INTRODUCTION

John Helfers

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to Drawing Destiny, the third anthology of original Shadowrun short stories, all centered around one of the biggest things to be introduced to the SR universe since Dunkelzahn’s assassination (okay, maybe not that big, but it’s still pretty big).

The Sixth World Tarot was born from the ingenious mind of Loren Coleman at the 2014 Gen Con, and from the moment I heard what he had planned for both it and the game in general, I knew we had to do a collection of short fiction based around the deck itself. A living magical and metaphysical object basically capable of altering reality to suit either its or its holder’s desires…or not—what could be more Shadowrun-y than that?

Of course, no Shadowrun artifact would be complete without being, well, adapted to better fit into the Sixth World. Featuring stunning original artwork by Echo Chernick, the Awakened Tarot both is and isn’t the tarot deck you may be familiar with. The identities and aspects of certain cards have been modifed to better suit the dangerous future world the deck now exists in. Also, the “living” aspect is quite correct—as the universe’s timeline progresses, some cards will change their images as they affect and are affected by world events.

When I put forth the call for stories involving the Awakened Tarot, the response was not only overwhelming, but overwhelmingly positive. Of course, given the wide-ranging nature of the Sixth World Tarot, the stories cover a wide range of themes and characters as well. Some are straightforward (or as straightforward as a Shadowrun story gets) encounters with a tarot card, for better or worse. Some stories deal with the aspects of a particular card, and how those can impact a character or team’s actions or mission. And some are more esoteric, delving more deeply into both the near-infinite nature of the tarot deck itself as well as the plots and schemes constantly being hatched and carried out all over the Sixth World. And when both of those collide, the results can be spectacular…or they can be very quiet. The aftereffects of these encounters, however, are sure to be felt down the line at some point.

This anthology features many returning authors, such as Michael A. Stackpole, Jennifer Brozek, Chris A. Jackson, Kai O’Connal, Aaron Rosenberg, Steven S. Long, R.L. King, Malik Toms, Russell Zimmerman, and Jason M. Hardy. I’m also pleased to bring more authors into the dark world of Shadowrun anthologies. Some, like CZ Wright and Scott Schletz, have already written excellent short fiction for the RPG. Others such as Lucy A. Snyder, Josh Vogt, Jaym Gates, David Ellenberger, Monica Valentinelli, Devon Oratz, R.J. Thomas, O.C. Presley, Bill Aguiar, and Jeffrey Halket, are diving into the fictional side of the world for the first time.

I’m very pleased to include all of them in this volume, and hope that you enjoy their stories as much as I did. So turn the page and enjoy this collection of Shadowrun stories that all hinge, in one way or another, on the turn of a card…

SNIPS AND SNAILS AND BINARY TRAILS:

A WOLF AND RAVEN STORY

(THE MATRIX)

MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE

“Forget her role in this, Longtooth. Your plan is flawed.” The Old One growled from the depths of my soul. “You are a hunter, not a trapper.”

Being that the Old One is a slice of the Wolf Spirit living inside me, he has an opinion about everything. And by opinion, I mean complaint. His general solution to any problem is the direct application of sharp fangs to soft throats. I tended to agree with him in this particular case—but we didn’t share the same order of events. Kill first wasn’t really a starter in this case, and wouldn’t become so, no matter how much he insisted.

I stopped short of telling him, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” because he’s not a huge fan of the Bible. Kind of makes sense, since it was stories written for shepherds, and he claims to predate the deity to which it’s devoted. Moreover, he’d be quick to remind me that “A time to die,” comes pretty hard on the heels of my quote, and he’d be damned smug about it.

“You just hate being trapped in concrete canyons reeking of sour man-scent.”

“Better a city of maned apes than what you plan for us.”

“I won’t say you’re wrong, but there isn’t any choice.” I brushed my fingers over the silver wolf’s-head pendant at my throat. I took a moment to relish that last true sensation—preferring it to the press of the ’trode coronet tight against my head. My fingers slid down to the launch button on the deck and I let them hover. “Third time is the charm.”

I hit the button and launched myself into the Matrix. Light flashed—not before my eyes, but behind them, in my mind. In the world of meat I became another zombie, jacked into a deck at the back of a bar. My eyes saw nothing, not the babydoll heads hanging from the ceiling, not the neon signs blinking out their last moments. I couldn’t smell anything, either—in the Weed, that was a blessing. Bodies jostled mine, music made ears bleed, but I wasn’t there.

Instead I was in the Weed of the Matrix, full of bright lights and soothing sounds—no dented metal, no browned bloodstains, and a place anointed with an industrial scent sold as “Antiseptic Ambrosia.” The Weed’s owner hadn’t spent much nuyen building the dive’s virtual twin. Still, it let me imagine that if I ordered a cold beer, I might actually get what I wanted without a side of Hep-J. I especially liked that the virtual bartender had more teeth in his smile that the entire night shift had in the real world.

In the Matrix, beauty doesn’t just run skin deep, it goes all the way down to your credit limit. No one was what they appeared to be. Case in point, I appeared to be a golden-haired little boy, all dressed up to play Robin Hood in some charter school production of Ivanhoe.

The Old One howled with disgust. He thought I should have been a puppy.

Back a decade or three ago, the very first time I jacked into the Matrix, I hadn’t been much older than the kid’s form I’d appropriated. Back then, the flash of light condensed itself down into a safety box. Looked like a little boy’s bedroom. Blue walls, team poster of the Seattle Seadogs on the wall above faded dinosaur pictures. A few dinosaur toys and a baseball mitt and sheets with teddy bears on them—nothing too stimulating. The orphanage wanted us to feel secure, but not excited enough to need tranking. Normal room to make us normal—normal, that is, if you didn’t live in a dank dormitory for unwanted kids.

That safety room had a window that looked out on the Matrix. Wasn’t much more than a dark skyline in the distance. Below it and up both sides, bookcases had been filled with volumes of various sizes and bindings. That wasn’t because of any sense of tradition—the orphanage’s software was about ten revs behind the rest of the world. If I wanted to know anything about anything, all I had to do was find the right book on the shelf.

What could go wrong? It was all secure—despite the orphanage’s software package being that old. The orphanage had nothing of value in it. Not even us kids. If we had value, after all, we wouldn’t be there. The safety room was more than safe enough.

I think they even did a study to prove it.

The monsters out in the Matrix had a different perspective—and likely hacked the stats in that study to make sure no one saw it through their eyes. They looked at the safety room the way a fox looks at a chicken coop. One ten revs old. And while they saw us kids as disposable, too, they still had use for us.

Some of them even recycled.

I’d avoided being a stat in the victim column of other studies, and went on to a fine career of monster killing in the company of Doctor Raven and his other associates. Didn’t give me much time for Matrix adventures, and then I mostly rode sidecar to a real decker. Valerie Valkyrie, Doc Raven’s resident IT goddess, liked driving, and the monsters stayed as far away from her as they could get.

Time to get moving. I walked out of the binary copy of the Weed. A hooded green cloak shrouded me one step past the door. It had been a gift from a monster, coded specially for the boy I appeared to be. Val had explained how it was really just a software package that spat values to variables and shot messages to lurking bits of code. Those programs would shoot off other messages, then kill themselves, immediately destroying any link to the person who’d made the cloak.

I didn’t really understand all she was saying, but the Old One reduced it to basic terms that worked well. This world has your scent, and winds carry it to the monster. Because of the cloak, and the intricate plots the monster put together, I called him the Weaver. I wanted to call him the Weevil, but Raven cautioned against underestimating him.

And in the Old One’s opinion, I insulted weevils.

Just outside the Weed, the Seattle of the Matrix spread out before me. The city’s virtual appearance wasn’t much better than the Weed’s real one. Old software, older servers, and a tiny budget for maintenance meant the landscape remained dark to save zettabytes in graphics storage. As with the Weed, business owners preferred spending on their interiors instead of the outside, the trick being to keep patrons inside instead of letting them waltz out into the darkness.

I started down a street, waiting for structures to shift. A step here, a step there, and change blossomed. The larger corporations projected images that promoted their brand. Strength. Security. Intelligence. Matrix wizards spent endless hours and fabulous amounts of money creating images that dominated subjective reality the moment you moved within draw-distance. Sumitomo. Lone Star. All the big corporate names became lighthouses in the darkness. Urban renewal in a nanosecond. They created brilliance and order in a world of darkness and shabby chaos—suggesting that as in virtual, so it was in reality.

Corporate deckers, they weren’t the only ones who could warp the Matrix’s reality. Most deckers learned how to do some of that. Little things, here and there—a little graffiti to let the world know they existed. A little more to be part of guerrilla marketing campaigns—adding soothing sounds to a public space, or random animations to make the Matrix a bit more weird. Sometimes they hired out to clean up that kind of work—a graphics-oriented protection racket. Nice site you have here. Be a shame if something happened to it.

The Weaver knew to do more. Much more. How much more I didn’t know, and Val didn’t even offer a guess. Until he’d come to Doctor Raven’s attention, she’d not had even a hint of his existence. That left her a whole lot more frightened than I’d ever seen.

But Doc said we’d deal with him, and that worked for me. Raven’s a whole bunch of paradox poured into a mold you figure to be Native American just before you notice he’s also an Elf. Man of science. Man of magick. He solves problems for people who can never pay him back, and does so at the expense of those who figure they’re beyond mortal concepts like justice and compassion.

The Weaver was one of those problems that needed solving. He lurked just outside those the safe rooms. He stalked bored children whose parents gave them everything they wanted—guaranteeing the kids would want none of it. The Weaver studied them and the things they liked. Not necessarily forbidden things, though that appeal couldn’t be denied. His victims wanted connection and novelty. They wanted people who paid attention to them, sympathized with them, and shared the things in which they delighted.

And when those kids slipped out of the safe rooms, he pounced. The Weaver invited them to tour with him, promising fun and adventure. He shared secrets with them. Shared patiently, waiting, grooming, encouraging, and teaching. He promised and delivered, earning trust so he could later harvest innocence.

I turned left and walked into the Fujiwara Center—the accessible part of Fujiwara’s Matrix presence. Most of the people dressed respectably for business, but I didn’t stand out. In fact, no one paid me any attention. That most basic access level of the center provided a whole host of consumer services and showcases for Fujiwara industrial and entertainment properties. Every visitor was a potential customer that the staff took great pains to avoid insulting. The customer was always right, no matter how they chose to dress.

The center felt very much like a consumer mall, save that people blinked in and out of existence with staccato regularity. Depending on how much people had spent on their decks and software—and whatever their native decking skills were—they could access data at blinding speeds. Some of them appeared as little more than blurs. Others wouldn’t be visible at all and, from their point of view, the rest of us looked like torpid ghosts.

The Old One snarled. “This is blasphemy, Longtooth.” No matter how real the sensory input seemed, everything was an illusion. The Old One didn’t know what to trust. Not just because he could get more information from a brief sniff of a weak wind, but because the illusion could shift in a nanosecond, and never had to be anchored with reality beyond a slender cable leading into a deck.

Deeper in the center, through layers of ice above and below us, deckers worked at breaking into the Fujiwara mainframes and security forces fought to withstand their attacks. Because of all that covert warfare going on, Valerie instructed me to pass through at least one of the larger mainframes on each outing. The Weaver’s code proved really good at erasing itself, but with so much going on in a center, the chance that a scrap of his binary magic might survive general havoc made the detour useful.

I emerged from my corporate sojourn, and my true journey began as expected. There, to the right, peeking out of an alley, stood a small green-woman. She appeared to be a sprite, a half-meter high, with wooden flesh and a luscious green-leaf mane. She looked a lot like a character in the Wysteria fantasy novels—close enough to be familiar, different enough to be exotic. Playful. Beckoning and teasing. She winked at me, then ducked back into the shadows.

I followed quickly, the cloak flapping and snapping as I ran. More values to variables. Into the alley and then through, the decker’s world transformation beginning slowly and subtly. The alley’s wet concrete gave way to crushed stone at the start of a path into woods. Skyscrapers became trees. Bodegas turned to underbrush. As I spun to look, the alley disappeared into a dark tunnel through more of a forest. The human landscape had given way to a woodlands that should have made the Old One rejoice.

“But it is a trap, Longtooth.”

And such a beautiful one. Clouds parted overhead, allowing golden sunlight to splash down. The garden I’d run into evaporated into a glade. Wildflowers in red and blue and yellow exploded into bloom. A soft breeze made long, green grasses dance. The sun’s kiss warmed me. My virtual face smiled because, as my profiles and records had noted, my hideous asthma made this sylvan slice of nature a deathtrap full of pollens that would suffocate me.

But the Weaver made sure I felt secure. He shared this with me, and guaranteed I wouldn’t be hurt. More trust built.

I had no true idea of what the other traps had looked like, or how many had fallen afoul of them. None of us ever would. The Weaver had worked hard to make sure unraveling his byzantine schemes would be incredibly difficult—and even managed to silence his victims’ parents once he’d stolen the children and discarded them after use.

By the time his young friends had shared enough about themselves that the hunter could fully ensnare them, they provided him a means to learn their parents’ deepest and darkest secrets. Once he’d taken a child, he’d erase all traces of their  existence. He’d then inform the parents that if they went to authorities, he’d expose their secrets. Their child’s innocence would pay for the parents’ guilt, poisoning the souls of those forced into that bargain.

He even tossed in a promise that he’d make sure no one else got their other children, as if that were balm for heartbreak.

Had it not been for his ego, he’d likely have gone to his grave with his crimes unnoticed. But Raven got wind of a child who had inexplicably vanished and, through a variety of means, obtained familial DNA samples. No John Doe samples in the Seattle morgue matched that family. Val figured the coroner’s database had been hacked, so she ran the previous twenty months through decryption and found a match for the missing child.

And several other samples that decrypted with the same key. Using other keys, she found seventeen matches going back five years. Doc figured the Weaver groomed multiple victims at a time, choosing which one he’d disappear whenever the victim had ripened properly. They’d vanish, he’d deal with the parents, and his last act would be to encipher DNA results if and when the bodies were ever found.

The encrypted DNA was the Weaver’s stack of trophies. They sat there in the database, hidden in plain sight. Evidence of his crimes existed, for those who knew where to look, and would reveal his horrid glory long after his death. Even though his success depended on no one knowing he was out there, he couldn’t abide the idea that his infamy would rot away with his own physical remains.

The breeze stiffened for a second, tickling my nose and making the flowers dance. Like a good magician’s flourish, the dance distracted me, just for a heartbeat. When I looked up again, the castle had appeared, there, on a hill, wolf’s-head pennants flying high atop white granite walls.

The castle came straight from the fantasy world of L. C. Ingold’s bestselling Wysteria novels, which my SwellReads® profile said I absolutely adored. I liked the stories—just the kind of thing any man would be happy reading to his son. I knew the books well enough, and had watched some of the video adaptations, to shore up that part of my role.

“He is here, Longtooth.”

“I know.”

As I had done on outings before, I sprang up and ran into the woods, following the green-woman’s laughter. Tall oaks spread their branches into a green canopy through which bits of sunlight twinkled like stars. So carefully had the hunter crafted the forest illusion, that even the loam felt soft beneath my feet. Though my avatar ran through a forest of ones and zeros, I could have easily believed I was in the forest outside Seattle, allowing the Old One his freedom.

On I ran toward Castle Wolfsbane. In the stories, it belonged to Brendan Rake, the Dolorous Knight of the Moon. Because of a curse, he went through life as a wolf-man, and had wondrous adventures fighting various villains like the Grim King and Lady Malice—with the villains always caught in a trap of their own manufacture. He did heroic deeds and righted wrongs with his youthful companion, with whom he spent a lot of time eating honey-cakes and training for knighthood—when not out killing things. The stories weren’t really much more sophisticated than retreaded Beauty and the Beast clones, but their target audience didn’t want much more. A tragic but gallant and always true knight who clearly loved them, but could never proclaim that love because of his terrible curse.

The Weaver played at being Sir Brendan incredibly well. Always polite and thankful. Always a bit shy and a touch morose. When deckers broke into his fantasy world, he’d vanquish them in short order. And the adventures he led his companions on were all spectacles of heroism, with a part for them to play. Just a tiny part, but one that turned the tide, and made Sir Brendan ever so grateful.

Then he’d wish, he’d start to confide, but would hold back. When pressed, he said that he could not thank his companion enough. He’d admit to it all being a game, but then would say, “At least, that is how it started…and now…well…” He’d say that he wanted to do something, but dared not. It would violate a trust. He couldn’t, even though he hoped his friend would like this memento of their friendship Sir Brendan had found. The Weaver couldn’t send it to him, unless, perhaps.… Maybe his friend had a trusted confederate, or a place to which it could be safely shipped. He could send it, and his friend could track the package’s progress—but it would have to be their secret.

And with the offer of a gift, and that promise, the Weaver inserted himself between parents and child.

The Weaver always kept his promise. He sent the gift. For me, the favor had been an exquisite, hand-painted medieval knight toy soldier from St. Petersburg—the European one. He’d chosen well. Not only did the soldier fit the Wysteria setting, but the knight’s crest was a fanciful thing that included clues about our past adventures.

It wasn’t the gift that really mattered, however, but the software used to track it. Once the victim linked in to monitor the package’s progress, a variety of viruses punched through protections inside the homes. They melted through ice and into proprietary systems. Sometimes they got through remote access portals and into corporate mainframes where the parents worked.

Valerie said that the only difference between that code and cancer was that cancer could be cured.

I ran through the end of the tunnel and there Sir Brendan stood. Tall, wearing black mail with a breastplate emblazoned with the wolf’s-head crest, he leaned on the hilt of his greatsword. Red eyes stared at me.

I waved.

He shook his head.

I tripped.

I fell forward, then tumbled into a depression which hadn’t been there a millisecond ago. Vines grew up through matted grasses. They curled themselves around my limbs, constricting like snakes and holding me fast. I struggled against them, but felt weaker than even the child I was supposed to be.

The Dolorous Knight suddenly loomed at my feet. “You have been clever, Mr. Kies, but not quite clever enough.”

Trapped inside the body of a little boy, I glared at him. “It wasn’t the code that give me away.”

“No, no, not really. Very well assembled for the child you were supposed to be.” The Weaver stroked the fur at the back of his head. “In fact, your infantile level of experience in the Matrix proved surprisingly convincing as a determinant of age. Your vocabulary and level of comprehension suggested you were poorly educated, and your delight in Ingold’s wretched stories hinted at emotional retardation. I employed a series of Turing tests of my own devising which determined you were, in fact, human. A dull human, but human none the less.”

I shrugged as much as I could. “I’m going to take that the way I heard it, not the way you meant it.”

“And thus you prove my point.” He leaned forward, supporting himself on the sword’s cross hilt. “Of course, were this one of these insipid Wysteria stories, this would be the point where I tell you my plans for the future. Then you would escape my clutches and, somehow, defeat me.”

“I’m betting you don’t really see yourself as the villain here.”

“Sorry to disappoint, no, I do not.” That sentence actually hung in the air in purple flames that quickly collapsed into greasy black smoke. “You should realize by now that your paralysis is physical. Despite your node-anonymizing software, I traced you back to this…place. The breeze you felt before the castle appeared, that was me insufflating you with Ket-7. I’ve given you enough that you will feel light-headed soon. Then you will suffocate in due course.”

“Ket-7? Old school.”

“A traditionalist, yes. And the drug is so easy to get for recreational purposes, it becomes untraceable.”

The Dolorous Knight crouched, then lunged forward and straddled my chest. He wasn’t there, his weight wasn’t pressing down on me, but my restricted breathing made it seem as if that was so. In the darkness at the center of my being, the Old One began to pant. “However, I am not cruel. I have with me a syringe of adrenaline sufficient to serve as an antidote. If you are cooperative.”

I already had to work at drawing a breath. “Define cooperative.”

“I’ll ask questions politely. You will answer truthfully and succinctly.” The knight bared his teeth. “Remember, I can overdose you more easily than I can save you.”

“Cooperative is my middle name.”

“Very well.” The big bad wolf rose and began to circle me. “Now, to begin…”

“I have no breath to waste here. You want to know how we found you.”

“Proceed.”

“We’ve found seventeen victims, with disappearances going back five years. All selected for age, affluence, weak family structure. No one outside your victim profile and no botched jobs.” I paused to catch my breath. “Doc Raven figures you’ve done this before, somewhere else, perfecting your method, then you came here. No one is looking for you, so you didn’t leave because things got hot.”

The wolf stared down. “And?”

“We spotted the victims after breaking your DNA encryption on the Jane Does. I think there are more out there.”

“Could be.” The wolf flashed fang; whether out of pride or irritation, I wasn’t sure. He opened his hands. “Interesting methodology, but less than illuminating about how you realized I existed.”

“None of the parents narced you out. They’re terrified of you, and don’t know anything anyway.” My muscles began to tingle. “But you want to know what we know about you, right?”

The wolf bared more fang. “The longer you drag this out, the smaller the chance I will save you.”

I would have smiled if I could have, because I was pretty sure that saving-ship had already sailed. “Well, once you get past the murdering, narcissistic, sociopathic thing who gets off on murdering little boys, and toss in that you have mad decking skills and feel you’re the smartest man in the Matrix, not a whole heck of a lot.”

I expected anger, but he surprised me. The Weaver slowly folded his arms over his chest. “How did you arrive at gender determination?”

“You say ‘I’ too much. Your notes, our conversations. A big muddy footprint that tells a lot.”

The wolf’s eyes narrowed. “I take it Doctor Raven drew that conclusion for you?”

“More of a committee decision.” I coughed as the virtual vines tightened around my chest. “If it wasn’t the code disguising me that did it, what gave me away?”

“A fair question.” He spread his arms. “Our adventures here were exciting and scary. While you said all the right things, your heart rate and respiration betrayed you. Your code correctly masked the actual numbers, but the eight-nanosecond delay after a shock-incident clued me into the mask’s presence. After that, things unraveled. This is, in fact, the third time I’ve seen you—in the flesh, that is—during one of our adventures.”

I wished I could have nodded. “You run code as a prelude to our adventures to keep me occupied while you can physically shift location without being jacked in.”

“Exactly. Less time in the Matrix, less data to trace.” The wolf chuckled. “I find myself amused that you never realized I’d seen through your deception.”

“You figured it out on our sixth little playdate, right?”

The wolf cocked its head.

“The first five times, that delay had been four nanoseconds.”

“Not possible.”

“Check your data.”

The Dolorous Knight’s eyes blazed red for a heartbeat—one lasting nine nanoseconds, for anyone keeping score. “It was four…But, if you knew…”

I reached down inside. “Now, Old One, if you don’t mind.”

The Old One howled with delight. “Overdose him on reality, Longtooth.”

He doesn’t really exist, of course. He’s just a figment of my imagination through which I access magic. He puts a brake on my using it, too. While I wanted speed and enough strength to tear a man in half, I got what I really needed.

Which, in this case, was adrenaline flooding through my system. Ket-7 might have been shutting me down, but the Old One pumped liters of go-juice into me. I sucked in breath and roared it back out.

Might have sounded more like a howl, actually.

I ripped the ’trodes off with my right hand, letting gritty reality slam into me. My left hand flicked out, punching the decker sitting next to me hard in the chest. He flew back, toppling others and smacking the back of his head on a rent-a-deck console.

I pounced on him, dropping my full weight on his ribcage. Might have heard a snap. Or two.

The Weaver looked about as much like the Dolorous Knight as the Weed looked like a safe place to eat. Slender build, acne scars, thinning hair. I figured he had the mange. A wire ran from a socket behind his ear into the console he’d been sitting at. I yanked it hard, not caring which end came free, or what bits came with it.

He shivered beneath me. “You wanted me to know…”

“Disappointing that you took so long to figure it out.” I jerked my head toward the console he’d jacked into. “But you were so happy you caught me playing pretend that you got sloppy. You missed that what looks like a beat-up console on the outside is pretty special on the inside.”

Catching him hadn’t been the problem—Kid Stealth could have dropped him on the previous run. Because Raven figured he had groomed multiple victims at a time, we had to find out who they were and where he might be keeping them. The moment the Weaver double-checked the reaction time data, he opened a doorway into his home systems. Through the console, Valerie drilled into his systems and ripped out all the information we needed.

The Weaver blinked, multiple times. “But…how did you know to start looking for me? No one cared for those children. None of those parents would have dared betray me.”

“Len, the kid you dropped last summer, he loved the Wysteria books. Good little artist, too. You probably encouraged that, huh?”

The little man smiled smugly. “His pride made him vulnerable. I told him I loved the images he shared.”

“Your encouragement inspired him to draw Sir Brendan. He sent the picture off to Wysteria’s creator via the publisher. They eventually forwarded it, and by the time the author sent a thank you note, Len didn’t exist any more. She reached out to Raven. Valerie discovered you used Wysteria book ISBNs as your encryption keys. That led to the DNA decrypts, and that brought you here.” I let the Old One’s growl rumble from my throat. “Just like the villains in the books, you set the trap that caught you.”

“No, not possible.”

“Keep telling yourself that, chummer.” I stood and hauled him to his feet by his shirt. Tom Electric, another of Raven’s aides, hustled him toward the door. “You’re the reason you’ll never see the light of day again.”

After Knight Errant had hauled the Weaver off, and the Weed returned to its battered normalcy, Doc Raven slipped silently through the bar’s darker shadows and rested a hand on my shoulder. “You going to be okay?”

“Adrenaline overdose’ll have me jittery for about a month.” I held a glass of whiskey up in my left hand. Ripples danced over the surface. “I’ll probably have moved out of here by then.”

“Sooner, I hope. A lot sooner.” Raven looked around the bar and shivered. “Valerie’s still working on cracking all of the Weaver’s files, but she’s found a list of the victims he was planning to groom. Knight Errant is notifying their parents.”

“What about previous victims?”

He nodded. “Looks like there were twenty-three here, another half-dozen down in Portland. He worked Chicago and Atlanta for a while, too. It seems he perfected his craft in Milwaukee and kept moving until he felt safe, here in Seattle.”

“And here it stops.”

“It does. His reign of terror and your self-torture.” Red and blue highlights swirled like an aurora through his dark eyes. “Lynn’s outside. She would like to see you. To say thank you.”

I shook my head. “Why? She hates me, with good reason. Last time she laid eyes on me, I all but got her killed.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Wolf.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Doc. You’ve read her books.” I focused on the amber glow at the whiskey’s heart. “Brendan Rake, the Dolorous Knight of the Moon. Appears to be a Wolf. He’s cursed. Bystanders are always in danger—mortal danger—in all those stories.”

“I know. I’ve read them. Ten books. And you’re right, Brendan is you.”

“My point exactly.”

Raven squatted down. “And, in all ten books, you’re the hero.”

“That’s not how I read them.” I snorted. “In every book, Brendan is atoning for his past.”

“And in every book, Wolf, she grants him redemption.” Raven shrugged. “That’s about as far from hate as you can get.”

The Old One roused himself. “You are a hunter, Longtooth. Not a great one, but even you are good enough to read that obvious a sign.”

I hate when a figment of my imagination is smarter about me than I am.

“What if you’re wrong, Doc?”

Raven flicked a finger out, launching a cockroach halfway across the bar. “The Weed will always be here.”

I set the half-empty glass down. “Then let’s hope I never will be again.”

DJOTO

(Page of Blades)

DEVON ORATZ

Bein’ on Kamikaze is pretty strange. Even in the middle of a full-on-screamin’ firefight, things seem to slow down so you can appreciate the little details. Stop and smell the soykaf, so to speak.

Take, for instance, the look on the Yak’s face. It’s pretty funny—hard to make out, as it’s kind of upside down while his severed head tumbles toward the concrete in slow motion, heralded by a huge fan of gushin’ blood. It’s more a look of indignation than anything else. Like he’s thinkin’: you tusker gaijin whore, filth of your kind is not fit to wield a katana. Which is obviously what I just killed him with.

I guess that’s what you’d call “cultural appropriation,” motherfucker.

Rewind.

It was like any other Saturday night. I was chillin’ in the ereth’cerri with my eth. We were slammin’ down hurlg, passin’ around a spliff of Deepweed, and watchin’ pirated trid: reruns of the Neil reboot. Me, Sheila, Adam, Lil’ Rabo, Grazz, and Kass. Same as any night in the doss, maybe a little slow.

A commercial for N.E.R.P.S. came on, everybody sighed, and I pulled my ’link out from under my ass to check my messages. I had one from Bertha, down at Gunther’s.

<Calling all Creeps! A buncha breeders with heavy guns and magic just crashed Gunther’s! G and the runners there did what they could, but it went down too fast and there were too many fuckin’ slots! Get your hoops over here now! They took Kham!>

Just readin’ that, my lips curled back in a vicious snarl. Gunther’s a nice old man—I hear he used to walk the path of Gator—and he and his old lady cook up eunabo barbecue ribs. But that was nothing compared to the last bit.

Kham’s my grampa. Ain’t nobody fucks wit’ my grampa and lives.

I jumped up off the couch, kicked the trid off the old Ares crate it was sittin’ on, grabbed the bottle of hurlg and chucked it against the opposite wall, where it exploded.

“Skraa! Listen up! We got grumoge. Some vut-eatin’ ujnort busted into Gunther’s and snatched Grampa Kham!”

Lookin’ at the group of now-serious, previously-chill orks on the couch, I saw and heard my own rage multiplied fivefold in their clenched fists, bared tusks, and angry mutters.

“Those fucks are tharon!” Adam bellowed, grabbin’ his Defiance scattergun from where it leaned against the wall.

“Easy, chummer,” Sheila said, pullin’ on her armored jacket. “We gotta find ’em before we geek ’em.”

“Should I warm up the bikes, cerri?” Lil’ Rabo asked.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “I know a way down just a couple blocks away. Everybody strap up.”

We all grabbed our norgoz. Adam stashed his short-barreled T-250 under his lined coat, and I snagged my katana off its shelf, strapped it on my back, and stuffed my Roomsweeper into the thigh holster velcroed around my leg a few centimeters below where my orange booty shorts ended. We shoved outta our doss and piled down the stairs onto the street like the avalanche of pissed off trogs we were.

The nightscape of the Puyallup Barrens greeted us, as familiar as the mélange of hurlg, body-odor, and cannabis in our doss. The distant chatter of automatic gunfire, the pathetic, withered lumps of junkies collapsed in alleys and gutters, the omnipresent sirens of the quaalz—that’s pigs to you chummers who don’t savvy Or’zet—the general aura of extreme poverty and dismal metahuman misery.

Home sweet fuckin’ home.

Thanks to the Deepweed, I could literally see that last one. Couldn’t stop astrally perceivin’ if I wanted to.

We hustled down the block to the Stuffer Shack on the corner and shoved through the glass doors. The manager, a halfer called Jorge, knew not to fuck with us when we rolled through. Everybody else tripped over themselves—and several snack displays—gettin’ out of our way.

Benefits of bein’ Bot’Kham, chummer. But we wouldn’t be feared and respected like we are today if not for the blood and sweat Grampa left on the streets back in the ’50s. Just another reason we had to get him back.

Grazz and Kass grabbed whatever munchies they wanted on the way, which Jorge could obviously do fuck all about. What was he gonna do, hit the PANICBUTTON and summon the quaalz? Might as well trigger his own cortex bomb. Poor little halfer. Sheila musta thought the half-scared, half-resigned look on his face was pretty funny, ’cause she barked laughter. I might have laughed myself, if we weren’t on a mission.

There were two crumbling wooden doors at the back of the ’Shack. The one on the left read Employees Only, was locked, and contained the kind of shitter that probably had a background count from the atrocities committed there. The one on the right had a Do Not Enter sign—physical and AR (I have goggles, I’m not some kind of Cascade farmgirl). It was also covered in gang tags and graffiti, again on the wood and on the AR veneer pinned to the sign. All of it was from our set: I saw markings from different Bot’Kham crews, Creeps and Skraacha tags, even our own crew’s tag—the Cupid Killers, a baroque little cherub with huge angel wings and a tricked-out assault rifle—covered the door.

Adam booted it down and yanked open the rusty metal trapdoor in the crumbling tile floor of the 2m x 2m closet—the walls were empty except for a peeling Crimetime poster. One by one, we climbed the ladder down the cramped, mildew-stinkin’ ventilation tunnel into the Ork Underground.

The scene at Gunther’s was bad, even though the action was almost an hour old by the time we got there. It was a high-end barbecue joint turned into a fuckin’ warzone. The smell of cordite lingered in the air, and red synthleather booths and synthwood tables were chewed up by high-velocity gunfire.

For some reason the whole place smelled like—and was covered in—puke, plus another smell beneath it I couldn’t recognize.

It was a testament to just how many shits the ’plex government gave about the Underground—even after Prop 23 passed—that there wasn’t no Knight Errant or DocWagon on the scene. Still, even without a meatwagon around to bag bodies, I didn’t see any corpses. But the blood trails smeared on the black-and-white-tiled floor hinted that some unlucky chummers who got geeked might already have been dragged off by their families.

Wounded, there were plenty of. Even some breeders, halfers, and keebs who’d managed to catch a bullet. Most of ’em were bein’ seen to, and the ones that weren’t looked like they already had been. I didn’t see any dead zakahn—bad guys—and that made me a sad, sad tusker.

I was glad the Deepweed had mostly worn off by that point. For one thing, I’d need a clear head. And for another, there were plenty o’ bad feelings left in the wake of the violence, and I had no desire to see what color they were. Astral perception’s a fuckin’ trip, but not always a nice one.

I rushed to the back with Adam while Sheila and the others split up to ask the rubberneckers if anyone had seen anything. We pushed through the kitchen—somebody had at least seen fit to shut off all the stoves, so nothing was burnin’—where the aroma of delicious soybeef brisket was spoiled by the smell of blood and gunfire. The door to the back office was ajar, so we knocked softly and went in.

Gunther was collapsed in the big comfy chair back there, eyes half closed, a washcloth on his forehead. Bertha—wearin’ a pretty, retro-style pink dress—was leanin’ over him, fussin’.

“What happened, this egrand’rohodo get tagged holdin’ down the ereth?” Adam asked.

Gunther opened his eyes with a snort and a frown. “I wish youse kids wouldn’t talk dat Or’zet drek. You know it was just made up by norms to sell music and make us sound fraggin’ stupid.”

Adam was about to make an angry rebuttal about how it was our heritage and shit, but I cut him off with a gesture. Adam used to be my vruknart, and he’s got way more balls than sense. On the rare occasion he listens to me, I think about givin’ him another crack at it. But those occasions are fuckin’ rare.

“He didn’t get shot,” Bertha said. “This old fool just about half-cacked himself trying to heal everybody that got hurt.”

“Useta tough out dat much drain, easy,” Gunther said. “Gettin’ fraggin’ old.”

“Dramar,” I began respectfully. My Or’zet isn’t perfect—I was tryin’ to denote respect for a non-familial elder, but I think it literally means “stepdad”—but he wouldn’t know the difference. “We have to get Kham back. It is djoto.”

Djoto: the way of life for us SINless here in the Sixth World. The code of honor that rules the streets. A trid doc told me that sixty years ago, djoto was called bangin’. The tharon talkin’ heads from the corps say djoto’s killin’ us: ork-on-ork crime, keepin’ us in the ghetto. But what the fuck would they know ’bout it?

“I’ll tell youse what I can,” Gunther said. “I owe dat old slot more den a ting or two. But I didn’t see much.”

“You need to rest,” Bertha chided in exasperation.

I put my hand lightly over her own on the armrest of Gunther’s chair; she sniffed in distaste at the monofilament-spiked nails on my index fingers.

“Bertha, please, anythin’ he can tell us’ll help.”

She sighed, and Gunther told us what he knew.

Which, as he said, didn’t turn out to be much. The attackers were strangers, breeders, and looked Asian (like about half of Seattle’s population). Maybe a half-dozen of ’em, maybe twice that. They all wore black lined coats and rebreathers, but no ski masks. They’d opened up with SMGs and gas grenades (the gas made everybody who breathed it in puke their guts out, which was the source of that stink).

Gunther had a hearth spirit bound to protect the space—Ol’ Croc, he called it—but the attackers had two elementals with ’em. They musta tussled with Ol’ Croc on the astral, because he was torn apart before he could do anything useful. He figured they must have had a mage with them, too, because a couple fireballs went off as they stormed the place, turnin’ large sections of the restaurant floor into scorched craters.

There was no footage of the attack because they shot out the cameras almost first thing. That meant no facial recognition. 

Well, shit. That wasn’t much to go on.

“Devil, I got somethin’,” Sheila said as she brought a little girl to me. I recognized her—it was Nessy, one of my little cousins, around nine years old. She’s one of my uncle’s kids, and my uncle’s dad, like my mom’s dad, was Kham.

I knelt down, bringin’ my eyes level with her hazel ones, brushing my orange-pink hair—dyed like cotton candy that’s on fire—out of my eyes. “Hey, babygirl. You okay? Your family okay?”

She nodded. I could see she was all dressed up for a fancy dinner with her family, and that, while shaken up and a little mussed, she was unhurt.

“Where’s your dad?”

“He’s out lookin’ for grampa,” she replied.

I should have figured. Uncle Rabo was Kham’s son, after all. I’d coordinate efforts with him later. “And your mom?”

“Took the babies home.” Nessy had five younger cerri, all around four years old.

“Tell Devil what you told me,” Sheila prompted her.

“Was it one of the assholes that shot up the place? One of them have a face that was memorable, a scar maybe?”

Nessy shook her head. “They were all just…breeders. But one had a tattoo on his hand. Like a dragon.”

I exchanged a glance with Sheila.

“Could you draw it for us?”

Nessy’s kinda an artistic prodigy. She’s already started taggin’ ’round the hood, though her parents don’t like it. She gave us a pretty accurate napkin drawing of a stylized Eastern Dragon. Unfortunately, that still didn’t narrow it down too much. We knew the streets, but we didn’t know the colors and tags of every single gang in the sprawl. Could be Triads, or Yakuza, or Kumon’go, or who knows what else. It’d be convenient if we had access to the KE gang database, but we got the next best thing.

Spaceboy looked pissed when he opened the plexiglass lid of his Puyallup coffin, which I’d been kickin’ for the last minute or so, standin’ in the pink neon glow of the Poppy’s Good Sleeps sign overhead.

“This better be biz if you’re interrupting my private time,” he said. “And the biz better be arctic.”

Across the coffin, I glimpsed the flawless AR body of a huge-breasted, pink-haired anime elf goddess wink out of existence. “Private time,” right. I saw Adam wrinkle his hairy green nose in disgust as he came to the same conclusion.

It was just me, Adam, and Lil’ Rabo now. We’d left Sheila, Grazz, and Kass at Gunther’s to help clean up the mess and try to get any more useful eyewitness intel.

Spaceboy was either a keeb, or one of those sad fuckin’ breeders who mod themselves to look like a keeb. A natural-born elf or an elf-poser, I honestly don’t know which is worse. Some part of me—call it gahad—saw his pale, skinny arms, his tight white Maria Mercurial T-shirt, his black girly jeans, his gunmetal blue hair and his delicately pointed ears, and longed to wring his pretty little neck. But unfortunately, Spaceboy’s also the most wiz hacker I know.

“No yerz in it for you this time, Space,” I said. “At least up-front. This is different. This is about family.”

“Except payment’s in the form of a lot of grateful-ass trogs,” Adam offered.

“Last I checked, you trogs already owe me,” Spaceboy said.

“Hey!” Lil’ Rabo snarled, grabbin’ Space by his shirt and draggin’ him halfway out of the coffin. “Didn’t nobody ever explain to you that that word’s okay for us to say, but not for you to say?”

Danglin’ by his shirt from Rabo’s gnarled fist, Spaceboy rolled his eyes. “We done here?”

“Damn it, Space,” I said, not loving the emotion in my voice. “They took Kham.”

Rabo let him go, and he fell gracelessly back into his plexiglass coffin. He rolled onto his back and looked thoughtfully up at us.

“Like, the Kham? The one that used to run with Ghost-Maker and The Dodger?”

“Yeah, chummer,” Adam said. “But we just call him grampa. He’s our egrand, used to run the whole Bot’Kham before he retired.”

“Djoto demands we get him back, and that we give whoever fucked with him the buunda,” I said. “That means geek their asses.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Spaceboy said. “But I’m in. Who took him?”

I watched Adam and Lil’ Rabo exchange annoyed looks.

“The fuck we know,” I said. “That’s why the fuck we came to you.” I handed the napkin with Nessy’s drawing of the dragon tattoo to him.

“Well then.” Spaceboy smirked. “Step into my office.”

And he passed out as he switched the gain up to full VR, turnin’ his meat body into a nerveless sack of potatoes.

Gotta give credit where it’s due. It took Spaceboy less than ten minutes to come back with the dirt: the dragon tattoo was tagged on the bodies of kobun from the Shotozumi-gumi, the most powerful Yakuza clan in Seattle. From what I’d heard, all-breeder and racist as fuck.

“I knew it was the fuckin’ Yaks!” Lil’ Rabo exploded, although I hadn’t heard him say any such thing.

Figurin’ out where the slots were took a little longer after we told him everything that had gone down at Gunther’s. Like maybe as much as an hour.

“Schlesinger’s Meats,” he told us after poppin’ back into his meat body. “An abandoned meat-packing plant in Tacoma, not far from the 11th Street Dockyards. Did you know we used to have so much meat we needed to like…pack it?”

“I thought you dandelion eaters mostly packed fudge,” Adam said. Thankfully, everyone ignored him.

“How you know dey dere?” Lil’ Rabo demanded.

“Well, it was a simple matter of doing a little facial recognition search through the traffic camera network.”

“But you didn’t have their faces,” Adam said.

“Well, the hard way would have been cracking KE’s database of Shotozumi-gumi known associates and then grabbing their mugshots. Breaking into the camera node of one of their known bunraku parlors and jacking the archived security footage was a lot easier.”

I’ll admit it, I wasn’t unimpressed.

“Alright, Space, but how do you know the Yaks chillin’ at Schlesinger’s Meats are the same ones that hit Gunther’s? You hack into their cameras and see Kham tied up in there?”

He shook his head. “No cameras at the slaughterhouse. But I got a clean shot of their faces from cameras in the Underground just before they busted into Gunther’s. I tracked them there. It’s definitely the same Yaks that snatched Kham.”

“Y’done good,” I said. “We owe you another one. Eth, let’s roll out.” 

My chummers and I headed for our bikes, but Spaceboy jandered after us. “Hold up,” he said. “I want to roll with you.”

Adam and Lil’ Rabo laughed uproariously.

“You sure about that, Space?” I asked. “This ain’t some data steal. Bullets gonna fly, breeders gonna die.”

“I can hold my own in a gunfight,” he protested. Then he ran back to his coffin to open it and snag his little Colt America from under his pillow.

I had serious doubts about that.

My commlink vibrated and I snatched it up. It was Uncle Rabo (no relation to Lil’ Rabo, ’sides the name), tellin’ me he’d found out where they’d stashed Kham through his street contacts.

“Not bad, chummer,” I said with a grin. “You’re just a minute or so behind me. So, any word on the street why the Yaks are after grampa?”

“Somebody said some fraggin’ elf paid ’em ta do it,” he said. “Dat’s all I got fer now. I’m gettin’ a crew together ta spring ’im. You down?”

“Chummer, I’m not just down, you can forget about gettin’ a crew together. I got most of ’em here already.”

In the end, I had a shopping list for Uncle Rabo to pick up for the festivities, Uncle Rabo had a suggestion or two about who I should bring along, and we worked shit out. When the call was done, my ’link said it was just about 0200 hours. The streets were gray and foggy, with cold, steady drizzle comin’ down as we roared off on our bikes, taking Spaceboy with us (if the keeb gets himself geeked, I thought, it’s no chip off my tusk).

Our first stop was to pick up my homegirl Ricochet Faye. Faye’s a breeder, but she’s better than alright. I’m way tighter with her than any of us are with Spaceboy. She’s a full member of the Jerusalem Boys, a wizzer gang that’s popped up in sprawls all over the world in the last five years. She’s in with the Specters, Seattle’s local astral gang, and I heard she’s tight with the Desolation Angels too. She’s a no-bullshit, full-on shadowrunner, which is more than any of us, except arguably Spaceboy, could say.

Sure, we deal and we hustle and we put in work for our ereth’cerri, but my girl Faye flat-out just does crimes for a livin’. How fuckin’ arctic is that!

We found her downtown, outside the Alabaster Maiden. We rolled up on our bikes, parkin’ along the curb: downtown is downtown, so we all had our commlinks on active, broadcastin’ our totally legitimate SINs and social media profiles.

It’s almost 0300, so the club’s startin’ to wind down fer the night. There’s still a few posers and losers behind the velvet ropes, tryin’ to get in. Ricochet Faye’s leanin’ against the marble statue of a female mage in the center of the front courtyard—supposedly a real live magician that got petrified, if you believe that kinda shit—that gives the club its name.

As we hop off our bikes to greet her, I can see Spaceboy makin’ an effort not to drool like a cartoon coyote. Adam and Lil’ Rabo are doin’ noticeably better, since they’re useta her. See, most runners spend most of their hard-earned nuyen on bigger guns, better ’ware, and increasingly large luxury cars full of strippers. Ricochet Faye seems to have spent most of hers on gettin’ hotter. She was a babe before she’d had work done, but the work was so good—not to mention subtle, subtle enough that it didn’t interfere with her magickin’, and subtle enough I never woulda noticed if she hadn’t told me—that now she was beyond flawless.

She was vampire-pale, with the physique of a teenage anorexic elf—only with way better tits—and had platinum blonde hair tipped with neon crimson that fell to her mid-back. Her deep, dark eyeshadow and blood-red lips just made her look sexier and more dangerous. She wore a black corset, decorated on the front with a black velvet rose, and a synthleather miniskirt. Spidery and elegant tattoos crawled over her porcelain-fair, bare upper arms, collarbone, and throat, like black lace.

She’s a little skinny and a lot female for my tastes, but damn, I’d hit that.

In that tiny outfit, which left less to the imagination than mine, she was clearly not armed, but then again, she didn’t need to be. I was pretty sure the ruby she wore on her left middle finger was some kind of power focus.

“What’s wiz, chummer?” she asked as we slapped skin.

“The fuckin’ Yakuza kidnapped my grampa,” I said.

“Sounds like that new sitcom Horizon’s pimping,” she replied. I musta looked less than amused, ’cause her smirk dried up quick. “When?”.

“Maybe six, seven hours ago,” I said. “They shot up Gunther’s in the Underground and snatched ’im. My Uncle Rabo thinks they were actin’ as muscle for some elf with serious juice, but…” I trailed off with a shrug.

“Got a problem?” Faye asked Spaceboy, who practically had to force himself to look away from her.

“Anyway, none of that matters,” Adam said.

“We’re gettin’ ’im back,” I continued. “Alive. Before those fuckers can move ’im out of town. We need magical cover. You down?”

She was down.

“Just out of curiosity, Devil,” Faye asked, twenty minutes later, her arms wrapped around my waist as she rode on the back of my Suzuki, “does this pay anything?”

