Shadowrun: Streets of Blood Part 3

Geraint began leafing through his ma.s.sive collection of brochures. "I have a feeling he's down as a teleconferencer: not attending seminars, just watching from his hotel room. It's what the paranoids do if they don't want a legion of trolls with automatic weapons around them every second of the day. But think it's just possible that at some stage he might want a face-to-face with someone over a few drinks. Let me check this out and get back to you. Give me-no, not a couple of hours. Meet me here for lunch."

Geraint leaned forward and fixed the American with his steely gaze. "Don't do anything crazy in the interim. If it is Kuranita, you won't be able to get to him unless you've got a grenade launcher with you. And even that might not be enough. He may be booked into the Chiltem, but he's probably staked out on the other side of the building."

Serrin nodded his acquiescence. "Yeah, I guessed that. Every other room in the place has a barrier up, too. I tried just a tad of snooping last night, and had a pair of security mages show up within five minutes to gently warn me against further attempts. I think I'll just get my pants pressed by valet service or something."

"Trousers, boy, trousers! You're not back home now. Speak b.l.o.o.d.y English." They laughed as Geraint got up from the bony remains of his kippers, then pulled down the jacket sleeves to regulation half-past his s.h.i.+rt cuffs. Serrin smiled at the gesture, unself-conscious as it was. The n.o.bleman always was that cool and elegant, except just that one time all those years ago.

"Hear from Francesca at all?" Serrin asked, trying to make the question sound like a throwaway. Geraint had been waiting for it all along.

"She moved to London eighteen months ago. Flies out to Jersey a lot, likes the beaches there. One of the few places left where you can walk along without tripping over other people every step of the way. She's doing fine. I had dinner with her a few days ago. Look her up, she'd like that."

Whipping out a gleaming pen from an inside pocket, Geraint scribbled her telecom code onto a paper napkin. He preferred to defer the query that way, not wanting to suggest that the three of them meet back in London. That might be just a little too awkward.

Serrin returned to his room and started filing his report on the laptop. He checked through his diary and noted every time and place he'd been, letting his employers know they'd got overtime and value for money. He knew he still needed to run checks on the Optical Neotech guys at some point, but that could wait. For now.

If Rutger had spiked the Johnson's drink, the man was showing no appreciable effect of it. He was a New Yorker, a hard guy from the Rotten Apple, and he had briefed her quickly and concisely, with an answer prepared for every query Francesca could muster. But there was just one possible slip in the fifty-minute workout that had intrigued her.

"I must emphasize that my client's interest in this matter is confined to the seeding of the target's system with the corrosive. It is entirely possible that you may encounter an unfriendly operative once in the system. Under such circ.u.mstances your contract permits you to withdraw from hostilities if you are endangered, and we add the proviso that under no circ.u.mstances are you to enter any other system."

She pondered that one over breakfast the next morning, which was Sat.u.r.day. The job would pay well, as befitted the task. Being a freelance security consultant was a discreet cover for her. To those in the know, it said, I bust systems open as well as test them.

This one was a bust. Someone wanted a nasty corrosive virus dumped into the computer system of a Fuchi subsidiary. The virus came in its own autodegrading chip; any attempt to do anything other than download it into its predestined target would melt the cyberdeck into which the chip was loaded. She hadn't paid all that money for a Cyber-6 to have a melting chip rakk it up, and she wasn't going to take too close a look at the thing. Thirty-five thousand nuyen were also a slamming good reason not to fool around.

Get this one right, Francesca, and the employer could become a gravy train. This could be holidays in Sri Lanka until the gray hairs started sprouting.

"I wonder why he said that, though, Annie." As usual Francesca had asked her friend to be nearby in case the IC got nasty and she needed someone to take care of her after getting dumped, or worse. It had happened before, just once, when she'd foolishly strayed into the black IC of that Edinburgh system. On that occasion Annie had been able to give her the kiss of life in time.

"Who knows? Just do the job, honey." Annie sprawled her six-foot length over the leather sofa, stretching her legs-and she did have fabulous legs, long and lean and muscular. If all went well now they might celebrate by going out on the town tonight, Francesca the blonde in black, Annie the brunette encasing herself in something white, tight, and very, very inadequate to the purpose. They didn't ask too much about each other's lives, speaking of their relations.h.i.+ps with the flippancy more common to men talking about women, but it worked at that level. They didn't talk much about their work, either. Francesca needed to keep quiet about what she did, while Annie proclaimed herself a model. Francesca knew what that meant, though. If Annie's hard edge didn't give her away, the high rents she had to pay on her flat around the corner did. But they shared a certain wary mutual respect and unspoken trust. Each knew the other was someone she wouldn't regret having as a companion while getting far too drunk. That counted for a lot.

