," he said, and the doors closed behind him.

  On her way down to the parking garage, Trouble pulled out her cell phone and held it to her ear.

  "Avalon," she said into the mike, and the phone automatically dialed the private line to Boom’s office. After a couple rings, he answered.

  "Boom, it’s Trouble. I got a message from Talon. What’s up?"

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the alley across the street from the apartment building, Gallow waited impatiently. None of the feelings that seethed deep in the spirit’s heart showed on the face of Bridget O’Riley, except as a tightness around her mouth. Since joining up with the Knights of the Red Branch as instructed, Gallow had been assigned a number of simple, menial tasks. One of them was maintaining watch for the Knights’ leader while he carried out his dalliance with one of Gallow’s enemies. How it wanted to simply walk into that building and burn it to the ground, slaughtering the helpless creatures within while they screamed for mercy. How Gallow wanted to take the heart of Talon’s friend and present it to him as a gift, right before it tore out Talon’s soul and devoured it.

  But Gallow could do nothing of the sort. It was bound to Mama Iaga, who knew its true name and forced it to o
bey her. And for now, her commands were clear. Gallow must infiltrate the Knights of the Red Branch and await the proper moment to act, even though the waiting was likely to drive it mad. It consoled itself with the fact that Mama had promised to give it what it wanted—revenge on Talon before claiming the mage’s life and his body as its own. If only there wasn’t this interminable waiting.

  A flicker of movement from the apartment building caught Gallow’s eye. Staying close to the shadows of the alley, it watched Ian O’Donnel come through the front door of the building, hands deep in the pockets of his long coat. It continued to watch as O’Donnel crossed to where his car was parked. The street was virtually deserted, with no sign of any threat. As instructed, Gallow took the small commlink from one pocket and spoke into it.

  "Watcher to Base. The Hound is on the path home. Over." The code phases indicated that Ian O’Donnel was heading back to the Knights headquarters.

  The tiny mike in Bridget’s ear crackled. "Roger that, Watcher. Come back in."

  "Understood," Gallow said, switching off the commlink. With O’Donnel finally returning to the Knights HQ, it would have time to see to a few other matters. The spirit walked over the beat-up motorcycle it had concealed at the end of the alley and kicked the engine to life. It had come to enjoy the roaring power of such machines, so similar to itself in many ways. It would have been greatly angered to know how like Talon it was in that respect. Gallow cruised to the end of the alley and paused for a moment.

  A familiar car emerged from the parking garage of the building. It was the woman’s car, the one called Trouble. The car pulled out onto the street and headed in the direction of the city, just as O’Donnel had a few minutes before.