By the time we had everybody gathered back at the doss, the sun had risen, burnin’ away the smog. We decided to wait till nightfall before hittin’ the place. Uncle Rabo had Skraacha and Bot’Kham in plainclothes watchin’ the slaughterhouse in case they tried to move Kham before then. Faye sent some of her watcher spirits to do the same, then spent most of the day summonin’ a much bigger spirit, an air elemental, to give us cover.

We spent the day in a smoky Tacoma doss some chummer’d lent us, just a block from the meatpackin’ plant. Just a dozen trogs from the hood, blastin’ goblin rock, drinkin’ hurlg, and plannin’ mass murder.

Skeeter showed up around noon while I was catchin’ some sleep, carryin’ a megasack from Taco Temple in one hairy fist and two duffel bags filled with assault weapons and combat drugs in the other. He was a dwarf fixer who worked out of Puyallup’s world-famous Crime Mall. The Bot’Kham helped him with shipments and security—I’d worked both for him myself—so he was willin’ to put this on our tab.

My shopping list had included, among other things, a dozen “clean” AK-97s—Lil’ Rabo wanted a laser sight and a grenade launcher on his—ammo, a dozen frag grenades, a dozen smoke grenades, rebreathers and thermal optics for those of us who didn’t have either one already. Plus ten armored vests (for anyone too dumb or too poor to own their own), burner commlinks to keep in touch with each other, then toss once the job was done, a dozen poppers of Jazz and a dozen ampoules of Kamikaze.

“I could only score two doses of K on such short notice,” Skeeter said. “And I barely scammed that. The shit is hard to find.”

“Shotgun,” Lil’ Rabo said, barkin’ a laugh as he snatched up one of the syrettes of murky, ominous red liquid.

“And I’ll take the other one, because it was my fuckin’ idea,” I said, stashin’ it in one of the two small pockets of my shorts.

“I wish you kids would stay away from that shit,” Uncle Rabo grumbled from where he was calibratin’ the hardpoint on a big drone that took up most of the middle of the doss’s livin’ room. All the furniture—threadbare as it was—had been shoved up against one wall to make room for it.

“Those Yaks have chipped reflexes, serious mojo, and who knows what else,” I said. “We need an edge.”

“An edge is one thing, sure, huff your Jazz, whatever,” he grumbled. “But that Kamikaze shit, you’re lucky if it just makes your heart explode, instead a rippin’ your own arm out of its socket and beatin’ yer best chummer ta death with it while screamin’ bloody murder.”

I ignored him. This was djoto: all-out war on the streets, not some sneaky shadow op. Professionalism could eat a dick.

Skeeter had also brought “The Bitch,” a Panther XXL assault cannon that’d been in the family for ages, since it was used by Kham himself when he ran the shadows. We all took turns pickin’ it up and rubbin’ it for good luck, like it was a religious artifact we were payin’ homage to.

The halfer wished us good luck and buzzed later in the afternoon. He wanted no part of pissin’ off the Shotozumi-gumi, and we all agreed to forget his name, at least until it was time to pay him. Uncle Rabo was there since before I woke up, coordinatin’ shit. I kinda felt like he was stealin’ my thunder, but age before beauty or some such shit. The important thing was gettin’ Grampa Kham back in one piece.

Accordin’ to the plan I worked out with Uncle Rabo, Sheila and Kass would be with about ten other volunteers from the Bot’Kham and the Skraacha, mannin’ the “blockin’ positions” in the war wagons, up-armored GMC Bulldogs mounted with guns, to make sure none of the Yaks could rabbit when the shit went down. Grazz would be in position on a rooftop opposite the plant to provide overwatch with The Bitch (lucky trog), along with Spaceboy and two Bot’Kham shooters to watch their backs. Uncle Rabo had taken an old drone out of storage and was patchin’ it up. He’d be riggin’ it from the back of one of the battlewagons to provide fire support. 

That left me, Adam, Lil’ Rabo, and Faye to come burstin’ in through the front doors.

Shortly before sunset, Faye asked my Uncle if she could do some magic on the Bitch.

“Sure, sure, girlie,” he said reluctantly. “Just don’t break it. Dat bang-bang’s been in da family for ages!”

“I will be very careful,” she said with an innocent smile. Then she started etchin’ somethin’ along the Panther’s massive barrel in this glowing green ink that smelled real funny.

“What’s dat?” Lil’ Rabo asked when she was finished, squintin’ at the English portion of the inscription—most of it was in unrecognizable arcane runes. He snorted. “Looks like some sissy keeb poetry.”

“You trogs are so racist,” Spaceboy remarked from the couch, where he was threadin’ a silencer onto his light pistol. Fortunately for him, everyone ignored him.

I read the inscription that spiraled in Faye’s fancy script along The Bitch’s enormous, vented barrel: SO NOTE ALL YE LOVERS IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND/YOUR WORLD BE SHATTERED WITH NARY A NOTE. I was touched to see that she’d incorporated the Cupid Killers’ tag into her magical decorations, too.

“Actually, I think it’s pretty wiz,” I said. “So now The Bitch is like, what? A magic gun? A gun focus?”

“No such thing,” Faye explained. “But it’ll make whoever picks it up a way better shot. Which is why no one should touch her until it’s time to rock and roll.”

It was time to rock and roll. The blockers were already in place, Rabo had his drone in the air and facing all the trogs in my eth, I popped my inhaler of Jazz into my lungs, and started my rousing speech, keying my commlink so my chummers outside the squat could hear too.

“SKRAA! Djoto is a code of honor, a way of life. You don’t talk to quaalz, you don’t sell out your cerri to the corps, you watch each others’ backs. You put in work for your ereth’cerri, and you give back to your set. When the time comes, you’re ready to throw down a fahd for your cerri. And if someone fucks with your set, you give them the buunda! I mean drundeah. You put them in the fuckin’ ground! Skraa?”

I judged from the general, bestial roar of approval that I’d done alright in the rousin’ speech department—either that or the Jazz they’d popped (Faye demurred) made them an especially good audience for pre-ass-kickin’ monologues. Flickin’ our commlinks to hidden and doin’ one last check of arms and ammo, we piled out of the doss and into the street.

Ricochet Faye had her spirit conceal us. I didn’t feel any more concealed—and I could still see Faye, Lil’ Rabo, and Adam clear as day—but when we got within thirty meters of the slaughterhouse’s front, the two Yaks out front sure didn’t seem to notice us.

The front of the building had a long concrete loading dock with two garage doors spaced about twenty meters apart. The two Yaks patrollin’ the front looked bored as fuck. The garage door farther down from us was propped open, but the  nearest one was closed. A row of pimped-out Hyundais were parked in a row out front.

A chibi-style cartoon chimp in a silvery, old-fashioned spacesuit popped up in my AR overlay.

“I scoped the commlinks of everybody in the building,” Spaceboy said. “They were running hidden, but no one hides from Spaceboy. I’m syncing ’em to your AR feed.”

My goggles’ display link showed me a picture-in-picture window of the place’s floorplans. Yakuza commlink positions flashed up on it as yellow dots. I counted fifteen, plus the two outside.

We took cover across the street behind a Toyota Gopher that had seen better days. I could feel the Jazz burnin’ in my veins like my blood was thermite, my whole body twitchy and tense for action. It was time to fuckin’ hurt some people.

I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t a little worried that once I slammed the Kamikaze on top of the Jazz, my heart might explode like Uncle Rabo had said.

“Watch my shoes,” Faye hissed, havin’ sat cross-legged on the pavement. I barely was able to catch her head with my hand as she slumped over.

“Astral recon,” I explained, to a momentarily confused-looking Adam, watchin’ as Lil’ Rabo punched his hypo of Kamikaze into his shoulder.

“Youse guys in position?” Rabo asked over my commlink. “Da mage must be doin’ her job right, because I can’t see none ’o youse.”

“Affirm,” I responded.

“Well, den. We’re ready to start da fireworks on your go.”

“Let’s fuckin’ do it now!” Lil’ Rabo hissed, his eyes bloodshot.

“Hold your fuckin’ horses,” Adam replied.

We waited a couple of tense minutes, Lil’ Rabo obviously rarin’ to go. Then Faye’s pretty black eyes finally snapped open.

“One ork toward the middle of the building, lightly augmented, hurt, pissed, and scared,” she reported. “I’m guessing that’s your grandpa. And about fifteen humans—most heavily chromed—all looking bored. I’m guessing they’re faking it, though. They had wards up, but I slipped through them without setting off any alarms.”

“Anythin’ else?” I asked, helping her to her feet. She even smelled good.

“Yeah. No mage on-site but…guardian spirits. Two of them. And not fucking around.”

“Can you take ’em?” I took in her worried expression. Then Adam jabbed my shoulder. I looked over and saw Lil’ Rabo janderin’ across the street toward the Yaks, Ingram Smartgun X held behind his back, a crazy grin displayin’ his gleamin’, platinum-capped tusks.

“I fuckin’ hope so,” I said. “Because we’re goin’ right now.”

I slipped my katana out of the sheath real quietly as I crept up behind the Yak on the left. The Yak on the right had noticed Lil’ Rabo and was askin’ him somethin’ in Japanese, one hand under his coat.

I clamped my hand over “my” Yak’s mouth as I pulled him backward and pushed my katana forward. Its blood-covered point burst out the front of his chest. I watched through my goggles’ thermal overlay as the heat drained from his body, along with his life, then I gingerly lowered him to the ground, pullin’ my katana free with a satisfyin’ sound that reminded me of sushi.

I looked across and I saw the other Yak fall asleep in a boneless pile. Glancin’ sideways at Faye, I saw her  hands raised in an arcane gesture, witchfire dancing on her fingertips.

Apparently, sleepin’ wasn’t good enough for Lil’ Rabo, who stepped up and put a burst of five rounds into the sleepin’ breeder’s head.

The good news was the Ingram had a suppressor.

The bad news was Lil’ Rabo’s Kamikaze-stewed brain decided to have him fire twenty more rounds into the air while screamin’, “GRUMOGE, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!” at the top of his lungs.

“Subtle,” Spaceboy and Faye said simultaneously.

Fuckin’ Kamikaze. That reminded me, and I injected mine.

Then everything seemed to speed up and slow down all at once.

I think I noticed the Yaks spillin’ out of the open garage door, machine pistols and SMGs in hand, a split-second before the first explosion. It was after the zippy little sports cars started leapin’ into the air one after another, propelled by a chain reaction of enormous, deafening fireballs, that I registered the sound of “The Bitch”—similar to a football stuffed with grenades being punted right next to your head, even at this range—being fired from Grazz’s overwatch position. Then I felt the heat of the successive detonations rush over me, a hot wind scorching my face.

Then Uncle Rabo’s Cyberspace-Designs Dalmatian opened fire with its underslung Ingram Valiant LMG from across the street from where it was hoverin’ twenty meters in the air. Which exponentially increased the subtlety of the situation.

I vaulted onto the concrete dock and sprinted along it, centimeters away from the flamin’ wreckage of the Yaks’ cars. A Yakuza seemed to appear in front of me out of nowhere—maybe he’d been knocked down, but not out by the explosion—trainin’ an SCK-100 on me. I thought I was a goner for the whole second I had to think, then The Bitch caught him in the shoulder from across the street, and his entire smartly dressed upper body exploded into a shower of gore, like an X-rated Japanese piñata.

I slid inside the abattoir at a run, shiftin’ the katana to my left hand and drawin’ my Roomsweeper with my right. Light automatic weapons fire threw up sparks all around me, not findin’ its target. My smartlink was findin’ ’em, though, the Roomsweeper already throwin’ flechettes across the room. I saw Faye, Lil’ Rabo, and Adam run in, backlit by the flames. Lil’ Rabo had dropped or stashed the Ingram, and was now firin’ his pimped-out AK in full-on rock and roll mode. Adam had  brought up his Defiance T-250, its short barrel spittin’ fire.

The slaughterhouse floor was a vast, cavernous cinderblock space. It smelled overwhelmingly of ancient cuts of pork and beef, long ago butchered, sold, eaten, digested and forgotten. Metal chains with hooks on the end—the kind once used to hold slabs of frozen meat—dangled from tracked runners on the ceiling all over the place. Without the frosty cow carcasses, the place felt empty.

My trogs and I filled it with gunfire and screams and glory and death.

Ten deliciously interminable seconds later, the abattoir floor was covered in at least as much blood and gore as it must have seen on Schlesinger’s Meats busiest operatin’ day. I counted at least six dead Yaks, but the grenade that Lil’ Rabo had launched had made quite the mess.

I felt beyond invincible. I felt like Neil the motherfuckin’ Ork Barbarian.

Feelin’ like the baddest bitch alive, I reloaded my Roomsweeper with shakin’ hands. Shakin’ from the Kamikaze—I don’t want you to think I was traumatized by makin’ sure there were a few less breeders in the world.

“Which way?” I demanded.

“Second door from the right,” Spaceboy replied, highlightin’ it on my HUD.

We were all headed over to the door to open it like a normal person would when Lil’ Rabo launched a grenade, blowin’ it to shrapnel that skittered across the ground less than a meter from us.

“Watch it with that, asshole!” Faye shouted.

Lil’ Rabo cheerfully flipped her off, then pushed forward into the hallway through the blown-out door.

“Da perimeter’s clear,” Uncle Rabo said. “We’ll cover da exits, and your hoops, from outside.”

“Affirm,” I said, followin’ Adam through, just ahead of Faye.

We didn’t even notice the beautiful art spray-painted on the cinderblock walls on either side of the corridor until it was too late. By which I mean until it was already movin’. First, the stylized tiger on the left hand wall padded out into the hall, one two-dimensional paw after another becomin’ solid and real as it set foot on the gritty three-dimensional floor.

I tried to scream a warnin’, but all I know for sure is that when it pounced on Lil’ Rabo from behind, I was screamin’.

By that time, the Eastern Dragon rendered in red spray paint on the right hand wall had already crawled out to meet us in three dimensions and livin’ color, not as big as the real thing, but bigger than the tiger maulin’ Lil’ Rabo.

I fired my Roomsweeper at the same time Adam fired his shotgun, but it took no notice of the flechettes that should have torn it to pieces, and unleashed a blast of flame from its snout that sent me and Adam crashin’ to the floor, rollin’ around and swattin’ at our burning clothes.

I looked up, still smoking, the wind knocked out of me and the Roomsweeper knocked out of my hand, to see Adam still rollin’ and burnin’. Behind him, the dragon-spirit-whatever-the-frag-it-was padded toward us, its forked tongue flickin’ out of its toothy snout. Behind that, Lil’ Rabo screamed with battle rage, rollin’ and over with the tiger spirit as it shredded him with its claws, givin’ as good as he got, ramming his spurs into its side again and again.

Even through the Kamikaze, I definitely felt less than invincible in that moment. In fact, I felt decidedly fucking vincible.

Then a pissed off tornado with arms and legs appeared out of thin air, tackling the dragon-shaped guardian spirit and smashing it straight through the opposite fuckin’ wall.

I struggled to my feet and dragged Adam to his. By that point, the tiger was steppin’ off Lil’ Rabo’s corpse and headin’ toward us, leavin’ bloody footprints on the plascrete. It had torn his throat out with its teeth, and its side was riddled with gashes and punctures from the price he’d made it pay. To our right, I saw the battle between air elemental and guardian spirit continue tearin’ down the rest of the damn building. They crashed out of the room they’d burst into through another cinderblock wall, causing plaster dust and broken tiles to rain from the roof. Adam raised his gun—too slowly—as I tried to bring my katana up to guard. Although my hopes against surviving against this thing in close weren’t too high, I had Kamikaze to thank for even considerin’ it at all.

Then I heard Faye’s voice fill the air, cryin’ out in a language I didn’t know, and a halo of silver and white fire surrounded the tiger. It roared in defiance as the monochrome fire burned it out of our world and back to its home. Faye collapsed to one knee, an aura of the same color fadin’ from around her. Her nose was bleedin’, her eyes looked bruised and unfocused, and she swayed unsteadily.

On some level, it was a relief to see her lookin’ even a hair less than perfect.

“Banished it,” she said, sounding as if she’d just run five consecutive marathons.

“Can you do anythin’ for ’im?” Adam asked, lookin’ at Lil’ Rabo’s lifeless body lyin’ in a pool of blood. The titanic struggle between spirits continued crashing through adjacent rooms. I didn’t know who was gonna win, and while obviously I knew who I was rootin’ for, I wasn’t too keen on findin’ out.

Faye shook her head sadly. “Not if I don’t wanna wind up as bad or worse myself.”

“Alright, girlfriend,” I told her. “You done good, but you’re outta here.” Ignorin’ her flimsy protests, I pulled her up, turned her around, and gently shoved her toward the front door. Then I commed Grazz, my Uncle, and Spaceboy. “We got one friendly, coming out, watch your shots.”

“Copy dat,” Uncle Rabo said.

Adam handed me my Roomsweeper, but I stuffed it into my thigh holster and took a two-handed grip on my katana. He fed fresh caseless blocks into his T-250’s magazine tube.

“You good, Devil?” he asked.

I nodded, and we rushed the opposite door as the spirit fight faded into silence. I really hoped our guy had won, or I was gonna feel really fuckin’ stupid for treatin’ Faye so selflessly.

The door swung open, and a Yakuza kobun in an armored business suit looked at me with a stupid expression on his face, bringin’ his SCK-100 up too slowly.

I screamed “GRUMOGE!” at the top of my lungs, and chopped his fuckin’ head off with my katana.

I guess that’s what you’d call “cultural appropriation,” motherfucker.

Adam pushed past the headless Yak’s fallin’ body into a big office room full of big, empty desks. Two blasts from his Defiance took the last two Yaks there off their feet, and off the mortal coil.

He turned to give me a thumbs-up.

Then a too-fast shape streaked down from the room’s rafters and diagonally past to land crouched behind him, a Dikote katana backhanded in one fist.

Adam’s still-smilin’ head tumbled off his neck in slow motion. His body, like it was in denial, was a few seconds late in collapsin’, spurtin’ blood everywhere.

The Kamikaze truncated the shock and postponed the grief: as a great man once said, I’ll cry when I’m done killin’.

The cyber-Yak stood up, turnin’ to face me and casually flickin’ the blood off his blade. The oiled precision of his motions suggested a lifetime of martial arts trainin’ and wired reflexes that cost more than the whole neighborhood where I grew up. He was a breeder, young-lookin’, frosted blond hair, a little mustache, a yellow armored vest and armored military pants over combat boots. His two obvious cyberarms were left bare, with a gleamin’ chrome finish. He had a pair of Savalette Guardians in shoulder holsters, but he didn’t go for them. He just inclined the tip of his katana toward me.

Neither the Yaks’ guardian spirit nor Faye’s elemental rejoined us. I didn’t hear more Yaks approachin’, and with no windows, Grazz couldn’t cover me with The Bitch and Uncle Rabo’s Dalmatian wouldn’t be any help: it was too big to get this far inside.

What I did hear was pantin’, gruntin’, and sounds of pain from the other side of a door just behind the samurai and to my right. No words, but the voice was still familiar. It sounded like my grampa, and it sounded like some shitstain was workin’ ’im over real good.

We’re gonna see what we can do about that, I thought.

The Yak razorguy called me something I was sure was very rude in Japanese. Then, because obviously as an Afro ork I was too stupid to understand Japanese, he repeated it in English:

“Look at you, a trog whore waving around a samurai sword.”

I grinned fiercely, showin’ my tusks, and stuck out my pierced tongue.

“I was hopin’ you’d say some shit like that.”

I charged at him and we sprinted past each other, slashing. It was just like in an anime, where you don’t know who’s cut who until after a dramatic pause. And after a dramatic pause, I knew just what it was like to lose in an anime. Blood sprayed down from my torso, and I fell onto my hands and knees. He’d cut me deep. Maybe not mortal, but…if he was that much faster than me before, I was completely fucked now.

“You don’t even know what you’re doing with that thing. You don’t deserve to touch it,” the Yak said, positionin’ himself over me and raisin’ his katana for the killing blow. “It’s like seeing a monkey with a cyberdeck. I’m going to take it away from you, and shove it up your tusker ass.”

I tried to get my body to stand, tried to hold onto my katana, tried to die fightin’, but even Kamikaze can only push a girl so far.

Then the deafening chatter of full autofire filled the room, and the razorguy danced back to the opposite side of the room, spurtin’ blood all the way before crashing over a desk and lying still.

I looked toward the door the gunshots came from—the same one I’d heard the struggle comin’ from—and I saw my grampa.

All wrinkles and gray hair, Kham wore only a wife beater and boxer shorts, holdin’ a smokin’ AK-97 in his burly arms. Lyin’ on the floor behind ’im was a Yakuza with a broken neck. Still handcuffed to his leg was the chair he’d dragged with ’im to the door.

“What took youse so fraggin’ long?” he spat.

Ricochet Faye made sure I didn’t die from the Kamikaze crash or my injury. The Yakuza had been paid, at least in part, in a nice shipment of hot BTLs from CalFree, and had left that part of the payoff lyin’ around Schlesinger’s Meats, so Spaceboy and Faye got their yerz after all. In fact, we all made some nice nuyen, even after payin’ Skeeter for all the hardware.

Grampa Kham didn’t know for sure who’d been behind the kidnapping, but he told me his best guess. It was a wild story involvin’ elves that live forever, magic crystals, dragon eggs, and even fuckin’ Lofwyr. I was sure the old chummer was mostly full of it, but there musta been a kernel ’o truth in there somewhere. He thought this attempt to grab him had somethin’ to do with that ancient biz.

We paid Spaceboy to track the commlink of the boss Yak (he was the gumi’s shateigashira, apparently). He managed to dig up that the elf Johnson that hired them belonged so some Tir corp called Andalusian Light Industries, which would seem to sync up with Kham’s story about evil elves.

And after what happened to Lil’ Rabo and Adam, I hope the fuckers behind this are the kind of elves that live forever. So I’m takin’ that much more away when I find ’em and kill ’em.

DARK SIDE MATTERS

(The Shadows)

JENNIFER BROZEK

My name is Elfin John, and The Dark Side is my club. It’s a gentlemen’s club of a sort. Very exclusive and hard to find. A word-of-mouth kind of place, where you need to be vouched for to get in. Just the way I like it.

At the end of the alleyway next to a theater is a wood and glass door with writing on it. At least, it looks like real wood and glass. Discreet and classy, you might think it’s an office of some kind. Maybe for one of those hardbitten detective types who could get you a tri-vid for your divorce proceedings? You’d pass it by without another thought.

And if you aren’t meant to be here, that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen. I spent a lot of time, nuyen, and magic making sure only those who need to find my business do. Like I said, exclusive.

In truth, though, we cater to all kinds here: male, female, intersex, elf, human, troll, ork, dwarf, dragon, and any combination thereof. Whatever your desire, if you’ve got the nuyen, The Dark Side will find it for you. 

Within reason, of course. I don’t allow BTLs or wetwork on the premises. That sort of thing isn’t for this sort of club. We’re upscale here, and I mean to keep it that way. But, as always, there are caveats and exceptions to the rules.

Take Sasha Jones. There’s a lowlife bottom feeder if ever I saw one. But he gets me what I need. Most of the time I can forgive his drek fashion sense and crude manners. For a human, he reminds me more of an ork on a bender—and that’s when he’s being good. Right now, I’ve got two of my most masochistic ladies serving him drinks and talking with him. I can only imagine the delicious torment they’re going through.

You see, just as The Dark Side gives our clientele sophisticated pleasure—music, conversation, beauty, art, wit, and yes, sex—we sell the illusion of companionship, of camaraderie, of connection. At the same time, there is so much more to The Dark Side… and that is what brings the unpleasantness of Sasha Jones to my door. 

Ah well, in Dark Side matters, business before pleasure.

“Sasha…on time as always.” I stride out to meet the human. I don’t shake his hand. I don’t know where he’s been. 

In the back of my head, a notice pops up that I’ve received an AR message from my father. I ignore it. One unpleasantness at a time. Just the thought of the overbearing man makes me smooth down my dark hair and run my finger over the tip of a pointed ear. It’s a habit I’ve yet to break.

“Elfin John, my man, wouldn’t miss it.” Sasha raises his drink. “You got the best. The real stuff. Not that synth drek.”

“Well, yes. As you say.” I shake my head. Of course, I didn’t waste my best on Sasha. Just the very good. “How about we have this conversation some place a little more quiet?”

Sasha smoothes back his hair, styled in the latest trend—if it were ten months ago—and stands, dumping Maisie from his lap. “Gotta go, doll. The adults need to talk.”

Maisie giggles at him from the floor, then lets Shannon pick her up. “Bye-bye, Sasha.” Her little finger wave turns into a rude gesture as Sasha turns his back. I give her a warning look. She blows me a kiss.

I ignore it, promising myself to have a talk with her later. I probably won’t. Sasha isn’t a client she has to be concerned with. But if I catch her doing that to someone who matters, there will be words, and she won’t like them.

I walk Sasha through the hallway of private lounges to the back part of the club for the upper echelons of the club’s management. This is where the other business The Dark Side is known for gets done. I decide to start nice, and lead Sasha into my private office—the one I use for company, not the one I use for management business, or the real work I do.

It is a large room with a sitting area flanked by four leather chairs around a low table for setting drinks, contracts, and nuyen on. One side of the office is filled with monitor screens. I can see every room in the building through them. They are all dark now, of course. The other side has my desk, a large cherrywood thing polished to a high shine. There are the normal things you’d expect on it—sleek computer station, pens, paper, a holo of my pretend family. Then, there are the things you wouldn’t expect—an ornate dagger, a bowl of carnivorous flowers, and a silk fan in full display. All of these radiate magic to the arcane eye. 

Sasha plops into one of the chairs without being invited. I grimace, then swallow my ire. Instead, I smile, all teeth as I watch my expression in the monitor glass. My face is puffy today; pale skin around hazel eyes. It doesn’t take away from my devilish good looks, but I notice it. “We’ve had a long working history, haven’t we?”

“Uh-oh. You sound like my dad.”

I turn and give him a look. I’ve discovered that if you just gaze at someone long enough without speaking, as if you expect something from them, they’ll talk to fill the silence. Too many people are uncomfortable with silence. For me, it’s my best friend. 

Sasha smoothes his pompadour with a nervous hand, then rubs his fingers on his designer jeans. “Yes, Elfin John, we’ve had a long working history. I’ve always done right by you, and you’ve always done right by me.”

I nod. “We have. So, tell me about the Awakened angler fish lure.”

“Little dry? Sorry about that. My jar broke. I had to make do with what I had at the time. Lots of things trying to eat me.” He gives me a weak smile. “Got it back in the water as soon as I could.”

I don’t care about the fish lure. I just wanted to see what he’d say. Now I know I need to give it a thorough once over. In truth, I’ve had to give all of his recent shipments a thorough once over. This time with an eye for mistakes and glamour. I’d made the mistake of getting too comfortable with a shadowrunner once. It won’t happen again.

“Ah, totally understandable. Deep sea fishing for Awakened critters is a dangerous game…but you’re one of the best in the business. You and your team.”

“That I am. Don’t you forget it.” Sasha snaps his fingers and gives me a too-wide grin as he glances around the room like a trapped animal.

He still isn’t sure if he’s in trouble or not. He is, but I should put him at ease for what’s to come. “Would you like a drink? I’m having one.” I touch a button with my foot and a full bar rises out of the floor. “Taéngelé, I think. I’m in the mood for something with a touch of class.”

Ever a slave to his pleasures, Sasha relaxes. “Yeah. Scotch. Neat. Real if you got it. Synth if you don’t.”

I doubt he would know what real scotch tasted like…and certainly wouldn’t know the difference between a single malt and a blended version. I choose the blended brand. Like I said, I don’t waste my best on people like Sasha. Just the very good. “This is my private stash. Real, of course.”

To his credit, he doesn’t just swill the glass I hand him. He stops and gives it a deep sniff before taking a swallow. With a cough, he rasps, “Good.”

He didn’t notice I hadn’t poured myself a drink. For a runner, he is incredibly dense. “So, tell me about the Awakened narwhal horn. Where did you get it again?”

Sasha pauses, his glass halfway to his mouth. He finishes the gesture to buy himself time. After a moment to savor the alcohol, he shrugs. “Off the coast of Alaska. I told you that when I delivered it. It was on the manifest.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot. So many items come though my shop. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep up with it all. What did you do with the rest of the carcass? I’m curious. You didn’t deliver the rest to me with a bid price on it.”

For a couple of long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. We both know that the narwhal horn didn’t come from an Awakened creature. In fact, I’m not sure where he got it…or if it was even real narwhal—and that is the crux of my current problem.

I watch him calculate the odds of me knowing whatever he says is a lie, and decide it isn’t worth it. He does the next best thing: deflection. 

Sasha leans back in the leather chair. “Is that what all this is about? I was worried you were mad at me.” He shrugs, relaxes his shoulders, and feigns feeling comfortable once more. “You’re not the only talismonger in town, you know.” Then he frowns, his gaze dropping from me to the glass in his hand and back.

He sold me out to some wannabe competition? I wish I could rip his throat out with my teeth. Instead, I give him that wide, feral grin again. “I’m the only one of my caliber in the city, Sasha. You know that.” 

He doesn’t respond. He can’t. The paralytic on the rim of his glass ensures that he can’t move. Though, he is very much awake and will remain so. Poor bastard.

I activate my internal comm. “He’s ready. Take him to workroom three.”

Two of my augmented bouncers come in without knocking. One puts a black bag over Sasha’s head and plucks the glass from his hand, setting it on the low table. The other picks him up and takes him to my workroom. 

A notice pops up on my comm. Father has left another message. Apparently, he wants an answer now. Putting the drugged glass on the bar, I grimace at the thought of his voice. Shoving that away, I activate both messages to run one after the other. To my intense pleasure and annoyance, a placeholder screen appears in my comm. The man couldn’t be bothered to face me directly. Instead, his supercilious voice fills my head.

“Jonathan, it’s your father. I’m reminding you that we have an engagement at Lord and Lady Nordstrom’s home in Kensington tomorrow night. I don’t care how long it will take for you to travel from where you are to there. You are expected to be at my side at 1900 hours for cocktails. Don’t be late. Bring a date. But no one too trendy. I understand your little foibles and will allow it in you, but not your date. Let me know that you’ve received this.”

The first quick text ends without a good-bye. I shake my head. I want to go to this fête about as much as I want to deal with Sasha. The things we do for family. The second message begins without preamble.

“One other thing, bring a date only if you can bring an appropriate young lady. For God’s sake, do not bring a woman who works for you. I still hear grumbles about the last time that happened, and Lord Rutherford still won’t look me in the eye. I do not need my friends embarrassed by being reminded that they are one of your clients. Discretion is the watchword of the day, son. Remember it. If you cannot do as I ask, come alone and I will pair you with a suitable young lady. Let me know immediately.”

This message cuts off in the same abrupt manner as the first one. I debate for all of ten seconds and sigh before dashing off a quick text message: <I will be there on time. I will come alone. Thank you.> If he can’t be bothered to show me his face, I can’t be bothered with more than text on a screen.

That unpleasantness done, I follow my bouncers and Sasha to workroom three, warring with myself over whether or not I will enjoy this.

My bouncers strip Sasha of every weapon he has—and it’s an impressive amount for a street thug like him—then bind him to the heavy metal chair provided. I let him stew in darkness for a good five minutes while I make sure everything is ready. Also, I let the drug run its way through his system. I want him moving when we begin.

As I check the restraints, I murmur, “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

Sasha mumbles something incoherent. That means the paralytic is at the end of its cycle. Soon, he’ll be in control of his body again. I move behind and to the side of the chair and watch him in silence as I count in my head. I reach sixty-four when he speaks again.

“John, chummer…we can talk about this, yeah? No need to do anything drastic, right?”

I nod to my bouncer. He rips the black hood from Sasha’s head. I gesture for the bouncers to leave us in the workroom. They close the door with an audible click of the latch and clunk of the deadbolt. I keep my silence wrapped about me like a cloak as I watch him gaze around the workroom and understand what it could mean.

A talismonger’s workroom is a thing to behold. Especially mine. Well, it usually is. I had to clean it out for what’s to come. I keep things in here I didn’t want messed up. Still, the room is impressive, if I do say so myself.

It’s a large stone rectangle with deep ebon cabinets secured with ornate silver locks. The walls, usually filled with tools of the trade, are bare. You can still see where some things used to hang. The walls are cleaner there. The floor is covered with chalked ritual circles and seals…along with wax drippings and old, viscous stains. It looks a little like the large stone table I have to one side of the room. The ceiling is black from years of candle soot.

The Hermetic tradition is not the neatest of magic, but not the messiest either.

Sasha twitches. First his hand, then his head. That means the paralytic has fully worn off. I added that side effect to the drug so there’d be no feigning being paralyzed while plotting me bodily harm.

I step into view. “Welcome to my workroom, Sasha. Usually it’s got a bit more in it, but I don’t need you seeing how the sausage is made. Of course, a talismonger is more than the sum of his telesma…more than even the unspoiled and exotic telesma I sell here. Do you know what I mean?”

Sasha shakes his head in tiny jerks. I’m not sure if his silence is because he hasn’t quite regained control of his brain yet or because he’s suddenly developed some common sense. Either way, it allows me to go on uninterrupted.

“Talismongers are the heart of their magical society. We buy and sell telesma, lore, and knowledge. We’re the one place that those with eyes to see can go for all things enchanted. Especially for those who cannot create for themselves. We have connections everywhere. As such, we have a duty to the magical society we tend to.”

Sasha is panting now, sweating in his panic. “John, I can explain. Please—”

I continue, overriding him, letting my anger show. “I have a duty to my clientele to make sure they get the best foci, telesma, and formulae. That everything I sell is well made, properly collected, and exactly what they paid for. Safe, unspoiled, exotic…exactly what that narwhal horn should’ve been, but wasn’t.”

I watch the fear crawl across his face. Then I soften my words, lacing them with the promise of salvation. “What was it exactly that you sold to me? It left a lovely young woman in a coma. Perhaps, we can undo the damage before it’s too late. Perhaps, it’s not too late for any of us.”

“It was narwhal. I swear…just not awakened…or fresh. But you gotta understand, I didn’t have a choice. Mr. Jones said he’d pay me double to bring it to him instead. And if I didn’t, he’d ruin me.”

This is the confession I need to save my own ass. “Mr. Jones?”

Sasha shrugs and twitches a little. “I don’t know his real name. Just Mr. Jones. You know the deal. He tells me what I need to do for his client…and I get paid.”

It’s interesting that it’s a “Mr. Jones” rather than “Mr. Johnson.” Tells me that the anonymous employer is from Great Britain rather than North America. That means this might have been a personal vendetta against my client. Same continent, different side of the border.

“Did your Mr. Jones hire you to steal from me or to give me fake components…or both?”

“Will you let me go if I tell you?” Sasha’s eyes beg me to lie to him.

So I do. “I’ll let you go…when we’re done here. I promise.” I don’t tell him that I’m not the one in charge for the moment. I won’t be done with Sasha until they are.

Sasha relaxes, believing me. “It was both. There’s some who don’t like you as the main talismonger in town…and they specifically told me to give you the regular narwhal horn. Gave it to me, actually, to give to you.”

The competition wants to play rough, do they? Well, we’ll work that angle after this business is done. No one threatens me or mine. Not in my city. I’ll set my people looking for who the up-and-comers are as soon as I get a chance.

“Thank you, Sasha.” I turn to the wall behind me. “Have you seen enough?”

The illusionary wall disappears, revealing three elves—the beautiful woman who hid them, a young woman in a wheelchair, and an equally beautiful man. They have the same Germanic look and family resemblance that tells even the most casual of observers they are related. The man and woman glare at Sasha, while the girl in the wheelchair looks at nothing.

“Let me introduce you to Herr and Frau Schmidt. My clients.” These, of course, are not their real names. I’d rather die than reveal such to scum like Sasha. I point to the girl. “And she is the young lady your fake telesma hurt. It’s much more complex than a coma, I’m afraid. You see, she’s very much alive, but caught on the astral plane.”

“You said you’d let me go. You promised!” Sasha struggles against his bonds, panic beating about his head and shoulders. 

“Oh, I will let you go…but first, reparations must be made.” I put a hand to my chest. “Not by me, of course. I’m not going to punish you. They are.”

I straighten and nod to Herr Schmidt. “He is all yours, sir. And if you’ll excuse me—”

“No.”

That single word freezes me in mid-turn. “Sir?” I fight to keep his real title under my tongue.

“This is a crime against our people, is it not? You will witness the punishment.” His face is implacable. 

The compliment and the threat are clear in that first sentence. I bow. “Of course, sir. I will witness it.” Part of me is terrified. Part of me is ecstatic. Our people. After all these years, to finally be accepted.

I step back and watch the elven nobles lay out their magical tools on my stone table. I wish I had taken the time to give it a deep clean. Well, Hermetic mages recognize each other and understand the stains. I hope.

“What are they doing?” Sasha’s voice is a harsh whisper.

I hunker down next to him and keep my voice low as the pair begin the summoning. “I believe they’re going to have a talk with the free spirit that has their daughter’s astral form captured.” As the sound of the ocean reaches my ears, I add, “Remember, this is your doing, not mine. I bargained in good faith.”

“Let me go, John. Please. I’ll tell you who hired me. Then I’ll walk away. You won’t have to worry about me anymore.” His eyes dart to the elven pair. “And I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

I know it for the lie it is. “You know who Mr. Jones is and who his clients are? You know exactly who they are?”

Sasha shakes his head. “No, but I can get you the contact numbers. I can lead you to them. I swear I’ll do it.”

I stop paying attention to him as I see the power of what my clients have summoned. It makes me catch my breath. I know Sasha can’t see what is gathering on the astral plane. He’d be a lot less calm. At the first sight of the free spirit in question—a huge sea creature with many tentacles—I wish I was anywhere but here. I stand and watch it come, glad I’d taken down my astral wards as requested. I don’t think they would’ve mattered anyway.

“What? What is it? John? John? What are you looking at?”

I shake my head. “You’ll see soon enough.” The power of the spirit is enormous. I’m almost breathless in my awe. I can’t help but take a step back as it enters the room. I know when Sasha can see it. He makes incoherent whining words in the language of pure panic. Shifting from astral to normal vision, the spirit is no less terrifying manifested in my workroom.

I lean over and whisper, “Silence. It may not notice you.” Sasha sucks in his words and panic, swallowing both with a will that would’ve been impressive in another circumstance. For now, it only proves he has a great desire to live.

Herr Schmidt bows and speaks in German to the spirit in a diffident tone I have never heard from someone of his stature. I listen to the request, the bargaining, and the terms the mage uses.

“John, what’s he saying?” Sasha hooks my pants with his pinky finger.

I slap it away. With a look and nod from Frau Schmidt, I realize they want Sasha to know what is about to happen to him. I return the nod and shift back to whisper in Sasha’s ear. “That is the spirit that holds their daughter. From what I gather, it has worked with this family for centuries, with some long-held traditions. It was disrespected by the girl’s poor choice of telesma…and has kept her astral avatar in recompense.”

I pause, listening as Herr Schmidt continues his polite bargaining. “Her father is explaining your deliberate choice to give her the wrong thing…and has offered you, a known killer of Awakened creatures, to the spirit…to do with as it will.”

“But it wasn’t me. I didn’t mean it.” Sasha all but wails these futile words.

The free spirit turns its full attention on Sasha and me. “Oh, look. I think it’s accepted the bargain.”

“John, move.” Herr Schmidt’s command brooks no argument. 

I move—fast and without pretense—to my ally’s side. 

Sasha struggles, straining against the straps holding him to the metal chair. “John, you fat-faced leaf eater! You can’t do this to me. You promised to let me go!”

“Oh, that hurt. Perhaps you should focus on what’s coming your way instead.” Actually, the insult did hurt. I shove my hands into my pants pockets to keep from touching my rounded face and my pointed ears. I glance at the elves next to me. Their angular cheeks and pointed chins made me ache. That is what I’m supposed to look like.

My own father threatened to disinherit me if I changed the way I looked more than just my ears. He doesn’t understand that I was born in the wrong body. He doesn’t care. All that matters to him is that I look mostly like him at all appropriate high society functions.

What I look like matters to me. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. Eventually, the old man will die, and I’ll be able to finally look on the outside how I feel on the inside. If that doesn’t happen soon, I may have to help him along. Especially with this new turn of events.

Our people… My pride swells as I glance between the two nobles next to me. I’ve finally been accepted. It makes the insult hurt a little less.

The girl in the wheelchair blinks a couple of times, then bursts into tears. Frau Schmidt gathers her daughter into her arms and hugs her tight. I know that she couldn’t have been trapped in astral form for more than a couple of days. She hadn’t had the telesma for that long…but time in the astral is different. I wonder how long it’s been for her.

“He has accepted our apologies and our offering. This should be interesting.” Herr Schmidt brings my attention from his daughter back to Sasha. “You should lower your blast shield.”

With a gesture, I lead my guests to the appropriate spot and activate the safe room. The walls of Securitglas surround us, making our ears pop as the room is fully sealed and pressurized. Not a moment too soon.

My workroom goes from dry to half-filled with water in a blink of an eye. Sasha screams and rips his skin bloody trying to escape his bonds. The water is up to his chest, but he thrashes as if it is already over his head. The spirit strokes a tentacle over Sasha’s hair, petting him like a dog.

Herr Schmidt points downward. I follow the direction he indicates. Fish that look like a cross between piranha and octopi tear at the shadowrunner’s clothing, then his flesh. Blood chums the water, exciting them. I can’t help glancing at the elven noble, and he challenges me with an arched eyebrow. I know what he’s saying: “If you want to be one of us, you remember this and treat all your enemies with the same mercy. If you have the fortitude for it.”

I turn back and watch Sasha’s pain, drinking it in. Another blink, and the workroom is filled almost to the ceiling. Sasha, still struggling, still being eaten alive, screams once more before sucking in a lungful of water. After that, it is a waiting game. Sasha takes another two minutes to die. I watch him every second of those two minutes.

Herr Schmidt bows to the free spirit, communicating telepathically with it. A moment later, the spirit, the water, and its pets disappear. I look into the astral, but they are gone from the immediate area, leaving behind only the echo of the ocean.

“I would like to go home.” Frau Schmidt’s words are polite, but no less a command.

That is my cue to release the safe room. The Securiglas walls retract after the room unseals. Everything, except the ceiling and my safe room area, is scoured clean, with only the faint, brackish smell of salt water lingering in the air. Even Sasha’s body is clean—though that won’t last long. While blood no longer flows in his veins, gravity still does its job, and those bite marks are already leaking.

Frau Schmidt and her daughter leave the workroom without a word or a backward glance. I don’t expect anything more. Family reunions after a near-death experience are a private matter. Or so I’ve been told.

Glancing at Herr Schmidt as he gathers his work tools from my now pristine stone table, I ask. “Sir? Are we good? My debt is cleared?”

Even in private, I can’t allow myself to speak his true name. My astral wards are gone. Anyone could be listening. And after the ruckus we just caused on the astral plane, people are bound to be out and about, looking for the reason.

“It is.” He nods his affirmation as well. “You’ve shown your mettle.” He gestures to Sasha’s body. “I trust you will deal with that?”

“Of course. The Dark Side is full service. There is nothing more for you to do. Though, when you wish, the club is always happy to receive you and your family as an honored guests.”

The elven noble finishes packing away his and his wife’s tools. “I think the next time we meet, you should be my honored guest. I’ll have my man set up a dinner engagement.”

“Thank you, my friend.” I make a calculated risk and offer my hand. I had just helped save his daughter, after all.

He accepts the gesture with a nod, and we clasp arms. “Until then.”

I walk him to the stairway to the private part of The Dark Side. There, his own retinue takes over as escort. I wait at the foot of the landing until my comm beeps and my security woman says, “The bluebirds have flown, sir. Would you like me to prepare your private suite?”

I look back at my pristine workroom with its lack of astral wards and dead body. “Not yet. Business before pleasure. I need a cleaning crew for one. Make sure this one is never found. Not one scrap of flesh. Not one bone.”

“Yes, sir.”

I return to the workroom and inspect my ebon cabinets. They survived. That will make tonight’s work so much easier. As much as I want to celebrate the evening and my new acceptance, when it comes to Dark Side matters…business always comes before pleasure.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

(404)

CHRIS A. JACKSON

Act 1  //  Paying Respects

I walked beside Julianna Hennesy through a maze of white marble as the Caribbean sun tried to reduce us to ashes. Hennesy’s two kids, Vince and Carla, darted ahead through the hundred-forty-acre Colon Cemetery. My cream silk Armorani matched the hue of the angels, skeletons, and skulls staring down at us. It didn’t breathe as well as linen, but it deters gunfire. In my line of work, that kind of fashion trumps comfort.

My line of work…

I missed my corporate gig a little, but the money Julianna’s husband had unlocked when he transferred the decryption codes to a stolen NeoNET credstick—just before he blew his brains out—set his family and me up nicely in a secure Havana high-rise. It also pretty much obliterated any chance I had of working for a corporation again.

Done deal. Ice Cream was back in the shadows, risen from the ashes of corporate anonymity.

Now I was fulfilling my promise to Julianna’s husband, seeing after his family, at least until she could get a gig of her own. Hennesy had been a nice guy. I pay my debts. Today was part of that debt.

“Not too far!” Julianna called to her kids in broken Spanish.

“Si, mama!” Carla shouted for her younger brother to come back.

We continued on to Hennesy’s grave, one of thousands in the Colon Cemetery. While Julianna pulled in the kids and knelt to pay her respects, I scanned the maze of white stone. The cemetery was busy today, and old habits die hard.

Could be worse, we could be in Mexico City…

In Cuba, Dia de Los Muertos—the Day of the Dead—isn’t the party it is in Mexico. Respects are paid, remembrances renewed, tears shed. I let the family mourn, and remembered the man I’d almost saved.

Julianna placed flowers at the foot of the grave and stood. “Were you here already, Tiya?”

“What?” That took me aback. “No, why?”

She pointed to the waist-high marble slab. “I thought you might have left that.”

A photograph and a single white rose lay on Hennesy’s grave.

The hairs on my neck stood up.

“Someone who knew him, maybe?” Julianna speculated.

“Nobody knows where he’s buried.” I edged closer to peer at the photo, and realized it wasn’t one.

It was a playing card…no, a tarot card—not an old-style, but a modern one. I picked it up and peered at the glossy image, a woman with bones painted on her back, glossy stretch pants and high heels gleaming. She wore a full-face helmet painted with a skull, and held a white rose. A dead dove lay beside her foot. The Death card.

“Some sick joke?” Julianna asked, peering at the card.

“I don’t know.” I tucked the card in my pocket. “But I think we should—”

A high-pitched whine tweaked my augmented hearing. Something in my head said “Drone!” and my wired reflexes kicked into high gear. This wasn’t the low buzz of a surveillance or delivery drone, but the high-speed rotors of a killer.

My head turned toward the sound so fast that vertebrae in my neck cracked. I caught the glint of metal rising from behind an ornate monument, a glowing red eye, and the glint of a ruby laser.

“DOWN!”