Francesca's thoughts turned back to the run. The priorities for this job were different from her last. No subtleties needed here; it was bod mode all the way and the most vicious attack program she could muster. She wasn't as happy with the attack stuff as she could have been. She'd gotten it with area-effect rather than high-penetration, thinking the shotgun approach was best when she couldn't be sure what the Fuchi boys would have built in. Still, the Filipino armor program she'd hawked from Paris looked as if it was good enough to buy her the extra time and defense she'd need when up against the heavy IC. She also had a reliable medic program to keep the MPCP rolling when the guano hit the fan; that venerable utility had done yeoman work for at least the last couple of years.

The key to it all was programming the smartframe. She was going to use it as a decoy, she decided, rather than to cover her b.u.t.t as a defense back-up. That meant she'd have to program it with instructions to confuse, detour, delay, and generally frag with anything she might encounter while dumping the virus into the Fuchi system. She'd contemplated exploring the system in sensor mode, trying to learn what she could in order to better instruct the frame, but then thought better of it. One mistake could place the system on alert, and she wasn't about to hand out any advance warnings.

Chewing her lip, Francesca keyed in the instruction codes. When in doubt, she figured, nuke the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and shoot 'em when they glow in the dark. Let's bust through to the CPU and frag anything else.

The adrenaline was pouring through her veins now. Second-guessing Fuchi's strategies, she used her experience and skills to antic.i.p.ate what she might find, allowing for just a bit of the smartframe's capacity for contingency programming. She flew as high as a kite, and by three in the afternoon the cyberdeck was humming. Francesca jacked in to her deck and entered the Matrix.

Optical Neotech, here I come. You are about to get squared.

The resistance was just what she'd expected. She'd battered through the IC, the frame smoking her from one crucial attack, and then she'd downloaded the virus into the CPU. She was thinking that was the safest bet when the thing suddenly appeared in the glowing world of cybers.p.a.ce as a reptilian worm with the head of a moray eel, a really evil-looking beast. It snarled at her, spat hatred, and began gorging itself on subsystems. The IC began to weaken around her, its force diminis.h.i.+ng as it faded and dislocated, fragmenting in a burst of nothingness.

The corporate decker had been there, of course, a multi-armed Kali whirling shortswords and dripping venom from his blades. Flashy, but strictly the mark of a wage slave aiming to intimidate rather than wielding true threat. Admittedly, she'd also chosen flas.h.i.+ness, her laser-firing chainsaw ripping arcs of blue light across the distance, blinding and driving away the a.s.sault.

Francesca was headed out of the system when she saw the ghostly figure from her last run floating off toward the SAN. The cloaked figure carried a bag, and her pulse and endocrines went through the roof when she saw him. Whatcha got in the bag, Faceless? You wanna fight for it?

She hammered toward him through a blur of abstract s.p.a.ce, exiting the system and downlining past another SAN, not caring which system she'd entered. She switched to attack mode, too full of herself to register the menace he presented.

The cloaked figure turned to face her oncoming rush, and as he did so he opened his bag. Inside were surgical instruments: vicious pincers, blades, saws, and a long, dreadful, ivory-handled scalpel. Taking this last instrument in his taloned hand, he swiped at her.

Francesca panicked, desperately trying to dive into the SAN and escape the maniac. She was paralyzed and he knew it. This time he had a face; a terrible, fleshy, contorted grimace suffused with madness and hatred. His visage expanded into a ghastly rictus as he pocketed the scalpel for later use and reached out with his hands, grasping for her throat.

Wh.o.r.e!

She felt the word expand out of the persona, an insult spat like venom from the deepest reaches of whatever elemental madness seemed to possess the thing. She felt warm hands close around her throat, felt her limbs jerking spasmodically as he strangled the life out of her, felt his hot animal breath on her face as his eyes bore into her soul. She choked as her heart pumped frantically, her hands scrabbling ineffectually at his hideous face, her screams silent as her windpipe ruptured and the world was shredded black.

It was an hour before Annie could bring her around, and then her terrified screams roused the building security. She was shaking uncontrollably when Annie hit her with a tranq patch, then put her to bed.

There wasn't going to be any partying for Francesca that night, nor for many nights to come.

8.

"What did you get?" Serrin was eager to hear, stubbing out the last of a string of cigarettes that bore witness to his impatience.