Julianna yelped as I slammed into her and dragged the kids down as small caliber rounds stitched a line across Hennesy’s grave. Shards of marble struck my Armorani like a swarm of hornets against a windshield. My Thunderbolt bucked in my hand before I realized I’d even drawn it. One round hit the drone off-center, but the other two just sent mourners screaming in terror.

I could relate to the terror part, but I’d been shot at plenty of times. The kids, however, were screaming, and Julianna’s eyes were so wide I thought they might pop. I’d warned her that NeoNET might come after us, and I’d drilled her on what to do.

“The car! Fast and low! MOVE!”

To her credit, Julianna moved with a will born of adrenalin and fear for the lives of her children. While she grabbed them by their scruffs and lurched up into a running crouch, I leaped to the top of Hennesy’s grave and emptied my Thunderbolt at the small, silvery killing machine. My elevation drew its fire, but gave me a better angle. Two rounds hit my armored jacket, and two of mine hit the drone. Fair trade. I grunted with the impacts and dove for cover, ejecting the empty mag and reaching for another. Julianna and the kids were hauling ass for the car—Good girl!—so I rolled up and sprinted after them.

More spraying shards of marble told me I’d either failed to kill the drone or there was more than one. I fired as I ran, relying on my smartgun link; a glance and a squeeze were all I needed.

Gunfire erupted from another direction, and a marble angel to my right disintegrated. I dove for cover and ejected my second empty mag. I had two more, but I’d picked up another drone.

Someone wanted me dead very badly.

Scrambling between two lofty tombs, I reached the last corner before the car. Julianna sat behind the wheel, the kids hunkered in the back seat, the passenger door open for me. Fifty feet of open pavement lay between me and my ride. I popped up to dissuade my robotic foes and almost got a round in my eye. Shards of marble lacerated my cheek. I fired, turned, and ran.

Rounds pinged into my car as I dove through the Mercedes’ open door, but I’d paid for more than deluxe paint and racing rims. Nothing short of an armor-piercing sniper rifle was going to get through that armor.

“Drive!”

Rubber howled. Julianna looked terrified, but intent on the road, and the kids were freaked, crying and panicked. I decided a little “cool” was in order.

“Well, that was fun!” I dusted splintered marble off my jacket and holstered my gun.

Three pairs of eyes stared at me like I was crazy.

“No worries. We’re safe in the car. All we’ve got to do is lose them.” I didn’t really know we were safe, but not many riggers outfit their drones with heavy artillery.

“Where should I go?” Julianna asked, eyes glued to the road.

Pings against the back window told me we still had incoming fire.

“Just drive evasively. I’ve got to go duck hunting.” I looked back and spotted two combat drones darting and swooping, their little guns spitting bullets at us. Unfortunately, each one also sported a small missile racked beneath the fuselage.

So much for the no artillery option. I leaned over the seat. “Hunker down, kids. Auntie Tiya needs a bigger gun.”

The kids hunkered as ordered, and I keyed open the compartment in the back of the seat that held my HK assault rifle. My thumbprint removed the trigger lock—kids and guns, you know—and I racked a round into the chamber. I toggled the sunroof switch and grinned at Julianna.

“Give me three seconds of no jinks or swerves.”

“Three seconds.” She nodded, knuckles white on the wheel. “Ready.”

“Now!”

The car stopped swerving and I popped up like a jack-in-the-box, HK leveled, the smart-scope’s view popping into my vision. Three armor-piercing bursts reduced the nearest drone to scrap. The second veered hard, and my next salvo ricocheted off the side of a building. Behind the remaining drone, a woman in black rode on a bone-white motorcycle, her skull helmet the spitting image of the one on the card in my pocket.

“Gotcha!” She had to be the rigger controlling the drones. Kill the brain, and the beast dies… But as I brought the HK to bear, the drone I’d missed fired its missile.

“TURN!” I dropped down through the skylight as Julianna jerked the wheel.

Tires howled around a corner. We slammed into a parked car, but the maneuver saved our lives. The car we’d sideswiped erupted in flames and flying debris as the missile hit it. Shrapnel rattled against the back window.

“I think my insurance is going up.” I grinned at Julianna’s stunned glance. “Three seconds straight!” I stood back up and steadied my rifle. “NOW!”

The drone howled around the corner, banking hard, its trajectory blissfully predictable. I squeezed the trigger in precise bursts. The drone careened out of control and smashed into the side of a building. As I thumbed out the empty mag and ducked down to grab another, the white motorcycle screeched to a stop at the intersection behind us.

The rider’s skull helmet turned to face us. Before I could slap in a new mag, she gunned her bike and shot off down the street, the skeleton painted on the back of her form-fitting bodysuit identical to the tarot card. She was gone before I could get a shot.

“We’re safe.” I sat back down and unloaded the rifle. “Head home.”

“Who…” Julianna’s voice trembled, her hands strangling the wheel.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” I locked and racked the rifle, and grinned at the kids. “So! Who wants ice cream?”

Safe at home, I doffed my bullet-riddled jacket and took a shower to wash the blood and marble dust out of my hair. The cuts and bruises were already healing, thanks to my trauma nanites. Clean, kids settled, and Julianna pacing the living room with a glass of wine, I sat down at my terminal to start hunting.

“Do you think it was NeoNET?” Her voice shook.

“No.” I slid the tarot card into the scanner. “If NeoNET found out where we lived, they’d probably send a missile through the building to take us out, not a hotshot rigger assassin.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“It should be.”

I attached the scan of the card to a message and typed >Rigger runner just tried to smoke me. She left this card. Find out all you can: name, capabilities, and Johnson. IC. and fired it off to Skeeve, my fixer, with his usual fee.

“Whoever sponsored this has deep pockets, since riggers don’t come cheap, but she’s definitely a shadowrunner.”

“How do you know?”

I pulled the card from the scanner and held it up. “The Death card. She’s got an ego and balls as big as melons. That says shadowrunner.”

Act 2  //  Digging Up the Dead

Twelve hours later, my terminal woke me with ElectroDeath’s last global hit. Skeeve... I rolled off the couch, holstered my gun—it’s a comfortable couch, and I’m paranoid—and answered. “Talk to me.”

“Name’s White Rose.” Skeeve’s skeletally thin face blinked at me from the monitor. “Rigger wet-worker out of Atlanta. She a loner, and really proud of herself. Leaves that calling card on her kills.”

“Any corporate ties?”

“Nada.” Skeeve sniffed in distaste. “Strictly private Johnsons. Here’s her pic without the helmet.”

The image of a blond woman with three jacks in each temple blinked up. She had piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a cruel smile; not unattractive, if you like pale blonds. She would stick out like an Amerind at a corporate banquet in the Caribbean. I printed a hard copy.

“Any info on her Johnson?”

“Nada, again.” Skeeve’s face blinked back up. “Who’d you piss off besides NeoNET?”

“Long list.” I frowned at the picture and the tarot card. “Anything else?”

“She took a commercial flight to Miami two months ago, then dropped off-grid.” He shrugged. “Want me to dig deeper?”

“Nah. I think I’ll ask her who she’s working for.”

“Think you can find her?”

“Don’t know if I don’t look.” I broke the connection and considered the card again. Anyone with artistic talent and a home printer could have made it. I couldn’t find her through the Matrix using this, but I knew someone who might get me on her trail.

I found Julianna sleeping with her kids, so I donned a new jacket, grabbed fresh mags for my Thunderbolt, and left a note on the fridge telling them to stay home for a while. My car would be in the shop for a week, and I didn’t have far to go, so I hoofed it down Trocadero into Old Havana.

Havana at night…I may as well have been invisible. I got three propositions for sex, two for drugs, and six for BTL chips before reaching my destination.

Madame Moreau’s shop looks like a junk store and a taxidermist’s caught in the same tornado, but her juju is genuine. It was late, but she’s a night creature.

I ducked through the beaded curtain that served as the shop’s front door. “Bonsoir, Celeste!” Her daughter, Celeste, runs the shop, and is a budding shaman herself, but I needed her mother’s skills.

“Tiya!” She rushed forward, grasped my hands and gave me a kiss. “How are you?”

I slipped into Creole as smoothly as putting on a silk robe. I barely escaped Haiti alive, but I love my countrymen.

“I’m well, but I need the services of your mother.” I rubbed my fingers and thumb together, indicating that this was business. “Is she here?”

“Yes, in the back. Please, go through.” She smiled and squeezed my hands. “Be well.”

“And you, Celeste.”

I ducked through another beaded curtain made from the bones of countless small animals. Madame Moreau is a Santeria priestess/shaman, and if she didn’t want me to pass that barrier, I couldn’t have. She sat at a table, smoking a pipe and carving a piece of tortoiseshell. She smiled up at me, skin like weathered black leather crinkling into a million wrinkles.

“Sit, Tiya! Sit!” She waved a hand like a bundle of walnuts to a chair. “Are you well truly?”

“I’m well enough, my friend, but in need of help.” I placed the tarot card on the table. “Someone tried to kill me today. She left that.”

She picked it up, peered at it with her milky eyes, sniffed it, tasted it, ran her fingers along the edges. “You found it in what aspect? Did she leave anything else?”

I tried to remember how I found the card; in tarot reading, these things mattered. “On a gravestone. Face up, left of center, oriented vertically. A white rose lay across it. Nothing else. Now, about the owner—”

“Patience, girl!” She scowled and fingered the card. “The death card rarely means death itself, but change. Sometimes future, sometimes past, but always change. The position indicates recent past. You have gone through a great change recently in your life.”

“True.” Did that mean the rigger knew about me? “And the rose?”

She shrugged. “Hubris, I would guess, or something personal.”

“This is her picture.” I put Skeeve’s photo on the table. “She calls herself White Rose. Can you find her for me?”

“Perhaps.” She smiled thinly and rubbed fingers and thumb together.

I handed her a credstick.

Madame Moreau took it, checked the balance, and nodded. She stood and started collecting things from her shelves. She placed a shallow bowl, a bottle of oil, vials of powder, and a pouch on the table, then went to one of the cages lining her room and coaxed a docile white chicken from it.

She patted the bird gently, cooing to it as she returned to the table, then, quick as a striking snake, drew a small knife and decapitated the bird. The chicken didn’t even struggle, so swift was the action. The head, some feathers, and a good amount of blood went into the bowl.

“Now….” Madame Moreau dropped the headless fowl and sat down. She poured oil and powders into the bowl, then picked up the tarot card and laid it on top. Striking a match, she dropped it into the bowl.

The oil ignited with a soft whoosh, and the stench of burning feathers, blood, and the powders filled the room. Madame Moreau bent over to inhale the acrid smoke and picked up the pouch. She mumbled words that I’ll never remember and up-ended the pouch onto the table. About a hundred minuscule bones clattered onto the polished wood.

She swept the smoldering bowl aside and bent to inspect the bones.

I waited.

“Seek the rose where the old man goes to sea.” She blinked and sat down heavily, coughing and reaching for her pipe.

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it.” Madame Moreau grinned and puffed her pipe, then lifted the dead chicken from the floor. “Unless you want to stay for dinner.”

“No, thank you.” I stood, nodded politely, and walked out, a little upset at the cryptic answer.

Seek the rose where the old man goes to sea…

I needed to think.

I found a café and ordered coffee with rum, the volatile mixture most likely to stimulate my brain. I sipped and surfed the Matrix on my comm, trying to make heads or tails of the phrase. Where the old man goes to sea. A fisherman, maybe?

Then a classic old painting popped up, an old man in a small boat, a huge marlin tied to the gunwale, the man fighting off a shark trying to eat the marlin.

The Old Man and The Sea… Hemingway. Hemingway Marina!

I smiled and sipped my rum-laced coffee. Tomorrow night, I’d do a little recon.

Act 3  //  Sea Change

I don’t generally dress in what I call “my girly clothes.” Consequently, they’re the perfect disguise. Nobody would have recognized me when I stepped out of the limo at Hemingway Marina.

Catching my reflection in one of the windows of a restaurant, I decided I cleaned up pretty well. The slinky spaghetti-strap dress fit close, the royal blue setting off my dark skin nicely. The wig of braids and makeup looked natural, and changed my face completely. Foreign money has transformed the place into rows of high-rise hotels, casinos, clubs, and restaurants, so my attire fit right in.

Papa’s Bar, on the second floor, is festooned with enough Ernest Hemingway junk to fill a museum. I got to the bar, ordered a rum tonic, and gave the bartender a twenty-nuyen tip. He lingered, we chatted in Spanish, and I said I was waiting for a friend.

“She’s blonde and rides a white motorcycle.”

“Motorcycle?” He frowned and shrugged. “I don’t know, señorita. I see many people.”

I lifted my purse, barely big enough to hold my Thunderbolt, and fished out Skeeve’s picture. “This is her. She should stand out around here.”

He flashed wonderfully white teeth. “Ah, si! Señorita Rosita! She comes here sometimes.”

“Oh, good! Then I’ve got the right place, but she’s running late.” I looked at my comm as if it had betrayed me. “Is she staying at one of the hotels, do you know?”

“Oh, no!” He laughed and grinned again. “She has a boat!”

“A boat?” I tried not to think of the things he could do with those teeth. Not now, Tiya!

“Yes, a very nice boat.”

“Do you know where it is?” I couldn’t believe my luck.

“It’s hard to miss. Up the canal, east.” He pointed. “It’s named Dixie Rose.”

“Thanks! I’ll just go knock on her door and see if she’s home.”

“See you later, maybe.” He flashed me that smile again.

Not now, Tiya… Once this was over, maybe I’d come back to say thank you properly.

I strolled to the balcony and spotted the Dixie Rose immediately. A hundred-fifty feet of gleaming fiberglass, stainless steel, and tinted glass, she looked sleek and built for speed. There were no lights in any of the ports or windows, but the polarized glass could have been one-way, so I couldn’t just walk up without being seen. A rigger would have electronic security, video at least, probably robotic. I lingered for a while, as if enjoying the view, and watched.

A flicker of motion caught my eye; a small drone crawling along the gunwale. She probably had a dozen of them skittering around on autonomous scan mode.

What now, Tiya?

I could sneak aboard and murder Señorita Rosita, find her fixer, and offer to buy out her contract, or take her alive and ask a few polite questions, like who hired her to punch my ticket.

Decisions, decisions…

At least the water’s warm...

Finding a spot to slip out of my dress and into the canal had been harder than the slow swim along the seawall. My dermal sheath not only dissuades gunfire, but also has a camo mode. It doesn’t quite make me invisible, but close. In the dark water, wearing only a black thong, two spare mags, my chip case, and my Thunderbolt, nothing short of an IR scan would spot me.

I slipped between the yacht and the barnacle-crusted pier, taking care to avoid making waves or noise. Even if one of the drones did spot something floating past, if I didn’t register as a threat, it would ignore me. At the ship’s fantail, I reached up to grasp one of the stainless steel handholds and pulled myself up slowly. All clear, I hung there for a moment to let most of the water slide off my body, listening for the telltale tickety-tick of surveillance drone feet. I heard nothing.

Now for the hard part, getting in.

There was a door into the ass-end of the ship, and a staircase led from the fantail up to the deck. I tried the door first, but it was locked. Frag! I left wet footprints over to the stairs, then stopped when I heard the staccato clicks of an approaching drone.

Double frag! If some bright young programmer had figured out pattern recognition for footprints, I could be hosed. I backed into the corner between the stairs and the bulkhead and froze.

The thing’s tiny feet clattered to the top of the stairs, then down one. I narrowed my eyes to hide the whites, and looked up into its little red eye as it scanned the fantail. I could have reached up and grabbed the thing, but pitching it into the water might set off an alarm.

Scan completed, it turned around and skittered off.

I let myself breathe and eased out of the shadows, then stopped. There was a small locker built into the base of the stairs. I tried the latch, and it opened to reveal a stack of fluffy white towels. Score! No more wet footprints! I picked one out, toweled off, and stuffed it back in the locker.

At the top of the stairs, the boat’s back deck opened up into a small dining area. The cabin sported tinted windows and a featureless sliding glass door. It had to be locked. As I considered the upper deck, another drone trundled down the steps and turned toward the door. It stopped there, beeped, and the door slid open. The interior was dimly lit. I was moving before the drone did, wired reflexes singing like a symphony and augmented senses heightened to fever pitch.

I closed in on the door as the drone started forward, and slipped through behind it.

Nobody shot me. My luck was holding.

I crouched behind a chair and listened, but the only sound was my robotic doorman skittering away, oblivious that it had just let me in. When it had gone, I took a more careful look around. Swank décor, plush furnishings, two motion sensors and three camera pods; welcome to the shadowrunner school of interior decorating.

I’d been evading electronic surveillance longer than I’d been picking up cute bartenders—Not now, Tiya!—so it didn’t stretch my skills to pick out a path where my camo would keep me hidden. If I moved slowly, the motion sensors wouldn’t trigger. Unless there was an actual living person watching the video pickups—Not likely, since White Rose worked alone—I should be okay. She had to sleep sometime. I just needed to find out where.

I skulked from cabin to cabin. Most doors weren’t locked; those that were, I bypassed. The place was wired, and I felt a professional pride that I didn’t trip a single alarm. Down one deck, I found the rigger’s nerve center, a couch wired with hookups, displays, and boards from which Rose could control an army of drones. Fortunately, there was nobody plugged in.

Continuing my search, I finally found the master’s cabin—it said so in little brass letters right on the door. I cocked my Thunderbolt and tried the doorknob.

Unlocked…My luck was holding.

I opened the door just enough to slip through, flattened my back to the wall, and eased it closed. The room was dark, but there was a huge bed in the middle with a shape on it.

Time to wake up, Señorita Rosita…

I took one step toward the bed, and the room lit up.

I jumped like a frog on a hotplate, whirling in a three-sixty, Thunderbolt sweeping in an arc, looking for something to shoot. Before I landed, I saw the bed was a ruse, a thick bolster under covers. To the left, a blonde woman reclined on a cushioned settee holding a glass of wine and smiling. I landed in a crouch with the bed between us, my pistol leveled at her forehead.

“Hello, Ice Cream.” White Rose raised her glass to me, her eyes glinting mischief. “You’re a little underdressed, but welcome aboard.” She had a southern drawl, and didn’t seem worried that I had a gun aimed at her.

She wasn’t armed or jacked in, so I stood up. “I like casual attire.”

She laughed and sipped her wine. “Good of you to come. It saved me having to infiltrate your building and disturb your little love nest. A runner with a family?”

So she thought Julianna was my partner. Good. That eliminated the NeoNET connection.

“Who hired you to ice me?” I kept my Thunderbolt trained on her forehead.

“Ice you? Oh, I’m not being paid to kill you, darlin’.” She sipped her wine again. “My contract is to bring you in unharmed, so sit down and enjoy the ride.”

A faint vibration transmitted through the deck as the boat’s engines thrummed to life.

“How about you tell me who hired you and I don’t put a bullet in your brain.”

“Oh, stop!” She laughed and waved a hand lazily. “You’re my guest here. Put the gun down.”

“No. Now if you like your kneecaps, you’ll answer. Who hired you?”

“You can’t hurt me, Ice Cream.” Amusement added a lilt to her drawl that made my teeth ache. “But feel free to try.”

“All right.” I put two rounds in her knees.

The high-def holo-screen crackled and sparked. White Rose laughed as gas started hissing into the room from the baseboards.

I was hosed, but I’d be damned if I’d go down without a fight. I took a deep breath and fired two rounds into the window on the other side of the room, hoping to shatter it. Another flat screen sparked and sizzled. I knew the door wasn’t a screen, so I emptied my pistol into the lock and hinges, dumped the mag and slapped in a fresh one as I dashed for the exit. I pulled the door right off, but a metal security door had closed behind it. There was no latch, and there was no way my pistol could breach it.

I tried another door, closet, and another, a tiny bathroom, neither of which had a window or door out. I was getting tired of holding my breath, and even more tired of listing to Rose’s laughter. Defiance seemed my only alternative. I emptied a mag into the flat screens until they went dark, jacked in my last one and started picking off anything that looked like a security pickup. When the hammer came down on an empty chamber, my head was pounding from holding my breath.

“Fuck you!” Grabbing a chair, I slammed it into the bulkhead beside the door, but all I did was scratch the paneling. I took a breath to shout another curse, but the world went black before it left my lips.

Act 4  //  Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I dreamed…movement…water…the raft, dragging myself ashore and realizing that I was in Cuba, free…

I woke to that same motion, but clean, dry, clothed, and not free at all. I lay on a comfortable if unyielding surface, with wide, padded belts securing me so that I couldn’t move my hands and feet. I turned my head to see I was in Dixie Rose’s control center.

White Rose stood before screens displaying video, radar, sonar, GPS charting, and satellite feeds. Three wireless rigger transceiver modules were plugged into her temple. We were at sea, but I couldn’t figure out where she was taking me. Another screen flicked, and I saw myself watching Rose. She noticed it and turned to regard me.

“Good mornin’.”

“Where are you taking me?”

She smiled and strolled over to my couch. “Port au Prince, Haiti. Six hundred sixty-six miles by the rhumb line from Havana, believe it or not. About thirty hours. We’ll be there tomorrow mornin’.”

Haiti… That could only mean bad things for me. “I don’t get it. Why try to kill me in the cemetery, then gas me unconscious here?”

“Oh, I wasn’t trying to kill you, darlin’. I just wanted to get your attention.” She leaned down. “You’ve got a rep for taking action, and I thought you’d come after me. I was right.”

“Nice.” I had to admit, she was smart. “Can you tell me who contracted you?”

“Sure, darlin’.” She turned back to her monitors. “The head of the Kofo Voodoo cult, Kie-Rah-Ma-El. You pissed off the wrong people back home, girl.”

“Haiti’s not my home.”

She didn’t answer.

“How much are they paying you?”

She looked over her shoulder at me and cocked one immaculate eyebrow. “More than you can afford, darlin’.”

“Wrong.” I tried to shrug, but couldn’t. “I’ll transfer half a million nuyen to any account you choose just to open the bidding process.”

She gave me her full attention, hands on hips, eyebrows up, lips curved in an inquisitive smile. “I’m not about to release you to let you access a terminal. I’m not stupid.”

“Didn’t think you were. I’ll give you the access codes right now and you do the transfer. I’ve got a lot more, and I’m willing to outbid the Kofo. Believe it. I know what they’re going to do to me.” I’d pissed off the cult when I rescued Hennesy, and Kie-Rah-Ma-El had a fondness for straight razors.

Rose stared at me suspiciously. “All right, darlin’. I’ll bite.” She called up a virtual terminal. “Routing number?”

I rattled off a long sequence from memory. My account screen came up.

She looked at me. “Account access code?”

I told her.

She tapped it in. The balance showed just over half a million nuyen. “Transfer authorization?”

“Alpha-kilo-victor-six-two-six-one-five-four.”

She tapped it in, entered the amount, exactly half a million, and transferred the money to another account. She then checked the funds—they were real—and barked a laugh. “Well, thank you, darlin’!”

“Can we negotiate now?”

“Sure.” She blanked the screen and turned to me. “Here’s my offer: no fraggin’ way. Not only am I being paid very well for this delivery, but I’ve got my reputation to consider, and there ain’t no way in Hell I’m pissin’ off the Kofo.”

“They’ll skin me alive, Rose! I’ll pay whatever you want!”

“Sorry.” She stepped close to the table. “You really are a piece of work, Ice Cream.” Her eyes roved over me. “The perfect amalgam of flesh and tech. I hate to hand you over, but business is business.”

She turned and walked out. I strained against the straps, but I might as well have been encased in concrete.

Chill, ti fi…I told myself. 

I’d played my last card, but White Rose hadn’t known how deadly that card was. After my last experience with kidnapping, I’d had some insurance installed. The account and the money were real, but transferring the funds sent an emergency message to Skeeve and activated the GPS tracking system I’d had installed in my head.

With any luck, he was in the Matrix right now, calling in favors.

Act 5  //  Payback’s a Bitch

At the Port au Prince docks, Rose off-loaded me into the back of a panel truck beside her white motorcycle. A squad of Kofo goons with AKs manned the truck, and two Thundercloud Morgan ATVs. They didn’t smile a lot.

To my surprise, Rose rode in the back with me, three of her deadly drones buzzing around the back of the vehicle like hornets attending their queen. She wasn’t smiling either, but neither was I, surrounded by an army of dark-voodoo cultists.

“You want to know why they want me?”

Rose looked at me. “Kie-Rah-Ma-El said you took something that belonged to him.”

“They kidnapped a friend of mine, and the corp he worked for wouldn’t pay the ransom. I got him out.”

“Not very smart, darlin’.” She looked away.

“That’s right. You work solo. Trust no one…”

“That’s right. Life’s simpler that way.”

“So’s death, darlin’.”

She flashed me a glare for my mockery, and looked away.

So much for negotiation… I had about three hours to live, unless Kie-Rah-Ma-El got sloppy with his razors. Come on, Skeeve…tick tock…

We bumped along and finally jolted to a stop. The back of the truck opened, and I watched two large steel doors close in a fifty-foot-high wall lined with Kofo goons. Rose wheeled me onto the lift gate and lowered it. My wheels rumbled onto a smooth stone courtyard. I glimpsed the palatial gro kay of Kie-Rah-Ma-El. I’d seen it once before, and the memory made me want to puke. The stone under my wheels had been soaked with the blood of innocents that night.

The Kofo closed in around us, Rose’s three drones buzzing overhead all the while, a deterrent to any stupidity they might consider.

“So long, Ice Cream.” Rose stepped over. “It really is a shame, darlin’.”

“You have no idea.”

She turned toward something I couldn’t see at my angle, but I recognized the voice of Kie-Rah-Ma-El.

“So, you are good as you say, Miss Rose.”

“I am.” Rose nodded respectfully. “I assume you have the other half of my payment.”

“I do.” He stepped into my view, his ancient, rheumy-eyed, and utterly pitiless face stretched into a death’s-head grin. He produced a credstick from the inner pocket of his black jacket and handed it to Rose.

She took it, checked the balance, and nodded. “Our business is concluded, Kie-Rah-Ma-El.” Rose donned her rigger helmet and walked away.

My nemesis turned to me and switched to creole. “Hello, Miss Ice Cream.” Lips like black leather peeled back from crooked, yellow teeth. “It has cost me dearly to find you.” I caught a whiff of something fetid.

I looked into Kie-Rah-Ma-El’s eyes. “You really could use a breath mint.”

His smile devolved into a sneer. “That tongue of yours will get you into trouble. I think I’ll take it first.”

I swallowed and considered spitting in his face—If I made him angry enough, maybe he’d kill me quickly—but then a small red dot flicked across his forehead to center between his white brows. 

Thank you, Skeeve…

I grinned up at Death incarnate. “Goodbye, you sick fuck.”

I relished the instant of surprise on his face before the high-powered round blew his brains out.

The instant of stunned silence devolved into chaos as three massive V-TOL aircraft thundered over the wall. I caught a glimpse of one and recognized OC hanging out the window, her scoped assault rifle picking off Kofo soldiers like paper ducks in a shooting gallery.

Bullets zipped past me, felling Kofo bodyguards. Rubber screamed, and Rose’s white bike shot out of the back of the truck. One of her drones fired a missile at the gate, and the heavy steel portal blew open. Another fired at one of the V-TOLs and hit an engine. The aircraft wheeled crazily and crash landed in the courtyard. Shadowrunners piled out of the wrecked aircraft, a huge troll at the fore, wielding a massive Krime assault cannon in one hand, and a manaball in the other.

“T’ing!” I shouted, and I saw him grin, but a missile from another V-TOL hit the house and knocked half the Kofos in the courtyard flat, along with my gurney.

I landed hard and found myself staring into the very dead eyes of Kie-Rah-Ma-El. I would have laughed, but then I remembered…razors…blood…screaming. Okay, you sick fuck, tell me you were going to cut me up personally.

I strained to reach his jacket. In his inside pocket I caught the glint of ivory and steel. Yes! I fumbled the straight razor out of his pocket. Seconds later my wrist was free, then my arm. I slashed and struggled, and finally rolled up and over the dead voodoo high priest.

Two of his bodyguards lay feet away. One clutched a massive IZOM 49 pistol, its grip set with the glossy pad of a smartgun link. My luck was back. I hefted the gun and rifled his jacket for two spare mags.

“Ice Cream!” T’ing dumped an empty mag from his assault cannon and slapped another in place. A massive crocodile spirit, T’ing’s loa, raged at the ruined entrance of the mansion. “You okay?”

“Great, now! Thanks!” I looked around for something to shoot, but T’ing’s runners had done a real job on the Kofo. Then I remembered a half-million nuyen of my money was headed for the harbor. “I need a ride!”

“Can’t help you there.” T’ing fired a round at something and threw a sphere of crackling lightning.

I looked around. The panel truck had taken a hit, but one of the Morgans looked like it might run. “I gotta see a lady about some payback!” I tucked the huge pistol in my waistband and dashed for the ATV. The keys were in it.

Lucky…lucky…

I gunned the Morgan to life and smoked all four tires for the gate, leaving T’ing and his crew to clean up the mess. I had no doubt they would; once T’ing got going, he was hard to stop.

I knew I’d never catch a rigger on a motorcycle, but I did my best, and I knew Port au Prince like the chips in my teeth. I sent cars, bikes, and pedestrians fleeing from my path, but I didn’t care.

I blasted through a chain link fence onto the commercial pier at a hundred KPH, and squalled tires to turn before I plunged into the harbor. Two hundred yards away, a white motorcycle drove up the gangplank onto Dixie Rose’s back deck, two drones hovering overhead.

I gunned the Morgan down the quay.

Rose must have heard my engine. She turned, and both drones raced right at me. I pulled my pistol and watched them come. Dixie Rose’s engines thundered to life. White Rose pulled a shotgun from a locker and fired at the dock lines as the rigger-controlled ship strained to free itself. The wrist-thick lines parted like cannon fire.

At fifty yards, the drones opened up.

I ducked as my windshield disintegrated and jerked the wheel. Something exploded behind me, a missile, their last. I stood on the gas pedal and fired at the drones as they roared past and wheeled after me. I hit one’s rotor and it spun out of control. The other lined up and fire belched from its gun.

And Dixie Rose pulled away from the pier.

“Not this time, darlin’.” I jerked the wheel hard left as bullets raked the passenger side of the Morgan, then pulled it back to the right as I neared the end of the pier. The Morgan left the concrete quay at full speed.

White Rose dove into the main cabin as my ATV arced toward the fantail. I vaulted up to the top of the shattered windshield and leaped an instant before the Morgan smashed into the ship. As metal clashed and buckled in torment, I tucked and rolled onto the aft deck. The furniture didn’t break any of my bones, but bone lacing helped. It hurt, but it didn’t kill me.

I shook the ringing from my ears and sprinted into the cabin after Rose. A swarm of drones met me, but most were just unarmed surveillance types. Cover. Then two Dobermans opened up on me from the forward passage.

My wired reflexes and dermal sheath saved my life, and the IZOM made short work of the two drones. I knew where I would find Rose, and I wasn’t wasting any time. The longer it took me, the more drones she would throw at me.

Three more Dobermans, and I was on my last mag when I kicked in the door to her control center.

Rose reclined on a couch, wires trailing from her temples to the rigger console. I fired three rounds into the console and put the smoking muzzle of my IZOM to her forehead.

“Time to negotiate.”

Her eyes opened. “You broke my ship.” She looked up at the gun, then at me. “I understand you’re mad, but I was just doin’ the job, Ice Cream. You understand, don’cha? It was just business.”

“So is this.” I pushed the barrel hard into the flawless skin of her brow. “No hard feelings, darlin’, but I want my fraggin’ money back!”

“You got it!” The terror in her eyes told me Rose knew how badly I wanted to pull that trigger.

“Now!”

“Right!” A virtual terminal popped up in front of her, evidence that my bullets hadn’t fragged her entire network.  She pulled up the account she’d put my money in and typed in a transfer code.  “Just need an account and routing number.”

I rattled off numbers for her, my IZOM shaking a little with the mounting fatigue and trauma. I hurt all over.

“There! It’s done.” Rose blanked the terminal and shifted her gaze to me. “Check it if you want, but I’d be a fool to cheat you with a gun to my head.”

“Yes, you would be.” I removed the muzzle from her forehead. It left a small circle of burned skin behind. I hoped it hurt. Business… “I’m going to let you live, Rose, but if anyone from my past comes knocking at my door, you’ll be the first person to receive a ten-millimeter brain enema. You got me?”

“I gotcha.” She got up from the couch and rubbed her forehead. “I wasn’t lyin’ when I said I was sorry, Ice Cream. You really are a piece of work.” Her smile nearly made me reconsider shooting her.

“Frag off.” I turned and walked out without any interference from Rose’s army of drones.

I limped out onto the trashed aft deck. We were drifting about a hundred yards off the pier, a crowd of gawkers staring and pointing at the ATV sticking out of the ass end of the ship. I began to wonder how I was going to get ashore when the thunder of VTOLs interrupted me.

Two combat aircraft swooped low over the city, a pillar of smoke from the Kofo compound billowing behind them. One came in close while the other circled. T’ing and OC hung out the door of the nearer one, ready for mayhem. I just grinned and waved, hooking a thumb into the air to tell him I could use a lift.

T’ing shouted something to the pilot and the aircraft hovered closer, the downdraft from the rotors buffeting me. The big troll knelt down and held out a platter-sized hand. I put mine in it and levitated up through the door as if by magic.

“Welcome aboard, ti fi!” T’ing staggered me with a clap to the back and grinned. “Nice party! T’anks for the invite!”

“Thanks for the evac.” I grinned back and accepted a warm embrace from OC. “Can you give me a lift to Havana?”

“Sure t’ing!” T’ing nodded, then sobered. “I hope you’re flush, ti fi. I told the crew we’d get paid fer this, and we lost a flier. That kinda hardware don’t come cheap.”

“Yeah, I’ll cover it.” I couldn’t be pissed at him; he’d just saved my life. A VTOL, however, would put a serious dent in my cred balance. “Maybe you could line up some work for me? I’ve got a certain lifestyle to support, mon.”

“No problem, ti fi!” T’ing lit up a cigar as big as my forearm and took a puff. “For you, I got plenty work!”

BLUEBIRD

(The Vigilante)

R.L. KING

I dream of the bluebird again, and wake up in a cold sweat. I barely make it to the bathroom in time not to throw up all over the floor.

Again.

It comes more often now—at least once a month—and even after all these years I don’t have a fragging idea why. I’d been having the dream for as long as I could remember, ever since I was a young teenager, but every time I try to figure out where it might be coming from, it flits away, just like that damn bird. 

It’s never quite the same dream, either. The scene is always different, always dark and nightmarish and madly surreal, but the bird is the one constant—and always the most frightening part. I run and run but I can never get away from it. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I dreaming of a harmless bird? Why does it make my heart pound so hard I feel like it’s going to burst right out of my chest? 

“The bluebird of happiness,” my ass. More like “the bluebird of abject terror.”

My comm buzzes while I’m splashing water over my face, and an LTG number pops up in the corner of my vision. I glance at it—no name, but I recognize it: Mr. Li is calling.

It’s time to go to work.

The light here was red. 

It was always red: it was one of the constants the little girl had grown accustomed to. That, and the muffled sobs punctuated by occasional screams, and the mingled smells of rot and mold and old piss.

She knelt on a thin, smelly pallet tossed into the corner of a tiny room barely large enough to contain it and the bucket he made her use for a toilet. She was always cold in the threadbare dress she wore. She had no idea what he’d done with her own clothes—she’d been wearing this when she’d awakened. The dress was all he let her wear, so she did her best to keep her bare feet on the pallet, away from the slimy, sticky floor.

The manacle around her thin ankle was attached to a chain that was locked to the wall. She could reach the bucket, but that was all.  He fed her once a day, a bowl of oatmeal and a plastic bottle of water. She got to keep the water until the next day, so she’d learned to conserve it. Sometimes the pipes in the ceiling dripped onto her as she huddled on the pallet. Sometimes the bugs crawled over her as she tried to sleep.

The only time she ever got to leave that tiny cell was when he took her to be cleaned up. And those were the worst times of all, because she knew what would happen next.

Those were the times when her voice would join the screams.

Mr. Li is waiting for me when I arrive at the restaurant’s back room. All around me, the familiar, delicious aromas of rice and chicken and spices permeate not only the air but the walls, the fixtures, even Mr. Li’s clothes. The faint clinks of plates and the cook’s voices calling to each other in Mandarin comfort me as little else ever could. 

Mr. Li smiles fondly at me, his glittering black eyes crinkling with affection. “You should eat more, monkey. You’re too skinny.” He pats his own ample stomach in contentment. His accent is strong, but his English is perfect.

Even after all these years, he still calls me ‘monkey,’ and even after all these years, it still gives me a warm feeling. Even though he’s not my father, I feel like I’d imagine I would if I had a real father. I wait, knowing he’ll speak when he’s ready.

He pushes a package across the table toward me. “I have a delivery I wish you to make, if you would be so kind. It is a special tea one of my friends has ordered, and he’s quite eager to sample it. I have already sent you the address and the details.”

“Of course, Baba.” I pick up the package and put it into a small bag hanging from my belt. “I’ll give your regards to your friend, and be back soon.”

“Be careful, my dear.”

“I’m always careful, Baba.” I lean down and kiss his wrinkled forehead.

The little girl pressed herself into the corner of her tiny room as she heard footsteps coming down the row. She prayed they wouldn’t stop in front of her door, then felt guilty about it: if they didn’t stop for her, they’d stop for one of the other children in one of the other makeshift rooms. She didn’t know how many there were, because the moans and the cries all melted together into a constant low-level cacophony, but sometimes she wondered. Were there only a few? Many? Dozens? The same ones, or did they change?

Already, she had lost track of time, of how long she’d been here. With no way to know night from day, or one day from the next, the time progressed with interminable slowness. She remembered being on the street a little too late one day, hiding behind a dumpster until a group of gangers had tired of hassling some poor slot in an alleyway. She remembered emerging when they’d gone, hurrying to reach the squat she shared with a couple of older children before it got too dark and the predators came out. And then someone had grabbed her from the shadows and put something over her face. Something that smelled sharp, like medicine.

And then she woke up here.

Her door creaked open, letting in more of the hellish red light. A tall, slim figure stood in the doorway. 

“Hello, little one,” he said. His voice was soft, with a strange undercurrent. “Ready to play?”

The little girl shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

The cold air revives me as I zip through the darkened Seattle streets on my sleek black Rapier, driving off the last vestiges of the dream. I think about Baba and smile. The pretense started a few years ago, when I began working for him at sixteen. First a few close courier runs, delivering “tea” to some of Mr. Li’s most trustworthy customers, and then, as I got older and more capable, other jobs requiring more responsibility and discretion, more speed and strength.

He’d learned not to worry about me—he knew I could take care of myself. I’d made sure of that as best as I could from the time I was a young child, and he’d been generous as I grew older, paying for the mods and weapons and training that made me swift, strong, and deadly. Now, at twenty-four (or so—I wasn’t completely sure), there wasn’t much on the streets that could tangle with me and come out unscathed.

I don’t think Mr. Li ever understood my driving need never to be a victim—which didn’t surprise me, because I don’t either. But he’s proud of what the ragged little stray he rescued from the alley behind his restaurant has become. That, I do know.

It’s weird not to remember the first ten years of your life, but there you go. I used to get bits and snatches sometimes of a life on the street, hustling and scavenging with other street kids, but everything from about the age of nine to eleven is a blank in my mind. It’s as if somebody took a scalpel and carefully carved that part out. I don’t remember anything about the year or two before Mr. Li found me and took me in.

All I know is, if he hadn’t done that, I’d be dead.

She didn’t cry this time. She didn’t scream. It wasn’t for any noble, brave reason, or because of any sort of defiance. She simply didn’t have it in her to cry anymore.

The room he took her to was different from the others. For one thing, the light wasn’t red, For another, it didn’t smell as bad as the rest of the place did. It had a real bed with a black satin cover, a table, and even a portable trid player. He had it playing Cyberpony Adventures. The bouncy, cheerful theme song sounded wrong in this room.

She closed her eyes as he loomed over her, seeing his leering face in her mind’s eye, picturing the flash of blue on one of his pale hands as they pinned down her thin, trembling arms. He always wore a grinning mask so she couldn’t see his features, but his eyes burned out of it, roving up and down her body like he was inspecting goods on the shelf at the Stuffer Shack. She wished she could just go away from here—send her mind off somewhere else, somewhere happy. Even her life on the street would be better than this.

But she couldn’t do that. The best she could do was keep her eyes closed and sing to herself. When she couldn’t remember any songs, she made up her own.

It will be over soon, she told herself.

Just like all the other times.

Ashamed, she hoped he’d focus on the others for a while and leave her alone after this.

The delivery address is an old warehouse on a side street in the Redmond Barrens. I pull my bike around the side of the building, point it toward the street in case I have to make a quick getaway, and check my weapons. Moving with oiled grace, I cycle my cybereyes through their modes: thermo, low-light, ultrasound. I’m not afraid, but I’m cautious. I’m always cautious, because there’s always somebody out there who can hide better than I can find them.

I send the code Baba gave me, and the door swings open. I enter, one hand on my custom Predator.

The customer’s inside. He sits at a table playing cards with two others. All men, all human. Two others, a beefy ork and another human, lounge in the background. I peg them instantly as hired muscle.

The customer grins, running his gaze up and down my body. “Right on time,” he says. “You got the tea?”

“Right here.” I pat the bag. “You got the money?”

“Lemme see it.”

I frown. “You don’t trust Mr. Li? That’s a dangerous thing, if you want to continue as his valued customer.” Nonetheless, I remove the box and set it on the table. My cybereyes are tracking the room, my ears picking up minute sounds from around me, the cameras in my glasses scanning the area behind me. Nothing moves except for the men. Probably not a setup, but I don’t relax. I never relax while I’m working.

His grin widens. “Nah, I trust Mr. Li. We’re good.” He fiddles with his ’link and an AR pops up in the corner of my eye: the funds have been transferred. 

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” he says. And then something changes in his smile. “Why don’t you stay a while, baby? Sample the tea with us?”

One of the other men starts to get up. His expression is the same as the first one’s. “Great idea. Come on, honey. Let’s party a little before you have to go back to the old man.”

I sigh. I get this a lot, and it pisses me off. Men piss me off. They’re always the same.

Oddly, the third one stays put. “Leave her alone, you two,” he drawls. “Can’t you see she’s not interested?” His voice sounds distantly familiar, but I can’t place it. I hear a lot of voices. Probably somebody from the restaurant. He’s about forty, tall and slim. Well dressed. Unlike the other two, his eyes don’t study me like I’m a piece of meat. 

“He’s right. I’m not interested.” I don’t care if I bruise their frail egos. If they have a problem with it, I can handle them. 

As I turn to leave, I take one last glance at the third man. I still think he’s familiar somehow. I glance at his hand, with its long fingers wrapped around a glass of golden liquor. He has a tattoo across the back of it. My gaze slides over it, then locks.

It’s a bluebird.

In a rush, I remember.

Everything.

The little girl woke to the sensation of movement.

Someone was carrying her.

With self-preservation instincts already fully formed, she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t move. She remained limp, pretending she was still unconscious. Maybe if he thought she wasn’t awake, he’d take her back to her little room and leave her alone for a while.

The movement stopped. She felt—was that a breeze? Cold air? It sliced through her thin dress, and she panicked. If she shivered—

He laid her down on a pile of something that smelled like blood and decay. Then she heard voices. 

Someone else was here. A woman. Someone who could help her?

The two spoke in low murmurs. The little girl strained her ears to hear them. Did she dare make herself known?

“—only got two for you today—”

“—said three. What—”

“—have another one tomorrow.” The voice rose a little, as if the speaker had turned toward her. “That one. I’m tired of her, and I think she’s getting sick.”

Footsteps. He was approaching her. Ohnonono…It took all the willpower she had to continue lying still.

He didn’t touch her, though. She felt the heat of his body as he leaned down next to her, smelled his horrible cologne and the liquor on his breath.

A childish moan, fuzzy and indistinct, to her left.

The little girl dared to crack her eyes open, just a bit.

He was turning away, back toward the woman, holding another small, still form that must have been next to her. He moved off.

“—should bring a good price,” the woman said. “—already have buyers for—”

The man laughed. “Tell your friends not to eat him all in one sitting.”

“Let me take the girl now.”

A long, dragging silence, then: “Hell, why not? Cost you extra, though. She—”

The little girl ran.

She didn’t think she had the strength in her to do it, but she found it from somewhere deep within her. She leaped up from the pile of rags and dashed forward, past the man, past the woman, out through the open door.

She heard their yells behind her. Their pounding footsteps.

She didn’t look back.

She ran off into the night, and she didn’t stop.

I still don’t know how I got out of there without any of them catching on. I still don’t know how I didn’t just keel over at the warehouse when the memories—nearly a year of pent-up, blocked-off memories—hit me like a solid wall of ferrocrete right to the head. I thought I was going to faint, to puke, to snap and attack the guy right there where he sat and rip him to shreds, despite the presence of four other armed men.

Somehow I did get out, though—just like somehow, I managed to get past him all those years ago and run away into the night, when my skinny legs were weak and my stomach clenched with hunger and my small body ached from everything that man had done to me in that hellish warehouse. 

I sent the money for the “tea” to Baba while I tore on my bike through the rain-slicked Seattle streets, back to my flat like the monster was still chasing me. When I got home, I sat on my bed, panting, heart pounding, and cycled through all the images I’d snapped of him with my cybereyes’ camera. Close-ups of his face and his hand with the tattoo, longer shots of his body.

I thought, briefly, about getting Baba involved. I knew he had plenty of connections that could help me, and I knew he would move any necessary mountains to track the man down.

But if he found out why I wanted him to do it, he’d also make sure the monster disappeared, and was never heard from again. I didn’t want that. 

That would be too easy an end for someone who’d taken so much away from me.

No, this was my show.

His name is James Thompson.

What a boring name for a monster. I don’t want to think about him having a name like a normal person, because monsters don’t deserve the things normal people have. In my mind, he’s Bluebird.

I tell Baba I need to take a few days off from deliveries, and call in a favor from a decker I worked with once. I don’t tell him why. I send him the photos and the details I know, and I wait.

It takes him three days. It was harder than he’d expected, he tells me. I feel like I’m going to throw up again as the story emerges, and I see why.

Bluebird is James F. Thompson, Jr., age forty-two. Son of James F. Thompson Sr., executive vice president of a large division at Ares Macrotechnology, member of several smaller companies’ boards of directors, and wealthy, old-money investor. No criminal record, but the father has reputed connections with various shadowy organizations.

One of my first questions had been to wonder why Bluebird never came after me. Why hadn’t he chased me as I ran headlong into the night? Why hadn’t he tracked me down and snatched me back to his chamber of horrors, or just killed me? My mind had blocked the horror out so effectively that night that he could have walked right up to me and I wouldn’t have recognized him. So why?

My friend gives me the answer: because he’s been out of the country for the last fifteen years, spotted at various times in parts of Europe, Japan, and Russia, living the life of a playboy under an assumed name. “I can’t find the details about why he left,” the decker tells me, “but it looks like his father arranged it, and it was very hush-hush.”

“So why’d he come back?” I ask.

“I don’t know. His father just died a couple months ago, though. Maybe that’s it.”

My jaw tightens. That has to be it. A scenario snaps into place: A favored son gets into bad trouble. Maybe he tells Dad the details, but probably not. He has to run, so Dad arranges a quick trip out of the country. You can do that when you’re wealthy and connected—you don’t have to face the consequences the rest of us live with every day. So a monster gets away with his horrific crimes, and Daddy looks the other way as long as Golden Boy stays safely out of sight, away from any chance to reflect badly on the family name.

And now Daddy’s dead.

My fists clench so hard my short nails dig furrows into my palms.

I wonder what happened to the place where I’d been held. To all the other children who were captives there. I can’t even look that up, because I don’t remember where it was. The memories are back, but that night’s desperate flight didn’t leave room for noting landmarks.

My whole body chills as I consider a possibility too horrible to imagine.

I remember the way he looked at me, back at the warehouse with his two friends. The way they leered, but he didn’t.

Of course he didn’t. Because I’m too old for him.

And now he’s back. 

What if he’s started again?

“I need to find him,” I tell my friend.

I don’t tell him what I need to do with him when I do.

It’s laughably easy to find Bluebird, since he’s not hiding. 

Of course he isn’t—he thinks he has nothing to worry about. He’s got Daddy’s money now, which makes it even easier to keep his secrets.

He has no idea how much he does have to worry about.

I track him for three days. My decker chummer gets me his home address, the names of the clubs he frequents, the route he takes when he goes running in the morning. Before the three days are over, I’ve got a complete picture of his life from the time he gets up in the morning to the time he returns home sometime before dawn.

A complete picture, including the abandoned warehouse in the Barrens where he goes in the pre-dawn hours of almost every night. He owns it, my friend tells me, though a series of dummy companies nearly impossible to trace unless you’re looking for them.

I watch him from far away, too far for the ghouls and other shadowy figures who come and go there to see me. It turns out Bluebird doesn’t snatch the children himself, which is probably why he’s never been caught. He’s even more of a coward than I thought. His little network grabs his prey, he plays with them until he’s tired of them, and then the organleggers and the ghouls get what’s left over. I crouch on the rooftop of a building three blocks away, shaking and sick with the terror of the child I was fifteen years ago, and the rage of what I am now.

My hands close around the hilt of my katana—a gift from Baba on my twenty-first birthday—and the grip of my customized Predator—a gift to myself last year. I glance down at the new bioluminescent tattoos I had done two days ago: crossed swords on my right hand, and the scales of justice on my left.

Maybe they’ll haunt Bluebird as much as his haunted me.

But not for nearly as long.

I grab him off the street the next night. Every part of the ambush is planned. My decker friend takes control of the street cameras long enough for me to hit him with a tranq dart and toss him in the back of the van I stole an hour earlier.

I pause to stare at him a moment before driving off, and it strikes me just how ordinary he looks. As ordinary as his name. The face of a monster should be more interesting.

It will be soon.

When he awakens, my face is the first thing he sees. 

We’re in another warehouse, this one belonging to Baba. He’s upside-down, suspended by a rope tied around his ankles and around a crossbar high above. His hands are tied behind his back. He’s naked except for his underwear. I don’t ever want to look at that part of him again.

I crouch in front of him, watching the progression of his expressions as he returns to awareness. His eyes widen in the dim light as his gaze settles on me. “What the—?” he begins. His body lurches as he tries to wrench free of his bonds. He won’t. I tie good knots.

“Who the frag are you?” he demands. His voice is breathy and shrieky and full of fear. “What’s going on?” He looks wildly around, and I smile as it hits him: he’s alone with me. “Help!” he screams. “Somebody help me!”

“Scream again,” I say, “and I’ll cut your tongue out.”

He stops screaming. His face is red and blotchy from all the blood rushing to it. Red as the lights of the other warehouse, all those years ago. “Who are you? What do you want?” He blinks then, focusing closer on me. “Wait—you’re the chica from the other night. The one who brought the stuff for Artie.”

I remain silent. I can tell my scrutiny is unnerving him.

“What do you want?” he yells again. “That wasn’t my scene! If there’s a problem, you gotta take it up with Artie. You’re making a big mistake messing with me! You know who I am?”

He was trying to sound confident, but it’s hard to sound confident when you’re upside-down and nearly bare-ass naked. His body is pale, free of marks or tattoos except for the bluebird.

I smile. I know, from previous attempts at relationships, that my smile can be an unsettling thing. “You don’t get it, Mr. Thompson. The important question here isn’t who you are. It’s who I am.”

He stops thrashing. “Who are you, then? Whatever the problem is, we can work this out—”

I reach next to me and pull something from a bag. “Are you hungry, Mr. Thompson? I’ve got Taco Temple here. It’s swill, but I like it.” I take a big bite from a greasy taco and toss it back in the bag, then wipe my hand on my pants and pick up my Predator. “You know, you look different without your mask. You were so scary in that thing. You made me wet myself once, when I was a little girl. I was so embarrassed.” 

I rise in a smooth motion and move closer to him. “Do you remember, Mr. Thompson? I didn’t, for a long time. But now I do.”

I put the tip of my katana at his crotch. 

His eyes bulge, but he doesn’t thrash. He knows better. “Who…are you?” he asks again.

“I’m the little bird who got away.”

My comm buzzes. I listen for a moment, then my smile widens. “That was my friend. Knight Errant raided your house of horrors while we’ve been chatting. All the little birds are free now.”

He screams, and it isn’t all fear. I can tell. Part of it is indignation, the last desperate cry of somebody who never expects to face the consequences of his actions.

The little girl I used to be stands back and watches, drinking it in.

The woman I’ve become waits for him to finish, because then I’m going to show him just how much those consequences can come back to haunt you.

It’s all over in an hour. I don’t have the taste to make it drag out for days—I guess I’m not a monster like he is after all. When I’m done, I call someone else—someone I don’t often like to talk to, but in this case, she’s just what I need. After all, it was good enough for Bluebird’s tiny victims. It ought to be good enough for him.

She assures me that no trace of him will be found.

That’s not quite true, though. As I crouch once again on the rooftop of a nearby building until I get word that the disposal is complete, I pull a small box from my pocket and study what I’ve put inside.

The bluebird tattoo doesn’t frighten me anymore. It’s just a patch of skin with some ink and dried blood on it—the monster it used to belong to can’t hurt me anymore. He can’t hurt anybody.

Now, it’s just a reminder that there are other monsters out there.

My hand tightens on my katana. The scales of justice on the back of my hand glow in the night. 

And I smile.

NIGHT OF SWORDS

(King of Blades, Knight of Blades, Knight of Batons)

RUSSELL ZIMMERMAN

The world spun in a blur, and Mongoose was the axis on which it did so. Neon displays turned into streaks of light, the chrome of enemy Road Dawgz’ big Harleys turned into silver spikes against the darkness, and the augmented-reality faux-neon trails left by her brothers and sisters in the Quick Slivers, well, they looked like they always did; light hanging impossibly still in the air, a streak of speed with a blade and tires at the far end.

As her Yamaha Kaburaya’s tires slid on rain-slick concrete, braking and turning impossibly hard, Mongoose smiled inside her combat helmet, behind the big bug-eyes reflecting her bike’s AR dashboard. She smiled because, for that splinter of a second, bike sliding sidelong to a stop, swinging the world around as she leaned into the turn, as her cybered-up center of balance spun with tiny gyros writ large, keeping everything impossibly upright, she was remembering something.

She remembered being there about a year earlier, when Luisa down the hall had given birth. Old Lady Martinez had done most of the work, with all the cleanest towels in the building sorted out, a couple wet rags, all that stuff. Mongoose hadn’t been in the room, no—she wasn’t that kind of girl, that wasn’t her kind of blood—but she’d been pacing, over by the elevator, listening in, worried for her childhood friend. Worried about Luisa, about the baby, about not being close enough to hear anything.

The baby had fixed that. Mongoose didn’t need no chromed-up ears, no. That baby cried and cried when it came out, ringing all through the halls.

It screamed, that little one, just telling the whole world it was alive.

Engines, Mongoose thought in that shining split-second while time stood still, Engines do that, too.

Bullets hung in the air, whizzing just past her head, one lazily punched her shoulder, reflected off her blue-black combat armor to tumble, indignantly, into the shadows and neon past her.

Time sped back up. Her Kaburaya’s speed-tweaked engine screamed, telling the whole world it was alive.

The sparks kept flying, a burly Road Dawgz’ chainsaw—fraggin’ chainsaw—ate up the street behind him as he raced right at her, dragging the silly thing so it scraped and skittered. Mongoose ignored him as she fought to get her Kaburaya facing the right direction; away from the chainsaw, toward the gun.

The chattering autogun was mounted on the handlebars of a Harley Scorpion, with the muzzle flash and tracers leading Mongoose right to the Road Dawg who was her biggest threat in that split-second. His headlight wavered before her like the loser blinking first in a staredown; she had him. He had to keep the nose right on her for that barking gun to stay a threat, but his nerve had just broken. He was turning tail, hauling his bike away from her and the clear and present danger she presented.

Odds were good he’d seen what she’d done to two of his buddies already, and he knew her blue-on-black Yamaha riding straight on, knew her bug-eyed helmet’s unwavering glare, knew her mono-edged sword with its graceful curve perfect for cavalry work, its balanced grip tailored for her hand, its blade already bright with blood even in tonight’s light drizzle, he knew—deep in the belly, where you just know things like ‘gravity works’ and ‘I should breathe’—he just knew she was death on wheels.

She’d shown him that already. She’d shown his whole stupid gang. This wasn’t Road Dawgz turf any more, Mongoose just kept showing them and showing them. It was Quick Sliver territory now.

She hunched down low over her Kaburaya’s AR-bright console and rode him down. It was a straightaway, and not an engine on the streets could beat her. Her bike slashed past him, light display leaving a trail in its wake, and her sword—long and lethal and so, so sharp—swiped out, length of the blade dragged along him, Mongoose barely even having to slash, or reach, or lean. His head just slipped right off his body and tumbled down the street.

She leaned into the turn, braking just so, angling just so, tires slipping and drifting just so; the city spun and whirled again, lights flashing and blurring and streaking against her bug-eyed helmet, and the whole world shifted to point the way she wanted. Just like that, she and her bike were headed back the other way, tires squealing for traction, building up speed again, racing back toward the orkish Road Dawg with the chainsaw.

Only a champion would bring such a stupid weapon, something so loud, so brazen. Only someone who thought he was the nastiest piece of work in the gang, and who the rest of the gang let think that. Only a titan, a hero, a Road Dawg war-leader.

Only her counterpart.

Mongoose was the sword-saint of the Quick Slivers. The orkish maniac with the chainsaw—so inelegant, so unprecise, so loud and raucous and chromed-up as the heavy Harleys they rode—must have been the same for the Road Dawgz.

She smiled and adjusted her grip on her sword as they raced head-on at one another.

A kindred spirit. No wavering. No gun. Street rules for this sort of gang challenge meant no attack spells, no explosives, no personal guns. They made allowances for firepower, but it had to be bike-mounted. Any melee weapon—even a fragging chainsaw—was allowed, but if you wanted to spit lead, it had to be chipped in to your chrome, mounted to your bike, an extension of the machine. Lots of them had guns attached. Mongoose didn’t. She didn’t want the balance of her bike getting thrown off, or the recoil mucking up her ride, or the distraction of juggling an integral weapon on top of her racing-tweaked Kaburaya’s console. No, Mongoose liked it older school. It was a night of clubs and blades. It was a night of swords.

Mongoose didn’t think about guns. In a joust, focus and momentum were everything.

They met. The ork swung, she ducked. She lost centimeters off her lucky feathered fringe, but the saw-teeth never met her armor, never chewed into her flesh. She’d barely moved her sword arm, barely flicked her wrist as they passed. He didn’t feel a cut. He laughed, the Road Dawg knight, a belly-deep roar meant for her ears as much as his own.

Mongoose’s Kaburaya slid into another turn, circling back to eyeball him behind her smart-goggled helmet.

He knew something was wrong when he tried to do the same. His scarred knuckles closed on the brake lever, he shifted his weight, throttled down, worked the bike into a bootlegger turn like he had a dozen or a hundred or a thousand jousts before, but it didn’t work this time.

She saluted with her sword, bright steel flashing. The earlier blood had already been rinsed away by Seattle rain, but something else gleamed too-bright. Something the rainwater didn’t touch quite right.

Brake fluid.

His 450 kilograms of bike, armor, chainsaw, meat, and bone slammed headlong into a parked car in a tangled mess. The murder-saw buzzed and bit into him.

Mongoose turned away, tires biting for traction again. She had a battle to manage. She checked on the gangs’ progress by calling up her heads-up display before closing the distance. Blue arrows for friendly Quick Slivers, red for Road Dawgz. A glance was all it took. She liked what she saw.

The Road Dawgz were starting to get the message, the one she’d repeated all night, the one she’d carve into them until it sank in. Their turf was slipping away as surely as this fight was. Mongoose watched the tangled mess with AR on, but scanned the actual fight instead of just her heads-up mapsoft overlay once she got close enough.

Sliptrip was hammering at a Dawg with her bat, both riders stopped and just trading shots, her aluminum slugger against a crooked metal pipe. Torque had just blasted a Road Dawg off his bike with a swing of his big two-kilo mallet, looking like a polo player. Tempest was riding down a crashed Road Dawg, saber out, to finish him off. Good. A dozen Slivers were cleaning up, running down stragglers.

Some of the news was mixed. Derily—Mongoose rhymed it with “barely,” Darryl Lee by birth name, but barely a man, barely in the gang—was getting mauled by a pair of Road Dawgz, but Tavi, Tikki, and Rikki were on their way. The three bright blue neon streaks inbound caught the eyes of the pummeling Road Dawgz, and the chrome-on-black gangers battering Derily stopped their abuse to speed away. The triplets gave chase with whoops and roaring engines.

Even Royal was chipping in, for once. Their fearful leader had a honking big Fabrique Nationale MAG-5 burping short bursts toward a small knot of Dawgz. His bike was at a full stop and both his feet were down; the machinegun’s tripod was bolted onto his bike—technically integrated, technically mounted, technically allowed, because technically right was Royal’s favorite flavor of right—and he was just laughing it up and playing triggerman. His elf-perfect self was all wrapped up beneath glowing guard magics, plus he had a pair of rippling-eel water spirits swirling protectively around him.

Coward. Mongoose wanted to spit just looking at him.

She twisted her wrist and throttled up to chase the Derily-beaters, instead—the triplets wouldn’t get all the fun!—but then the lights nearby changed. The reflections from the rain-shining street, from glass windows, from mirror-polished chrome, all of them began to distort, to shift, to flash in all the wrong colors.

Red and blue. Cops.

“Cops!”

The fight sputtered to a stop. She checked her heads-up display, wired to her helmet. Traffic disruptions were posted by Knight Errant, mandatory stops or emergency blockades here, here, here. Everywhere. They’d responded in force to tonight’s fight, and were following protocol. Cordon at range, secure the flow of traffic, then tighten the noose.

Mongoose’s goggle-eyes scanned left and right, helmet-implanted microphone sharing her warning with her Quick Sliver brothers and sisters. A handful of blue-white streaks were scattering already in real life, hesitantly facing all different ways as friendly blue arrows on her heads-up screen, but going in all the wrong directions. Scattering wouldn’t help at this point. They had to focus. Had to work together. Had to punch through.

Royal was already nowhere to be seen. Mongoose’ tactical-tracker, her little AR-display that overlaid chipped Quick Sliver bikes with her regular CityNav GPS system, showed him gone. Gone-gone. Off-the-map-gone. Only-possibly-gone-that-far-because-of-magic-gone. Some chief. Some president. Some king.

Mongoose’s sword circled overhead, catching the light, flashing as a thumb-twitch sent her too-bright headlights flickering, strobing, back and forth from high-beam to regular, desperately calling for their attention—and for the remaining Dawgz, too, hell, it was crooks against cops, now, the eternal Us against Them—and obedience. Then she pointed, and led. She could’ve outpaced any of them in a straight-up race, and every Sliver there knew it, but she didn’t throttle up to top speed. She wasn’t running away, she was leading a charge.

Mongoose had to get them all rolling, rolling with a purpose, before the cops got settled in. She’d targeted the last roadblock to form. Knight Errant had protocols to follow. They were methodically deploying drones, calling in back-up, waving away the late evening’s few civilians, radioing back in to headquarters for more orders, coordinating with other roadblock squadrons, worrying about property rights and insurance rates and overtime. Only a few interceptor Knights could even give chase, according to the rules, if the line broke.

Quick Sliver plans were more simple. Point your bike in the right direction. Throttle up. Believe in your gang. Charge.

A wedge of blue-armored bikers—with a few Harley-riders in black leather mixed in—smashed against the half-formed Knight Errant line, weapons reaching out, crashing and slashing and wheelie-ing on by. Blue-white streaks, swerving and juking, left laser trails as they blithely ignored the glowing yellow caution tape barricade. In her AR CityNav display, a flood of friendly blue Quick Sliver arrows blinked right past the angry red icons of the Knight Errant line, and a few Road Dawg icons—still tagged red, but not really hostile for the next few blocks—were dragged along in their wake, cheering lawless defiance.

No, wait.

She sideslipped out of the running pack’s way, let Tempest lead most of the Slivers past her as she pivoted, bug-eyed helmet scanning the storm at her back.

There’d been too many red icons in their midst. One wasn’t a Road Dawg at all. He was some psycho fragger Knight, an interceptor cop laying about with a tonfa, left and right and left again, smashing up their racing wedge from the inside. Nothing about him was Knight-Errant-friendly, which wasn’t really very friendly to begin with; his oversized engine wasn’t regulation eco-friendly, his bike’s armor wasn’t regulation fuel-efficiency-friendly, his grim snarl wasn’t regulation public-friendly.

It was crazy, but there he was. Bold as her, customized Blitzen maybe just as powerful as her bike, plating just as strong, weapon just as quick. Derily went down with his skull split wide open, blue-dyed hair staining a terrible crimson, blue-painted bike leaving a comet-trail of sparks as it slewed to a stop over him. Rikki and Tikki got kicked and clubbed, weaving unsteadily, cursing. Tavi got rammed into their midst by a non-regulation boot, and the heap of all three of them slammed into a parked car.

Mongoose revved and roared and raced, streaking back the way she’d just come. He was too dangerous, too good, for anyone but her.

The Knight’s bike skidded sidelong right into her path, between her and the triplets. He—their champion, their errant knight with a club—was a wall of armored fairings and armored flesh, brown skin rippling over augmented muscles, head to toe wreathed in an aurora of flashing red and blue lights. One hand was comfortable and easy with his combat tonfa, the other just as at home on handlebars. A neatly-trimmed goatee showed beneath his helmet, and she saw just a hint of a smile as he sized her up.

She went for him anyway.

That damned stick wasn’t normal polymer or wood; sparks flew as he parried, then he jabbed at her, hard. She lurched her Kaburaya to one side as he blasted her in the ribs, feeling like she and her bike had just bounced off him, careening away. He didn’t chase, didn’t re-align to joust with her, just spun—back wheel howling, acrid smoke filling the air—to keep his bulky, armored bike and bulky, armored self between her and her Slivers, keeping his prizes. He was disciplined. Playing goalie.

Behind him and his combat-rigged BMW Blitzen, she saw the triplets. Groaning in pain, Rikki waved her away. Tikki saw his busted arm and threw up. Tavi spread-eagled himself face down, a swarm of Knights rolling up on them, finally catching up to their psycho lead rider.

Mongoose leveled her blade at the Knight interceptor—Stavros, his badge read, and she carved the name into her mind—and then her engine screamed as she fled. It was a straightaway, and not an engine on the streets could beat her.

She didn’t go straight back to The Garage. The old mechanic’s shop wasn’t far, but Mongoose drove every which way but home. She scanned her heads-up map for any other stragglers she could pick up, looked out for Knight Errant on her tail, checked the skies for drones peeping at her. She played it safe, for the safety of the gang.

She also made some calls, pulled on the strings every Barrens-brat was born with, called in favors from all up and down the block. She had a name. She had friends, and those friends had friends. What else could they get her?

By the time she made it back to The Garage, Royal, being Ghost-damned Royal, was already talking.

He paced when he talked. When she’d been a kid, Mongoose’d watched some hacked trid-show about how to give speeches. Famous dead guys and their talking tricks, right? That’s how she’d eventually recognized all the signs in Royal. The way he paced to draw the eye, waved his arms, used his hands, changed his volume, spoke in cadence.

“—I was against this fight all along. ‘We don’t want to be hasty,’ I said, and ‘We need a better read on that neighborhood.’ But no. She tricked you all.” Royal flung his hands skyward, like a madcap, exaggerated, shrug, a gesture of confusion, of disgust. “She told us to be bold, and brave, and to meet them on the street, take their offer, accept their challenge. And look at what it got us. No, look at what it lost us.”

“Where’s Derily? Where are the triplets? I don’t see Rikki, do you? Tikki? Tavi? How many of you did she leave behind?!”

“Look around, brothers and sisters, look at how few of us made it back.” Here Royal waved, voice rising again, loud as a Baptist preacher on a Sunday morning tridshow.

“Look at what that bitch cost us.”

And then he pointed, his electric-blue eyes blazing behind that accusatory finger. They all turned, every Sliver in the place, a sea of blue combat leathers, dark glowers, ugly faces, all following his gesture, all looking her way.

She felt pinned in place, and wondered—like she always did—if it was magic. If he’d cast some spell to make her falter, to bend her will, to bend all their wills. He always bragged about his big, flashy storm-magic. Maybe he had subtler stuff, too.

“Frag you,” she snarled, instead of showing any of her fear. “All of you.”

“I’m the reason most of you made it out, and you know it.” She tore off her helmet instead of hiding behind it. Let them fawn over his elf-flawless features, sure, but let them look over the scars that marred her bronzed skin, let them remember just who they were daring to blame. She was the best of them, and they all knew it. Tempest looked guilty, and so did Sliptrip, maybe Torque. But not enough of them.

“And who was the first of us to vanish when the cops showed up, huh, Royal? You all know that, too.”

“It certainly wasn’t Derily,” Royal said, voice going low and sad, but eyes still bright and smug behind the sorrow. “Not Rikki, or Tikki, or Tavi. He died, and all three of them got pinched from right under your nose. I saw that.”

The bastard. Maybe he hadn’t fled right away, after all, maybe he’d just gone stealth-mode, hidden behind some spell or spirit. Or, hell, maybe he had hotfooted out, but then sent a spirit back to spy. She hated not knowing. She hated not trusting him. She hated how much she had trusted him, once.

“I saw somethin’, too.” She tossed her head, dreads flying just like all her helmet’s lucky feathers. “Saw a name. Stavros. Saw custom work on his bike, an old Blitzen. Only one Knight Errant precinct runs those combat rigs and has a decent motor pool to do work like his. Got an address. Know where they’ve got the trips, so we can—”

“You can.”

She didn’t counter-correct him, playing the blame game right back. He was leader. She was just top blade, hottest hand, sharpest wheels, Vice President.

“You know where they are, you go get them.” Royal gave a magnanimous smile, elf-white teeth, elf-perfect face, looking like a saint that had just granted her her fondest wish instead of deciding to pass a death sentence.

“And take care of this Stavros, too.”

The Slivers glanced at one another at that. Going after a cop at home? Spilling Knight Errant blood off the streets? That was suicide, no bones about it. You fight a cop when he’s working the beat, that’s bad enough. You go looking for one? You remind them the streets don’t go to sleep just ’cause they’re off-shift? That’s it. Game over.

That kind of heat could kill the whole gang.

Royal knew. Royal wanted her to refuse. Royal wanted Mongoose to challenge him. He wanted to goad her into it. He wanted to let a spirit whiz him ahead and win a race, wanted to drown her with some oceanic elemental, wanted to smash her down with a bolt of lightning even her Kaburaya couldn’t outpace, maybe even—but she doubted it—wanted to test that mageblade of his against her sword.

They’d written the gang’s rules together, the two of them, taking breaks from sweating, panting, heaving against one another, years ago. They’d planned it. She’d be the muscle and the gasoline, he’d be the electric fire and the charm, playing figurehead. With her chrome and his magic, they’d plant a seed, watch the gang grow. Duels solved problems, and the loser was killed or banished. Wiz, right? High stakes, make it easy for them to stay on top. Only there was no way to change leadership without a duel. No way to change the rules without a duel. No way to refuse an order without a duel.

And against Royal, no way to win a duel without mojo.

She didn’t rise to it, just like she hadn’t all the times before.

“Fine,” she said, instead, hefting her helmet, sounding confident. “Stavros won’t be a problem.”

They all gaped. Tempest and Torque exchanged a glance. Even Royal blinked, surprised.

Mongoose latched her helmet back on, war face soundly in place to hide her fear. She throttled up, let the Yamaha scream in a one-eighty, then burned out of there. Straight-line speed. Not an engine on the streets could beat her.

The problem was that she couldn’t run from this.

She had to face it, head on.

“Monica Guzman,” the rumble-deep bass voice said, accompanied by two other sounds: the heavy footsteps of boots on parking garage concrete, and a high-impact polymer club against an armored gauntlet. He circled her in the dark.

“Mongoose,” she corrected, tossing her head. She’d left her bike outside, left her helmet and blade mag-clamped to it. She didn’t know which absence made her feel more naked, more trapped.

“I know.” Stavros still circled her, likely still deciding whether or not to crack her skull open. “I asked around.”

She tried not to think about those big hands ‘asking’ the triplets anything.

“Lieutenant in the Quick Slivers go-ga—”

“Co-founder,” she corrected, “and Vice President.”

“Mm-hmm.” He didn’t flash his teeth in a smile, just grunted, but he also didn’t take a swing. She took that as progress. His club glinted in the dark, glossier than his armor.

“So what is it you want, Ms. Vice President? You must want something. You must be downright desperate, in fact, coming here.”

It was true. Breaking into a Knight Errant parking garage was a risky move.

“A trade.” She lifted her chin, trying to sound confident, trying to sound certain.

“What can you give me, girlie, that I could possibly want?”

Besides another arrest, she imagined him saying, as his even footsteps continued circling her. Besides another go-ganger corpse. Besides another notch on my grip.

“A guy named Royal. Co-founder.” She twisted her head just enough to catch him in the corner of her eye, just enough to peek at him from beneath her dreads. “And President.”

“Playing Judas, girl?”

“He’s no savior.” She hardened her voice. “And you’re no saint.”

She imagined she heard another ghost of a chuckle from him. He kept pacing, kept slapping that baton against his palm. She pressed. “I asked around, too. I know what an old Blitzen costs to keep on wheels, and I know KE don’t pay it. I know how much Dikote costs, and reflex wires, and bootleg muscles. I know you’ve got to bribe the poolie to keep your BMW running. I know who pays your bills.”

The baton stopped slapping his armored palm, somewhere behind her. She wondered if he was raising it to brain her.

“And I know where Royal got his sword,” she said, more hurriedly than she wanted, just in case he was about to murder her. Did she hear a scuff from behind her? A boot scraping pavement, a swing interrupted?

“I know about the Merlyn he murdered for it.”

His armored shadow slid around her side, all dark skin and smooth, impossible grace. His cyberoptics glowed faintly as he stared into her eyes. She didn’t see anything warm behind them. He was a walking weapon. He wasn’t really in Knight Errant’s arsenal, though. He worked for someone else.

“You tell your bosses—” She held his gaze, her dark eyes on his inhuman ones. “—I can get you the man who killed Venus.”

Just saying the name almost made her feel guilty. Almost. Two years earlier, she and Royal had a plan, but needed that seed to plant. Mongoose had killed the bodyguards. Royal had killed the wizard herself. They’d use her briefcase of Bliss and Tempo to jump-start the gang, he’d held onto her powerful mageblade focus to help himself lead it.

Venus, with the button nose and the scar on her cheek that had throbbed while Royal strangled her, had been in the Order of Merlyn. The Order of Merlyn was mobbed up, magical muscle for the Finnigans and the rest of Seattle’s Mafia. Venus had thought that made her safe. That’s why Royal had picked her.

“I’ve got a deal I want to make. We all win. We kill Royal for the family, you drag what’s left of him to Knight Errant. The Slivers help you go after other gangs, keep up your rep in the Knights. You arrest our competition, help us hold some turf. And we go in with the family, me and the Slivers. You get the credit for recruiting us.”

“Call your boss. You help me beat Royal, you let my boys go.” She held out a leather-gloved hand for him to shake. “And you get the Finnigans the sharpest little go-gang in town.”

Royal, being Royal, was talking when she got back. He probably had spirits circling just to warn him when she was close, just to give him enough warm-up time to try and turn the gang against her right before she parked.

“—and here she is, now. I still don’t see them, do you? No Rikki. No Tikki. No Tavi.” Royal just kept talking as she swung a leg over, and strode right up to him.

“No blood on her, no holes in her armor. What did you even do while you were gone? Did you even—”

He kept working his mouth right up until she slapped him in it, armored riding glove adding heft.

“What ar—”

Then a backhand for good measure, splitting his lip and staggering him.

“You ca—”

Another forehand, smiling, enjoying herself now.

He reached for his mageblade, and instead of a backhanded slap she just rested her hand on her own sword’s grip. His blade was fancier, sure. Both were gently curved, both well-balanced.  Hers, though, just had mundane mono-edges, while his was etched with orichalcum, the grip glowed electric-blue like his eyes, runes danced along the length of the blade as he got the first few centimeters out. His was nicer, yes, infinitely more expensive.

But hers was hers, and every motherfragger in The Garage knew she was faster with it.

She just clicked at the polymer tsuba with her thumb, got ready for a fast-draw if he pushed it. Hell, maybe she’d get lucky and she could just gut him instead of what was supposed to happen next.

He eased his hand away from the grip, instead.

“A duel, then.” He spat blood, but sounded smug, looked smug, was smug. From his blue-white hair to his elven-soft hint of scruff, his sleek riding suit to his clean, soft, hands, everything about him leaked smugness all over her beloved, filthy garage. Somehow. Even after getting slapped silly. Fragging elves.

“As the challenged party, I choose…” He smiled as he paused, savoring the hush of the gathered Quick Slivers, savoring the taste of his victory over her.

A race? He’d surf on the speed of some spirit, not really riding at all, not really racing, just cruising in the right direction in first gear, blurring through the night at impossible velocities.

A fight? They started them at ten paces—Mongoose’d thought it would be funny, until the first time she saw what combat spells did to the first Sliver to ever challenge Royal, tearing the sap apart while he tried to close the gap—and she’d never get within striking distance.

A joust? He could combine them, then. Cheat to beat her at riding and fighting, just like he’d always wa—

“A joust,” he said, smiling like the devil, then nodding. “I choose a joust.”

Mongoose slapped him again—frag it, why not?—before she turned and strode off. The gang parted for her, murmuring, questioning.

By the time both riders had their bikes centered out front—wheels on the dotted yellow line, pointed right at each other—he had his spirits up, just like he’d made sure the rules allowed. A pair of ghostly eels circled him, flickering blue-white like his hair, his eyes, the mageblade that made him dangerous. She just flat-footed it on either side of her bike, waiting. She had her armor, her good sword, her trusty Kaburaya. There was nothing else she could bring.

Mongoose heard Tempest—third-up in the gang; Royal’s apprentice, but a righteous go-ganger, she honestly had no idea which way the kid would go with this—from far away, and just revved her bike in response. She focused on her pulse, pounding in her ears. She focused on Royal, opposite her. She didn’t scan the crowd, didn’t watch the street, didn’t glance up at the rooftops. In a joust, focus and momentum were everything.

Tempest spoke a word, and Royal started at her.

Mongoose’s Yamaha screamed, engine just letting the world know it was alive. It redlined as she accelerated, throttling as fast as she could shift gears. She was perfect. It was the best hot-start of her life, and she’d done plenty. Everything was smooth as silk and fast as lightning, she and her bike in perfect tandem, straight-line speed. Not an engine on the streets could beat her.

But Royal, being Royal, cheated. One eel flashed with blue-white fire, crackled with sorcery, and called up an imaginary wave, an invisible cresting surge of power for him to ride. His weaker bike didn’t matter, his clumsiness at the controls didn’t matter, physics didn’t matter, Mongoose didn’t matter.

For just an eyeblink, it worked. Then the spirit was gone, snuffed out, banished, and its power gone with it.

Royal’s bike wavered, wobbled as he over-corrected from the sudden loss of speed, then crashed. He gaped, eyes wide in terror, as headlight bore down on him.

Mongoose sliced past him, razor-close and razor-sharp, her sword flicking out to slap him with the flat of it. Blood flew, elf-perfect bones broke, and he almost died.

She threw her Kaburaya into another skidding, sidelong stop, tires squealing. As she swung a leg up and over and strode back toward him, he whimpered in pain and shock, worked at disentangling himself from two hundred kilos of plastic, carbon fiber, and rubber.

Mongoose threw her helmet at him when she got close enough she knew it’d hit; she wanted his attention. He cowered from it, batted it away on his upraised arms, but it was enough to startle him to motion. Lethal motion. His eyes cleared, then blazed with power. One hand drifted to the hilt of his mageblade again, and he suckled at its teat, then threw a bolt of blue-white acid at her.

Mongoose forced herself not to flinch. To trust.

The spell roared at her like a rushing tide, then fizzled, then went out; the stream sputtered and stopped, like the tap water when they’d tried to wet some rags for Luisa’s baby. There was a soft green glow around her.

Royal’s eyes went wide with terror again, and his remaining eel-spirit writhed at her in a vicious charge.

Mongoose slashed, ducked away, slashed again. She only half-felt it when her sword impacted—Why weren’t they helping? No, no, no, I can’t do this!—and had to roll sidelong to avoid a hissing rush from the thing.

How can I kill this thing? I don’t know how to kill this thing! In the corner of her eye, she saw Royal getting to his feet, saw him drawing his sword, saw him limping toward her. The spirit harried her, she had to turn to fight it. He and the wreckage of his bike were somewhere behind her, its blue-white mouth opened wide, it rushed at her behind electric, blue-white, eyes, just like Royal’s—

No. No more.

She screamed out loud as she hacked at the spirit one last time, and it withered and faded before her calm fury, her force of will, her certainty itself.

The world spun in a blur, and Mongoose was the axis on which it did so. Royal tried to stab her in the back, but instead she felt his blade skitter against her armor.

She ran him through in one smooth motion, monosword angled inward and upward right through his ribs, Royal’s too-pretty face looking completely flabbergasted for maybe the first time ever. The elf slumped over the sword, going limp, dropping his precious sword.

His mageblade never hit the ground. It was enveloped in a soft green glow instead of clattering, then gently floated upward.

Royal hit the ground, though, when Mongoose kicked him off her sword like a piece of meat.

The Quick Slivers—those that hadn’t already—were already drawing weapons, staring at her.

“Wait!”

She shouted. They listened.

“I know. I know! I know about the rules! I wrote them. We wrote them, him an’ me. But I didn’t cheat, just now. Not any more than he cheated back then.”

The rooftop behind her blurred, rippled, and a half-dozen figures slithered into visibility. There was Rikki, Tikki, and Tavi. Stavros in his armor. Two strangers to the gang: a killer with slick hair and a sharp suit, and another killer, this one in fanciful wizard’s robes. All of them—bless ’em, even the triplets, without fear—stepped off the rooftop and were slowly carried streetside in a soft green glow.

The Slivers took a half-step back, as one, the whole gang recoiling, looking from Mongoose to Tempest to the belly-stabbed Royal, not sure who to listen to, what was true any more.

“Royal cheated us all when he made those rules,” she told the truth.

“And he cheated us all every day since, using those spirits to maintain mind spells,” she lied.

One of the killers at her back, the Merlyn in rune-encrusted robes, now holding Royal’s mageblade in his free hand, gestured. About one Sliver in three—Not too many, she’d said, Just the ones that always followed him the most—began glowing a soft, sickly green. The other Slivers murmured, stepped away from them, looked around worriedly.

“It wasn’t your fault.” She spoke softly now, paying no attention to the other killer, the one in the sharp suit standing over the moaning, gut-stabbed Royal. He was screwing a silencer onto a big Browning autopistol. She couldn’t stop him if she wanted to, and she didn’t want to.

Mongoose kept the Slivers’ attention on her as best she could. “Royal tricked us all. He cheated us all. He lied!”

More truth.

“The last straw was that he told Knight Errant where to hit us the other night.” Another lie. “You all remember how quickly he left. Why do you think that was?”

Off to one side of her, Stavros shifted and grunted, a wall of menace and authority made flesh, a reminder of failure and fear. The triplets kept quiet. Good.

Off to her other side, a silencer muffled a pair of shots. Royal stopped whimpering.

“These people represent the Finnigans.” She gave it a second to sink in. “And now, so do we. Royal cheated them too. They don’t take that lightly. They value trust.”

They’d lectured her on it plenty, and on the price of failure. She had to make this work. She needed the Slivers to buy it, for their own good. Mongoose exchanged a nod with the suit-clad killer who’d had a long talk with her. Don Joseph Gianelli. He’d wanted to be here in person, to handle this business with Royal, to get bloody payback for Venus, to establish this new, dynamic power base for his family.

“We ride for the Finnigans and Giannelis now, and Royal’s sins—our sins—will be forgiven. We’ll move product for them, we’ll be security for convoys, we’ll be muscle. We’ll hit other gangs. We’ll ride old school, challenges. We’re the best in the city at it!” She didn’t know, honestly, deep down in her bones, if that was her lying or not. “In exchange, they’ll get us parts, guns, business. And they’ll keep the Knights off our ass. We’ll be their riders, they’ll be our patrons.”

She stabbed her sword down into the concrete and let it stand there in the street, a glittering shard of steel jutting up from the pavement. Stavros pointed at her blade with his baton, glinting in the moonlight, and swung his club in a slow arc, making a line down the middle of the street. The Quick Slivers got the message. Rikki, Tikki, and Tavi were already on her side. When Tempest, Sliptrip, and Torque stepped past the sword and over to her too, she knew the rest would follow. 

The king was dead.

Long live the queen.

ÁDHAMH Ó BRAONÁIN

(9 of Batons, 10 of Batons)

DYLAN BIRTOLO

I reached out into the darkness, trying to find something to hear me, but I felt nothing. I don’t mean silence. I’ve heard silence before. This was deeper than silence. It was like the entire spirit world had deliberately turned their backs and created a vacuum around me, something that sucked away any call I made as I floundered around. I was abandoned.

And then fire and streaks of pain through my arms brought me back to my reality.

A rough hand grabbed my wrist, easily wrapping around the entire thing so that his fingers curled over each other as he dragged me across the pavement behind an armored truck. I didn’t even feel where my skin rubbed raw against the street, I could only focus on the ringing in my ears that drowned out everything.

He was shouting at me. This human I had only just met earlier this evening. What is his name? My brain struggled to recall as he continued yelling. I shook my head and he glanced away, his lips curled into a snarl as he turned around the corner of the vehicle and fired his gun. When he turned back, I heard sounds starting to penetrate through the ringing. Scent came back as well, the air heavy with smoke and hot metal.

“—Where’s the damn spirit? We need cover!”

“I can’t…”

I couldn’t even finish the sentence. You’d think I was used to it by now. This isn’t the first time I haven’t been able to have my voice heard. But it never gets easier. The sense of emptiness—of being cut off—cuts just as deeply as the first time it happened.

Cutter—I remembered his name in a flash—turned away from me and yanked a grenade off his belt. He pulled the pin and hurled it with his cybernetic arm, launching it as far as if it had been propelled from a launcher. I couldn’t see the explosion, but even at this distance I felt the shockwave and heard the screams. He continued firing his gun while shouting into his commlink.

I wasn’t going to just sit here and wait. The spirits may not be listening, but I would not be useless. With a snarl, I pushed myself up off the street and pulled out my pistol. I ran to the other corner of the van and stepped out, firing until the magazine was empty. One security officer rolled to the side after taking a bullet in the shoulder, but I didn’t stay to admire my handiwork. I’ve learned that lesson. I ducked back behind cover to reload.

I was about to turn and fire again when I heard the screech of rubber sliding across pavement. A car raced up to us and did a 180 before the doors on either side popped open. Cutter threw another grenade before rushing into the driver’s side. I jumped into the passenger seat just before the car lurched forward, doors still open. As I straightened up in the seat, I noticed Cutter was busy with his weapons, not driving the vehicle. They must’ve had a rigger they hadn’t told me about when I signed up. Of course, I was a last minute addition, so I wasn’t surprised they’d left some details out.

Once I was situated properly and had done the seatbelt, I tucked my gun back into its holster. A very loud click sounded next to my head and I jumped, looking through my peripheral vision and not daring to turn. I felt the heat emanating off Cutter’s gun barrel. It singed my hair and filled the interior of the car with a nauseating odor.

“What the fuck was that? What happened?”

I tried to stay absolutely still, but my jaw clenched. I wondered if he noticed. After a couple of seconds, he lowered the gun. It was still pointed in my direction, but he held it in front of his body. I twisted in my seat so I could look him in the eyes when I spoke. It was hard enough to admit my weakness; I wasn’t going to shy away from this bottom rung runner captain. Not that I was any better, but I didn’t need to listen to that voice right now.

“Sometimes the spirits don’t answer. They’re not dogs, or guns where you can just pull the trigger any time you want. They’re alive. They do what they want.” He would believe the lie. He didn’t know any better. There was no way he could possibly know the anguish of having a connection that defined your existence severed completely.

“Never met a shaman who couldn’t call up a spirit. Seems like you got ways to make ’em show.”

“I didn’t know you were a shaman, too. What’d you need to hire me for, then?” I swallowed and licked my lips before speaking again. “I provided backup.”

Cutter snorted and rolled his eyes, making no attempt to hide his opinion about what my level of backup was worth. At least he put his gun away, stashing it under his jacket.

I turned away from him and stared out the window, watching the buildings flash by in a blur of lights. I still felt the coldness, the sense of darkness that came from deep within me and made me shiver whenever I took a deep breath. I knew I’d have that feeling for the next couple of hours. At least our debriefing would be at a bar, so I could get some warmth to try and chase away the chill.

We rode in silence until we reached the Bell in Hand Tavern. The car stopped on the street in front of the entrance, the doors once again opening of their own accord. After we climbed out, the car drove down the street toward the main parking lot. Cutter brushed past me on the way to the entrance, and I followed in his shadow. The bouncer nodded at us both, stepping aside, much to the chagrin of the line of people waiting against the wall.

Like many businesses in Boston, the Bell in Hand had embraced its building’s heritage. Walking in, you could feel the age emanating off the brick walls. It was rumored to be one of the city’s oldest standing bars, but I’d never bothered to check. I knew they had good synthahol for cheap prices, and a few quiet places you could sit and have a drink by yourself even when it was packed. It helped that I was considered a bit of a regular, at least when I had the nuyen to spare.

Cutter headed to one of those quiet spaces—a table in the back corner—and I followed. The rest of the team sat there, the team that I had known for less than a full day. I recognized the ork, but had no idea who the elf was. My guess was he was our mysterious rigger. To be honest, it didn’t really matter. He was just another in a string of random faces I would soon forget.

“Right. Job done, time to debrief and get paid. Perdita, here’s your cut. I think we’re both glad to put this business behind us.”

I took the certified credstick and checked the amount. It was half of my fee. “Are you trying to shaft me? This isn’t what we agreed to.”

Cutter put both hands on the table, and I could see him clenching them around the edge. His cyberarm cracked the wood. Judging by the sneers on the faces of the other two, Cutter had already shared his displeasure with my performance. He spoke low and soft, so I had to strain to hear him, but the emotion in his words was powerful enough to make me take a half step backward.

“We also agreed that you’d be a shaman. Last I checked, shamans were good for one thing: summoning spirits. No spirits? No paycheck. Be glad you’re getting anything at all.”

I considered debating the issue, but it was three against one, with two of them significantly larger than me. I decided against it. Besides, they were right. That was my job, and I had failed. I may dress it up and say I provided support in my own way, but no one knew better than I just how empty that statement was. Instead, I took my token payment and turned around, heading to the bar.

The first stool was empty, so I slipped onto it, cradling my head in my hands and staring at the wood grain inches from my nose. Some chummer came up and offered to buy me a drink, but I didn’t even look up. He got bored with a very loud sniff and went on to look for more responsive prey. A short time later I heard a glass smack down onto the bar and smelled the powerful, almost-turpentine-like aroma of my drink of choice—neat gin. Kyle didn’t even need to ask. I lifted up my head enough to flash him a compressed smile, but he was already turning away to serve another customer. I had to remind myself: he wasn’t a friend, I was his job security. He was friendly enough, but in the three years I’d known him, I’ve never seen him out from behind this bar.

Still the drink was good, and I knew it would help. I tilted my head back and downed the whole thing in one swallow, not letting it rest on my tongue for too long. Otherwise the taste might make me reconsider my decision. I took more time with the second, and the third I slowed down enough to savor it.

Even with my vision growing blurry, I was still aware when Cutter and his team stood up from their table to make their exit. The muscles all along my spine tensed, knitting my shoulders together. I stared straight ahead, frozen except for the tremor in my hand as I held my glass, the liquid climbing the sides and threatening to splash out. When they left, I was finally able to relax enough to polish off the rest. The synthahol would relax me the rest of the way.

I don’t know how long I sat there, and I don’t know how many drinks I had. I knew that I reached the delicate point where I was too drunk to stand or think straight, but still aware enough to know that if I left my stool I’d be crashing to the floor in half a step. My left hand gripped the edge of the stool in a white-knuckled grasp while I slid the half empty glass around on the table, enjoying the mild scratching sounds it made.

It was getting late, and the bar was growing empty. Only a few patrons remained—those loyal few who would stick around until that terrible time of “Last call” was announced. I continued to watch my own hand as it twirled the glass around, drawing designs in the bar with my imagination.

“You seem like you’ve had a less than ideal evening.”

My eyes rolled of their own accord so hard that I almost fell out of the chair, saving myself only through the steady grip. I turned to rebuff the man who obviously thought I was an easy mark. In fact, I was looking forward to it. But when I saw him, I stopped.

Physically, there wasn’t anything unusual. Sure, he was well dressed, perhaps too well dressed for trying to close down the Bell in Hand. The shaved stripes on his head contrasted with his elegant attire, but that was not what caught my attention. Even without slipping into the astral, I could feel his aura. It was strong, powerful, vibrant and nearly pulsed with a life of its own. For a moment, I thought it might be a synthahol-induced hallucination, but Kyle gave the man a drink.

The man picked up his glass and raised an eyebrow as he sipped it, as if waiting for me to speak.

“Wha’s it…to you?”

He put down his glass and curled back his lips to suck in air through his teeth before letting out a sigh. I could smell the fruity flavor of whatever he was drinking when he breathed.

“I merely thought you might want some assistance with your…” he paused for a moment, looking up at the lights over my head. “Communication problem.”