Geraint frowned slightly, dumped a pile of papers on the table and smoothed back his dark hair. He fussed over the gold fountain pen in his pocket, sighing in frustration. It hadn't been a good morning, and to top it all he'd returned to find a missive waiting for him that was definitely unwelcome. The Earl of Manchester's personal secretary regretted that Lord Powys was unable to sit in on the committee stage of the Gwynedd Demarcation Bill next week, and since a trustworthy and reliable Welshman would be needed . . .

Wonderful. Now he could look forward to being bored silly in a debate with aggressive Gwynedd elves over small print, while trying to politely kick some government lord under the table to keep him awake. At least he'd gotten something for Serrin, though he wasn't so sure how the elf would take it. Geraint decided to play it down for starters.

"Next to nothing, my friend. The Communication Management people are apparently here for the specific purpose of observing this afternoon's seminar on bio-molecular technology in comm systems. They aren't talking to anyone, and the brief they submitted has been printed in the program. It doesn't say much, so far as I can see. But a little bird did whisper something in my ear. "

Serrin edged forward. "What kind of bird? As long as it wasn't a blood kite, I want to hear what it said."

"It was one of Nakatomi's boys from Fuchi Industrial UK. Drunk as a skunk at ten in the morning." Geraint's face crinkled slightly with disapproval. "Chap reeked of brandy and bimbo at a frankly disgraceful hour of the day. "

"Spare me the jazz," Serrin said with a shrug. "I know places back in Seattle where no one will believe you can cut it at all if you don't smell like that, know what I mean? What did you get?"

"Just this: Kuranita is supposed to pay a call on Fuchi's labs out at Longstanton this evening. CMS is a Fuchi subsidiary, after all, so it wouldn't look odd. If I read my contact right, that's Kuranita's real motive for being here. The seminar's just a convenient cover."

Serrin was satisfied. It was impossible to get anywhere near Kuranita in the hotel, and if he tried any more magic around the place it wouldn't just be hotel security knocking politely at his door. Next time, they'd have an official from the Administrative Bureau of the Lord Protector's Office along with them. If Serrin was carrying any permit not perfectly in order, they'd deport him instantly and confiscate his precious magical gear. And even if all his permits were up to snuff, they'd probably still find something in the small print anyway. And that was before they found the Ingram. . . .

So he would wait. He'd been out to Longstanton, north of the city's sprawl, and it was easy to hide out there. The labs weren't far from the Stinkfens, the polluted miasma of marshland and waters that befouled most of old East Anglia, so there wasn't exactly a high density of population and homes to worry about.

Serrin looked around the room, taking in the scattering of foreign faces, many Asians among them. "I thought this was n.o.bles in Business, Geraint. You can't tell me that these chummers are all scions of Britain's blue-blooded aristocracy. "

"My dear fellow, you misunderstand. An event like this brings together two groups of people who need each other. On the one hand, a selection of British upper-crust, a bit short on cash, but who badly want to believe they can succeed in business. Most of them haven't a prayer, of course, since they're swimming with sharks. On the other hand, you have greedy foreign fat cats who have money and power, but who can't buy that elusive quality, style. So they buy the presence of the n.o.bles, hoping some of it will rub off on them.

"Both sides are doomed to disappointment, obviously. The n.o.bles usually have as much business ac.u.men as a lobotomized troll, and the greed merchants wouldn't know style if it sandbagged them. Still, at least the chaps who pay the tab get traditional British room service, with butlers and valets on tap, and a carefully planned percentage of forelock-tugging and 'by gad, you are a card, sir.' n.o.body in Britain actually speaks like that anymore, of course, but you seps seem to think we do, so we maintain the pretense to keep the rich tourists happy. Bentinck, the Tourism Minister, is an absolute past master at it. He's probably got the entire works of d.i.c.kens in headware memory and a skillwire in advanced groveling. Still, it's all good for the economy. End of lecture."

Geraint waved away the oncoming threat of the hors d'oeuvres trolley. "I think I'd better stick to something green and safe. Too much gamma-cholesterol in the bacon strips this morning. Must have fed the factory pig the wrong goo."

"But, Geraint, what about your Conservatiorrist's?" Serrin said. "They seem pretty much the traditional old Brit to me. And what you're saying about cla.s.s and style, that's very British too. I think the folks back home know they can't buy cla.s.s, no matter how much we pay for implants or the loveliest cybereyes or clonal facelifts or any other cosmetic trick of the modem age. But we recognize it in you guys. That's real."

"Granted. But you're missing something," Geraint gestured with his fork.

"What's that?"

"Humor. We don't take this terribly seriously. Deep down, British people know that life's tawdry tapestry is something you have to get through with a certain decent detachment. Look, I spent hours this morning listening to some Swiss corporate mercenary drone on about the role of speculative finance in the development of viral agents to counter the diseases of old age. Medicine? No, it was all about money.