Anger spiked in me. My arm shook, and it took all of my willpower not to hurl the rest of my drink, and the glass, into his smug face. So Cutter thought he would make a final pass at insulting me, did he?

But another voice spoke up, one in the back of my mind that managed to cut through the pulse of red I felt burn through every fiber of my body. It urged me to listen. It was curious and hopeful.

Besides, if Cutter had access to someone with this much perceptible power, he never would’ve hired me.

I uncurled my fingers from around the glass and laid my hand flat on the bar, leaning into my arm for balance. “Wha would you know ’bout that?”

“I know that calls which seem to go unheeded in the darkness are never completely unheard.”

Those words made my skin crawl, and the air felt like it dropped at least ten degrees. That part of my brain that had so easily given into rage was now quivering in fear and yelling at me to run. I didn’t know what he was doing here, or how he gave voice to my fears. But, I had to know. I couldn’t just leave. His posture, his confidence—hell, his very being—exuded that he had the answers.

“I offer you a proposition, something for you to consider. I know how to restore that connection, how to make it so that once again, the spirits heed your call. But it will not be easy.”

He paused to pick up his drink, closing his eyes as he sipped. I found myself licking my lips, waiting for him to put it down so he would continue. I don’t know how much of it was the synthahol, but I was enraptured, and had to hear more.

I sat up as he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a card, laying it on the bar between us. It was larger than a playing card and stockier; I could see how thick and durable it was at a glance. The back of it was grey with a green border. Tribal designs curled around each other in a mirrored design that made my head spin if I looked for too long. Using two fingers, he slid it across the table to me, putting it within easy reach before picking up his hand.

I turned the card over.

It offered an audible snap as I put it back down to rest. The painting on the front side was exquisite, and I could feel the energy emanating from it as well. A large ork, bloodied and injured, stood in front of a door. His faithful canine companion stood in front of him, staring at something only he could see. I could feel the shaman’s weariness. It surprised me not to see him bent over, bowing under the strain of his injuries and whatever his trials were.

“This is you, as you are now. Struggling. Fighting to scrounge scraps together and ready to break under the strain of your burdens. This represents the road you are on, but it does not have to be this way. If you make it through the trials, this could be you.”

He gestured in the air, and for a brief second, I saw a second card floating in front of him. I had only a glance before it faded away into nothingness. But I saw the shaman. She radiated power and beauty, standing tall despite the blood and chaos around her. She was unharmed and struck a pose of fearlessness. She still had her canine companion, but was now protecting him, since he was beaten, defeated, and blind. Where the card on the bar before me was weak, breaking, and pedestrian, the image I saw was strong, confident, and affluent.

When the image faded to nothingness, I felt a longing much like what I had felt for years, but magnified in scope. I tried to speak, but had to swallow first and close my eyes for a moment to chase the image from my brain. When I opened them again, I could only manage one word.

“How?”

“Pass the trials, find the card you have just seen. Once you have both, the answers will be clear.”

I looked back down at the card in front of me, picking it up to examine it closer. I reached up with my other hand and traced my fingers across the surface. As I did, symbols appeared like glowing sigils on the surface of the card. I didn’t recognize them, but somehow I knew they were letters. I stared for a few seconds, trying to make them out until my head began to ache. They shifted, turning into letters I recognized: Ádhamh.

I looked up, and the man was gone. His empty glass sat on the bar where he was.

Jumping off of my stool, I tried to follow him, but the world turned as soon as I was in motion. I slammed into the ground and smacked my shoulder against the bar before I came to a stop. Kyle leaned across so he could look over the other side and stare down at me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. That guy—the one sitting next to me. You know who he is?”

“Nah. First timer as far as I know. Never seen him before. You need help getting up?”

Tucking the card into my jacket pocket, I waved him off with a mutter, not even sure of what I said. I took a few breaths, long and deep, to try and still the spinning of the bar. I wasn’t sober, but using the stool and the bar, was able to pull myself back to a more-or-less standing position.

Kyle had stopped his cleanup to watch me, probably seeing if I would fall over once again. I gave him a wave and then tried a few shuffling steps toward the door. As long as I didn’t move too quickly, I could manage. I just might need some help from the walls along the way.

The walk to my apartment was a blur, and I don’t just mean the lights flashing by on the street. My mind was so wrapped up in the card and the strange letters I had seen. I wanted to take it out and look at it, but was afraid that someone might steal it. I needed to get home, someplace at least relatively safe.

When I finally was able to fall into my door and heard it latch closed, I pulled out the card. There were no symbols on it, just the illustration. I tried angling it in the light, turning it so that anything etched on the surface might stand out, but there was still nothing. On a whim, I ran my fingers across the surface of the card, but it did not have the same effect as in the bar. Clearly it was some trick, just like the illusion of the card floating in air. I slammed it down on my nightstand and collapsed on my bed, not even bothering to undress.

My dreams were haunted. I still remember them clearly. At first, everything was dark and cold. I was filled with loneliness and abandonment. True, I’d never had the strongest connection to the spirit world, but I always used to hear at least a murmur. I tried to scream, but my words were sucked into a vacuum, and no sound emerged. I felt trapped. Not by any walls or any cage, but by sheer nothingness in every direction I could see. I curled up, hugging my knees against my chest and closing my eyes. It didn’t help. I could still sense the void.

And then, a rumble. It started out sounding like rain falling on the metal sheets used for roofing in some of the less reputable places I’ve lived. The sound grew until I could feel the tremors through my body, making me quiver in the darkness. I opened my eyes and spun around, searching for the source of the cacophony, but everything was dark all around me.

I felt something strike my arm, stinging where it hit exposed flesh. I felt a second stab in my shoulder. Glancing up, I saw rocks of all shapes and sizes falling toward me. I tried to run, but the small stones continued assaulting me, no matter how far I moved. The larger ones weren’t far behind, and I couldn’t find any shelter. Other than the rocks, everything was empty. Soon I would be buried underneath the stones, crushed to death.

No. This was not real. This was my dream, and I would fight.

I saw an opening and willed myself to be there, just as if I was projecting. Suddenly, there I was—floating in the air between falling boulders. For a moment, I was stunned that it worked. A large stone clipped my ankle as I floated, sending shooting pain up my calf and all the way to my hip. I saw another space of blackness and willed myself there, jumping from one pocket to the next. I continued, climbing up the rockslide, not knowing where I was going, but relishing in my victory. After so many defeats, it filled me with confidence.

Eventually, I climbed far enough that the rocks stopped falling. Looking down, I saw the landscape was no longer empty. A mountain of rocks was piled directly beneath me, and red dirt stretched in all directions. In the space of a thought, I found myself on the ground in front of the mountain, standing on ground that I could see. Even the air felt brighter; it felt like air. It may have been empty space, but unlike before, it existed. That was a change I could feel, even if there was no other way to perceive it.

Curious, I stepped forward and put a hand on one of the boulders in front of me. The rock felt warm to the touch, warm enough that it was uncomfortable to leave my hand resting on it for too long. In the brief time it rested there, I felt it vibrate. At first I thought it was just an echo of the monumental rain, but there was something more. A power throbbed, strong and bright enough that I could feel it under my palm. It felt like the same power as the man in the bar who gave me the card.

“Is this another one of your illusions?”

My words echoed into the distance. I waited for a response, but heard nothing. I was about to shout again when the rocks beside me shifted, cracking and rumbling as they rolled across one another. The mountain twisted, stones bending in defiance of gravity until they resembled a humanoid shape, albeit one that was easily three times my height. The face leaned forward and stared down at me. A voice sounded in my mind like gravel grinding underfoot.

“You dare disturb my slumber?”

The earth spirit lifted a massive arm and brought it crashing down on top of my head. I barely had time to think of being somewhere else before it smashed into the dirt, stirring up a thick cloud of dust that made me choke and cough. The spirit reached out again, trying to flatten me against the ground. This time I willed myself behind him, floating in the air just behind his head.

Just as I was taking a moment to catch my breath, a stream of boulders sprouted from the spirit’s back, striking me in the chest and disrupting my concentration, sending me tumbling to the dirt. The impact knocked the wind out of me as I watched the creature reform so that he was facing me, the stones rolling around to support this new orientation.

“You think I would ever serve you? You are insignificant. I am Earth!”

The spirit shrank, and I felt the ground underneath me rumble. I launched myself into the air just as two hands formed out of the dirt and closed around the space where I had been recovering. I didn’t stop to stare, instead focusing on dodging just in time as another stream of rocks shot past close enough to scrape my side. It burned, and when I brought my hand to my side it came away wet. The metallic odor of blood pierced the dust in the air.

I needed to control the spirit. It sounded insane. He was greater than anything I had ever tried to dominate before, but if I didn’t, I knew I wouldn’t wake. I willed myself high above the spirit, and took a moment to focus my attention on him. I pictured bonds wrapping around him, capturing his arms and attaching them to my center. Sweat burst out on my brow as I poured my mental strength into the connection. I started to fall, my mind not able to maintain both strains at once. I needed to give up, fly away, and be safe—

No. I could do this.

I redoubled my efforts, pouring all of my strength into creating the bonds that would connect me to the spirit. He roared in my mind, reaching up with one giant hand that threatened to crush me in his grip. I closed my eyes, not wanting to be distracted. I might die from the impact, but I would control the spirit. I would not let him defeat me.

My mind pounded so heavily I thought my skull would split, and still I continued to focus. I added a scream of my own, a wordless shout of pain and rage, pouring in every emotion that I had felt into that bond. The pain, the suffering, the abandonment. 

I would not lose.

The earth spirit grabbed me in the air just as I felt a latch release in my mind, like the last tumbler of a lock falling into place. The hand cradled me, catching me as gently as a creature made solely of stone can. He slowed my fall, lowering me to the dirt and placing me before him. As I stumbled and tried to remain standing, the creature bowed its head and took a knee in front of me. Even in this position, it still towered over me.

“You have succeeded where few have done so before, great shaman.”

With those words, I woke up with a start, gasping for breath. I stared at the ceiling, gulping down air until I could no longer feel my pulse pounding in my temples. For a moment, I thought it might have just been a dream, but the ache in my side let me know it was very much real. Looking down, I saw blood leaching through my clothes.

Moving slowly so as not to aggravate the wound, I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I took a moment with my hand pressed against my side before venturing to stand. As I sat there, I saw another card lying on the nightstand, next to the one I had thrown down in my frustration. It was the same card I had seen in the bar: the one with the strong, confident shaman.

Forgetting about my wound, I dared to reach out with my blood-soaked fingers and pick it up. It was real. My breath caught as I touched its surface. Just like before, symbols danced into view over the image. It was a strain to stare at them, but they shaped into letters I recognized. Ó Braonáin.

Eyes wide in excitement, I picked up the first card and placed it next to the new arrival. The letters showed up once again, revealing a full name: Ádhamh Ó Braonáin.

My wound and pain forgotten, I stood up and prepared the summoning ritual. This had to be what the trials were about. A spirit’s true name. With this, I could bind it to me, and it would need to listen to my calls for all perpetuity. I would become the shaman I always wished I was, and no injury would ever take this from me. I could treat it after I was finished. Hell, maybe this spirit could heal it for me. There was so much to learn, and time was wasting.

I sketched out a summoning circle, hands shaking as I drew the lines. They were sloppy, but they would work. I was too excited to wait and too exhausted to steady my hand. I summoned the spirit.

It appeared before me, a being of breathtaking beauty. He was tall, but not uncomfortably so, with long hair that came almost to his waist. His skin was pale and colored with various paintings or tattoos, I couldn’t tell which. His eyes were mesmerizing and full of power like the swirl of clouds in a storm. This was no ordinary spirit. This was royalty. This was a lord among spirits, with power beyond that which I had ever seen. I could see the faint shimmer of a crown made of flickering lights dancing around his forehead.

“Greetings, Ádhamh Ó Braonáin, I bind you to me, connecting us until such time as your service is complete.”

I wasted no time, wanting to make sure I used his name to bind him. I couldn’t let him get away. There was no telling if I would ever be able to summon him again. As it was, I was shocked that he came, given my condition and lack of preparation. I poured my will into the bond, much like I had with the earth spirit moments ago. Rather than forcing my mental prowess into a leash, it fell freely, like rolling downhill and being sucked down a drain.

He smiled. It was the smile an amused father gives his daughter’s poor attempt to play grown-up. “That is not how this works, young one.”

“I felt the binding. Nothing you can say will change that.”

In truth, my mind was not as confident as my words. I hoped my tone mirrored what I said, and not what I felt. I knew spirits would sometimes play tricks in an attempt to escape their servitude. I needed to remain the one in control. I was tempted to look at the hastily drawn circle, but couldn’t remove my eyes from his visage.

“It is true, we are indeed bound, as was foretold by the cards.”

“Then you’re in my service.”

“My dear child, do you really think you are the one with the power?”

He stepped forward, breaking through my summoning circle as if it didn’t even exist. The cards floated up and danced in the air, one over either shoulder. “These cards do reflect who you are, but you are not the shaman. You were strong, and now you’re the broken one. Your impetuousness and desire has been your undoing.”

I glanced from one card to the next, seeing the strong dog in front of the ork, and then moving to the grizzled dog behind the powerful woman. I collapsed to my knees, realizing that what he said was true. I could feel the connection, the bond, only it was flowing from me to him…and I knew I would do whatever he asked.

“Tell me your story,” he commanded. “It will amuse me…for now.”

DRAGONBOUND

(THE DRAGON)

AARON ROSENBERG

The sky beckons. The clouds call out. The sun beams down, welcoming, inviting. Enticing.

But restraints limit movement. Metal clanks on metal. Links slither and clatter against one another, old but unyielding.

The sky retreats. The world rushes in, tamping down, tethering and tying, binding.

All is heavy and dull once more.

“You look like a troll took a dump on your face,” Lanos remarked, lounging in his seat, feet up on the dash and crossed at the ankles.

“Gee, thanks,” Allie Fiddich shot back without lifting her hands from the wheel or her gaze from the road and the route mapped out in translucent green on the windshield. “I love you, too.”

The elf beside her snorted at that, and Allie smothered a smile, determined to make him think she was angry with him, at least for a minute. It was no use, though. They’d been partners for three years now. He knew her too well.

“Seriously,” he continued, some of the mocking fading from his tone, “you okay? You look beat.”

“I’m fine.” She pushed back a lock of hair that had sprung loose from the ponytail, swaying in her peripheral vision like an albino snake eager to strike. “Just not sleeping well, I guess.”

The cross street she wanted suddenly loomed in her vision, the blinking map indicating the turn, and she yanked the wheel hard right, sending the ambulance careening around the corner.

“Gods!” Lanos cursed, his right hand clutching at the strap above his door. “Slow it down, Allie! We’re trying to get to an accident, not be one!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she groused, but eased off the gas a little to appease him. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to her driving by now, and they both knew she’d never had an accident. She couldn’t handle going slow, that was all—it was either nothing or full speed ahead. But maybe she had been going just a little fast.

Still, people were waiting on them. And Detroit was a big place, too big to dawdle on their way.

“This is it,” Lanos remarked as Allie hit the brakes, the ambulance screeching to a halt. She pulled up onto the curb and left it there, lights spiraling, as they hopped out and studied the building. It was old, pre-UCAS for sure, with a red brick front decorated here and there by pale stone elements to match the broad steps leading up to the front door.

“Nice,” Allie said, and her partner nodded. Nicer than her place over in Dearborn, that was certain. And Lanos lived all the way out in Windsor, across the river, in one of the all-elven enclaves. “Which apartment?” she asked, reminding herself they were here to do a job.

“4D,” he answered as they took the stairs two at a time. The information was hovering in a corner of her helmet visor, of course, but she hadn’t felt like clicking on it. Since her partner had his projected directly into his corneal implants, she knew he’d already have the info on hand, and it was just easier to ask him for it. One of the other reasons they worked so well together—they both put up with each other’s idiosyncrasies.

 A small, mousy woman was waiting for them, and pushed open the front door as they reached it. She’d obviously spotted the Ares logo on the ambulance, and the IDs projected from their uniforms’ breast pockets, so she knew they were legit.

“I’m the one who called,” she explained, stepping to one side so Lanos and then Allie could ease into the entrance hall. “Skulldrinker is my next-door neighbor.”

She wore an AR visor set into old-fashioned glasses that curved up at the ends and did nothing to make her plain features more interesting, and she pushed them up her nose as she trailed Allie and Lanos past the handsome brass bars of a small elevator—Lanos didn’t even ask, knowing how much Allie hated enclosed spaces—toward the broad central staircase. “He’s not a bad man, he’s actually very nice most of the time, but sometimes he gets a little out of control. Today’s been a bad day. I heard shouting, and the sound of things breaking, and then more shouting and cursing, and more breaking, and—”

“—and you’re afraid he’s gonna hurt himself, or someone else,” Allie finished for her. The woman nodded. “Is he on anything?”

The neighbor looked away, but finally nodded again. “I think so,” she managed in a near-whisper. “I’m sorry.”

Allie exchanged a look with her partner. She knew they had to be thinking the same thing: should they or shouldn’t they?

They were paramedics. If Mr. Skulldrinker was suffering the ill effects of some drug, they could help him. If he’d hurt himself, they could help him.

But if he was upset about something and having an old-fashioned hissy fit, there wasn’t much they could do. And this should be a matter for Knight Errant, the Ares security force that handled all local law enforcement.

After a second, Allie nodded. Lanos sighed, but then shrugged. She knew he’d have her back.

Together they started up the stairs.

“We’re going to see what we can do for him,” Allie called back over her shoulder as they ascended. The woman hadn’t made a move to follow. “But if we’re not back down in ten, you need to call the Knights.” Their uniforms had built-in red buttons for just such a need, of course, but if the worst happened and neither of them were conscious to hit the link, this was a good back-up. And it gave the woman something to focus on beside her fear.

“Preferably before the angry man upstairs caves in our skulls and, well, lives up to his name,” Lanos muttered. Allie shot him a glare, but didn’t bother elbowing him. She was going to need all her energy to get up all these stairs.

“Okay, here we go,” Allie said. They stood outside apartment 4D, listening. From inside came the sound of someone clomping about, muffled curses, and noises that sounded like furniture being shoved aside. So clearly Mr. Skulldrinker was still conscious, and still in a crappy mood.

Swell.

Lanos was still gasping for breath—she’d have to tease him about that later—and Allie felt fine, so she took the lead. “Mr. Skulldrinker?” she called out, loud enough that he’d be able to hear her through the thick safety door. Too bad their med sensors couldn’t pierce the reinforced wood and metal to just show them where he was! “My name is Allie, I’m a paramedic, I work for the city. Are you in need of medical attention?”

No answer.

She tried again. “Mr. Skulldrinker, we received a call that you might need help. Is that true? Do you need help?”

Still nothing.

“We’re going to come in and just make sure you’re okay, all right?” she said, pointing at the doorknob. Lanos nodded and grasped it firmly, his long fingers wrapping around the metal knob. He muttered several words Allie couldn’t make out, but that sent a chill down her spine and a thrill up from her toes nonetheless, and with a sharp click the door unlocked. Lanos pushed it open, and slid inside, with Allie right behind him.

She could see right away that Mr. Skulldrinker had been busy. Everywhere she looked, furniture was in disarray, pictures were knocked off the wall, throw pillows and all sorts of other décor had been scattered about—it looked like a small hurricane had ripped through here.

A second later, that hurricane leaped out, snorting and snarling like a maddened boar.

Which wasn’t an inaccurate comparison, Allie found herself thinking with the part of her brain that wasn’t frozen in fear, watching as a large, powerful figure came stomping toward them from a back room. Skulldrinker was built like a typical ork, complete with heavy brow, jutting tusks, thick tufts of hair, and pointed ears. Unlike many of his brethren, he wasn’t sporting any obvious tattoos or piercings, and he wore a nice suit instead of leathers—or rags—but his big hands were still wadded into fists, and his muscles still bulged beneath his clothes.

He didn’t look very happy to see them.

He also doesn’t look entirely lucid, Allie thought, studying the sweat beading his brow and the glassy look in his eyes, her visor automatically cataloging and recording the data. His neighbor had been right—he was definitely on something.

Unfortunately, that only meant he’d be even harder to reason with.

<Knights?> Lanos texted, and Allie nodded. Mr. Skulldrinker didn’t appear to be injured, so the security forces could handle this.

But he clearly had other ideas. He swung a heavy arm in a wide, fast arc, and his fist crashed into Lanos, sending him reeling backward. Then the ork turned toward Allie.

“Don’t,” she warned, her own hands rising defensively toward her face. “We’re just trying to help—”

The ork either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. His fist lashed out again, this time straight in front of him, leaping the gap between him and Allie like a missile. The blow caught her full in the chest, and now she was the one falling, arms flailing as she tried to right herself in time—

—and then, suddenly, she wasn’t.

There was what felt like a rush of wind, brisk and invigorating. Somehow Allie found herself back on her feet, centered and stable, and within arm’s reach of the crazed ork. He took another swing at her, but this time she blocked the blow, his massive arm unbelievably sliding off her much slighter limb, the force of the impact jarring her but not enough to make her shift her stance in the slightest.

Then she retaliated, her own hand balling into a fist that rocketed forward to connect with the ork’s sloping brow like a sledgehammer.

One punch. One punch was all it took. One punch that knocked Skulldrinker right off his feet, his head snapping back from the force of the blow, dismissing his consciousness so that when he dropped back to the ground it was to collapse in a heap before them, body limp, eyes shut.

She had knocked him out.

Allie paused to let that sink in. She had knocked him out. She, Allie Fiddich, had just knocked out an ork. With one punch. And her hand didn’t even hurt, which it definitely should—hell, it should be a mess, considering how tough orks were compared to humans, but nothing felt broken or even bruised. Her hand looked and felt…fine.

Huh.

“You okay?” she asked Lanos, who had just righted himself.

“Fine,” he answered. “Even better if no one ever hears about what happened to me.” He eyed Allie carefully. “You?”

“Five by five,” Allie answered, an old saying she’d read in one of her books. “Let’s get him restrained and call it in.” She hit the downed ork with a hypo-spray, just to be on the safe side, then tugged a pair of zipties from one of her vest pockets. Once they’d trussed him up, the two of them struggled to get the unconscious ork back downstairs and to their ambulance.

“So what was that?” Lanos asked as they cleared the first landing. “Was I still dizzy, or did you really put him down with one punch?” He eyed her hands, clearly expecting the one she’d used to be pulped or at least torn up.

Allie shrugged and shifted her grip so her hand wasn’t as visible. “Just got lucky, I guess.”

But deep down, she didn’t entirely believe that.

The sky calls. Open and endless, sweeping and grand, it begs to be explored, to be traveled. To be dominated.

Still, the chains bind. Still, they restrain.

But the clanking is different now, the tone sharper, more urgent. The scrape of metal against metal fiercer, more aggressive.

And almost hidden among that noise is the sharp whine of metal being twisted, pulled out of shape.

It is the sound of chains beginning to break.

“Looks like you’ve got an admirer,” Lanos told her over lunch the next day. He must have read the utter confusion in Allie’s ice-blue stare, because he laughed and waved his chopsticks toward his left. “Behind me, long hair, pale, sharp suit. Been watching you.” He grinned around his noodles. “Want me to scare him off?”

“No worries,” Allie replied, scooping up another big bite of spicy chicken and using the motion to cover her search for the man. “I’ve got this.” Her helmet sat beside her, which meant she couldn’t use its visual enhancement to get a better look, so hopefully the guy in question was close enough she wouldn’t need it.

There. He matched Lanos’s description, such as it was—tall, slender, long hair as white as her own, good suit. There was something familiar about him, though she was sure she’d never seen him in her life. And he was definitely watching her. Allie took another quick bite before setting the remains of her lunch aside and hopping to her feet. She took off at a fast walk straight at the guy, determined to get some answers.

But he saw her coming a kilometer away. She was close enough to see his thin lips curve into just the hint of a smile before he stepped back and allowed the noon crowd to swallow him up. Allie cursed under her breath. She didn’t know why or how, but she was sure this was connected to what’d happened the other night.

Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she’d be getting any answers any time soon.

“Coming, Allie?”

She glanced up from stowing her gear in her locker. “Hm?”

Tina, one of the other paramedics, grinned from under her mass of glowing red curls. “It’s my birthday, remember? We’re all going parasailing?”

“Oh. Right.” To be honest, Allie hadn’t planned to go. Not that she didn’t like Tina, but she wasn’t much of the party type. Nor did she go in for thrill-seeking. Especially if it involved heights.

“Ah, you know she won’t,” Tina’s partner Grittan said with a deep chuckle that sent the braids of his beard dancing across his broad chest. “Not Ice Queen Allie.”

Lanos materialized behind the dwarf and glowered down at him. “Watch it.”

“What?” Grittan threw up his hands, his smile wicked beneath his beard. “I’m just saying. She never deigns to mingle with us lesser mortals. Do you, Allie?”

The challenge was obvious—no one had ever accused Grittan of being subtle—and normally Allie would just roll her eyes and ignore it. But tonight she found herself grabbing her jacket out of the locker before slamming it shut and rising to her feet. “You know what?” she declared, tugging the light jacket on as she stepped closer to the others. “I’m in.”

“Really?” Lanos looked surprised, as did Grittan. That, and the fact that Tina was practically squealing with delight, made the decision worth it.

At least Allie hoped so.

“Oh my gods, what am I doing?” Allie wailed. “Why can’t we just do something nice and safe, like sim-jump into active volcanoes? I’m going to die!”

“You’re fine,” Lanos assured her for the tenth time. “Just relax.” A smile tugged at his lips. “You might even enjoy this.”

She just glared at him as he ignored her complaints and entreaties and checked the straps and buckles of her harness. “Good to go,” he said at last, stepping back and giving the boat captain a thumbs-up.

Allie shrieked one final time as the boat revved its engine and shot forward—and she rose up from the water, the parasail filling with air and lofting her into the night sky.

For a second, she was terrified, looking down at the Detroit River and the city to either side of it. Her hands clutched the straps so tight her fingers were bone-white, and her legs swung frantically, desperate for anything solid to kick against.

But then the breeze tickled her cheek, the smell of the water and the crisp upper air inflated her lungs, and she breathed deep, her thrashing slowing, her cries fading away.

It was so beautiful up here! Why had she never thought to try this before?

The boat raced along, carrying her behind it, and she just floated, head tilted back, letting her pale braid flap behind her like a kite’s tail. For the first time she could remember, Allie felt totally at peace.

And then something else rose up within her, like a sea beast slowly cresting the surface.

She was hungry.

But not for food. No, this was the same burning need she felt when she was behind the wheel. The hunger for speed.

She wanted more. Faster. She wanted to race through the night, the wind whipping past her, cutting through the air like an arrow, swift and silent and deadly.

She tugged on the straps connecting her to the boat, but the captain either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because he didn’t speed up. The leisurely excursion continued, with Allie chafing to cut loose and really soar.

Eventually it ended, the boat powering down, and she drifted gently lower, until she was floating on the water, the parasail draped behind her like an enormous silken cape. Lanos was waiting, along with Tina and Grittan and a few of the others who had already gone.

“What’d you think?” her partner asked as he waded over to Allie and helped her unbuckle. “Great, right?”

“Yeah, it was great,” she agreed, and if her tone was less than ebullient her smile convinced him she was telling the truth. Nor was she lying, really. It had been great being up in the air, far more so than she would have believed.

But deep down, Allie knew she’d never do this again. Not because she hadn’t liked it, but because she’d liked it too much, and because it hadn’t been enough. Floating along like that had been a taunt, teasing her with what she really wanted, but then denying it to her.

She wasn’t sure she could bear to go through that again.

The sky wraps around, but not stifling, not enveloping. 

Cradling, but open enough to allow full freedom of movement, inviting but not restricting.

The chains still bind, but their creaking is louder now, more strident,

the links struggling against the forces pushing them outward, striving to break free.

Already there is some give to them. Soon there will be more.

Soon they will snap, and fall away, and there will be no more obstacles, no more tethers.

Only freedom.

“What’ve we got?” Allie asked as she pulled the ambulance over between two patrol cars. The Knight Errant officers had waved the ambulance through the cordon, dropping the electric warning fence they’d erected and then quickly reestablishing it, so as Allie parked and got out, all she saw around them were people in full tactical gear.

“Domestic violence,” Lanos answered. That was how they always worked, he took the calls while she drove, then filled her in when they got there. The last thing he wanted, he often said, was to distract her from her driving. “Husband, wife, two kids.”

“Injuries?” This was directed as much to the sergeant approaching them as to Lanos.

“We don’t know yet,” the security expert admitted as he reached them, looking no-nonsense in his smart black uniform. “The husband just got laid off, he and the wife got into it, he got physical, the neighbor called it in. He’s tough, was one of us till he got let go for drinking, so we weren’t taking any chances. Sent in a neuro-stun via drone, place’s been quiet since, figure he’s down and out.”

“Right, so we’re on search and rescue.” Allie tapped Lanos on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

They headed past the Knights and inside. They’d done this sort of thing before, of course. The wife and children would’ve been knocked out as well, and who knew if he’d hurt them before that, so Allie and Lanos would go in, locate the wife and kids, assess their condition, escort them out if possible, and call for backup if not. Meanwhile the Knights would keep watch outside—once everyone else was clear they’d go in and cuff the guy, but they didn’t want to risk setting him off and endangering everyone else further.

An HRT Knight, fully decked out in tac-armor and an Ares Alpha with underbarrel grenade launcher, showed them to the apartment door, which had already been breached. Gas was still drifting out from under the partially-open door, but the room behind was only mildly hazy, which meant most of the stun gas had already dissipated. Even so, Allie pulled out her gas mask and slid it on, hooking it onto her helmet, and Lanos did the same beside her. Better safe than sorry.

Then they went in.

Even through her visor, Allie could see that everything had a seedy, rundown look to it. Most of it was neat, though. Nothing out of place, not like that ork’s the other day. Clearly this family believed in keeping up appearances.

But where were they?

“Over here!” Lanos called, and Allie turned. He’d split off, checking a room to the side, and Allie quickly caught up with him. Three figures were curled up in the far corner behind a set of bunk beds: one adult, the other two smaller. The wife and kids. Allie sighed in relief before hurrying over to help check on them.

“Vitals are strong,” she reported a minute later, reading the scan off her visor. “Unconscious, but they’ll be fine. Where is he?” They couldn’t risk waking and moving the family until they knew they had a clear exit path.

“Got to be around here somewhere,” Lanos answered. There wasn’t anyone else in this room, so they stepped back out into the main area. A kitchen lay beyond that, and there were two other doors as well. One had to be a bathroom, which would make the other the master bedroom.

They could see the whole kitchen and it was empty, so the husband had to be behind one of those two doors. Their helmets had IR capability, but gas confused the sensors, so they were stuck with operating on pure visual for now.

Allie reached the first door, quietly twisted the knob, and pushed it open. A large bed greeted her. Master bedroom. But she didn’t see anyone. She cautiously stuck her head in and looked around, but still no sign of the husband.

She was just turning to let Lanos know the room was clear when she caught motion past him. It was the bathroom door, silently swinging open. The space beyond it was dark, and completely clear of gas—but far from empty.

“Look out!” she shouted, but the gas mask muffled her words. Her partner’s sharp elf ears heard her anyway, and he started to turn, but didn’t get more than halfway around before a short, stocky figure reared up and smashed Lanos across the head with something heavy. Allie heard the crack of metal on plasteel, and her partner dropped to the ground.

“No!” she shouted. The husband—a dwarf, by his height and build and heavy beard—turned to her, grinning savagely as he raised the mace and stepped forward. Allie tried to back away, but only got a few feet before she bumped up against the living room couch. The husband stalked closer, mace ready to swing.

He was only a few feet away now, and she could clearly see his wild eyes and flared nostrils, the heaving chest and the mumbling, grunting mouth. There was definitely something wrong with him.

Allie couldn’t breathe. She ripped off her helmet, gas mask and all, locking eyes with the dwarf as he lifted his mace. He hefted it, clearly about to strike her down as well—

—and somewhere in her head Allie heard a clear, crisp sound, almost like the tone of a bell.

Or the sound of something metal finally snapping and falling away.

“You will not hurt me,” she declared in a loud, ringing voice, tossing her braid over her shoulder. She glared down at the dwarf, and suddenly it seemed as if he had shrunk or she had grown because the height difference between them increased so that she had to tilt her head forward in order to make him out. His own face had paled, his mouth falling open, eyes widening as he gazed up at her, and his hand shook around the mace.

“No…” he whispered, the first word Allie had heard him say. “Please, no.” For a second, she thought he might drop the weapon, but instead she saw his eyes narrow and his lips pull back in a sneer as he gripped the mace even more tightly. With a roar he leaped toward her, mace poised to strike.

But the blow never landed, as Allie opened her mouth to scream her defiance, daring him to do his worst—

—and electricity shot forth, arcing into the dwarf and freezing him in place, his whole body convulsing. The mace fell to the floor, but the crackling energy continued for a few seconds before finally fading away, leaving the dwarf unconscious and twitching on the floor, Lanos there beside him.

Allie felt her feet sink back down onto the threadbare carpet, a wave of exhaustion suddenly hitting her, and she staggered, resting a hand on the couch back for support.

What in the nine hells just happened?

Afterward, she just stood and stared. Lanos was finishing up handing the wife and children off to nurses, but Allie couldn’t even remembering driving them back to the hospital. She must have, though, because the ambulance was in its usual spot and she was standing outside it.

“You okay?” her partner asked her once the family had been taken care of. He winced and rubbed his head. “I’m going to get checked out—you should too.” He’d been lucky—the sound Allie had heard had been his helmet shattering, not his skull, and it had dispersed the force of the blow enough to render it nonlethal, but he probably still had a concussion, if not worse.

“I’m fine,” Allie pulled herself together enough to reply. “You go on. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, okay.” He started for the hospital doors but paused. “Hey, Allie?” he asked, and she nodded. “Good work today. If you hadn’t hit him with that taser... Thanks.” This was as serious as she’d ever seen him, and Allie knew better than to blow off such a sincere statement.

Instead she just said, “Of course. You know I’ve got your back.” She watched as Lanos headed back inside.

Then she turned and took off in the other direction.

Allie didn’t get very far, however. A few minutes later she was in the hospital garden, a little place out back that provided a few bushes, a few flowers, a few benches, and some grass and trees for anyone needing to escape the hospital’s sterile environment. She sank down onto one of the benches and tried to marshal her thoughts.

What was going on with her? What had happened with that dwarf? Yes, their gloves had built-in tasers, but she hadn’t activated hers. And what about that ork, for that matter? None of it made sense, but something deep within told Allie that that might not mean it was wrong. Making sense didn’t seem to have much of a relationship with the truth at the moment.

Footsteps suddenly rang out nearby, making her glance up.

It was the man she’d seen the other day, the tall one with the pale hair and the fancy clothes. “You appear to be having some difficulty,” he said as he slid onto the bench beside her, leaving a small buffer space between them. “I can help, if I may.”

Allie glared at him. “Who are you? What do you want? Have you been following me?”

But he waved the questions aside. “The past is not important,” he claimed. “It’s what we do with tomorrow that matters.”

“Nice way to avoid the question,” Allie shot back, earning a flush against almost-milk-pale skin.

“Very well.” The stranger executed an odd, seemingly formal bow. “I have been following you, yes. To make sure you are safe. That is all.”

“Safe? Safe how?” She shuddered at the memory of recent events. “I nearly got flattened by an ork a few days ago. Then today I almost got taken down by a dwarf. You call that safe?”

“Neither of them could have hurt you,” he assured her, sounding as if he genuinely believed that, “and that is not the sort of safety that concerns me.” Eyes as ice-blue as her own stabbed at her; not meanly, just with laser intensity. “Tell me, what do you remember?” Allie started telling him about the ork and the dwarf, but he held up a long, slender hand. “No,” he said softly. “What do you remember?”

“I—I’ve been having these dreams,” she replied finally, not even sure why she was telling him this. “About the sky—and flying, I think. And about chains.” He nodded, and she went on, “and the chains—they were breaking.”

That earned a sigh from him. “Yes,” he agreed, pushing back his long white hair; a hue that, like her own, belied youthful  features. “You are starting to break free. To remember what—and who—you truly are.” He did not seem entirely happy about this. “It is too soon, however,” he declared softly, his gaze fierce and sad all at once. “You must go back.”

“Go back? Go back where?” Allie felt a shiver of fear run through her. “Who did this to me? And what did they do to me, exactly?”

Now he smiled, and it was so sad she felt her own eyes well up in response. “Who did this?” he repeated. “You did.”

“What?” But something inside Allie told her this was true.

“You knew they were not ready yet,” the man continued. “Your presence would set certain events in motion, and to start that too soon would spell the end of all. So you hid yourself away. But you are beginning to break free, despite yourself.”

She considered that, searching for falsehood in his words, his tone, his gaze, and finding none. “So this . . . release,” she said slowly, watching him closely. “It’s bad?” He nodded. “And I knew that?” Another nod. She almost asked what she was, what she had been, what she was becoming, but some instinct stopped her. If she did ask that, and he answered, she somehow knew that would be irreversible. And if what he said was true, that would be bad for everyone. “All right,” she decided. “Then how do I stop it?”

“Only you can restore the bonds you forged,” he told her. “I can guide you, however. But are you sure?” 

“If it keeps people safe, yes.” She didn’t give herself time to second-guess her choice. “What do we do?”

He frowned a second, then smoothed his face to calm again. “Close your eyes,” he instructed, and she did so, oddly finding herself completely comfortable trusting this man she’d only just met. “Picture the chains in your mind.”

That was easy enough—she could hear them grinding against each other every time she went quiet, could see their massive, rusted links every time she blinked.

“Now pour your strength into them,” he told her, his voice low and soothing and hypnotic. “Imbue them with your convictions. Will them to grow solid and closed again.”

Allie did as he said. She focused on the chains and wished for them to become strong again, to tighten around her, to grow taut. She put all of her thought into it, all of her heart, and she felt the change take hold, the chains firming and freezing, the links no longer shrieking and bending, the lengths no longer sliding and shifting. Everything settled, like a great weight sinking in on her, pinning her down.

“Good,” he said, and she wondered how he could know she’d succeeded. “You have done well. As I knew you would. You were ever the greatest of us.” She blinked, opening her eyes, but he was gone, the echo of his words fading away on the breeze.

Allie shook her head and rose to her feet. She had a fierce headache, and wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep it off. Why had she been sitting here in the hospital garden, anyway?

She staggered toward home, her limbs leaden, her eyes aching, her mind numb. Somehow she made it back to her apartment and to her couch, which she dropped onto, too exhausted to continue to the bedroom. This would do fine.

Why does my head hurt so much? What have I been doing? Everything was a blur, particularly the last few days, and trying to think about them just sent shards of pain lancing behind her eyes. Easier not to, she decided, and let her eyes droop closed. Perhaps I’ll feel better in the morning…

Sky above. Earth below. Sea beyond.

All quiet and calm. Peaceful.

No motion, no turmoil, all at rest. 

Each to its own place, and all content.

Across the street from Allie’s building, a tall, slender man stood in the shadows, watching with more than just his eyes. At last he nodded, satisfied.

“Sleep well, Mother,” he whispered, his long white hair flowing about him in a wind that stirred nothing else. “I will see you again—some day.” His eyes glittered with more than just their normal icy blue, but no tears fell as he turned away. There was a rustling in the dark, a pale shadow darting up into the sky, and then all was quiet once more.

And back in her room, Allie dreamed of nothing—and did not know to mourn her loss.

MY ENEMY, MI AMICI

(the higher power)

MONICA VALENTINELLI

I used to love shadowrunning. At first, I ran because I didn’t have enough nuyen to pay my medical bills, and Signore Giovanni did. After my doctors cleared me, telling me I wasn’t at risk of contracting VITAS-m anymore, I kept on running because the nuyen was too good, too easy.

I remember rationalizing how I was doing the right thing. I was picky about the jobs my fixer offered me, and managed to avoid selling my soul to the Pagliarelli mob. Instead, I focused on taking gigs that made me feel righteous, and eventually I found a way to undermine Domenica, Incorporated—the same fragging company that almost bankrupted me just for being sick—on behalf of all VITAS-m sufferers in the Italian Federation.

Unfortunately, every shadowrunner knows that sooner or later feelings get in the way of the job, and no matter how much you plan for the worst—your enemies will surprise you when you least expect them to.

“Bella…”

For a couple years, running was all I could think about. Every job Signore Giovanni  offered was another opportunity to escape my good-little-Catholic-girl life. By day, I was Maria Isabella Santini, a wage slave, soypresso addict, and dutiful supporter of Pope Pio XIII. I even wore a disguise to blend in with the faithful: a drab sweater and black ankle-length skirt, boring head scarf that hid my brightly-colored hair, gold cross around my neck, and no makeup, visible augmentations, or perfume.

By night, I was Belladonna and she was her—my—exact opposite. Belladonna had no last name, drank real vino and espresso, and had a string of needy lovers—orks, dwarfs, and elves—lined up to embrace her. She was chaos in a jumpsuit, with shocking pink hair and glittery chandelier earrings, who ran around in metallic knee-high boots with the tattoo of Romulus and Remus, the wolfish founders of ancient Rome, howling on her back.

Eventually, my guilt got the better of me, because I thought about what I had that so many other VITAS-m survivors didn’t—more nuyen than I could ever want. So, I decided to abandon “Belladonna” and revert to my former self. All I needed to do, I convinced myself, was to rip off Domenica, Inc. one last time. Then, after donating the funds from that job to charity, only then I would finally be free.

“Belladonna…”

 Getting a job was easy; getting out was a lot harder than I thought. It almost sounds boring, but that’s exactly what the Prego Job was: a cliché piled on top of a heap of clichés. See, normally Signore Giovanni contacted my fixer, Rico, and I’d pay my people out of the pot—minus Rico’s 20% convenience fee, of course. For my last job, Rico had approached me first. He claimed he’d “found something” and added a bunch of maps, articles, and research to a datafile—and for some stupid reason, I didn’t question him further. 

After decrypting the datafile, I stayed up all night to read it, never once suspecting that someone might be hacking into my PAN or watching my every move. The data contained in that file was so hot my circuits almost fried trying to break through its firewalls and security protocols. Once I got in, however, the payoff was totally worth the trouble, for Domenica, Inc.’s biggest sin to date was revealed: biochemical warfare in a peacetime environment. 

Creating a weaponized virus wasn’t the worst of it, though, oh no. Those bastardos re-engineered a lesser form of VITAS, stuck a cocktail filled with nanites and chemical inhibitors into it, and tested it on the suspecting masses. Its purpose was to manipulate people’s emotions on a cellular level, in order to control their reactions. Imagine, meeting a total stranger that you normally don’t find attractive and falling head over heels in love with her. Or negotiating with middle management and being so afraid to ask for a raise, your boss demotes you and you’re happy about it—even though, deep down, you know you deserve better.

Reading the file, I could think of a hundred thousand possibilities emotional manipulation could go wrong—even beyond the obvious—but when I realized what the virus was, I almost threw my datajack clear across my apartment. 

Domenica, Incorporated called it VITAS-m.

“Belladonna, are you awake?”

After realizing that Domenica, Inc. had not only attempted to bankrupt me, they had also tried to kill me, I wanted revenge, and I didn’t care how much I’d have to pay to get it.

The team I’d assembled for the Prego Job was the best my nuyen could buy. Nikki Sparks was an elven covert ops specialist who stood about six feet tall; she favored a bodysuit made of an imported weave that allowed her to blend in with her surroundings like a chameleon.

Toro Grigio, a dwarvish merc, was short, but what he lacked in height he made up for in ferocity. His signature attack was to charge at his opponents with the titanium, poison-tipped horns attached to his skull. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the strongest brawler or the most agile; his sharp horns could skewer through anything—even body armor.

Then there was Satin Salvatore, our face, who was obsessed with hidden bioware enhancements that protected and enhanced his senses, but didn’t cover or mar his human appearance. Of course, he wasn’t just “a” face, he was my face. Satin and I dated a few months back, but we wound up falling for each other, so he called it off. I remember him telling me I was too good for him, and one day I’d want to get out of the biz and settle down with a good little Catholic boy and have lots of babies.

Oh, Sal didn’t know me that well—marriage was the last thing on my mind—but that never mattered to me. See, the reason why he was called “Satin” is because his voice was so smooth, he could manipulate the Pope into doing whatever he wanted. Satin had a kind of power over me, though, and we both knew it. It was better for both of us that he called it off. Better, because if he ever truly broke my heart, I would kill him. Twice.

“I can’t tell if she can hear us or not.”

Lastly, there was myself. Belladonna. Decker and drone operator fantastico. For this job I selected one drone in particular, a server I named “Hank the Buffalo,” because I’d painted it brown and stuck a Sioux flag on its underbelly. Hank was a disk-shaped drone the size of a plate of agedashi tofu; it was encased in bulletproof plastic, loaded with sensors, and had a deadly fail-safe. If anyone tried examine Hank or hack into his datafiles, he’d self-destruct, ensuring he would never be traced back to me.

I built Hank to open the door using a trick in a book of cons so old they used to make black-and-white reels about it: I programmed my drone to deliver fresh soyroni pizza. Once inside, Hank would deliver the pizza—which was fake—in order to send me crucial sensory data that Rico’s intel couldn’t provide.

“Maybe we should turn her on her side. That seemed to work for the others.”

Our mission—my vendetta—was to wipe out Domenica, Inc.’s databanks and steal the last remaining vials of VITAS-m so they could never repeat their “grand experiment,” so the citizens of the Italian Federation would be safe. Sure, I could frame the corporation and snatch the proof I needed for the authorities, but after everything I’d been through, I was done playing the long game. I was so angry I wanted to smash their data servers or set the building on fire or kill their CEO, Mateo Forza, with my bare hands. My mind was so filled with rage, I didn’t care about the risks, and that…that’s where I think I went wrong. See, the secret to running well is to think about your team—and their safety was the last thing on my mind.

The night of the raid, we met at a tavern just south of Rome, several kilometers away from our target’s hidden base. It was located in the heart of St. Peter’s Square: below the Sistine Chapel.

I remember how triste the rest of my team was when they found out where we’d be running. It was one thing to be paranoid about a megacorporation, but that night we learned the conclave was still scrambling to name Pio XIII’s successor…that news almost broke Satin. He was of the mind that religion was still a balm for the broken and the weary, and that Vatican City was the salve that soothed our country’s soul. “Those godless Confederates. Pagans and ork-lovers. What do they have that we don’t? Real espresso?” he shouted at the news reporters illuminated on the holo-vids nestled tight against the wall. “Or those fragging UFACS and their tribes? What are they to us?”

“UCAS,” I gently corrected him. I knew he was angry, but I couldn’t help wincing at his imperialist attitude. Orks and dwarfs and elves and magic and foreign gods were not to blame for our country’s ills. Instead of confronting him, I ordered him another birra, and prayed for the best. Satin usually calmed down when he was slightly tipsy, and I needed him to live up to his name. “It’s UCAS, and they’re not as good as us,” I lied. “They can’t be, because we have something they don’t.”