"What his arguments came down to was this. Stuff the poor countries, because their per capita income is too low to pay for the drugs, and no one lives long enough to need them anyway. Ignore the richest countries, because the smart money there is on clone-tech and tissue replacement banks. In the future the very rich will never grow old anyway. His position-and this is where he got really excited for just a few minutes-is that smart investors will focus on the middle group. That group can't afford the real cutting-edge work, but who has enough money and enough crumblies to become a sound market for the cheaper viral repair agents.

"My friend, what medicine comes down to is, where is the best market? And not even the best market now. That's not enough. We need venture capitalists with the foresight to know who will be able to afford to delay death in the right way in years to come.

"Oh, and there was a nice little rider in the next presentation. Some people might think that developing clonal technology-the thing that really works-for the very rich and then letting it trickle down to the rest would benefit everyone. Producers get economies of scale, consumers get what they need. However, it turns out that you can't dispense the new products to the ma.s.s market because then the corps wouldn't have big enough production runs for their simpler, cheaper products. Longterm profits would drop, discouraging further research.

"It's political, of course, as well as economic: we can't allow those with less money to enjoy the same advantages of those with more. Dear me, no. Can't have billions of little Indians and Chinese running around with extra-long life spans. Think of the pollution from overpopulation. And all this from men living in the most destroyed and polluted countries in the world."

Geraint gestured with his hands, palms out before him, fingers extended across the table toward the elf. "That's why the n.o.bles and the money men are in there. They're protecting each other's inalienable right to scrag the rest of the world. I mean, what else would be freedom, democracy, and the Anglo-American way? Not to forget the Swiss and j.a.panese, of course. Actually, they're rather better at it than we are these days."

There was a long silence after that tirade. Serrin had never heard anything like this from Geraint when he'd been a fresh-faced young student in California.

"Spirits, boy, you sound like one of those goldamed Commies." Serrin made a limp attempt at humor. He wasn't sure what to make of his friend's outburst.

"Serrin, you know the other side of the coin. There's little more decency between these people than they show the rest of the world." Geraint paused, mouth tight. "That's why you want to hunt the person who killed your parents."

The blow struck home. The elf's hands balled into fists and his face contorted with tension. Silence descended heavily between the two men.

"What are you going to do, old friend?" Geraint's voice was almost tender.

"I don't know. I've been out to Longstanton. I'll stake the place out to see what opportunity turns up."

Geraint had known Serrin would try this, and had his reply well-scripted. "You can't know exactly where Kuranita's headed. Longstanton isn't the whole Fuchi complex, but it's three rakking square miles and that's a lot of entrances to cover."

"There are only two main gates, and he's sure to head for the security complex." The elf twisted his gaze, avoiding Geraint's eyes.

"Serrin, you don't have the weapons to hit the guy. You'd need an expert sniper with an MA 2100 or better and every trick you could build into it. You'd need infrared, APDS to get through the ballistic armor, and you'd need smoke, flare, and heaven knows what else to have a cat in h.e.l.l's chance of getting out alive. And even if you didn't care about that, and you got lucky and hit the guy in one chance in a hundred, you know as well as I do that a man like Kuranita will have a couple of doubles running around as safeguards. Sure, he'll be going for the security complex-almost certainly by an indirect route, while a doppelganger takes the obvious one. Unless he's going to double-bluff, of course.

"How can you know what someone like that will have planned? You're no street samurai, friend. You couldn't even get close to him with what you do have. You know there'll be corporate mages checking the astral for miles. You wouldn't even get within range before they fried you."

Serrin shook his head. "I took precautions against that. Don't forget, I've been earning my nuyen by snooping around here all week. Got a little something to help on the masking front."

"So that's what you got from Serena," Geraint blurted.

The mage looked astonished. "You been probing my mind, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d?" He was angry and threatened by the possibility. Geraint waved away his anger with a smile.

"You should know I don't have any talent in that department. Much simpler: I got pretty much the same thing from her myself, only yesterday. She said you'd been in. And no, she didn't say what you'd bought there. She just said it was an interesting coincidence that you'd stopped by just before I did. Nothing more to it than that."

Serrin relaxed, slowly, but remained slightly on guard. Geraint pounced on his uncertainty with a final warning.

"Fine, so you're masked and you manage not to get noticed by any of the-five or six?-mages who'll be there. The lab will have a couple in the security department, I guess, say two more covering the perimeters, and Kuranita's retinue will include another pair. Call it four.