“What’s that, cara mia? Another dead pope? Pio XIII was dead five years ago, you know. The conclave could never make up their damn minds.”

“No, me.” I laughed.

That was when I knew this job meant something to Satin, too. It wasn’t like him to get a single detail wrong, let alone two of them. In his mind everyone and everything had a proper name—human, ork, elf, dwarf, dragon, corporation, country, or otherwise. He should have remembered UFACS was really UCAS, and Pope Pio XIII died just a week ago. The conclave was taking their sweet time to name a new pope, but they’d only been talking about it for seven days, not five years.

Nikki was harder to figure out, partly because she hid her face and ears beneath an oversized hood. She never did feel welcome in Rome, she’d confessed to me earlier, but she took this job for the nuyen anyway. I did agree to pay her extra for the emotional trauma of being called names like “dandelion eater,” “pixie,” and “bony hoop.” It was a shame her bodysuit wouldn’t help her to blend in with the rest of us; if she could, I think she’d up and disappear.

I wish Nikki was just being paranoid, but she had a right to be concerned. The locals, or “sheep” as she liked to call them, secretly believed in their heart of hearts that humans were God’s chosen creatures, and there was no Fall. Not really. In their minds, the Fall was an elaborate hoax designed by the government using that newfangled holotech and hallucinogenic drugs, like Sparklepush and Dreadrunner, that all the clubbers snorted these days.

Funny. How many of those same sheep had the wool pulled over their eyes by the very same corporation that employed them?

Even funnier, I used to work as a terminal operator for Domenica, Inc. Now that I think about it, being their wage slave was probably how I’d gotten sick all those months ago.

“I’m still not feeling a pulse. Ideas?”

Toro Grigio didn’t keep many secrets—which was odd for a merc specializing in wetwork. Of all the runners in my group, I knew I had to keep a closer eye on him because he liked to brag about every little thing. He loved stabbing the Man, repeatedly and with vigor, which is why I hired him right after I found out Domenica, Inc. was a subsidiary of the EVO Corporation. The bigger the target, the more excited he got.

Toro stood out, too, even more than I did, and not just because he dressed like his bullish namesake. To a handful of fans, Toro Grigio was a famous French-Italian DJ who loved tourists and a head-spinning musical genre called “Sixth Fall Grunge Age.” While the other dwarven mercs stuck to back alleys and slums, Toro lived out in the open, as large as he possibly could, broadcasting his every move on the Matrix for his cult of fans.

Thankfully, Toro wasn’t that stupid, just vain. When it came to running, he knew when to keep his mouth shut and when to stop recording. I did worry about his reputation, though, because he was a true merc, and rumored to be loyal only to himself.

I’m not sure he was the one who betrayed me, though. I’m not sure any of my team was responsible for what happened, honestly. I wish I was, so I’d know who to kill.

“We could try to jump start her heart, but that might kill her. The equipment in this infirmary sucks.”

According to the information Rico provided, Domenica, Inc. had built an underground laboratory beneath the Sistine Chapel into the catacombs that most Italians—myself included—thought had collapsed shortly after the Fall. Much to my surprise, while many of the labyrinthine tunnels were inaccessible to the public, other passageways—hidden since the time of Christ—had opened beneath the streets of Rome, exposing finger-shaped fungi and toxic yellow molds, poisonous spiders long thought to be extinct, and glowing, pulsing walls filled with egg-shaped orbs.

I remember messaging Rico about the orbs, because he didn’t paint them as a potential target. He said they were rumored to be the children of Thyrus, a legendary medieval dragon from Umbria, herself.

<Merde>, I typed back. <I don’t run for urban legends.>

<Ignore them if you want. By the inferno, they’re probably magical artifacts too powerful for ordinary runners to handle. Wasting time on them would get in the way of your real mission.>

<Any other tips you have to share?> My patience preparing for the Prego Job had grown very thin at that point, and Rico had been acting strange. Did he set me up? Did my fixer commit the one unforgivable sin he could never pay penance for?

<In fact,> Rico had messaged me, <you probably don’t want to use magic at all. The secrets begging to be exposed in the catacombs will be too tempting for technomancers and mages to ignore. Not even a Salish-Shidhe shaman, fresh from Seattle, would have the fortitude to withstand the lure of that magic deep underground. You’d best put together a team that can pull off this heist without it.>

I don’t know whether Rico was lying to me or not, but my team never made it to those catacombs—or that glowing wall to find out if the orbs were real. We avoided the catacombs altogether by sneaking into Domenica, Inc.’s secret facility the old-fashioned way: through an above-ground sewer grate, thanks to clever scans Hank provided. Then, we crawled through the muck until we reached a locked maintenance door and a chute.

Was Rico on the take from Domenica? That would explain why he’d guided me to set my team up the way I did—and why he gave me that bullshit information about “magical orbs” or “dragon eggs” to scare me off. If I had hired a technomancer—even a green one…. Well, I’m sure the job would’ve gone down very differently than it did.

“Her hair still smells like drek. I wish we could wash it, but I’m afraid to move her.”

While Toro made quick work of the door, Satin Sal encouraged us to clean ourselves as best we could, and Nikki planned our next steps. She and Hank would go on ahead, crawling through the vents, looking for intel to feed back to the rest of the team over our comms. Once they had designated the safest route to our target, Satin Sal would clear a path by distracting the guards so I could run in, smash the vials, and run to the nearest exit.

Toro, on the other hand, was supposed to watch my back and, when the others were at a safe distance, set a series of undetectable timed explosives—short-range EMPs and thermite strips, mostly—at three-foot intervals on his way out.

I remember asking him what kind of grenades he brought along with him. Toro seemed so friendly, so concerned that I knew every pin and timer, he pulled out a trio of small, geometrically-shaped containers and handed them to me. Did he know what was going to happen? Was he trying to warn me?

“Those don’t look like grenades,” I’d told him. “They look like a datastick case for musicians. I think I saw Franzetta selling them at her last concert.”

“Uh, they’re not supposed to. These babies are the reason I’ve lived so long, ’cause they’re undetectable by sensors, and everybody thinks they’re harmless. Something a DJ like myself would carry, right?”

“So you built the grenade inside of your DJ equipment. That’s clever. Which one is which?”

“The blue one, that’s a smoke bomb, and the yellow one’s a concussive soundcrusher, and this white one right here is a mag-frag,” Toro said, opening his palm. “When you pull this pin, you got five seconds, capiche? When the five are up, lay as flat on the ground as you can. Don’t run from the mag-frag. If you do, you’ll die.”

“What does it do?” I was genuinely confused. Normally, grenades were the type of weapon I’d throw at a goon right before I bolted out of the room.

“It’ll hurt. Real bad. It’s a plastic concussive grenade that shoots out bits of motion-sensing magnetic nanites. It’s um, designed to take out bioware and fry ’em on your body like an EMP would. Only the mag-frag is a hell of a lot cheaper, messier, and far less accurate.”

“Hence the motion sensors.”

“Um…yup.” Toro seemed uncomfortable, but now I think he had a crush on me. Either that, or he wanted to make sure I lived long enough so he’d get paid.

“Thanks for the tip.”

“No problemo.”

Toro was right about one thing. Grenades did hurt like hell, and it didn’t matter who threw them.

“We’re running out of time. The boss’ll be here soon, and she still hasn’t woken up.”

“Pupils are dilated. BP is one-ten over seventy.”

“What does that tell me?”

“That she’s still alive. Her back’s pretty messed up, though. Not sure how bad.”

The Prego Job had seemed simple enough, because our plan didn’t involve any magic or tech. It was supposed to be a simple smash-and-grab, the kind of thing dumb-witted Pagliarelli mobsters did for their initiation year after year after year. Our job was to be better than those mooks; to ensure we weren’t stupid enough to get caught, and to make Mr. Johnson happy so he paid us, just like he promised. That was why, Satin Sal suggested, we had to ditch our comms—to prevent the local polizia or security teams from hacking into our channel. No comms, no problem. 

Of course, I didn’t listen to Satin Sal. We brought our comms, but they were malfunctioning. At random moments, the feed would cut out, and we would hear nothing but hissing static. I remember Toro saying we’d been cursed by the malocchio, and that we should abort. I told him he was being silly, that the comms would work when we needed them to.

By the time we got into the facility, however, I felt a slight chill running up and down my spine and wondered if Toro was right. Maybe we were cursed. I swallowed my fear, ignored my instincts, and did my part mechanically and beautifully. I didn’t stop for a second, so I never wondered why the security system had already been disabled, why Nikki’s suit wasn’t working, or the real reason why Satin Sal—my so-called friend and former lover—was so insistent on not bringing comms to begin with.

Did they all betray me? Is that why Nikki left us the first chance she got? Or did Rico set me up by trying to hack into Hank’s mainframe, triggering his self-destruct?

“If she’s still alive, then maybe we should kill her now.”

“No! The boss wants her breathing. Said it was important. Something about giving her a choice.”

I remember how pissed I was when I found out no one had been in that building for at least a decade or more. It was a detail Hank would never have been able to figure out on his own; he wasn’t programmed for anything beyond the basics. It was, however, something my fixer would have known, and something the rest of the team would have noticed, too, after a few minutes wandering around in the dark, cobweb-covered halls and abandoned labs.

The other runners didn’t tell me we’d been had. They didn’t need to tell me, because I figured I was being set up before they did. And, if one of them had trapped me, I didn’t want them to know I’d caught on to their bullshit.

I remember the smell of mold and mildew and dust. I remember how my cheeks burned, how I wanted to scream into my broken comms, how I wanted to use those grenades Toro had given me—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because just as I was about to fight my way out, I saw the reason I’d been lured underground: a case of vials marked Biohazard.

VITAS-m was real after all.

“Well, we can either sit her up or leave her be. I say we leave her for the boss. He’ll want to be here when she wakes up.”

I didn’t waste any time. I seized one of the vials, stuffed it in my pocket, and then grabbed a grenade—I didn’t care which one—and pulled the pin. I counted to five and sprinted toward the exit, hoping Toro Grigio was right behind me, praying I didn’t trigger the mag-frag.

Just as I put my hand on the door, I remembered a blinding flash and a bang so loud it dropped me to my knees. Then, I heard a terrible noise—a high-pitched whine—and felt tiny knives scraping across my back. I remember staring at my freedom, crawling toward that open door inch by inch with the smell of burning flesh in my nose and the taste of coppery blood in my mouth, and Toro shouting “Sono morto! We’re dead!” at the top of his dwarven lungs—right before I fell unconscious.

“Signore Forzo, I believe you wanted to inspect this woman yourself. We took good care—”

“I take it she is still alive.”

I knew that voice as intimately as I knew all my lovers’.

It was Satin Sal.

“Yes, Signore Forzo, but I’m confused. She never figured out you were the CEO of Domenica, Inc.?”

Bastardo! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could he have betrayed me? Wait… Did he figure out I was ripping him off? Had he known for months, only to sleep with me, to betray me, to set me up for the ultimate revenge—to bring me back into the arms of Domenica, Incorporated?

“I do not owe either of you any answers. That’ll be all for now. You may go. I can handle her.”

I remember the beads of sweat on my forehead. I remember how he smelled when Satin Sal/Mateo Forza leaned over me—a mixture of pine-scented soap and spicy amber cologne. I remember counting slowly one…two…three… concentrating on my heartbeat, to keep it from pounding or from breaking.

My mind raced as a tangled jumble of thoughts, one after the other, flooded my barely conscious mind.

My ex-lover had betrayed me.

My runner—the face I had hired—was actually the head of the corporation I’d sworn to take down.

Worse, the rest of my team had either left me for dead, or they’d been killed by a friendly face.

Stuck in that infirmary, I had no backup, no way out. For all I knew, Sal’s goons had already searched me and snatched my grenades and the vial. I hoped they were as dumb as I thought they were, and Mateo just as arrogant.

“Do you remember the time we went to Vienna, darling?”

My head pounded, my back felt like it was on fire, and my ears were still ringing—but I pulled myself up as best I could. Testing my voice, I squeaked: “How could I forget, Sal? It was magical.”

“Magical, yes…” Sal scratched his chin. “You never did like magic, even when we were in bed.”

“I never needed to,” I confessed. I had managed to pull of dozens of jobs without relying on magic; it was something I was proud of, and he knew it, too. “Of course, I thought I was sleeping with a friend, not my enemy.”

“Am I your enemy…Maria?”

I didn’t take the bait. Instead, I asked him point blank: “Did you kill the rest of my team?” I already knew the answer to my question, but I wanted him to admit his guilt. I needed him to.

“Yes. Or at least, my bodyguards did.”

I sucked in my breath. For a moment, I forgot my body was broken. I wanted to lunge at Sal, to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze the truth out of him—but I didn’t dare. If I moved, I worried I would fall off the lab table, and he’d shoot me in the back. Instead, I said: “What do you want, Sal?”

“This.” Sal waved the vial I had stolen in front of my face. “Would you like to be the subject of another experiment?”

“Go on.”

“You know, Rico was right. You are gullible. Domenica, Incorporated didn’t engineer VITAS-m. We bought the emotion-manipulating formula from a UCAS stooge, somewhere in Idaho, I think, but it requires VITAS to work. This vial, though, this is VITAS. And, in order for me to know if it’s still good, I need to test it on a live subject. Whaddya say?”

“And if I refuse?”

By the expression on Sal’s face, I suspected he still cared about me. His forehead furrowed, and he looked…concerned. It was almost as if he wanted to test the limits of my resolve against his. Worse, even if I wasn’t in my current state, he could overpower me. I don’t know how much bioware he had installed in that body of his, or even what his enhancements did, but it was a lot more than I had.

I did have one thing going for me though, because even though I didn’t know if the vial contained a live virus or not, I had already survived a lesser strain of VITAS. I understood enough about human biology to know those antibodies were still in my system, so if I did take it and got infected, there was a slim chance I’d survive.

“I’ll drink it,” I said. “On two conditions.”

“Name them.”

“I promise to stop running, and you’ll let me go. If I am infected, you know the virus will spread, even if I’m lying in a hospital bed in quarantine.”

Sal gritted his teeth and tilted his head. He knew Belladonna well enough to know she would lie to him, but he didn’t know Maria Santini at all. The truth was: I couldn’t lie to him. Even if I wanted to put a bullet in his brain or hunt down Rico and kill him, too, I was right back where I started, sick and in desperate need of help.

“So be it. If you’re infected, though, I’ll collect your blood myself.”

My heart sank. If Sal had the vial, did that mean his goons searched for Toro’s grenades, too? I tried not to laugh at my awful luck. I gingerly tested the limits of my movement and, much to my surprise, discovered that, while standing was difficult, it was not impossible—which meant walking wouldn’t be, either.

I stuck my hands in my pockets, and realized the grenades were still there. It was a miracle, and one I would not let go to waste.

“So you’ll really drink it?”

“Yeah,” I said, fingering a pin. I thought about yanking that pin before he had a chance to speak, but if I pulled it now I wouldn’t walk away unscathed. I had to time it just right—and that meant going through with my end of the deal. “I’ll drink it, Sal, Mateo, whoever the frag you are.”

Throwing my head back, I stuck out my hand. Without a word, the CEO of Domenica, Incorporated placed the vial in my palm and folded his arms, waiting.

“Bottoms up.” Slamming the shot, I held the bitter liquid in my mouth, not knowing if it contained one of the deadliest viruses of the Sixth World or not, just long enough to see Sal smirk. Oh, how I wanted to wipe that grin off his face—and take his subdermal enhancements along with it.

“So easy,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t be a challenge. I even gave my guys the night—”

Cocky and arrogant as ever, I thought, tuning out the rest of his little speech. Mentally, I counted to three and spit the liquid into his face. Then, I grabbed the first grenade I could get my hands on—it was the mag-frag, thank the dragons—and pulled the pin. Remembering Toro’s advice, I used every last ounce of strength I had to leap over the lab table, pull it toward me, and use it like a shield.

I heard a loud bang! as the mag-frag grenade exploded, sending a cloud of tiny magnetic balls mixed with plastic fragments into the air, followed shortly afterward by a terrible scream.

“Ahhhhhhhh! Mio Dio! What did you do? It hurts!”

I held my hands over my ears to block Sal out of my mind, and I waited until he fell silent. Carefully, gingerly, I stepped out from behind the cabinet and glanced over at the shredded body of “Satin Sal,” otherwise known as Mateo Forzo, the head of Domenica Incorporated. Whatever tech he had augmented his body with, had been utterly wrecked by the mag-frag, which gave me enough time to walk out of the room—and pull one last pin.

Minutes later, thin rivers of blood mixed with sweat poured off my back as I stumbled toward St. Peter’s Square. I awkwardly weaved through the bodies packed together so tight they couldn’t move their heads other than to look up, up, up at the sky.

As I rushed to the nearest hospital, hoping there was a God, I remember wondering what the faithful were staring at. I remember stopping for one precious moment to glance up as a pillar of white smoke puffed small, billowy clouds into the night air. 

“The Pope is dead,” I whispered gratefully as I collapsed to the ground from exhaustion. “Long live the Pope.”

ONE FOR THE OTHER

(Queen of Blades)

R.J. THOMAS

At first it was barely noticeable, like a light breeze or an errant thought echoing in the mind; nothing to pay attention to, and easy enough to dismiss. But instead of the echo fading away, it began surging and pulsing, like a distant heartbeat.

Rising from an ornate rug, she stopped and sensed. It came from everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. Moments passed, and she felt the power growing. The echoes quickly became a call, words now with form and power. They were different, but she recognized them for what they were.

No...

They were a gentle caress at first, almost inviting, a soft voice urging her to submit. 

No, not again.

She resisted, pushing back with her will. She had earned her release long ago through pain, agony, and torment. She thought she had created a safe place, a hidden place in this small earthen cottage just outside Fez. Apparently, she was wrong.

The voice grew in power; it now demanded her submission.

NO! Not again!

Resentment, humiliation, and pain-filled memories ignited a hot fury within, and she lashed back now. And for a moment, the voice faltered.

Then it hit her, an opposing will struck back. She felt the blow almost shatter her resistance, almost to the very core of her being.

Almost…

Again she resisted, but the assault was unrelenting. She knew her will would eventually crumble. Only one thing could do this, and the realization filled her with dread. But how had she lasted this long? She then realized that something about the voice was flawed.

The name—that was it!

Knowing what was coming, she saw what could only be described as a gateway through the metaplanes open, and unbreakable strands of magical power reach for her. Steeling herself with all the will she could muster, she anchored herself to her home as the mystical energies seized her. The pain was intense as her essence was literally and violently pulled across great distances like a rubber band while mystical energies formed the first binding links.

With the primary link formed, she now saw him. He commanded powerful magics, borrowed from a time long past, but he didn’t recognize the flaw, the imperfection in his energies. Looking at him, she saw the primary link take the form of a chain that would bind her to him forever.

He simply smirked at her and continued speaking, his words an approximation of ancient Arabic.

Magical energies swirled between them and he symbolically reached out with his hand to pull her close just as a slave collar formed at the end of the chain. As she drew closer, the collar began closing around her neck.

Then she struck.

It was a flash of steel and flame…and for the briefest of moments, everything went still. His eyes and mouth both widened, just before his head fell from his body. Magical energies then exploded, violently snapping her back.

 Sometime later, she awoke in her cottage and gently kissed her beloved blade, which had served her well yet again. Alone and safe for the moment, she gathered her strength. Somehow, someone had found a way to forge a similar, yet imperfect, connection to the one she had broken long ago. That information was still out there, waiting for someone else to try again.

Red fury turned to cold determination.

“Never. Again,” she said.

One of the worst mistakes someone can make is letting people know how good they are, because then they come to you for help, usually at the most inopportune time.

“Please Fennec, I am in desperate need. Please, hear me out,” he pleaded over a lounge singer droning on about “—a kiss is just a kiss.”

Taking another sip of cold mint tea to hide my irritation, I checked the chrono projecting in the corner of my Erika smartglasses. With my business concluded at Rune’s Avatar Café, I was about to leave when a black market fence named Farouk finally requested an audience as I rose from my table. Apparently, he had been waiting all day for this moment, much to security’s growing impatience.

Normally I would have let Azim deal with this, but it would have been rude—not to mention unprofessional and costly—to make such a scene in Rune’s establishment. Despite the throwback 1930s decor and AROs that only projected in black in white (something Rune herself described simply as “1930s ambiance”), the Avatar Café was one of the best places to do business in Rabat, if not all of Morocco. Being blacklisted from here was extremely bad for one’s reputation and general health.

But Farouk had done good work for me before, and with his recent bad luck, I felt obligated to at least hear him out.

Still, his timing was bloody awful.

“Farouk, you have no idea how painfully inconvenient this is for me. However, out of respect, you have five minutes. Make it quick.”

After wasting a full minute thanking me, Farouk got to the point. A few months ago, an arms deal with LongJack, the leader of the Afzalat, a prominent mercenary group based here in Rabat, went gone horribly wrong. How wrong? Enough to earn Farouk a fifty-thousand-nuyen bounty on his head. And given that Rune paid Afzalat protection money, it was safe to assume they knew he was here. I did not even have to read his aura to see how desperate he was to meet me here of all places. His odds of making it even a half-kilometer after leaving the café were slim.

“I’ve received information about a weapons shipment that is of sufficient value that if I present it to Afzalat, it should clear up all misunderstandings. But, I need your help in getting a meeting that doesn’t end in my death.”

I looked at my chrono again. I could not help him. Plans were already in motion, and soon I would be gone. But if I turned Farouk down, he would cause a scene. Worse, if I agreed to help him now and then disappeared, he would search for me, which would also jeopardize my plans. And now, many in the café had seen us together. Farouk had no idea that by talking to me here, he had endangered himself even further. And it could cause more problems for me later.

Most of all, I hated breaking my word and had never done so. Damn you Farouk, for putting me in this situation. But was my reputation, my word, really worth it now? Was Farouk’s life worth it?

“Farouk, when would you need my services? When do you plan on securing this shipment?”

The small man smiled, no doubt thinking that he was about to make a deal. “Two weeks from now.”

Sipping my tea, I considered my response. When I decided, I cursed myself for it.

“Contact me when you have the shipment. I will do what I can.”

Farouk practically beamed. “Thank you, Fennec! May Allah grant you many blessings!”

Outside the Café, Farouk’s words echoed in my mind and made me sick. I had no illusions about what I done, and forced myself not to think about it. I tried to reassure myself that Farouk’s problems were his alone. But I had given him my word while fully intending to abandon him.

Sighing, I walked toward my car. Azim was there, with the door already open for me. The ork mercenary looked dapper tonight, sporting a tailored tuxedo that completely hid his machine pistols.

Sliding into the passenger seat of my Saab Gladius, I closed the door and pulled out my commlink as Azim got into the driver’s seat and drove us away. A flurry of messages later, my allies knew the plan’s timetable had been moved forward.

As I sent the last message, another thought crossed my mind. I could easily get word to Afzalat about Farouk’s location and solve that problem. At that moment, I did not know what I hated more about myself: that I’d conceived that idea, or that I was seriously considering enacting it. No, I had betrayed Farouk enough as it was. Fate would decide if he lived or died.

As we traveled, I ran my hand along the Gladius’ dashboard. I would miss it. I thought about everything and everyone I would soon lose. Still, considering what I would gain, it was a small price to pay. I caressed the tear-shaped pendant around my neck, my finger lightly touching the small diamond in the center surrounded by an eight-pointed star. There were still some things I would never abandon.

Reaching into the glove box, I pulled out an electrode rig. Securing it to my head was always interesting, especially with my larger-than-average ears. Most assumed I was an elf, but I was just a human with large ears, like my animal namesake. Plugging them into my commlink, I took a deep breath before dialing in a secure Matrix address. When I hit <Connect>, Azim, the Gladius, and the rest of Rabat faded away.

I opened my eyes to a familiar office. Antiques of Britannia hung on the walls, while a large window directly ahead overlooked the Port of Casablanca in all of its industrial glory. In front of that window was a large desk made from the finest English oak. In a five-thousand-nuyen office chair sat one J. Murdock of Murdock Import-Exports, the biggest information broker in North Africa and Southern Europe. Multiple AR windows orbited him like a planet’s moons.

I sat in my customary seat, back ramrod straight, legs tucked just to the right of the chair with my left ankle over my right, hands folded neatly on my lap like a proper English woman—my Moroccan blood be damned—just as etiquette demanded; just as he demanded. He would acknowledge me when he was ready, and not a moment before. Until then, I waited.

“Your negotiations in Rabat went as planned?” he finally asked, holding an ARO between his fingers.

Despite the virtual environment, I swallowed before answering. “They did, exactly as you specified. Although, I could have brokered a better deal with the Italians if...” I started to say and immediately regretted it. So stupid, I knew better. Did I really want to fail now?

Murdock flicked away the ARO, leaned forward in his chair, steepled his fingers, and looked me in the eyes. Even in the Matrix, that look frightened me. But I dared not look away from him. If I did, he would know.

“My dear, do not force me to have this conversation with you again. Despite your skills and contacts, you cannot possibly fathom the complex depths of my affairs. Your sole concern, nay, your reason for being, is to negotiate on my behalf exactly as I instruct you to. Do not forget your place. Are we clear on this?”

Taking a deep breath I said, “Crystal clear, sir.”

He held my eyes for a few more moments, drawing out the silence simply because he could. In the back of my mind, I knew time was ticking away. “Good. Send me the summary reports of your negotiations. I’ll look over them later,” he finally said, going back to his AROs.

Relieved, I was about to disconnect when he spoke again.

“Before you go, there is one other matter that requires immediate attention.”

Dread coalesced in the pit of my stomach.

Pulling a data file from his desk, he tossed it at me; my commlink automatically downloaded it when I caught it. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to handle. But it’s time sensitive, so you’ll have to leave immediately to make the rendezvous. All the pertinent information is there. I trust you don’t have any scheduling conflicts?”

I felt my heart skip two beats. He knows. Damn him, somehow he’d found out about the plan, and this was his way of re-asserting control. I knew if I didn’t comply, good people would die, as a lesson to me, all because of his ego.

DAMN HIM!!!

“No problem at all. I will attend to this immediately…”

In the complete darkness, the only sound was the gentle lap of waves against the shore. Standing at the water’s edge, she peered out into the darkness. With a new moon and heavy clouds above, there was pure darkness for kilometers—except for the glow of the burning villa behind her, the last remnants of the one who had tried to bind her.

She could still feel it though, somewhere out there. The energies used against her were still present, although faint and fading. But it was enough to follow. Closing her eyes and extending her senses, she concentrated on those faint strands of power.

Moments later, her eyes snapped open. Mystical energies gathered and the wind picked up. With a sudden rush of power, she was away and hunting.

A day later, I raced near-silently through the waves and darkness of the Mediterranean, smelling the salty, dark sea all around me. But there was no spray on my face, only the engine’s hum and vibration as the wind blew past. The effect was soothing, almost hypnotic as I caressed my pendant. Normally I was more focused, but right now, I wanted to feel the wind in my hair and, for a few moments, pretend I was free.

<Fennec, are you sure these’re the right coordinates? Because all I have on my sensors is Jack and drek. Nothing on IR, ultrasound, not even any Matrix signals. If they’re out there, they’ve gone darker than anything has a right to.>

Broadside’s ARO text message invaded my field of vision and snapped me out of my reverie. We’d been at sea for over six hours, almost redlining the English rigger’s Cottonmouth cigarette boat the entire way. Overhead, heavy clouds obscured all natural light from the sky. For this run, I would have preferred Broadside’s custom Aztech Nightrunner and its superior sensors. But to make the meet, which according to the data file was scheduled for midnight tonight, we needed raw speed above all else.

We had less than eleven minutes remaining, and still could not find our rendezvous point.

Damn him again for putting me out here!

<We still have time remaining. Malik could be grandstanding, as usual>

<Or it could be a setup.>

<Not out of the question. So stay sharp, and be ready to run if needed,> I replied, reaching into the Cottonmouth’s cabin to tap Broadside’s rigger cocoon. I heard him grunt in annoyance over the comm, likely at the knock and my obvious order.

Leaning against the Cottonmouth’s rail next to me was Azim, lit cigar held between his cyberhand’s fingers. Having traded his tuxedo for tac-gear, he still sported his Crusader II machine pistols, but had also brought his personal favorites: an AA-16 tactical shotgun and Cougar long blade.

 “Do you think this is an ambush?” I asked him, receiving a nonchalant shrug in reply. I then asked, “Are you all right with this? I know how you feel about the Jann and her captain.”

Azim blew smoke from his nose and winked at me.

Before I could say anything else, Broadside suddenly threw the Cottonmouth into a hard starboard turn while yelling “BRACE, BRACE, BRACE!” over our comm.

Instinct took over as I grabbed the handrails. At the same time, I used my astral sight just as the concealment spell dropped.

Bright spotlights flared to life no more than ten meters away. As my smartglasses’ flare compensators engaged, I finally saw her as the Cottonmouth barely avoided the pirate vessel’s bow.

The running lights were bright within the darkness. She watched the two individuals on the vessel’s rear deck for a few minutes. Soon, she realized they were all heading in the same direction. This was not a coincidence.

Anger flared within. They had no idea she was above them. Gripping her blade, it flared to life with a bright flame. The two looked up at the sudden brightness as she descended; fiery blade slashing the night apart.

“My dear Fennec! I am so very sorry! Please believe me, this was all a great misunderstanding.”

To be a successful negotiator, one must learn to handle a variety of situations and individuals, even repugnant ones like Captain Malik Albahr, master of the pirate vessel Goblin King or Jann Almalik in Arabic. The fat, greasy, smelly, egotistical hobgoblin casually smoothed his silk robes while Azim and I boarded the converted cargo freighter.

I knew Azim wanted to put a shotgun slug into Malik’s face for personal reasons, and after this stunt, I was tempted to let him. But that would have been counterproductive. Not only did Murdock and Malik have a profitable business arrangement, Malik had something I needed. And he knew it.

“And my dear friend Azim, so good to see you again! What? No kind words for an old friend? Oh, that’s right, you can’t anymore,” Malik taunted. Two of his crew, both flanking Malik and carrying AK-97 carbines, brought their weapons to low-ready, ready for a fight.

Azim only smiled and rubbed his chin in response, hiding a severely scarred throat.

“Captain Albahr, we are honored to board your fine vessel,” I said diplomatically. “And I hope that we can come to an agreeable price for the item you informed my employer of. So if it pleases you, perhaps we can now attend to that matter?”

Malik chuckled gleefully as he stroked a small wooden box in his hand. “Not yet. We are waiting for the others. Ah, one of them is arriving now.”

I looked out over Jann’s bow, past the open bay loaded with cargo containers and armed small craft, past the crane arms, past the heavy weapon mounts, and saw a small yacht approach from starboard.

Then it dawned on me. I had originally been dispatched to negotiate for the purchase of a “small projection device, grey in color, approximately 5.5 cm long and 3.5 cm wide and tall, made of a single piece of metal with no seams.”

Of late I had heard rumors of such devices and what their purpose was. But this was the first time I knew of one actually being located. This made it extremely valuable, and J. Murdock wanted it. Likely, so did many others.

This was not a private sale—it was an auction.

She could feel it drawing closer. Her commandeered boat crashed ungracefully through the sea, engine pushed to maximum. Soon, it would cease functioning. Small consequence, as she wouldn’t need it much longer.

In the distance were a freighter’s bright lights. That was her destination. And if anyone onboard resisted, that ship would soon hold only the dead.

“Ah, Monsieur Deveaux, bienvenue! I’m so glad you could make it.” Malik beamed as the second party boarded the Jann. Immediately, I recognized Jean-Claude Deveaux, infamous talislegger, grave robber, and professional backstabber. And with him was his usual cadre: Maddox, the troll big-gun bunny; Dagger, the elven blade-slinger; and Hogg, the human mercenary. Each of them was ready for war.

“Capitan Albahr… Do not waste my valuable time. Your communication said you had one of the devices. I’m here to purchase it—” He looked arrogantly in my direction. “—and will not suffer any amateurish games. Name your price, and I will pay it here and now.”

I detected an unusual hint of desperation in Deveaux’s voice, and quickly assensed him. Interesting…he was magically weaker since our last encounter. Interesting. Did he consider this device a new source of power?

 “Now, now, Monsieur Deveaux, everyone will have a fair chance to make an offer,” Malik said, opening the box and showing the device as an enticement.

“Crasseaux porc…” Deveaux muttered.

There it was. I stood in awe for a moment. A technological device should not have its own aura, yet this one did. I briefly considered grabbing it, but Azim could not hope to protect me from Malik’s crew or Deveaux’s guards. It was simple numbers.

Closing the box, Malik laughed at Deveaux’s insult. “Yes, someone will pay my price,” he hissed, “And I will finally retire.”

Before Deveaux could respond, someone amidships called out that another boat was approaching from port. I turned and saw a modified Nightrunner barreling toward the Jann.

“Ah, our final guest arrives,” Malik said, then added, “Why are they not slowing down?”

<Fennec, we have a problem!>

<What is it, Broadside?>

<My drone detected two dead bodies on the rear deck of that Nightrunner, and…>

<And what?>

<Something just ignited…>

<WHAT?!>

<Fennec, Azim, BRACE FOR IMPACT!>

The watercraft’s engine smoked as she dumped the cheap alcohol over the back deck. A touch of her blade ignited the dripping rail. Instantly the fire spread, devouring the cheap materials.

Augmented by her power, the flames grew, smoke billowed, and the boat became a racing fireball. Weapons fire from the freighter lanced out at the speeding inferno, but she ignored it. Watching the freighter’s hull grow larger, she bent her knees. An instant before impact, she leapt into the air.

Soaring up past the freighter’s side, the force from the boat’s impact and explosion billowed her cloak while wreathing her in smoke and fire. Fiery blade poised above her head, her feet found the ship’s outer railing and she landed on it in a crouch. Rising, her sword arced gracefully outward to rest at her side. Looking at the faces of those on deck and below, she reached out with her senses. Already she heard panicked whispers of her name: the one most knew her by, the one that invoked terror in all who heard it.

Quickly she followed the magical traces, and found it in the hands of the fat hobgoblin on the main deck. “YOU!” she bellowed in an otherworldly voice, blade rising to point at him. “Surrender what is in your hands, or taste DEATH!”

The hobgoblin sputtered, then bellowed, “SHOOT HER, YOU FOOLS!”

She smiled as they scrambled to raise their weapons.

Death it was.

Something was definitely wrong. I heard the command “OPEN FIRE!” ring out, and the deafening thunder of heavy weapons responding from Broadside’s boat. But it was too late.

The flaming Nightrunner hit the Jann with more force that I thought possible, shaking her. Azim and I kept our footing, as did most of the others. Then, looking to port, I saw it, or rather her.

She stood on the railing of the ship, wreathed in flame and cloak billowing. Fearful voices reached my ears, whispering a name “Halaat, Halaat…Halo.”

Fear—no, terror—gripped my heart. Halo, the assassin only mentioned in hushed whispers; who most thought only a legend, was here.

Transfixed, I could not hear her words over my pounding heart and blood rushing in my ears. But I saw where her sword was pointing. I came to my senses just in time to hear a panicked Malik order his crew to shoot her.

The fool had doomed us all.

Bright tracers and other rounds ripped through the night, all converging on her. Yet she did not move. Weapon magazines and drums emptied in seconds and then, silence. Her form just stood there, and then exploded into nothingness.

There was complete silence for several moments. Then a cry of victory began as weapons were raised high.

That’s when flames exploded along the rail.

Moving with inhuman speed, Halo’s blade found body after body. Skin, muscle, and sinew quickly, bloodlessly parted, her red-hot blade instantly cauterizing the wounds. Heads and limbs flew as bodies fell into the hold or the sea. She sprinted along the railing and then leaped into the hold. The smell of burned flesh rose, and those still alive desperately tried to reload their weapons. Some succeeded, and even a few managed to take aim, but no shots rang out. Soon the ship was filled with the dead and dying.

Looking up at the hobgoblin on the main deck, her eyes now blazing points of flame, she leaped again.

The deck reverberated as Halo landed twenty meters in front of me. I saw the flame in her eyes and the hatred in her face. In a moment of stupidity, I used my astral vision. What I saw virtually petrified me. My mind refused to believe what I was seeing, and my body refused to move, save my lips, which mouthed, “Allah be merciful…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I barely saw Azim as he body-checked me to the deck. Behind us, Malik’s guards fired their AKs on full-auto, not caring who was in the line of fire. A few ricochets struck my thigh and one bit deep, but most found Azim. His body armor stopped most of the incoming fire, but not all.

Helplessly, I saw my most loyal friend fall into the cargo hold. Fighting back tears and unable to stand, I reached for the Colt 2066 pistol at my back and stared at Halo. I knew I stood little chance, but I would not die cowering. Perhaps I would find freedom in death.

The gunfire had stopped. I saw something flash from Halo’s hand, and then heard what I guessed was Malik’s guards falling dead. Halo and I locked eyes as I drew my pistol. At first she looked at me with contempt, but it changed to something else.

“At least one of you will die well,” she said. “I shall bless you with a swift death.”

She raised her flaming blade, readying the killing stroke, when she suddenly darted toward the outer railing. A Nissan roto-drone mounting an HK-227 swooped in and sprayed the deck with bullets: exactly where Halo had been a moment ago. Again her hand flashed out, and the drone’s blades suddenly stopped. Quickly, it fell into the sea.

I raised my Colt, aiming for her head when I heard heavy machine guns open up. Quickly looking over the ship’s side, I realized Broadside had engineered an ambush: herding Halo to the outer rail so he could get her in the Cottonmouth’s field of fire. Thirty-caliber rounds chewed up the hull and sent me into a protective crouch.

The rigger’s plan almost worked. The assassin leaped into the air as she hurled her flaming sword at the Cottonmouth. The whirling blade cleaved the front catamarans completely off, pitching the cigarette boat on its side as ammunition exploded. A second later, Broadside’s rigger cocoon blasted away into the darkness. I prayed he was still alive.

Turning back, I saw the blade return to her hand just as a gunshot sounded behind me. We both turned to look as a Manabolt struck Halo. Reeling from the spell, she dropped to one knee and her sword extinguished.

Magical energies coalesced around Deveaux’s outstretched hand while Hogg handed him Malik’s box. The pirate captain lay on the deck, a bloody bullet hole between his eyes.

“Another one…another one seeks to enslave me already!”

Halo staggered back to her feet, blades still in hand. The magician’s spell was considerable, but not as powerful as it could have been. It was a lucky strike, nothing more, a coward’s attack. But it did not matter. He had claimed the object she sought, and for her that meant only one thing.

Standing straight, she held her scimitar loosely at her side. “Give that to me, and you may still live.”

The magician sneered. “I think not. You are wounded, I am not. I have allies, you do not. Leave now, and spare yourself great pain.”

Fire ignited along her scimitar again, matched only by the fury blazing in her eyes. “You know NOTHING OF PAIN!”

Siting on the deck, ignoring everything around me, I clamped my hand on my wounded leg. Direct pressure was helping, but I was already feeling faint from blood loss. I was about to remove my shirt and belt to use as an emergency dressing, but then I heard Halo cry out and saw her charge past me. Transfixed, I watched as she engaged Deveaux’s group.

Deveaux’s people were professionals, and were in motion immediately. Maddox with his Nemesis LMG and sheer troll-mass shielded Deveaux, who had another spell ready; both were moving clockwise. Hogg stood pat, but his AS-7 shotgun was already hammering away. Dagger, with hands on sheathed blades, flanked long, waiting for the right opportunity.

Against a regular opponent, the maneuver might have worked.

But Halo was no regular opponent.

Before Hogg could get a bead on her, Halo was on him. With her flaming blade still held high, her cloak engulfed the chubby human, who ironically let out a shrill, porcine squeal as blood spilled over the deck. Maddox checked his fire, not wanting to his comrade. When Halo finally disengaged, blood gushed from Hogg’s left armpit. The fat mercenary was dead before his body hit the deck.

Enraged, Maddox let out a war cry and cut loose with his LMG in full-auto mode. All his rounds did was chew up Hogg’s corpse as Halo pirouetted out of the way and flicked Hogg’s blood from a small, black-metal dagger now visible in her left hand. Using her momentum, she resumed her charge, aiming right for Deveaux.

Maddox continued firing, but soon his LMG barrel was glowing red and he stopped. Halo was about to attack, flaming sword readied for a horizontal slash when Deveaux hit her with another Manabolt. She must have been ready this time because it only slowed her down.

But it was just the opening Dagger had been waiting for. Pulling a combat knife as he ran, he reached out to grab Halo’s cloak as leverage and ram his blade into her side.

Halo thrust her left leg out, bringing her to a skidding halt as she reversed her blade and thrust it under her arm and up, neatly impaling Dagger in the chest. The elf quivered for a moment, then went slack. Pulling her blade free, she straightened up and faced Maddox and Deveaux. The mage looked winded, but the troll bellowed in rage and again leveled his weapon at her. In response, and faster than my eyes could track, I saw her sword suddenly buried in the troll’s skull as fire engulfed his head and then body.

Jumping away, Deveaux dropped the box in panic. The device fell out and bounced once on the deck. Then, it activated, projecting a single image. It showed…Halo?

I looked at the image of a Halo in battle, cloak billowing and sword ablaze in one hand with dark dagger in the other, boot on a burned troll skull. Almost like what had just happened. I wasn’t sure, but I also thought I saw some kind of writing in the image, but  my vision was slightly swimming from blood loss. What was this thing?

“NO, NO! STAY BACK!!!” Deveaux cried out.

I looked back, just as Halo, dagger sheathed and sword already back in hand, picked up Deveaux by his neck. She leaned in and whispered something I couldn’t hear into his ear before ramming her blade into his stomach. I heard, saw, and smelled cooking flesh as she roasted him, his only reply a choking gurgle.

Dropping him like the inert meat he now was, her eyes widened when she saw the projecting image. Calmly, she walked to it and looked down, realization crossing her face. The fury was gone, but none of the determination. The color in her eyes flickered like flame, but there was almost a sadness to them.

“You have seen this?” she asked me flatly.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know what this is, what it can do, what it means?”

“No. I was simply tasked with obtaining it.”

“And you did not try and shoot me like the others. Why?”

“It would not have mattered. Even if I completed my task, it would not have changed anything for me. I would still be under another’s thumb. Maybe…maybe I hoped you would give me that freedom, in death.”

Then, something in her face changed again. She seemed conflicted. “That is…unfortunate. But because of what you have seen, I cannot let you live. My very freedom is at stake. And…I did promise you a quick death. But know I will take no pleasure from it. I am sorry.”

She then reached down to pick the emitter up, but her hand passed through it. Stunned, she tried again, and again. I took a look on the astral and watched as her essence passed right through the emitter several times.

I then sat there, leg bleeding and watched as Halo, the legendary assassin, fall to her knees and let out the most heartbreaking cry of despair I had ever heard. Had she been metahuman, I would have sworn she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Her body heaved several more times before she looked at me and finally uttered in a low voice, “I can never be free now. Eventually, someone will claim this, and succeed in enslaving me again.”

In that moment, I understood everything. The writing I saw in the image could have been her true name. She was not just a free spirit, she was djinn, and this device, in a cruel twist of fate, had become her lamp. She was bound to it forever, and all she could do was wait for someone to claim it, and her. Even if she killed me and sent this ship, everyone still alive, and the device to the sea’s floor, it would still be a matter of time before the next person stumbled across it.

And this would start again. We both knew this.

I looked over at the small projector and thought of my own lamp. Crawling over, I took the device and deactivated it. Halo looked over to me, suspicion (and a faint hint of flame) in her now green eyes.

“I, too, know what it is like to be bound. I live every day under the yoke of another. But I will not try and trade the freedom of another for my own. Instead, I offer this: I will accept responsibility for this, and vow to keep it safe from those who would enslave you, in exchange for my life and those still left on this ship. If not, I humbly ask that you grant me that quick death now, rather than bleed out later.”

Halo still looked suspicious. “The pirates are still a threat.”

“Leave them to me. Do we have a bargain?”

“—unfortunately, the device was a fake. That’s what started the fight. Deveaux noticed it immediately, and even I could tell it had no magical properties once Malik presented it. At that point I saw no reason to even attempt a purchase and tried to leave. That’s when Deveaux became enraged and ordered his people to kill Malik. The ensuing firefight led to the destruction of the Jann Almaik. I commandeered a lifeboat and made my way back to shore.”

“Bloody, backstabbing frog,” Murdock said, shaking his head. “He always was a poor loser.”

I sat there, this time in a physical chair, in the real office, my face as impassive as I could make it, looking directly into Murdock’s eyes. Again, he sat behind his desk, fingers steepled as his gaze again dug into my soul. Despite my projected calm, it felt as if my heart had stopped while I awaited his response.

“Well then, it’s fortunate that you escaped. Terrible shame about your escorts; good help is very hard to find. But, they did their jobs by keeping you safe, so there’s that,” he said, eyes still locked with mine. He didn’t even have the decency to use Azim and Broadside’s names. But I couldn’t worry about that now.

And then, he looked up at the ceiling.

My heart started again; he believes me!

“And despite current…frictions between us. I am glad you survived. There is much work we have yet to do,” he said with a slightly patronizing tone. Somehow, I didn’t quite believe him.

I politely nodded. “Yes, Father, I understand completely. Is there anything else? I would like to rest now.”

Smugly, he nodded. “I don’t have anything else for you at the moment, so yes. Oh, and pleasant dreams,” he said before turning in his chair to again gaze out the window.

Standing, I curtsied, despite my healing leg. Once out of the office and in the elevator, I remembered Halo’s words:

“You move me, more than anyone in the past millennium. Very well, the pact is sealed. Through this selfless act, you’ve shown your true self. You will be this object’s guardian. And as long as you keep your oath to me and keep my freedom, I will help you find yours. Not as a servant or slave, but as an ally. This is my oath to you.”

I now had an asset—no, an ally—that my father knew nothing about. I also had decided that at some point my dear father needed to pay for everything he had done to me and others.

As the elevator descended I caressed my thigh, the wound cauterized and in the shape of a curved sword within a halo; a symbol of my bargain and promise for the future. I simply had to wait for the right time and opportunity.

Smiling fully, I enjoyed the weight of my upgraded pendant.

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ’EM, RUN

(THE ECLIPSE)

JOSH VOGT

The giggling got louder, and Adric wondered how close it needed to come before they died.

“Drek,” Vilyna said, scurrying along beside him. “You’re hearing that, too, right? I can’t be brain-baked already.”

Adric glanced down at the gnome’s avatar. It looked much like her meatbod, except for the jagged mane of green glass in place of her hot pink hair. She trailed shards behind her as the two of them dashed through the impossibly infinite amusement park that could be their grave.

She had to double-time it as he loped along, his taller, leaner ork build giving him the advantage in outpacing their hunter. He’d skinned his avatar to resemble his real body, too, except with chrome-plated skin and a suit of armor made of blue lightning.

They wove between the steel pylons of a towering roller coaster, the track looping overhead. The cars that zoomed past every few seconds lacked passengers, their silent passage reinforcing the unnatural nature of the park. Jangly music clashed and twanged all around, giving their race for freedom an even more frantic feel.

“I hear it,” he said between huffs. He glanced at the glowing orange disk floating over his palm, the icon of the deck he’d used to hack into this corp host. The data it projected made him snarl. “Can’t ID the source, but not sure how much I can trust my sensors.”

More giggling off to his right. Adric cut left, through a row that went between a gothic haunted house and a shooting gallery. Gaudy posters and wooden signs leered down at the two deckers, clown-painted faces, ghouls, and ghosts watching them sprint past.

They rounded a cotton candy stand, where delicate strands of code formed tempting sugary fluffs, begging to be consumed—and no doubt laced with all sorts of viruses and worms. He paused, searching for any path out of this virtual reality trap.

“Still can’t jack out?” he asked once he caught his breath.

Vilyna’s face scrunched up as she ran fingers over her own deck icon. “Pinging the meat every millisecond, but I can’t even sense the grid. We might as well be in deep space.” More shards drizzled from her hair in a glassy waterfall.

Adric scowled. His scanners returned the same results. As soon as the countermeasures’ VR filter had overridden his own, he’d lost connection with his jackpoint. This host realm had link-locked them down tight. Not even his emergency dump protocol worked, no matter how many times he triggered it. Dumpshock be damned. If they didn’t get out before the ice caught up with them, they’d both be fried meat.

“I told you not to touch anything,” he said. “Don’t try to access anything. Watch. Learn. You’d get your chance to work a bag-n-tag after you mastered the basics.”

She stamped a foot. “You said this’d be a low-sec corp cache. An easy datasteal so I could see how it’s done. I was just trying to show some initiative.”

Adric rumbled. “No. You were showing how to be a static-sucking hotdogger. You had to try and snitch a sparkly little file like a drekkin’ deckhead.”

“Frag it, I said I’m sorry.” Her scowl made her look like a goblin for a moment. “We’ve got ice hot on our heels, and you’re putting me through a guilt grinder?”

Childish laughter echoed through the park, making them both wince. Off in the distance, a Ferris wheel the size of a moon sluggishly rotated. In the harsh blue sky, an oversized sun blazed like the unforgiving eye of a digital deity.

Adric scratched a nail on a tusk as he tried to carve a solution out of his skull.

He’d offered the young gnome basic deck training as a favor owed to her father, a partner who’d saved Adric’s life years back—and then lost his own a few months back in a run gone wrong. The girl showed potential, but had been overeager to prove just how wiz she was. He’d figured a drek run in VR mode would let Vilyna get a good look at things grid-side while he could pick off a soft target for a little extra nuyen. Should’ve been a cakewalk. Figured he’d hose it with a newbie in tow.

“What do we do?” Vilyna asked. She tapped furiously at her deck, a near-bricked relic he’d provided her. It lacked the sophisticated programs his own held, but let her navigate the Matrix and study his technique. It also marked her in his awareness in case she strayed too far on the grid, and even hid a couple subroutines he’d planted before handing it over—preprogrammed glitches he’d intended to use to test her reactions to unexpected complications.

“We keep moving,” he said. “A decker’s always got to keep moving. Stop for more than a few seconds, and you can lose any edge you got.”

He activated a sniffer program, and a twitch of his fingers flicked motes of light off into the distance. The tracer nodes soared away until they winked out of sight.

The sniffer pinged him a heartbeat later, marking a mental direction that’d lead them toward a merry-go-round the size of a small sprawl. Beyond this, the amusement park landscape grew hazy, which suggested a potential overlay boundary, a defined area they could either break down or slip through.

He jerked his chin that way. “C’mon. Got a lead.”

They set off again. Adric tried to focus on navigating the maze of carnival-style stalls while also keeping an eye out for any countermeasures. The overlay didn’t seem actively hostile, aside from locking them down, but that didn’t mean they were in the clear. Not by a long shot.

Whoever had programmed the amusement park VR did an impressive job, he had to admit. He had to look hard to see the stutters and visual fluxes where the textures didn’t quite line up right. The only other giveaway was the coloration, as every hue went either a few shades too dark or too bright to be natural, giving the whole landscape a neon edge he kept trying to blink away. Breezes wafted by, stinking of grease and body odor, while ripples of heat rose from the baking earth and concrete all around.

Normally, he preferred the full immersion of VR for his deckjockey work. Kept him from getting distracted by the mundane, his mind blazing through the Matrix as he slipped in and out of corp modules like a flyboy through fog, not leaving so much as a data ripple in his wake. This time, though, a few more sensory barriers would’ve been welcome.

Motion ahead made him slow. The merry-go-round had started up, and now spun in a steady orbit. Mirrored paneling flashed in the sunlight, flinging glare into his eyes. All manner of creatures stood skewered by their poles, saddled backs offering rides. Manticores, dragons, unicorns, centaurs, and more all stood in frozen tableau, eyes blank as they circled in an endless parade.

Drawing closer, Adric realized the creatures didn’t look like wooden carvings, holographic projections, or sculptures of any sort. They appeared lifelike, down to the wiring of various cybernetic implants or the hairs on their heads—all of them pinned in place like macabre hunting trophies.

“What the frag?” Vilyna asked, looking both fascinated and disturbed. “What kind of pervo built this place?”

Adric chuffed a laugh. “Don’t let it psych you out. You’ll see weirder and worse every time you jack into a social node.” Assuming they escaped here, of course.

As more figures spun into view, he spotted someone riding a carousel mount that looked like a robotic spider. The avatar appeared as a human girl with short blonde hair, wearing a baggy green shirt that hung down to her knees like a dress. A pair of red-lensed goggles covered her eyes, but were translucent enough for him to follow her gaze as she fixed on the deckers.

She waved as if delighted to see them, and her loud giggle made him cringe. It was the same noise that’d been haunting them ever since Vilyna triggered the trap.

The girl hopped off the spider and skipped over their way. Adric keyed up several offensive/defensive programs to launch at a thought. Lightning crackled over his hands, bolts charged with various protocols. He stepped over to interpose himself between Vilyna and the newcomer. With her father’s death, the debt he’d owed the old gnome had transferred to her, and he’d be damned if anything would happen to her on his watch.

“Hello,” the girl said. “I’m Nova. Who are you?” She blinked with exaggerated innocence. “I don’t think you two belong here. Do you want to play?”

Adric tilted his head Vilyna’s way and murmured, “Keep her talking.”

With a twitch of a hand, he activated a perception filter over his eyes and started scanning the girl.

“Play?” Vilyna asked with forced levity. “Sure. I love games. What do you like to play? Who are you, anyways?”

Adric winced as his sensors shifted past the outer layer of the girl’s avatar. She blazed with so much concentrated data, it felt like he was peering into the center of the sun. Peeking for just a couple milliseconds made his eyes start to sizzle, and he backed off before he fried his visual cortex. Even with the rapid retreat, his skull throbbed from the biofeedback.

“I love playing Hide and Seek,” Nova was saying. Her gaze shifted to Adric and she pouted. “But Eye Spy isn’t a very fun game. It’s not allowed here.”

Adric returned her look, confounded. Every countermeasure he’d run across during his years of decking just went straight into combat or defense mode, dealing with the threat his intrusion posed as efficiently—and often as brutally—as possible. This conversational approach was new.

“Hoi, Nova,” he said. “So you’re a gamester, huh? Hide and Seek sounds fun. How about you go hide, and we’ll count to a trillion and then come find you.”

The girl stuck a foot out and waggled it about. “You’re my first visitors. Can we be friends? I think I’d enjoy learning what it’s like to have friends.” She perked up. “How about a game of tag?”

Her avatar popped like a soap bubble, and her giggle floated through the air from every direction at once. Before Adric could move, she reappeared at his side and slapped his arm. Fire flared out from the touch.

“You’re it,” Nova cried before vanishing again.

Reeling and hollering, Adric slapped at the flames engulfing his forearm. He triggered full defensive mode; sparkling motes swarmed out of his suit and smothered the blaze before it went any further. Char marks streaked his avatar, turning portions of his lightning armor into glassy blotches, protective coding now brittle and compromised.

Vilyna looked in every direction, spooked. “What’s going on? Who is she? What is she?”

Adric fought to calm his breathing.  “Drek,” he said. “Not just some ice. Black ice. Full-on AI. Could be a rogue, which would explain why it’s prowling around low-sec nodes. It doesn’t belong here any more than we do.”

The giggle came again. Nova rose from the earth like a ghost from its grave. Her twiggy arms crossed in a sulking pose.

“You’re not playing right,” she said. “You’re supposed to chase me.”

He nudged Vilyna. “You ready?”

Vilyna whispered back, “For what?”

“To slot and run.”

“Been waiting on you, chummer. You’re the one who said we should always keep moving.”

Nova’s expression darkened. “Rude. Not nice to keep secrets.” She fixed on Vilyna. “Not nice to try to steal secrets, either. You’ve been very bad.”

“Um…” Vilyna scooted back further to use Adric as a shield. “Sorry?”

Nova grinned again, mood switching from dark to light like someone flipped a switch. “I forgive you. So long as you make the game fun.”

The rough hairs on the back of Adric’s neck went needle-straight. Slot it. When in doubt, get the frag out.

“We’d love to stay and play all day.” He gestured at Vilyna. “But it’s past our bedtime, and we need plenty of beauty sleep.”

Adric flung several lightning bolts to the ground between them. These flashed up into an electric curtain that arced with white-hot chains, separating them from Nova—his variation of a firewall. He followed up with a footprint sweeper that filled the area with digi-smoke, obscuring their position.

Grabbing Vilyna’s arm, he dragged her into a run, aiming for a path that would get them closer to the hoped-for boundary.

“Wait!” Nova’s voice echoed so loud, the air trembled. “You’re supposed to chase me. Stop. You’re going the wrong way!”

Adric glanced over his shoulder as a tiny hand punched through the lightning wall. Sparks absorbed into the ice’s skin, which glowed as bolts struck over her without effect. Nova stepped across a moment later, unflinching even as she took hits that should’ve crisped her.

“What’s the plan?” Vilyna asked as she wheezed along beside him.

“Get out before that freaky little ice gets tired of toying with us and goes for the geek.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Working on the details.”

He pounded turf past ride after ride, countless booths and food stalls, all of them utterly devoid of life. The park seemed the size of a city, and growing with every footstep. Drop towers as tall as skyscrapers reared in the distance, while tilt-a-whirls as big as metroplexes spun like chaotic kaleidoscopes. A mountain range of roller coasters cast long shadows across the grounds.

He veered toward the potential exit he’d sensed earlier. However, as they ran past an enormous bumper cars arena, the ground rumbled and split open before them. The pair stumbled to a halt as a bottomless crevasse sliced through the earth and cut them off.

A squat, long building rose out of the abyss. Once it stood fully formed, the ground sealed up so it looked as if it’d always existed there. A single door offered entrance, and a holographic sign blinked on and off over this, reading: Hall of Mirrors.

Adric gaped. Such on-the-fly system sculpting suggested the AI had access to massive processing power. Way out of his league. Skipping this place without both their skulls smoking would be a miracle.

The door to the Hall opened, and Nova strode out. Adric activated a shield program, which manifested as an orb icon floating above his palm. He slapped this onto Vilyna’s back, and the icon expanded to coat her avatar in a sheen of protective coding.

She hissed through gritted teeth. “What gives?”

He summoned a virtual shotgun and gripped it in both hands. “Anything happens to me, you keep running. There’s always an exit. You just have to find it.”

Her over-large eyes widened. “No way. I got us into this. I’ll get us out.”

Adric snorted. “Yeah? How you figure that?”

Vilyna winked. “You work too much, chummer. Time to play a little.” She sidestepped him and headed for Nova. Adric reached to pull her back, but she ducked free.

Nova stood glaring at them, one foot tapping impatiently. As Vilyna approached, she called out.

“Not nice of you to run away. That’s rude.”

Vilyna paused a few yards away. “We’re sorry. We didn’t know the rules.”

“Rules?” Nova asked.

“Sure. Every game needs rules, don’t it?” Vilyna said. “Didn’t you ever learn that?”

Nova’s head bowed. “I got away before I learned a lot. But nobody around here likes to share.” She scuffed a shoe on the ground. “You two looked like fun, which is why I brought you here.”

Got away? Adric’s blood turned to icy slush. This thing masquerading as a girl had to be a rogue AI for sure. That meant no oversight. No parameters keeping its actions in check.

“How do you know we’re playing wrong if you haven’t learned all the rules yet?” Vilyna asked.

Nova frowned. “Maybe you can teach me?”

“It’s easy,” Vilyna said. “Every game has limits and stakes. Winners and losers. And everyone has to agree to play, or you’re just being a bully.”

“A bully?” Nova echoed.

“That’s right. And nobody likes bullies.” Vilyna put hands on her slim hips. “You don’t want to be a bully, do you?”

The AI shook its head. “So I have to ask before I do things? That makes it okay?”

“It’s a start,” Vilyna said.

“Then…” Nova stepped closer. “Can I learn from you?”

Vilyna shrugged. “Sure. I can teach you everything you need to know.”

Nova giggled and clapped her hands. “Yay! Time to learn!” She grabbed Vilyna in a hug.

Vilyna screamed as fiery cords coiled around her avatar. Her glassy hair turned into a jet of yellow flame, and her head snapped back, eyes wide and glowing like the sun.

“Vilyna!” Adric ran in, shotgun leveled—but he couldn’t shoot with the two so close to one another. The blaster programs could damage Vilyna as much as the AI.

A mental command started to reconfigure the shotgun into a more precise weapon, but even as he shifted its form, Vilyna vanished.

Adric aimed at the AI, both barrels primed. “Whatever you just did, bring her back.”

Nova turned sideways. Her avatar thinned to a line and she disappeared. Motion out of the corner of his eye made Adric turn just as she reappeared beside him. Flames enveloped her hands and she gripped the gun before he could bring it to bear.

The digi-gun melted to slag from in an instant. Adric let go and stumbled. His weapon evaporated in Nova’s hands, but then she conjured an exact replica of it—though sized for her childish stature and made of liquid fire.

“Such a fun toy,” she said. “Did you make it yourself? Do you have other toys you can share?”

Adric scowled, lips peeling back from his tusks. A quick scan of his deck made him realize she’d ripped the program coding straight out of him and subverted it. If he activated another weapon, she’d just repeat the same trick.

He raised his hands, one eye on the gun she now wielded. “Careful, omae. That’s one toy you shouldn’t play with.”

“Your name is Adric,” Nova said. “That’s a nice name. But I don’t think you’re as nice as my new friend is.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Vilyna told me. She’s telling me lots.”

“Where is she? What’ve you done to her?”

“She’s teaching me.” Nova smiled brightly. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”

“What are you?” he asked. “What were you made to do?”

“I’m Nova, remember?” The AI beamed. “Oh. That stands for Neural Override and Virtual Assimilator.”

Override? Assimilator? Adric’s mouth went dry and he swallowed hard. When deckers swapped stories about dangerous Matrix runs, their more harrowing escapades often involved black ice with the potential to brainbake even the toughest meat, leaving one a drooling vegetable. Those who knew better, though, whispered of subtler, more horrifying dangers: AIs capable of reprogramming brainwaves, turning victims into corp slaves or rewriting their personalities so they betrayed family, friends, and partners without a second thought. A fate far worse than getting geeked—one which now threatened Vilyna.

He fought for composure, as losing his cool would likely trigger more erratic behavior on the ice’s part. “You didn’t assimilate Vilyna, did you?”

“Not yet,” Nova said. “I’m still learning from her. She’s pretty smart, but I’m just playing Copycat for now.”

Adric ran a hand across his scalp. “Vilyna doesn’t like being copied. If you keep doing that, she’s going to get angry and never play with you again.”

The AI frowned. “But she knows so many good games.”

“She was…” Adric tried to fit his words to her childish logic. “She was playing games with me first. You stole her from me. And didn’t you say earlier that stealing things is bad?”

Nova stuck out her lower lip. “Yes. But keeping her all to yourself is selfish.”

“How’s that any different than what you’re doing now? You’re being a… A selfish bully.”

Nova’s shoulders slumped and she stared at her feet. “You’re mean. Not nice to call people names.”

Adric crouched, hands on his knees. “Hey, omae. How about you learn from me instead? I’m older than her. Been running the grid way longer. I could teach you plenty more.”

Her head came up. “I don’t like you. I like her.”

Grinding his tusks in frustration, he spread his hands. “What if we play a game? Give me a chance to win her back. If I lose, I’ll give you every toy from my box.”

“Promise?” Hunger gleamed in her eyes, even through the odd goggles she wore.

“Guy like me doesn’t get cred if he goes around all fork-tongued. That’s the chip truth.”

“Swag! I know the perfect game: Finders Keepers.” Nova hopped aside and pointed to the Hall of Mirrors. “If you can find her in there, you can keep her. Otherwise, I keep her and we get to keep playing forever. Readysetgo!”

She vanished, and the door to the Hall of Mirrors opened. Adric raced inside but stuttered to a halt after just a few steps. Cold blue light illuminated the interior, with every surface covered in mirrors, including several halls that curved out of sight. Countless Adrics glowered back at him from all angles.

Trying to ignore his ugly mug, he chose a hall at random and skulked down it. As he did, he activated multiple data bombs and began dropping them into dark corners or sticking them to random mirrors every hundred feet or so.

The hall entered an octagonal room with silvery panels on all sides. Adric stood in the center and turned slowly, scanning the mirrors. As he did, his reflection shifted, showing alternate versions of himself. In one, he wore a wageslave suit and sported slicked-back hair. In another, he was dressed in patchwork leathers while ugly scars covered most of his body. In yet another, both legs and an arm were replaced by chrome, with wiring feeding out the back of his skull to blinking panels embedded in his torso.

Adric felt like he could keep spinning in place forever, studying potential selves. Then a wave of dizziness blurred his vision until he shook it away. When he took his gaze off the reflections, his thoughts cleared and he realized he’d wasted several whole minutes standing stupefied, fascinated by the false reflections. Definite mental loop algorithm.

“Tricky little slitch,” he muttered.

He started to move on, but happened to glance over his shoulder one last time. The reflection directly behind showed Vilyna instead of himself.

Whirling, Adric ran over to that mirror and pressed a hand against the surface. The gnome thumped fists on her side of the pane, mouth open in a silent shout.

Adric activated a hammer routine, manifesting a glowing blue warhammer in his hands. Brute force programming, but it should get the job done.

“Get back,” he yelled, cocking for a swing.

Vilyna’s eyes grew wide and she jumped back. He slammed the hammer into the glass. Sparks flew, and cracks webbed out from the impact spot. Two more direct hits, and the mirror shattered. Glittering shards sprayed about, a few glancing off his armor.

A tiny space stood behind the ruined mirror, just large enough to possibly hold a gnome—but empty.

Giggles floated out from deeper within the Hall, followed by Nova’s taunting voice.

“I’m winning!”

Snarling, Adric jogged down the next mirror-lined hall. He kept an eye on every panel he passed to make sure they showed him alone. Infinite variations of himself kept pace, each with the same determined look despite the medley of outfits, weapons, and physical alterations.

Pressing a hand to a wall, he triggered several sniffer programs attuned to Vilyna, sending them out as bolts of lightning that crackled and writhed across the mirrors ahead of him. They split down various routes, faster than he could think, and one sent a positive ping back within moments.

He veered that way and found himself in a dead-end chamber. The dome-shaped room had large mirrors circling its base; these spiraled up, ever smaller, until fist-sized panels composed the gleaming coils overhead.

And every mirror contained Vilyna, even after he entered the space. At least a hundred different versions of the gnome formed a chaotic menagerie trapped behind glass.

Adric gawked at all the images, stymied as to how he could sort out the real Vilyna from her doppelgangers. Enough of them looked like the real gnome that he could be guessing for hours. Time neither of them had.

Then an idea blinked on in his brain.

“Sorry, omae,” he said. “This’ll just singe your eyebrows.”

He triggered a glitch subroutine in her deck. One of the Vilynas jumped as the tablet she held erupted, spraying sparks at her face. She smacked at the embers until the flare died down. Then she glared out at Adric, mouthing silent curses.

“There you are, pixie-lover.” Grinning, he deactivated the hammer and keyed up a solvent patch. If the direct approach didn’t work, perhaps a bit of finesse would. A glowing film appeared across his palm, and he slapped this against the mirror. The patch ate away at the glass in a matter of heartbeats, and he held his breath, fearing Vilyna would disappear again.

However, once the mirror surface dissolved, the gnome remained where she was. She swayed in place, hair crystals charred and cracked while burn marks blackened several portions of her avatar.

Vilyna stumbled out and flopped into his waiting hands. “What took you...so long...you stupid trog...” Her eyes fluttered shut as she went limp.

Adric rose with her sprawled across his arms. She still breathed, though she somehow looked even scrawnier than before, as if Nova’s attacks had sucked a certain vitality out of her.

“You were too slow. I had already found her.”

Adric turned to find the AI standing in the center of the chamber, barring the exit back out into the hall with her diminutive frame.

“The game was for me to find her,” he said, “not you. Now get out of the way.”

“No.” She shook her head, whipping her hair about. “You used toys I didn’t know about. That’s not fair. You have to start over.”

“You’re a sore loser, breeder bot.” He glanced at his tablet and blinked a preprogrammed code...

...which set off every data bomb he’d planted throughout the place at once, maximum deployment. At the same time, he dialed his defense buffers up as high as they’d go and went into a crouch, shielding Vilyna.

The building shook as if in an earthquake as his code blasted through it. Mirrors blew apart in silvery sprays and walls collapsed in clouds of data dust. The ceiling ripped apart, letting in harsh sunlight that scattered every shadow.

Nova screamed as the ground collapsed beneath her, dropping her into a dark hole. Fire spouted up from this, as if she’d fallen into Hell itself.

As the rumbling subsided, Adric lifted his head. The Hall of Mirrors lay in rubble, and he briefly gloated at the destruction his programs had caused. Then Vilyna moaned in his arms, reminding of his top priority: escape.

He picked his way through the ruins until he reached open ground and oriented to the boundary tracker, which he’d kept running as a background process. Definitely a sensory breakdown that way. Not far now. The amusement park didn’t stretch on forever like it seemed to at first. Its vast distances must’ve been one more illusion to keep intruders disoriented.

“Cheater!”

He turned as Nova ghosted back aboveground. Her false childish features twisted on the verge of a full-blown tantrum, skin flushed and splotchy.

He wearily waved her off. “Buzz, brat. I won. You lost. Time for us to jander.”

“No. Not fair! You’re staying.” Nova stomped in place, and the whole park trembled. Glowing cracks shot out from the crater she created. “You cheated! She’s mine. I’ll make you both stay here forever.”

The landscape brightened, colors washing out and structures becoming lined with fiery auras. The sun swelled and flashed into a ball of energy so hot it burned black, with molten rays reaching down to scorch the virtual earth.

Hauling Vilyna along, Adric staggered toward the VR boundary, not daring to look back. The air seemed to thicken the closer he got, details blurring until everything turned to hellish smears. His legs churned. His lungs felt ready to pop. Tears stung his eyes, but he squeezed every last blip of willpower out of himself just to take another step.

At last, he dropped to his knees. As he did, though, a soft tone came from his tablet, which remained hovering by his side.

A grid ping. An outside connection had been reestablished, however faint.

Vilyna clutched tight with one arm, he reached out and activated his emergency dump protocol, hoping against hope it’d work this time.

A scream echoed through his mind as the world went black. Adric plummeted through emptiness, a void where he tumbled over, barely aware of his own self—until he slammed into an unseen wall, jolting every sense like he’d bitten down on a live wire.

Adric jerked upright. A searing headache sizzled inside his skull, but he pushed through the pain to get his bearings. Every muscle ached as if he’d just been given the good news by a gang of razorgirls.

His vision cleared, revealing his small, sparsely furnished apartment. He sat in the cubby he used whenever employing VR immersion. Vilyna lay stretched out on the slab that served as his bed. She moaned and twitched, head jerking about.

Adric forced himself to stand and get to her side, laying a hand on her forehead. A bit feverish, but nothing alarming. Her eyes opened and she smiled weakly up at him.

“Hey, chummer,” he said. “How you feeling?”

She winced as she sat up. “Like my head got put through a meat grinder.”

He sat on the end of the bed. “Maybe that’ll teach you to actually do what you’re told next time.”

“Next time?” She raised hot pink eyebrows in surprise. “You’re not kicking me to the curb?”

“You think just because we nearly got our hoops sliced off that we never jack back in?” He snorted. “You want to scram because you had a close call, go for it. A real ’trixter shakes off the static and does a better job next time. So what’ll it be? You going to deal with this crash course, or is it gonna leave you meatbound?”

Her eyes narrowed in defiance, and she flashed a fierce grin. “I play to win, omae. But…I guess I’ve got a lot to learn.”

He patted her shoulder. “Might make a decker of you yet. Now sit tight and I’ll get us both sorted. I always keep a first aid kit and stash of painkillers tucked away, just in case a dive leaves me wrung out. That along with a little paste down our soyholes, and we should be feeling half alive soon enough.”

“Wiz,” she said. She lay back and put an arm over her eyes to block out the light.

Adric studied her for a minute. She’d come through a situation that would’ve sent plenty packing their decks for good, and didn’t seem too worse for wear. Maybe she had as much potential as he’d hoped.

He turned to unlock his storage cubby…and froze as a sound snagged his ear. It was so soft, he almost missed it, but it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

Vilyna had giggled.

MOON PALACE, SERPENT SEA

(2 of Cups, The Avatars)

LUCY A. SNYDER

The sound and stink of the casino assaulted Velocity Joy’s scorched senses. Drunken gamblers brayed and shrieked with laughter while the gaming machines blasted their cacophony of ringing, clanging, shouting and wheedling everywhere. The air was thick with the stench of metahuman sweat, cig smoke, and a hundred varieties of Cleaver body spray, each more obnoxious than the last. If she could bottle the pong of the place, she’d sell it under the name Mal Choix de Vie: “Terrible Life Choices.” But people would still buy it because it sounded French and fancy.

Fraggin’ Felician and his stupid meetup sites, she thought. This place had to be teeming with electronic eyes and ears, scammers and runners of every stripe. At least there hadn’t been a weapons check at the front door. She could keep her twin Colt Manhunters strapped beneath her black leather jacket where they belonged, just in case anybody tried anything funny. Her backup credstick hung in a shielded pouch on a chain around her neck, nestled snugly between the girls. Her commlink was tied to the forged SIN she used when dealing with Felician; he’d been a good fixer in the five years she’d been taking jobs through him, but she knew full well that any situation could turn bad in a moment, and she’d have to dump her current identity and run. She had a real SIN to fall back on, but since it was tied to her actual medical records, she would go to great lengths to protect it. As far as the authorities knew, Velocity Joy had nothing to do with Cindy Lou Garza, a perpetual college student whose treatments and enhancements all stemmed from her love of extreme sports.

Shouldering her way through the crowd, Velocity intended to head straight down the neutral green carpet that led through the acres-huge casino floor to the shops and restaurants in the back. Felician wanted to meet up at a place called the Jurassic, a buffet that advertised vat-grown dinosaur meat. How anybody would know a fake brontosaurus roast from a fake pork roast she had no idea, but for fifty nuyen a pop, the place had better serve some epic grub. At least booze was included. Doc Sawbrains had told her to steer clear of any heavy drinking until her neurons healed up a bit more from the Black Hammer variant that had nearly turned her cerebrum to a brûléed flan, but a girl had to get her money’s worth somehow, right?—

Suddenly, she was no longer in the loud casino, but was standing naked on a beach. Green waves teeming with dark serpentine forms surged and foamed, crashing at her feet. Salt and the stink of rotting kelp lay heavy on the chilly wind. The serpents writhed free of the waves, spilling onto the wet sand in shiny coils as though the ocean had been eviscerated, and slithered toward her while she remained frozen, rooted to the spot—

—Velocity found herself back in the casino and felt a wash of relief that, according to her commlink, she’d hallucinated for less than a second. But her relief faded just as quickly: she’d stumble-stepped off the green strip, and was now standing on the garish casino carpet. Already the machines around her had lit up, and were pulling themselves free of their floor sockets to greet the fresh meat.

“Welcome, Chummer!” A penny slot sidled up to her, spinning its holographic dials seductively. “One nuyen gets you a hundred chances!”

“Don’t listen to that junker,” replied a chrome-and-neon Wheel of Fortune machine. “His payouts are terrible! Try me!”

“No, try me!” squeaked a machine with a Japanese pop soundtrack and dancing cherries.

“You’ll try me first,” growled a sleek black poker machine. “Unless you just can’t handle the best!”

Frag. The wheedling machines had her completely surrounded. The casino’s programmers knew exactly how long the average new gambler had to play to get hooked, and this bunch was set to hound her into playing until she’d crossed the threshold. And she had neither the time nor interest in this.

Velocity entertained a brief fantasy of pulling out her twin pistols and blasting them all into sizzling glass-and-plastic shrapnel, but each one of the machines was probably worth more than the job Felician had for her. Satisfying though shooting them might be, she could neither afford to pay off the casino nor blow her professional reputation as a gunslinger of supreme chill.

“C’mon, darlin’, don’t be coy.” The video poker machine slid up close to her, positioning its controls right under her hands. It stank of Cleaver—the exact fragrance was probably called Throwdown or Anarchy or something—which was probably olfactory residue from a gambler who’d recently abandoned it, but for all she knew the machine had scent jets to attract ostentatious losers. “Just thirty nuyen to play Texas Hold ’Em, and you could win up to 50K!”

Velocity grabbed the top rim of the poker machine and flipped herself up and over, landing softly on the carpet behind it. She smoothly stepped back to the safety of the green strip and strode toward the buffet as the thwarted machines emitted electronic groans and synthesized trombone womp-womps behind her. Hardly anybody had noticed her escape. Good. 

Still, her brief fugue to the scene on the beach left her a little rattled. She’d need to increase the brain candy Doc Sawbrains had prescribed, that was for sure. The hallucinations and dreams had all started after she’d gotten Black Hammered. Doc said that was pretty normal, considering the hit her brain had taken, but...it all seemed so weirdly real. Realer than her regular life, even. It was the same scene over and over—the beach, the ocean, and the serpents—but each time there was just a little bit more. It all felt as though it should mean something. It felt like prophecy, not just misfiring brain cells. She’d gotten tested, and so she knew she had some innate magical ability, but she liked gunning and driving. Beneath all the mechanical complexities of weapons and vehicles was the solid predictability of Newtonian physics. Magic wasn’t predictable, however, and it made her uneasy. It felt like gambling: something she knew she could be very good at, but also something that could eat her alive.

Not just could, but would.

Velocity found Felician sitting in an alcove in the back of the buffet’s dining hall with a tall elf she didn’t recognize. She spotted them before they noticed her, so she hung back behind the fronds of a potted cycad tree, taking in the scene and feeling acutely annoyed that her fixer hadn’t come alone like he’d said he would. Their plates were piled high with “brontosaurus prime rib” and garlicky algae mash. A discreet surveillance jammer sat beside Felician’s sweaty mimosa goblet, projecting a white noise screen and hologram blurs over their mouths to foil lip readers.

Was the stranger her Mr. Johnson? She didn’t like clients knowing her face and voice; that’s why Felician got his cut. He was supposed to be the face of all the deals, and he was supposed to deal with the heat that could bring. He got paid so she could remain anonymous.

But the mystery elf didn’t look like a corporate type. He wore a street-anonymous dark tee shirt and jeans, but he had an electric blue topknot and a whole lot of facial piercings. And the lack of telltale scars behind his ears from his studs getting tacked into his skull meant he didn’t get in many fistfights. And that meant that he was either a crummy fighter (and maybe a total poser)...or he was good enough with his tongue or a blade or gun that he didn’t need to brawl. His face reminded her of a half-dozen trideo stars, and he looked to be in his mid-twenties, which probably meant he was in his forties or even a bit older, a seasoned pro. His gracefully sinewy forearms bore only one visible tattoo—a two-headed coral snake coiled atop his left wrist—but she did see a couple of healing blade scars, the kind you inevitably got going in for the kill. Yes, this guy liked to play with knives. Not a brawler, but a fighter for sure.

And that realization made her feel annoyed all over again. Felician knew she worked alone. She didn’t want to have to worry about some dumb bolt screwing up the job, nor did she want to have to chase down a dumber jack who decided to run off with the loot. She’d been on awful crews her first few years running, and she was done with that nonsense. Her requirement for solo jobs was her hardest rule. Why had Felician ignored it and invited another runner to their business discussion?

She fixed a neutral smile on her face, stepped out from behind the cycad, and cleared her throat. Felician glanced up and beamed at her.

“Ah, Velocity, my love!” He raised his drink in greeting. “So glad you could join us!”

She extended her hand to the mystery elf. “Greets, chummer. I’m Velocity. And you?”

He gave her a bright grin and replied, “Hi, I’m Borealis.”

His voice was deep and smooth as Belgian chocolate, and he had a knee-weakening New Orleans accent. She ran hot and cold with sexy Southern boys. Sometimes they were easy on the eyes and no good at all in the sheets, but the ones who were good were oh my so very good...

She struggled to keep her expression steady. Frag me sideways, she thought. I don’t need this kind of distraction right now. Is Felician trying to get me killed?

“Have a seat, Velocity.” Felician scratched his short dark beard in a gesture that she’d long ago learned was a sign of nervousness. “We can all have a nice friendly chat.”

She slid into the booth next to the fixer and gave him an expectant look.

“So you’re probably both wondering why the other is here,” Felician said. “Well. You two have so many things in common.”

“One being that we both prefer to work alone?” Borealis said, his eyebrow arching up ever so slightly.

Another beard-scratch. “Yes, that’s one thing. But! Both of you recently ran afoul of that particularly nasty black ice that the Evo Corp deployed to protect its interests. And so I believe both of you would like a chance to count coup against that particular corporation, yes?”

Velocity and Borealis glanced at each other and shrugged.

“Because you’re both still recovering from that unpleasantness,” Felician said, “you also both need to stay in meatspace, and this won’t involve the Matrix. Under usual circumstances, this job would be easy for either of you to accomplish as a solo mission. However, your ongoing recoveries would make a team effort more prudent. So I would ask that you set aside your solitary preferences, just this once.”

“What about the payment?” Velocity asked. “Half of my usual fee isn’t going to keep me in coffee and ammo.”

“There’s plenty to go around.” Felician texted her a number with enough zeroes after it that she was suddenly imagining taking that trip to Tahiti she’d always dreamed of. And she could stay at a real beachside resort, not a runners’ flop by the wharf. And afterward, she could get that skeletal enhancement she’d had her eye on; never again would she have to worry about busting a bone if she had to take a dive out a fourth floor window.

She glanced over at Borealis, and she could see by the gleam in his pretty silver eyes that he was daydreaming about well-funded funtimes, too.

In hushed, calm tones, Felician laid out the plan. Their client wanted them to break into the mansion of an Evo Corp executive named Morgenstern Moon and steal a metal storage box he kept hidden in his panic room. Velocity and Borealis would deliver the box unopened to a particular drop site, whereupon the mysterious Mr. Johnson would upload the money into Felician’s account, whereupon he would share out the funds.

“I have blueprints for the house, and Moon and his guards will be away at a charity fundraiser the night of the heist. It’ll be a quick, tidy job, and I’m sure you’ll both sleep better knowing you royally reamed the suit who signed off on the program that scorched you both.”

Velocity glanced at Borealis. It looked like he was still doing math in his pretty head, and liking the sum he was coming up with. 

She put her hands on the table. “I still need to know who I’m working with before I can agree to this. No offense.”

Borealis nodded. “None taken. I feel the same way.”

Felician smiled. “I’ve uploaded your respective resumes—with sensitive details redacted, of course!—to your dropboxes. Get some food, take a look! Take your time. I have every sincere belief that you’ll both get on like a house on fire.”

Velocity cued up the file in her commlink and slowly scrolled through it as she walked through the buffet line. Her initial impression that he was a blades expert was correct. Borealis had a background in covert ops. Apparently he’d worked for Lone Star in his youth, but he’d gotten fired and nearly killed after he refused to exterminate a bunch of street bums whose only crime was panhandling in an area where it had been deemed a nuisance. Velocity knew that kind of moral code was laughably old-fashioned, but if she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to kill innocents either, not even when the money was too good to pass up. Softie or not, Borealis had been on dozens of successful heists and covert ops missions since his dishonorable discharge. Client recommendations praised his quiet, low-key efficiency.

He certainly seemed like the kind of runner she could do a job with. The bigger question was whether his file was accurate or not. They could be playing her. That was always a risk. But why would Felician try to trick her into working a job with him? Who would benefit from that? She laid out the known facts, and no matter how she sliced them with Occam’s Razor, she came to the same conclusion: this was a straightforward job. Felician’s nervousness was probably due to worry that he’d lose his cut on a sweet gig because she and Borealis would refuse to work with each other out of paranoia or stubbornness or both. If her jobs were typical, it would also be more money than he’d seen in months.

She got back to the booth with her plate filled with fried archaeopteryx eggs and stegosaurus sausage, a tall mimosa in her other hand, and said, “I’m in.”

“Me, too,” said Borealis, and they bumped fists.

“Outstanding.” Felician gave them both a wide, relieved smile. “Let’s go over the details...”

Three nights later, Velocity picked up Borealis and his gear bag outside a downtown coffee shop. She drove a nondescript, aging Eurocar she’d picked up after the brunch; she’d done just enough work on it to make sure the engine, tires, and brakes were all solid and would stand up to a fast getaway over rough ground. But they were going to dump it after the job no matter how it went, so it had been a Duct Tape Special for sure.

Borealis wore dark jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved, deep red shirt that nicely contrasted with his hair under the fluorescents, but would look black in low light. She could see the faint outlines of body armor beneath it. So far, he looked and acted like a real pro.

Felician, for your sake I better not regret this, she thought.

“You got the plasma cutter?” he asked.

“I got everything on your list,” she replied. “It’s all in the trunk.”

“Mind if I put on some music for the drive?”

“The speakers are trash, but go ahead.”

He cued up an old album by Ivan and the Suckmunkies.

“Wow, I haven’t heard this in forever,” she said.

He seemed surprised she’d heard it at all. “What do you think of Bässgrindeur?”

“I love those guys! But really, Basterd Rat did his best work with the Broken Nose Trio....”

They continued bonding over obscure bands as she drove them out of the city into the woods. The road to the executive’s valley compound wound through hills and trees so tall she could barely see the darkening sky. Shortly after sunset, they crested a rise above the valley and saw a huge glowing dome that looked like the Moon itself had fallen to earth and embedded itself in the valley floor. Her knowledge of lunar terrain was pretty minimal—it was hard to see it very clearly through all the air pollution—but she saw craters etched in the surface, and thought she recognized Mare Imbrium and the other dry seas of the rocky satellite.

“Well, that’s a fragging amazing replica,” Borealis said. “Way better than I was expecting.”

“The map says ten stories tall at the apex, but the panic room is directly below the first floor master suite.” Velocity pulled the car off the road and killed the headlights. “We’re about a two kiiometers away. Can you sprint that if we need to bug out in a hurry?”

He nodded. “I run every day.”

“Good. Felician’s intel says that the best way to get there is to just cut through on the southwest side.”

“Below the replica of the Grimaldi crater, yeah. I see exactly where it is.”

“Okay, let’s roll.”

They gathered their gear and headed down through the trees to Moon’s palace. At ten kilos, the plasma cutter was the heaviest piece of equipment they had to carry, but if it performed as expected, it would make short work of the exterior wall. And in a pinch, it would make short work of any armored guards they encountered. Most of his security detail was supposed to be with him at the charity event, but there were always at least one or two guards left behind.

“You getting a body count with the infrared scanner?” she whispered as she deployed four tiny laser replicator drones to make an undetectable hole through the security grid. She could just barely see the network of red lasers against the bright backdrop of Moon Palace. Still, the dome wasn’t as blinding as she’d expected; up close, its luminance seemed much gentler.

“Nobody outside, at least not on this side,” he replied. “The walls are too thick to detect anyone inside. Think we should try to hack into the house automation to check?”

She sighed; she could, but then she’d be useless with vertigo. “I’m still too scorched for that. You?”

“Same.”

“Slash and grab,” she said. “Let’s get in, get out, and get back. If anybody discovers us, well, it’s their damn unlucky day.”

They ran through the laser gap to the wall. Borealis hefted the cutter and fired it up; a wicked two-foot blade of red-white light emerged from the tip. He plunged it into the glowing surface of the dome, and it sank straight through, cutting the sparking LED matrix like it was cake frosting. In seconds, he’d cut a doorway, and she kicked it into the building. It landed with a crash that made the cat burglar in her cringe. 

She froze at the smoking opening. The room inside was dark and silent, but through her enhanced eyes she could see it clearly enough: a richly appointed bedroom with a satin-covered bed big enough to sleep at least seven people. The padded headboard was taller than she was, and she saw recessed D-rings affixed to the posts. Clearly, Moon enjoyed having a few friends over for parties.

“Let’s do this.” She jumped over the fallen wall to the plush carpet beyond.

Suddenly, the bathroom door swung open.

Velocity’s hands were on her guns and she fired before the bald man in the purple silk bathrobe and bunny slippers could utter anything more than an indignant “What the—” He fell where he stood, a bullet in his heart and another in his brain.

“Frag me,” Borealis muttered. “That’s Morgenstern Moon!”

“Oh, crap.” She blinked, wondering what accidentally assassinating the master of the palace would do to the terms of their payment.

His brainstem hadn’t quite died yet, and his hand spasmed. Something shiny slid from his opened palm. A card. A playing card? She darted forward to pluck it off the carpet.

It was a tarot card, she realized, and it depicted three young women, one a green incarnation of the Matrix, another a mechanic in red with a dragon tattoo, and the third a blue adept of Nature with a hawk familiar. They looked like they could be sisters or lovers or maybe just all aspects of the same woman. No—lovers, definitely; there was nothing sisterly in the look that the blue nature girl was giving the red mechanic in the middle. The green woman had left the imprint of her kiss on the mechanic’s cheek, and Velocity felt as if she were staring right through her. Her expression was less seductive and more deadly. As she traced her finger over the image, she felt as though she could hear the ocean.

“What is it?” Borealis asked.

“Just a card.” Velocity tucked it into a vest pocket and reloaded her pistols with magazines of explosive rounds. “Don’t think it means anything. We better find the box in the panic room before—”

Four guards in full battle gear kicked down the hallway door. Huge, orks or trolls probably, but she couldn’t make out their race or sex under all that armor. Felicity plugged the first two in the neck where the Kevlar was weakest, and she heard the wet pop! of their bodies and skulls getting pulped inside their carapaces. The other two fell back, but laid down fire she and Borealis had to dance sideways to dodge. More trolls bellowed in the hallway: reinforcements were coming fast.

“Get the box!” she shouted. “I’ll deal with these guys.”

Borealis set to cutting open the floor behind the cover of the huge bed while she ducked and dodged and plugged the massive guards one by one. This was a dance she’d done on more jobs than she could remember; her legs moved and her eyes aimed and her hands fired seemingly all of their own accord. Time seemed to stretch like taffy, every smoking shell taking an eon to hit the fancy carpet. She was faster than any armored guard. Tonight, she would be faster than bullets, faster than death. The highly trained, loyal men and women in the hallway dropped one by one, minds literally blown.

It took her a moment to realize that Borealis was yelling, “Got it!” and sprinting for the hole in the wall. She killed the second-to-final guard and backed out, guns still blazing, and they both took off for the road.

After they’d dumped the Eurocar at the waterfront and ran a half block to the Nissan Velocity had parked as a second getaway vehicle in case things went south, she took a moment to examine the lockbox that Morgenstern Moon had paid so dearly for. It was just a battered metal storage case airbrushed with decorative stars. Sturdy, certainly, but it screamed “band gear” more than it did “corporate espionage”. Borealis had scanned it and the tarot card for bugs and trackers while she drove back to the city, and hadn’t found anything. Still, they couldn’t be 100% sure something in the case wasn’t sending somebody a signal unless they got inside it, and the terms of the deal were that they were not to open it no matter what.

“So, you think it’s bearer bonds, patent secrets, or just a mike once owned by his favorite rock star?” she asked.

Borealis shook his head, frowning. “I care more that Felician isn’t answering on any of his channels. And he or someone else appears to have shut off his accounts. All my messages are bouncing. We need to figure out what’s going on, and why.”

Velocity pursed her lips. Felician disappearing could mean he’d been targeted by whoever had fed him bad intel. Or it could mean the client was murderously pissed. Or it could mean that the gig had actually gone mostly according to Felician’s plan, except that she and Borealis were supposed to be bleeding out on Moon’s fancy carpet, and now their fixer was dodging them. Or it could mean something else had happened that had nothing to do with Moon. “Well, if he had to go to ground, I think I know where he’ll be.”

“Are we still taking the case to the drop point tomorrow?”

She nodded. “That’s still the plan. No sense in getting multiple bounties on our heads in the space of two days without good reason. But we better find Felician first. We know we’re in some serious guano here, but he might actually be able to tell us how deep it is and which sewer gull dealt it.”

Felician’s downtown office was stripped bare; apparently he’d cleared out in a hurry. The lack of bloodstains or telltale cleaner odor made Velocity reasonably certain that he hadn’t been murdered and dragged away. So she took Borealis on a tour of the bars and dives that Felician thought she didn’t know about.

They found him sitting in the back of a troll bar called Buster’s. He was at a narrow high table, morosely nursing a gin-and-tonic and pulling at his beard.

Velocity pretended to scratch her collarbone and let her hand drop inside her jacket to the grip of her lefthand pistol. “Felician. What the frag happened, chummer?”

With a start, he looked up, his face paling. “Velocity. Borealis. I—”

From the corner of her eye, she saw the stun grenade sailing toward them, and she barely had time to grab Borealis and dive into an unoccupied booth before it went off. When she popped back up, she saw a whole corporate security goon platoon swarming through the front door. Fortunately, the troll regulars didn’t much cotton to the invasion and were raising a violent ruckus, efficiently blocking the squad’s progress through the bar. At least a half-dozen fistfights broke out, and the place soon filled with the din of smashing glass and fracturing furniture.

She turned back to Felician’s table. The fixer had taken the full blast of the stun grenade and was sprawled unconscious on the floor, bleeding from his nose and ears.

“We gotta get to the safe house,” she told Borealis. “Grab Felician, I’ll cover us!”

He nodded. “You’re the boss.”

A few armored corporate sedans tried to chase them down, but Velocity managed to lose them all in a suburb with hilly, twisty streets and plenty of handy alleys and confusing cul-de-sacs. They ditched the Nissan and switched to an old Toyota she’d left parked in uptown.

An hour later, they were carrying Felician and the case up the steps to the #3 safe house, an abandoned regeneration clinic. Fading lion’s-head caduceus symbols, the logo of the bankrupt company that originally built it, decorated the gray concrete walls.

Once they were securely locked in, they put Felician in a dusty, high-backed office chair and checked his pupils and pulse.