Do you really think they won't be protecting him with enough sustained spells and spell locks to guard a Swiss banking satellite? Come on, don't be foolish. Take any kind of shot and we won't be chewing the fat over breakfast tomorrow. Let it go. You can't touch this man. Not here, not now."

It was the truth, and Serrin knew it. "But I have to go"

Geraint nodded sadly. He'd known this was something beyond reason, but he had to try. There was only one thing left to do.

"Of course you do, you dumb sod. But you can't go alone, and I don't want you getting us both killed by doing anything silly. "

The elf's eyes shone brightly as he looked at his friend. When he spoke it was with an almost childlike naivete. "You'll help me?"

"What are friends for? I have a little more skill these days." With the fingers of his left hand Geraint drew the skin on his right palm tight. The implant beneath was well-disguised, scarcely visible even now. It was a beautiful job, and Serrin admired the near-perfect concealment of the smartgun link.

"I felt I needed it after what happened. If I'd been a better shot all those years ago we'd both have someone still alive today."

"It wasn't your fault. It was dark, raining. She should never have run down that-"

"I don't blame myself. Not now, anyway. But I thought some personal enhancement in that direction wouldn't be amiss. I got myself a skillwire too. I'm not bad, either. I've yet to fire a sniper rifle in real action, but I can bring off a head shot nine times out of ten at eighty yards. I don't think we'll get that close, but I'm bound to be a better shot so you should stick to covering my backside. And I hope that bike of yours is b.l.o.o.d.y quick."

Geraint drummed his fingers on the table, planning his moves. "Look, I've got to get back to the Smoke. We'll need rather better resources than we've got here, and I don't really fancy getting a two-thousand nuyen Gieves suit covered with fenland muck. I can't leave until four, but there's the non-stop express shuttle at four-twelve and I can be back here by, oh, seven. I'll bring whatever I can lay my hands on. Ideally, we could use a rocket launcher, but it's probably too short notice."

The mage was open-mouthed. Geraint's eyes twinkled back at him. "Only joking. We'd have to raid an Integrated Weapons Systems armory to get one of those, or maybe the Ministry of Defense. Not enough time." He chuckled, his mind shuffling through the contacts he could chase down, hoping that Haughtree, at least, would be at home. Haughtree was the one man he could be sure of in this kind of situation. Thirty thousand nuyen for the cancer op in Zurich made Haughtree a very trustworthy friend.

"Meanwhile, Serrin, you can go check out those Optical Neotech guys. Got something for you on that one; the senior, Peter Mcc.u.mber, has an extremely shaky cred balance. File a report stating that your sources inform you that he's taking bribes from a subsidiary of British Industrial. Tell your employer to check transactions at the Chartered Imperial Bank. That should earn you a nice bonus. Buy me dinner at the Carlton sometime."

Geraint made to leave, but Serrin grabbed his arm and looked hard into his eyes. "Why are you doing all this?" It wasn't mistrust in his voice, only a little wonderment.

Geraint opted for fatuity. "Because I'm a bored, decadent, minor n.o.ble looking for a little excitement in a humdrum life, old friend."

Serrin still looked baffled. Geraint laughed softly and clapped the elf on the shoulder. "Catch you later," he said.

9.

Wasim pored over the map as the ancient British Industrial Midlander rattled along the highway. He was hunched up in the back seat, packed between Sachin with the guns and Aqib with a cylindrical steel tube and a box of grenades. "Ten miles, then to the northern zone and past the Bar Hill squatzone. It's on the right."

The car leaped over one of the ubiquitous b.u.mpy testimonies to the woeful quality of British roads. There was a thump as someone's head struck the roof. "What a pile of plazz!" Sachin complained, rubbing his head ruefully. "I thought they'd stopped making these buckets ten years ago when they closed down the Birmingham factory. Didn't close it down soon enough, if you ask me."

"Best Mohsin could do, Sach." Imran's smile flashed in the green light from the dashboard. "Hey Rani, you got Chenka's little helper there?" Next to him, his sister retrieved a plastic ziplock filled with little packets. She broke the seal and handed around the crinkled paper sachets of brown dust.

"What do we do? Swallow it or snort the stuff?" Sachin asked.

"Probably supposed to make tea with it," Aqib muttered and they all laughed, remembering the old woman and her notorious teas. Rani had suffered from a bellyache all day after leaving Chenka's filthy flat in the tenement high above the Stepney squats and rat warrens. The stench of urine and ammonia had been worse than ever.

"Swallow it," Rani advised. "And I've got some instant energy to go with it." She pa.s.sed around the rice-paper wrapped sugar and coconut b.a.l.l.s, lurid with yellow coloring. But they were syrupy and moist, and they helped get the chokingly dry dust down their throats.