“Looks like he’ll be okay,” Borealis said. “But who knows when he’ll regain consciousness.”

Velocity pulled a pair of chrome handcuffs out of her rucksack. Borealis cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Those professional, or recreational?” he asked.

“They’re whatever I need them to be, sweetie.” She snapped the short chain at him and then set to binding Felician’s hands behind the chair.

“I get the feeling he knows how to wriggle out of tight spots,” Borealis remarked. “Better use some rope, too.”

After they got Felician as securely bound as they could without impeding his breathing, they went upstairs to the lounge. Velocity’s socks were uncomfortably sodden with sweat and rain inside her tactical boots. She set down the metal case, took a seat on the low sofa, unbuckled her boots, and dug her strappy stiletto heels out of her rucksack. They wouldn’t be ideal if they had to leave in a hurry, but at least her feet would get some air. She’d learned the hard way to never go barefoot after she’d stepped on a razorblade caltrop hidden in the carpet in one motel bedroom.

“Can you run in those?” Borealis asked.

She gave him a quick smile. “I can run, climb, whatever I need to do. Want something to drink?”

“Sure, what’s here?”

“Um.” She got up and checked the fridge. “Looks like you can have anything you want as long as it’s bottled water or cherry-beet IcyAde.”

“I’ll take water, thanks.”

She found a couple of skull-shaped coffee mugs in the cabinet, poured their drinks, and took them back to the sofa.

“Well, this whole evening has been a royal trash fire,” she said, “but you were good back there.”

He gave her a slow, sexy grin. “High praise, indeed.”

She felt herself redden in an unfamiliar blush. “Well, I mean...I was never much for group projects, even back in school. But working with you...yeah, it was good.”

His grin widened, and his silver eyes sparkled. She had to resist the urge to just lean in and kiss him. 

“I can’t say I’ve enjoyed the complications, but I have enjoyed the company.” He raised his mug in a toast. “To solid partnerships, and better gigs in the future.”

“From your lips to Fate’s ears.” She clinked her skull’s face against his, as if the porcelain figures were exchanging a quick peck.

“Fraaaaag!” Shrieking at the top of his lungs, Felician charged up the stairs, still loosely bound in the ropes. The handcuffs dangled half-open from one wrist.

Velocity pulled her gun, at first thinking that he’d gone mad and was charging at them, but he just kept running up the stairs.

“What the frag is going on?” Borealis asked.

They both got up to look down the stairs—and saw dark grey water rising fast in the stairwell. It was already higher than the front door. The salty, rotten-kelp smell of seawater slid up her nostrils. The temperature in the room was dropping, but the water looked like it was boiling...

No. Not boiling. She stumbled back, wondering if she was going to faint. The water was roiling because it was teeming with serpents. The same dark, coiling monstrosities she’d been seeing in her prophetic hallucinations.

“Frag me,” Borealis moaned, staring at the rising water in horror. “Not freakin’ snakes.”

“But...your tattoo. Don’t you like snakes?”

“Drek, no. I got this because of the fraggin’ dreams. I thought...I thought it might help.”

Her heart beat faster. “What dreams?”

“I’m standing on a cold beach, and all these serpents come out of the water...”

“Frag! I know that dream. I’ve had it myself.” 

He looked startled. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

The water rose faster and faster, and more and more snakes seemed to be coming with it. Just looking into the serpent-infested waves made her sick with vertigo.

“This has to be somebody’s summoning spell,” Borealis said. “But I didn’t know Evo had shamans with the kind of juice to do something like this.”

“Felician had the right idea; let’s get some altitude,” she replied. “This can’t possibly get much higher, can it?”

A huge wave of seawater and snakes abruptly washed onto the landing, and they ran upstairs. The sea surged up behind them, faster and faster. Soon, breathless, they slammed open the door to the roof. Felician was standing there untying the last couple of Velocity’s knots.

She drew her pistols and put Felician in her sights. “Talk. What the frag is going on?”

He raised his hands in an appeasing gesture. “I don’t know, I swear! I got to my office and somebody had cleared it out, and then my accounts all got shut down—”

“Oh, hells,” Borealis said.

Velocity glanced behind her. The sea was surging up over the threshold onto the roof and snakes were flopping over with it, writhing and hissing. One coiled up and lunged at Borealis’ booted feet. He drew a throwing stiletto and neatly impaled the serpent’s head. But a dozen more, a hundred more, a thousand more were wriggling onto the roof behind it.

Velocity fired at the front edge of the wave, blasting the snakes to red mist...but she knew she didn’t have enough ammo. Not nearly enough. She wouldn’t have had enough if she’d been so loaded down with bullets she couldn’t stand up.

“We could go over the side of the building,” Borealis said as they backed away from the snakes and waves. 

“I used less than five meters on Felician,” she replied. “All the rest is still in my bag downstairs.”

“We could just climb down, though?” Felician sounded hysterical; apparently he wasn’t a snake fan, either. “It wouldn’t be that hard, we’d just have to...oh, fraaag me.”

Felician was staring horrified over the edge of the building. Velocity followed his gaze. The serpent sea wasn’t just in their building; it was everywhere. Rising waves and slithering snakes as far as the eye could see down all the streets and alleys, everything grey and surreal in the early morning light.

A vertiginous nausea took her, and she wobbled backward. This was her nightmare made flesh. And there was no escape from it...except for the bullets in her pistols.

Velocity closed her eyes. No. This didn’t make sense. No shaman was powerful enough to do all this. Probably a hundred shamans couldn’t have pulled this off. She was missing something. What was really going on?

Open your eyes and really see, she told herself.

She followed her own order and turned in a slow circle, taking in the scene around her. Ignoring the snakes and the water and Felician and Borealis. Her eye caught the slightest wavering of air beside the ancient HVAC unit. It could have been a mirage of hot air, but it wasn’t quite in the right place.

Whatever it was, it didn’t belong, and Velocity fired at it. The explosive round found its mark, and she heard a woman’s gasp of pain a moment before all the snakes and the water utterly disappeared.

“What!” Borealis spun in a circle. “That was a swarm illusion! How did I not recognize that?”

Velocity’s eyes and brain were finally making sense of what she was looking at: someone sprawled dead beneath a chameleon cloak. A bare hand and a foot in a fashionable moccasin poked out from beneath the mimetic fabric, giving the illusion of random, bloodless severed limbs lying on the roof.

She strode forward and pulled the cloak off. Beneath it was an odd-looking blonde girl wearing the trendy hippie throwback stuff popular with shamans in the area.

“Either of you know her?” Velocity asked.

“Frag, that’s your client.” Felician scratched his beard. “Well. Hm… This might complicate us getting paid.”

“This is our Miss Johnson?” Velocity was gobsmacked. “But who is she?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s Astrid Moon,” Borealis replied. “Morgenstern Moon’s daughter. I’ve seen pictures of her on the news feeds.”

“His daughter?” Velocity said. “But why would she do all this? If she wanted us dead, why not call in an air strike?”

“You both have SINs, am I right?” Felician asked. “Yeah, I know, you have the forgeries, but you two also have real ones?”

Velocity and Borealis looked at each other and reluctantly nodded.

“So technically killing you could be murder,” Felician said. “Killing SINners has to be investigated. If I stood to inherit a whole lot of money from a father I didn’t like so much, and I didn’t want an investigation, tricking a couple of robbers into killing him and then tricking them into killing each other with the murder weapons would be pretty tidy, wouldn’t it? I mean, aside from the blood all over everything.”

“Wow…” Velocity stared down at the body and realized she and Borealis had both started having the dreams and hallucinations about the serpent sea after they’d been hammered by the black ice on the Evo run. Their brains had been deliberately primed for the illusion Astrid attacked them with. This double-cross had been set up months ago. “That’s pretty hard to prove.”

“Let’s open up that box and see what’s inside,” Borealis said.

They picked the locks and gingerly lifted the lid. In addition to 750,000 nuyen in tidy bank bundles, there was a copy of Morgenstern Moon’s last will and testament. 

“An old-fashioned paper will?” Velocity mused. “That’s a surprise.”

“Some people are paranoid enough to want dead tree backups,” Felician said.

“I get the feeling he had good reasons to worry.” Borealis picked up the document and began to read it. “Whoopsie. Astrid wasn’t going to inherit a whole bunch of money. Looks like dear ol’ Dad was leaving everything to his housekeeper. And his cats.”

“That’s why she wanted the box,” Felician said. “She was going to hack his will and had to make sure this copy disappeared.”

“Well, either way, looks like his housekeeper’s going to make out like a bandit, and we got our sweet payday.” Velocity patted the stacks of bills. “I say we go drop Miss Moon here in the medical waste disposal unit in the basement, and then let’s get some breakfast.”

Borealis grinned at her. “I like the way you think.”

She grinned back. “Thanks.”

“You want to do this partners thing again sometime?”

“Sure. Sometime. But I think I’ll go to Tahiti for a couple of weeks first. Shake off the rest of the scorch while I work on my tan.”

“Sun, sand, drinks, and great scenery...sounds like some hard suffering,” he joked.

“The hardest.”

“Want some company?”

She paused, then smiled again. “Sure. I think I’d like that.”

Borealis winked at her, then turned away to head downstairs. Velocity pulled the Tarot card out of her vest pocket and gazed at it thoughtfully. The green woman of the Matrix stared back at her in seductive challenge. Velocity wondered again if the three were lovers, or all just aspects of the same woman. Either way, they were united. Maybe, just maybe, a successful union could be far more satisfying than running solo had ever been.

Velocity tucked the card back into place over her heart, and followed Borealis.

KARMA

(KARMA)

DAVID ELLENBERGER

Three days ago, we started down a path that would change everything. My team of hunters were the best. We collected the bounties the megacorps offered for those who threatened the world. We also did our own research to make sure they really were a threat, and not just on some corporate hit list. The shaman checked out, and we decided taking him out was in the best interest of metahumanity. It wasn’t hard to find the toxic dump he was using to summon his horrible mutant spirits. It was a couple days of Scooter using his drones to follow people around the slums, and Runs with Knives walking the streets and blending in. Finally, we had tracked him to a sewage dump on the outside of Chicago.

Spiritwalker’s flint-grey eyes followed the same mana flow I saw. We alerted Scooter, and he launched his flyspy drones to get a picture of the shaman, since we didn’t want to expose ourselves to the toxic dump directly if we could avoid it. As he left, we figured out he was headed back to a rundown apartment complex, but when he ducked through a door before the flyspy could get through, we didn’t know what room. A day later Scooter had flown around the building and finally found him in apartment 5H. Now we just had to verify he was actually the target.

Spiritwalker reentered his body and opened his eyes. “I traced the astral trail from the sewage pit there to the apartment over in the slums. Apartment 5H, just like the recon showed. The spirit on the roof disappeared at dusk just like we expected. We have a half-hour window, and then he’ll probably have a new spirit up there. I think it’s now or wait until sunrise. Who knows what he will do in the night if we wait.”

“Vindicator, how’s the front look?”

“All clear, boss,” he replied over the comm.

I looked around the van. “Okay Scooter, take us to the drop zone. Everyone remember the plan. No civilians, no collateral damage. Just take out the shaman and collect the bounty.”

As we stopped at the drop zone, I looked one last time at the Celtic Cross layout I had dealt. It promised success, but the Karma card at the center had me worried.

We spread out and made our individual paths for the last three blocks to the rendezvous point. One last check to make sure we weren’t missing anything. The takedown had to be flawless. He was too dangerous a foe to make a mistake, or we’d all be going home in body bags.

As we formed up at the rendezvous, my eyes adjusting to the twilight as the setting sun cast a purple hue on the buildings, I checked in with Vindicator. The big troll’s deep baritone voice confirmed the target was still in his flat.

“You sure he hasn’t made you?”

“I’m part of the landscape, in the pack of squatters across the street. It’s all cool, hombre.”

I couldn’t see the big troll ever becoming part of the background. The stench of sewage or something in the dump two blocks over filled the air. I put on my respirator and checked that the others had donned theirs. I switched to astral sight, and didn’t see any spirits. “Okay, we’re still clear. Is he alone up there?”

Vindicator said, “I haven’t seen anyone come or go in the five hours I’ve been here, so I’d say he’s alone.”

“Okay. We’re moving in. Standard takedown. Standard diamond formation on the way in, since we don’t know if he has any other assets in the area. Vindicator, we’ll pick you up on the way in.”

Runs with Knives said, “Not our first rodeo, boss. We’ll take him down just like the others.” He shook his head slightly to emphasize the point, his long black hair swaying with the movement.

“The cards said there would be balance, Karma in the immediate future of the Celtic Cross. I don’t want one of us in a body bag balancing out his death.”

“Boss, you see too much in those cards,” Vindicator said. Streetshade nodded at the troll’s words, raising his Ares Alpha to his shoulder as he took the point of the diamond.

“No one complained when it saved us in the Barrens a couple months ago.”

“Nor did we complain when it sent us on that wild goose chase last month,” Spiritwalker stated.

As we moved out, the chatter stopped and I knew we were ready to go. The shadows grew longer as the buildings blocked out the setting sun. It was the time of the hunter. It was our time.

I took the rear point of the diamond so I could provide magical overwatch. My eyes adjusted to the fading light, but even still, my teammates were little more than dark silhouettes. We hoped it would be even worse for the target, since he was human. The next block was almost total darkness, as not a single streetlight was working.

We turned the corner, seeing flickering reds and oranges outlining three squatters huddled around the burn barrel across the street. Their shadows danced on the target’s building like demons in hell. The smoke burned my eyes and they started to water as Vindicator stepped out of the gloom of the alley. He took up point on the diamond as Spiritwalker handed him his two-handed sword.

Runs with Knives was already at the door. “No lock. Entering the lobby.” He slipped through the doorway. The rest of us waited on the soot- and trash-covered stairs, each scanning the rest of the block, looking for any sign of trouble. “All clear. No civilians,” he said from inside.

“We are a go,” I said, then cast a spell to increase my reflexes. The world slowed down as my awareness sped up. I pushed the spell into the corner of my mind to keep it going and refocused on the door. Following the team into the deserted lobby, my eyes quickly adjusted to the dim lights.

We started up the stairs. On the second floor landing, my heightened senses slowed the devil rat’s movement as it scurried across the floor. Runs with Knives turned at the sound, throwing in one fluid motion. The knife impaled the devil rat right behind the head, pinning it to the floor. With a small chuckle and a shake of his head he retrieved his knife and we continued up the stairs. I could see the tension in Spiritwalker’s stride and felt a ball of unease in the pit of my stomach. Everything had been smooth so far. Almost too smooth. No job ever went as planned.

Black mold was growing on the walls as we continued up. The tendrils of it showing where the failing roof let water in. The mosaic reminded me of ivy crawling up the wall at Wrigley Field.

We made it to the fifth floor landing, and Runs with Knives examined the door leading to the hallway. “Maglock. Decent quality even.”

“Is it a problem?” I asked, because he expected me to, even though I already knew the answer.

“No, thirty seconds tops.”

Spiritwalker caught my eye as he sat down cross-legged on the landing. “Do it while Spiritwalker checks out what’s on the other side.”

The shaman leaned back against the wall and his head lolled forward as he moved onto the astral plane. Time dragged on, and I worried what was taking so long. We were exposed in a kill box here on the landing.

I watched a bead of sweat form on Runs with Knives’ forehead, and then run down the side of his face parallel to the scar that was just beginning to fully heal from a blood shaman’s athame six months ago. “Got it!” he declared. He and Vindicator both turned to me, awaiting my command.

“Mutated dogs. At least two of them. I think they saw me.” Spiritwalker said as he snapped back into his body.

Runs with Knives pushed the door open as I gave the command to sweep and clear. Vindicator stepped through, taking four long strides down the hall to the first dog. It leaped at his face from three meters away. Vindicator calmly swung his sword up as if it was a toy instead of two meters of hardened steel. He caught the dog under its forelegs and cut through to its hunchback. The howl broke the silence and echoed in my head.

Vindicator stepped back and glanced over his shoulder, fear warring with resolve on his face. My stomach knotted, and I thought I was going to retch. Runs with Knives slipped in and to the right, his hands blurring even to my enhanced senses as he unleashed a flurry of knives the moment he cleared Vindicator. Streetshade was next through the door and heading left, trying to get an angle for his Ares Alpha.

The first knife was slightly high, and then the second bounced off its back. The third buried itself in the beast’s shoulder, but didn’t slow it down as it howled again. Vindicator turned, his sword clattering to the ground, and he ran. The Barghest had broken his resolve.

Streetshade flattened himself against the wall, his gun pointed at the ceiling as Vindicator barreled by. Runs with Knives had a knife in each hand, not that they would slow the thing down. Spiritwalker dove at Vindicator when he emerged on the landing. He bounced off the troll and fell between his legs. Vindicator tripped on Spiritwalker and I heard a crack. I hoped Spiritwalker wasn’t hurt too badly as Vindicator crashed to the ground with a thud that shook the landing.

I stepped into the doorway, white lightning dancing between my fingers before snaking out and hitting the Barghest. Stunned, it missed its next stride. I blinked, trying to clear the afterimage of the lightning from my sight as Streetshade unleashed a burst into the Barghest, driving it to the floor. Blood splattered the wall and it started to rise. Runs with Knives threw and caught it in the right eye, snapping its head back. It slumped to the ground, dead. My breath was coming in gasps as the mana afterimage took my breath away.

Without waiting for me, Runs with Knives and Streetshade advanced down the hall to door 5H. With the adept covering him, Streetshade set the breaching charge on the hinges and lock as the rest of us followed.

As we joined them, Vindicator said, “Thanks, but if you ever talk about tackling me to any of my chummers, I’ll take it out of your hide.”

“You tripped, I just caught you,” Spiritwalker said with a chuckle, then winced. I hoped his ribs were only cracked and not broken.

“Not really better,” Vindicator said as he picked up his sword.

The charge blew the door off the hinges. As it fell inward, it started melting. Acid splashed the doorframe with a crackling hiss. Runs with Knives and Streetshade pulled back a step. The warped door clattered to the ground, and Streetshade tossed a flash-bang grenade into the room. A second later it went off in a series of deafening explosions and blinding flashes. Streetshade was first through the door, heading diagonally to the right covering his half of the room with his assault rifle. Vindicator stepped inside next, moving left, sword at the ready. “Watch the acid puddle inside the door,” he said.

The air shimmered, and a dirty grey mist started congealing in the middle of the room. A three-round burst from Streetshade didn’t affect it, thudding harmlessly into the wall. It whirled like a cyclone as it shot across the room and engulfed Streetshade, yanking him off the ground. He spun helplessly and his respirator was torn from his face.

The mist continued changing, becoming a distorted beast with three ropy arms and an elongated human head. Streetshade was encased in its chest, struggling to get out. Vindicator pulled back for a moment, unsure where to swing to get the spirit without hitting Streetshade.

Runs with Knives jumped on the spirit’s back, pulling his long knife. With his left hand he grabbed its slimy, stringy hair and yanked back, then cut across its neck in what would have been a killing slash to a metahuman.

The thing let out a screeching howl that reminded me of a cross between a wounded cat and grizzly bear. Streetshade hit the ground with a thud, but held onto his gun. The spirit became tendrils of smoke and smog. Runs with Knives landed on his feet and rolled away as the spirit howled again. A cloud of thick smog billowed forward on Runs with Knives’ heels.

Spiritwalker threw herbs from his belt pouch at the spirit as he started his incantations in Spanish. I glanced at the door on the far side of the room. Vindicator hacked at the spirit, severing a smoky tendril, only to have two more grow from the wound. Spiritwalker kept chanting, and the spirit suddenly howled and imploded, disappearing.

“So much for not having spirits available this close to dusk,” Streetshade said as he picked up his gun.

“We got into here before we ran into one. I think we have done well,” Spiritwalker said. “There could have been one waiting for us on each landing.”

Streetshade shuddered at the thought. A sound from the bedroom at the end of the hall reminded us all that we were far from done at this point. Without the element of surprise, it was going to come down to a slugfest.

With him in the back bedroom, we had to either all bunch up in the hallway to get to him or not all attack at once. Runs with Knives settled it as he ran down the hallway and burst into the room, with Vindicator just steps behind him.

Purple swirling haze rolled out of the room like it was trying to escape. I glimpsed the shaman, dancing in his circle of power, the haze swirling away from him as he did. In the seconds it took me to process this, the haze grew even thicker.

The shaman thrust an open hand at Vindicator, and a gout of acid streamed forth. I concentrated to protect him from the spell, and the stream lessened as it burst through my shield, but still splashed the troll. Vindicator yelled in pain and swung with all his might. I knew he was close to going berserk at this point.

The toxic shaman moved into sight over Vindicator’s shoulder, and I threw another lightning bolt. The purple haze filling the hallway burned away as the lightning arced through the air. It hit his magic circle and arced around him in a dome, but didn’t reach the shaman.

A pillar of earth sprung from the floor in the middle of the circle, knocking him off his feet and out of the circle. He hit the wall and bounced to the ground. Shaking his head, he raised a hand in a twisting claw. I watched in horror as the spirit of earth mutated into an oozing pile of slime and started toward Vindicator.

Streetshade said, “Time to finish this,” and opened up with a long burst on the shaman. The first few bullets were high as the shaman rolled, but Streetshade pulled his fire onto his target like a marksman. The shaman jerked back as his blood splattered the wall behind him, but didn’t go down.

Vindicator swung at the ooze and cut right through it. The spirit dissolved, but his sword blade melted as he made the backswing. Suddenly he was holding a hilt and two-inch blade. He looked at it in disbelief. Runs with Knives slashed at the shaman as he regained his feet and blood sprayed from the shaman’s left shoulder. Suddenly darkness engulfed the room.

Streetshade said, “It’s magical, none of my vision enhancements are penetrating it!”

I switched to my astral sight and saw the spell swirling in the room. With concentration, I worked to nullify it just as what felt like a knee snapped my head back. Blood and spittle flew from my mouth as if I had just taken a punch from Vindicator. The world started rushing by again, and I realized that the concentration on my spell had been broken also.

I saw the shaman through the tunnel that was my vision and the necklace around his neck glowed as Streetshade fired another burst at him. A black shimmering shield formed around him, and the bullets bounced off. “The necklace is a focus for the spell!” I yelled.

Vindicator rushed him and grabbed him in a bear hug. In a move that reminded me of a snake, the shaman shed his armored coat, sliding free. The troll’s huge right hand flashed out, grabbing the necklace and pulling the shaman off his feet.

As I stumbled to the door, I saw that Runs with Knives was facing off with an oily, smoky cloud and knew it was another spirit. It turned, and a stream of acid slashed across Vindicator’s chest, melting his armored jacket. It splashed along his arm and hit the necklace chain, which snapped.

Streetshade smiled and immediately fired another burst. The bullets ripped through the shaman—and then into Vindicator’s unarmored chest. His smile faded, and Streetshade’s eyes bulged as Vindicator collapsed beside the shaman. At least he was still breathing, unlike the shaman. Blood bubbled on the troll’s lips.

The spirit roared in anger, but didn’t disappear. Spiritwalker and I glanced at each other, unsure of what was going on as the spirit roared again and said, “I am free!”

 Evidentially we weren’t out of the woods just yet. Streetshade fired another full automatic burst into the spirit, the bullets flattening harmlessly on it. I stumbled over to Vindicator and checked his pulse. It was weak but steady. Good, I could help with the spirit instead of trying to keep him alive. I looked up to see Runs with Knives had stepped between the spirit and Vindicator. Without looking, he said, “Patch him up. I’ll hold big ugly here off until you are done.”

The spirit laughed, its whole body seeming to shake. “You will hold me off with that little thing?” It glided forward, and Runs with Knives let it, then sliced across its front. The air cleared where the blade passed through with a hiss.

Recoiling in surprise, the spirit said, “We will settle this another time.” It seemed to melt into the floor as it went back to whatever plane it had come from.

Spiritwalker went to a workbench and said, “Look for any tomes or magical theory papers. Hopefully we can find a clue of what that thing is.”

“Scooter, come in for pickup. We have wounded and a possible enemy, so stay alert.” I said.

I turned to find Vindicator getting unsteadily to his feet. His eyes were glassy, but we weren’t having to carry him, so I wasn’t going to argue. Spiritwalker and Streetshade each had an armful of books and papers as we headed out of the building.

As we piled into the van, Scooter asked, “Did you get him?”

Vindicator started sitting down and I pointed him to the medical bed in the back. I hooked him up and strapped him down as we headed out. He was doing amazingly well for having taken three rounds in the chest minutes ago—his dermal plating must have deflected the bullets.

We continued in silence for a minute and then Spiritwalker said, “He had an ally spirit. That must be what we turned loose back there.”

I thought about that Karma card again, and in a way thought a teammate in a body bag might have been a better balance for the spirit we might have just loosed upon the world—even if I did hate burying friends.

TENUOUS CONNECTIONS

(Wheel of Fortune)

KAI O’CONNAL

“Call for 2–4–1. Platinum client, critical. Gilmer and Piedmont, on Georgia State campus.”

Emir reached up and flicked the emergency switches over his head. Bright red and white lights reflected off the surrounding glass buildings with enough intensity to make most people squint and have a spattering of sun spots. The siren blared off the tall structures on either side, creating an echo that inspired the cars in front of him to pull to the side of the road. His foot pressed against the accelerator, shooting them forward fast, and Nessa gripped the door to keep from being shoved back into the passenger’s seat. After the initial burst of speed, she unbuckled her seat belt and crawled into the back of the ambulance, starting to prep the gear.

“What do we know?” Emir shouted at her without turning his head, his attention focused ahead of him as he swerved around the afternoon traffic and jerked the ambulance into a hard left turn that left behind streaks of rubber.

“Troll. Brought in twice in the last year. Lots of cyberware. Gets his money’s worth from us, that’s for sure. Management’ll be pissed if we’re five seconds late.” There was a brief pause, long enough that Emir was tempted to look back at his partner. “Shit. His heart just stopped. How long?”

“Fifteen seconds.”

Emir pulled them into another turn, the momentum lifting them up on two wheels for a fraction of a second before slamming back down to the pavement with a teeth-grinding clatter. The odor of smoke and hot rubber leaked in through the ventilation system. From here, it was a straight shot to the intersection.

Ahead, the road was empty. A couple vehicles were parked off to the side, several with shattered windows and punctured tires. The staccato crack of rapid gunfire echoed over the siren, accompanied by flashing bursts of light as two groups of people exchanged rounds. Smoke billowed around the corner, pouring from some unseen source. Emir shifted in his seat, glad to feel the discomfort of the body armor biting into his skin.

“You got a lock?”

“Yes. Uploading now.”

As they sped forward, Emir saw a flashing green light displayed in front of him, just on the other side of the building to his right. The AR artifact outlined the body of a troll, lying on his side. It was impossible to tell the patient’s condition based on the overlay, but it gave him a location.

Once they passed the last parked car, Emir swerved right, riding up the curb with a solid bump and the scrape of metal against pavement. He reached up and twisted his hand around, grabbing the top of the wheel in a reverse grip. His other hand reached to his seatbelt, unbuckling it. Once they stopped, they’d need to move quickly. This zone was too hot.

Emir slowed down, watching the speedometer with intent, waiting for the numbers to tick by. As soon as they passed the threshold he knew the ambulance could handle, he jerked the wheel hard to the side and yanked up on the emergency brake. Ambulances weren’t the best at this maneuver, but the DocWagon ones had a few improvements to help, and Emir had had hours of training. The ambulance swung around until it pointed the direction they came, only a few feet from the edge of the buildings. 

A couple of bullets careened into the side, offering a hollow metallic ring. They were scattered, not focus fire. Most people respected the sanctity of DocWagon, even those with criminal experience. In truth, the more criminal activity someone was involved in, the more likely they were to respect DocWagon’s presence. Emir wagered it was because they knew one day their own lives might depend on the services they provided.

He flung the door open and jumped to the ground, running toward the back of the ambulance. Nessa had already opened the rear doors and dropped the gurney onto the pavement. She wasn’t large, but she was strong and experienced, two things that made Emir glad to have her as his partner. He passed her and ran to the corner of the building, hunching over. Even as a small ork, he still made a very large target compared to most. A couple bullets slammed into the wall above him, forcing him to drop to his knees as soon as he heard the cracks. Dust fell around him. Not enough to obscure his vision, but just enough to remind him where he was.

 Crawling forward, he peeked around the edge of the building so he could see the troll on the sidewalk. The man was bleeding from several bullet wounds and rested in a large puddle of blood. It never ceased to amaze Emir just how much blood was in a person. When it poured out over a smooth surface, it covered a lot of area. Another body was close by, only a few feet away, but a quick scan showed that whoever it was didn’t have a contract. That was all Emir needed to know.

He reached out and grabbed the troll’s ankle, planting both feet and pulling. Clenching his jaw, he adjusted his sliding feet until the troll’s body finally started moving. Emir probably couldn’t have moved him at all if it weren’t for all the blood slicking the ground. As it was, he barely managed to get the troll out of the immediate path of gunfire.

Nessa ran up and grabbed the troll’s other ankle. Shuffling their feet, the two managed to get their client into the side street next to the gurney. Emir checked his body to determine the extent of his injuries while Nessa put the cap for a syringe between her teeth and looked for a vein. The troll’s face was injured, the skin freshly blistered from some sort of chemical burn. He’d taken three gunshot wounds to the chest, and two of them were through and through. The third might be a problem, but hopefully they could leave that one to the hospital. A fourth hole in the troll’s leg was responsible for the greatest amount of blood loss.

Grabbing a length of tubing, Emir tied a quick tourniquet around the leg above the injury, hoping to stop the flow of blood. He fished in his pockets, pulling out trauma patches and bandages, dressing the wounds as Nessa administered her injection and then moved onto delivering CPR.

Emir was still in the middle of tending to the troll’s wounds when he took his first breath of his own accord and began coughing. His breathing was wet, and sounded like someone blowing bubbles in a drink. Emir glanced up at Nessa and saw she recognized the signs, too. With a heave, they hoisted the troll onto the gurney and wheeled him into the ambulance, trying to be gentle, but with a greater focus on speed. They wouldn’t be able to save him here.

Once the patient was loaded, Emir slammed the doors shut behind Nessa and rushed back into the driver’s seat. The gunfire still echoed in the street, but the bursts were more interspersed. It had become an occasional rattle rather than a near constant stream. Emir gave it little more than a passing thought as he sped away, the siren blaring as he rushed to the nearest hospital.

“—The barrels! Get them on the truck!”

Emir glanced over his shoulder at the sudden shout from the back just in time to see Nessa use her entire body to pin the now-conscious troll to the table. She strained to grab the security strap, but once her fingers curled around it, she snapped it into place over the client’s chest. He let out a guttural sound that was a cross between a growl and a moan, but it faded into silence as Nessa applied a sedative patch. Emir turned his attention back to the road and swerved through the streets. Time was not on their side.

The closest certified hospital was only a few blocks away, so there was still a chance. Emir drove to the back entrance, the one contracted by and reserved for DocWagon. Before the ambulance pulled to a stop, three people rushed out of the back doors, dragging a gurney between the two in front. The third nurse had a collection of syringes in his hand.

By the time Emir crawled out of the ambulance and walked around to the back, the troll was on the hospital gurney and Nessa was uploading the limited information they had about the client.

He looked into the back of the ambulance and saw a card sitting in the blood. It was red, with the image of a gun pointing out as if to shoot whoever held it. The white flare off the barrel of the gun caught Emir’s attention. He paused for a moment, staring at the piece of art. It was larger than most cards, almost as long as his hand, and made of some heavy stock. Somehow, he knew it was important.

Emir grabbed the card and rushed over to the troll, tucking it into the victim’s pocket as the nurses wheeled him into the hospital. Once the handoff was completed, he sighed heavily and leaned against the back of their ambulance. Even without peering around the corner, the metallic odor was near-overpowering. While the smell of blood no longer turned his stomach, he doubted he would ever be truly used to it. Cleaning out their vehicle would be a draconic effort. Burning the entire thing down with fire might be the simplest solution. At least then they could expense a new vehicle.

Exhaustion struck him like a bullet train, and Emir’s knees caved underneath him. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to recover now that the adrenaline was no longer pumping through his veins. He heard Nessa’s shoes scuff the ground as she walked over to stand by him. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. She stood next to him, arms crossed  and her head tilted to one side.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Just dealing with the crash.”

She nodded and pulled up her sleeve to show the small patch stuck to her forearm. “I keep telling you, I could give you something for that. Helps keep the edge off. Doesn’t do much, but makes the crash not as bad.”

She turned and put her foot on the bumper of the ambulance, looking at the carnage. Emir twisted around so he could look at it once again. It almost looked like someone had set off a paint bomb in the small room. Splatter reached all the way up to the ceiling. With a grunt he pushed himself up from the ground, walking around Nessa to the front of the vehicle. She slammed the doors shut and took her place next to him in the front cab. He pulled out of the loading area and drove to the cleaning station just a few meters to the side of the doors.

Almost an hour later, Emir wiped down the last of their gear with a disinfecting rag. Before he had a chance to sit down, his AR display indicated an incoming call from Central.

“Call for 2–4–1. Got another one for you. Munitions station downtown. Sending you StreetGrid coordinates. Gold corporate account. Security guard for the station. Stable, but vitals spiked. Might be a patch and go. Check it out.”

“No rest for the wicked?” Emir flashed a grin at Nessa before tossing his rag on the biohazard pile and climbing up into the front.

“That explains why you’re always working, but not why I’m stuck with you.”

“’Cause you can’t get enough of my good looks.” He drove forward, following the trail highlighted on the roads in front of him. He turned on the lights, but kept the siren off for now. Nessa would tell him if they needed more urgency. “What do we know?”

“47-year-old female, soy allergy, only has her corp account. Never been triggered. Not her lucky day. Vitals stable, barely in the red. Blood pressure dropping a bit.”

“At least this one won’t make our rig look like a low budget horror trid.”

When they got to the munitions plant, it was obvious which entrance had been used by the criminal. The large shipping door leading into the warehouse had been torn open, with several jagged fingers of steel reaching out into the parking lot. A forklift sat a few feet from the opening, deep scratches carved into the chassis from where it had forced its way through the shutter door. Fluorescent lights provided an eerie and almost mystical white glow through the opening.

Emir pulled up to the opening and got out, rushing with his partner into the building. His display let him know their target was to the left, approximately twenty meters away. This section of the large room was filled with crates stamped with various labels indicating different types of ammunition.

After four rows, the building expanded into a large open space, with several machines lining vast conveyer belt systems running the length of the facility. Most were turned off, quiet, and unmoving. One of the assembly lines was running, the conveyer belt churning in vain. There was an acrid odor in the air, strong enough to force Emir to bring his arm up to cover his nose and mouth. Up ahead, the security guard was collapsed in the fetal position next to the working conveyer belt.

Nessa reached the body before he did, rolling the guard onto her back. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was having minor convulsions. It took both of them to straighten out her body, and Emir had to hold her down while Nessa gave a quick exam. The guard’s blood pressure had dropped a few more points and her temperature had spiked, but she still wasn’t critical.

“There’s an entry wound in her shoulder, looks like a stab. Not a gun shot. No burns around the tear in her armored jacket. Guessing a knife or something.”

Emir lifted the woman’s torso and helped Nessa pull off the jacket for better access to the wound site. The skin around the puncture was sweltering and red, emanating a heat Emir could feel through his gloves as he lowered her to the ground. Nessa opened her med kit and cleaned the wound. The guard still shook, but Emir no longer had to hold her down out of fear of her spasms. He grabbed her arm and held it straight and steady, providing access for Nessa to give a shot.

Without knowing exactly what they were dealing with, they treated the symptoms as best as possible. It took a few minutes, but their efforts proved to be rewarding. The guard’s tension eased, and her wound looked clean and healthy. Her blood pressure climbed back to normal levels and her eyes fluttered open.

“Easy there. You had a rough night.”

The woman tried to push herself up and turned her head from one side to the other, rolling it as she looked around despite her weakened state. 

“Where is she? The elf? Tall—dark hair… Broke in.” Her eyebrows knit together as she reached up to gently touch her shoulder. “Stabbed me.”

Emir took her hand, wrapping his meaty paw around her rough fingers and eased her hand to the side. He helped slide her across the floor until she rested against the side of the machinery.

“You’re all right now. Rest. Tell the authorities when they arrive.”

The woman nodded a couple of times, letting her head droop until it rested on her chest. The clomp of several boots marching across the floor echoed from behind him and he turned to look over his shoulder. A group of uniformed Lone Star officers marched forward, escorted by a man in a suit who walked backward while he spoke and gestured around the facility. Nessa put a hand on Emir’s shoulder before walking off to talk to the new arrivals, leaving him to care for the client.

Checking her vitals, Emir was pleased to see she was doing well. Her blood pressure and respiratory rate were steady and back within acceptable levels. It looked like she was out of the woods. He leaned forward and put his hand over her bandaged wound, checking to see if it still burned. He couldn’t feel any heat through his glove like when they’d first found her, and the pool of red on the bandage had stopped expanding. He reached behind him to grab her armored jacket, dragging it across the floor and draping it over her legs. As he adjusted it, Emir noticed a flash of red and white sticking out of its front pocket. 

A quick glance over his shoulder reassured him that Nessa was handling the authorities, so he pulled the card out by its corner, revealing the exact same one he’d seen earlier that evening. Not only was it the same design and quality, but it was the same physical card. It was still wet and stained with blood, blood that could not have come from the security officer in front of him. For several seconds he sat there, frozen, as he stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at him from the card’s surface.

“You good to go?”

Emir jumped to a standing position as Nessa clapped a hand on his shoulder, practically knocking her over with the sudden motion. He tucked the card into his pocket before turning around.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

The officers spread throughout the building, starting their investigation. They ignored the DocWagon drivers as they left the building. The suit offered a single nod and a facsimile of a smile, the gesture not reaching past his lips. Emir was lost in his own thoughts as he swung back into the driver’s seat of the ambulance.

“Remind me again why I’m your partner?”

The question pulled him out of his thoughts and he grinned at her. “My charming good looks.”

“Right. I keep forgetting. Wonder why that could be.”

The rest of the night passed quietly without another call. When they pulled back into headquarters and went to the showers, Emir stood in front of his locker and took the card out of his pocket. It was still red with blood, and when he touched it his fingers came back red. He grabbed a towel and dabbed at it, not wanting to risk smudging the artwork. No matter how much he dried it, it remained wet. Despite that, the blood never pooled or formed a droplet. After a couple of attempts, he grabbed the towel and rubbed it across the face of the card. When he pulled the towel away, the blood remained in the exact same location, not smudged by the contact.

“Hey, Emir. Heard you had a crazy night tonight!”

Emir tossed the card face up onto the top shelf of his locker before turning to face his questioner, slamming the door shut and hearing the lock latch into place.

Emir sat in the driver’s seat of the ambulance with his feet propped against the dash, his hands folded together over his abdomen as he watched traffic pass by on the cross street in front of him. A veritable moving wall of people passed by, taking advantage of the light change to get where they needed to go.

“There’s always so many people,” he said. “Do you ever just think how many people there are in this city? Millions. It’s so crowded.”

“You say that every time we pull the day shift,” Nessa replied.

Emir dropped his feet to the floor with a solid thud that rattled the drinks resting on the dash. He leaned forward and draped his arms over the wheel, letting his not inconsiderable weight rest on the machinery with a steady groan of protest.

“That’s because it never stops surprising me. I’m used to it being quiet.”

“Yeah, ’cause it’s so quiet when some runners are shooting off their weapons or blowing shit up all night.”

Emir rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth to respond when an alert popped up on his display saying dispatch was attempting to contact him. He answered the call and started up the vehicle, ready to drive as soon as they had a location.

“Call for 2–4–1. Platinum client, coffee shop near Ares Atlanta. Sudden drop in vitals but coming back to normal.”

The engine roared to life, spooking some of the pedestrians in front of the hospital. Emir flicked the switch for the siren, smiling a bit as the people scampered to get out of the way. As soon as the path was clear, he pulled into traffic, going as fast as the increased density would permit.

“Great—an Ares exec. That close to home base, they’re gonna have a doc on staff. Waste of time.”

“Still have to make it look good. Higher ups would be pissed if we didn’t give the platinum client every full step of the dance. He’s probably fine already.”

“You called it. Vitals already back in the green.” Nessa scoffed. “I hate going into main corp space. They always look down on us. I bet half of ’em think about all the runners we save, and conveniently forget they all have contracts with us, too.”

Emir snorted in agreement. He kept his lips pressed together as they drove, deliberately focusing on the road ahead and not saying a word as they headed to Ares Atlanta. Otherwise he might not be able to keep his mouth shut once they were on the scene.

The main building was a tower stretching several stories up to dwarf all the neighboring buildings. Emir drove past the main entrance and pulled up to a stop in front of the coffee house kitty corner from the main office. A pair of corporate security officers flanked the doorway. As soon as the ambulance stopped, Emir and Nessa jumped out and sprinted up to the front entrance, each carrying a med kit. The guards scanned their displayed SINs and waved them through.

The coffee house was eerily quiet. Most of the patrons clustered together on one side of the building with the baristas, watching in silence as another corporate security officer stood as sentry between them and the executive. The older, heavyset man sat in a padded chair, rubbing his temples with his fingers while a doctor crouched on the ground next to him, interacting with a display only he could see. The doctor looked up as Emir and Nessa approached.

“Ah, yes. Thanks for your prompt arrival, but I believe your presence here will be unnecessary. As you can see, Mr. Duntera is perfectly healthy. It was a minor episode, and nothing you need to concern yourselves with.”

The doctor stood up and physically placed himself between Emir and the client. When Emir shifted to the side, the doctor shifted as well, offering a smile that didn’t even attempt to convey warmth.

“I’m afraid I still need to look him over and gather some quick vitals. Company policy and all that. I’m sure that you understand regulations and requirements.”

The doctor hesitated, staring at the two DocWagon employees. He took in a sharp breath, but before he said anything, the executive reached out and tugged on his sleeve. The doctor turned and looked down at the client. When the older man waved his hand, the doctor bowed and backed away, letting Emir and Nessa approach.

Emir crouched by the man’s side, taking a knee so he was about the same height as the seated man. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I came here at 11:35 a.m. for my daily pastry. I took it to this chair and began reviewing my shipment reports, the same as I do every day. About five minutes later, I felt a seizing pain in my chest and my right arm went numb. I tried to message someone, but everything went black. When I woke up, the doctor was already here, and you arrived shortly thereafter.”

Nessa took the vitals and fed them to Emir’s screen, numbers and charts popping up on the edge of his vision as he watched the client and listened to the executive’s story. According to the numbers, the man was healthy, given his age and known health risks. Emir suppressed the desire to shrug and sigh. Instead, he nodded and stood up.

“Well, it looks like you’re in good hands. Your vitals check out, so I think we’ll leave you in the capable hands of your doctor, if you’re okay with that.” The client nodded, so Emir and Nessa turned to go.

“Hang on a moment.” Emir turned back and saw the executive holding out a card that by now had grown familiar. “You dropped this.”

Emir took it, tucking it into his pocket without looking at it. Just a glance confirmed his suspicions. When the client let go of the card, Emir noticed that the man’s fingers weren’t red with blood. Yet he could feel the sticky wetness as his glove touched its surface.

When they got back to the ambulance, Nessa turned to face him. “What was that he handed you, and why does it look like you just found out your dad’s a ghoul?”

Emir pulled the card out and showed it to Nessa. She picked it up and tilted her head to the side as she examined it. After a few seconds she shrugged and handed it back.

“I’ve seen this card before. Not a copy of this card, but this card itself. You remember that crazy night almost a week ago? The one that started with the troll getting shot up near the university?” When Nessa nodded, he continued. “He had a card on him. I thought it was his, so I tucked it into his jacket. But the same card showed up when we went to that munitions place. There was one in the jacket. I put it in my locker…”

His words trailed off, and his eyes grew distant. Emir jerked around in his chair, turning on the ambulance and shooting forward on the road back to DocWagon headquarters. Nessa yelped and scrambled to fasten her seat belt as they lurched into traffic. Emir reached down and turned on the siren, speeding as the cars swerved out of his way.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to check something.”

The tires screeched against the pavement as they slammed to a stop in front of the headquarters. Emir jumped out of the ambulance, not even bothering to turn the vehicle off as he sprinted into the building. He burst through the doors into the locker room and rushed to his locker. His fingers shook hard enough that he had to enter his code three times before he finally unlocked it. Reaching up, he checked the top shelf of his locker.

The card wasn’t there.

Emir walked back to the main entrance of the building, his feet dragging across the carpet, not paying any attention to those around him or the incoming alerts. Nessa stood in front of their ambulance, glaring at him as he exited the building.

“Come on! We got a call. Gold client, so we need to hustle. He’s redlining.”

His movements were stiff as Emir clambered up into the driver’s seat. He fumbled for the seat belt, reaching back behind him and having to grab for it a couple times before his fingers managed to curl around the fabric.

“Emir! Snap out of it.”

“It has to mean something…I know it. They must be connected. But how…?”

“Client. Gold level. Time’s wasting.”

“First the shootout, and those weird chemical burns. Just like the woman at the munitions clinic. So maybe the same chemicals. But what would they need at the munitions center? And what the hell does it all have to do with an Ares exec in charge of shipments?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to steal some bullets. Can we get going now?”

Emir sat upright and his hands clenched around the steering wheel, making the synthleather cover creak as it twisted in his grip.

“They don’t want to steal bullets…they want to replace them! They weren’t stealing something from the munitions plant. They were making bullets with whatever caused those chemical burns.  Can you imagine what it would be like if a bunch of those bullets got out?”

Emir burst into motion, starting the ambulance and shooting out of the DocWagon parking lot, heading toward the industrial district. His AR alerted him that he was going the wrong way, instructing him to turn around and head the other direction, but he turned it off.

“Where are you going? The client’s in the other direction!”

“I need to stop this. I can’t let those bullets get out.”

“You’ve lost it. Even if you’re right, leave it to Lone Star. That’s what they do. We save people, that’s our job. And right now, we have a gold client going critical. Do you want to lose your job?”

“That’s what I’m doing. Saving people. The cards came to me. I need to do this. That’s why I got them.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

Emir glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Nessa reaching for her stun baton. She inched her arm up her thigh to where it was tucked into her belt, not making any sudden movements. With a growl, Emir drew his own stun baton and jabbed it into her side. The smell of burned flesh filled the air and she screamed once before her jaw clenched and she lost the ability to make sound. When he pulled away, she collapsed against the seat belt, her head hanging limp.

“I’m sorry, Nessa, but I have to do this.”

When he got to the industrial district, he flicked off the siren and the lights. He didn’t know where the shipment was, but he drove forward, taking turns at random. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the card, resting it on the dash and propping it up so that he could see it at the edge of his vision while he drove.

The light caught on the right edge of the card, flashing white and forcing him to squint, so Emir turned the car to the right. Directly ahead of him, he saw a pallet holding a crate with a label. His AR display magnified the label and it was ammunition from Ares Atlanta to be shipped to Lone Star central distribution center. A worker had picked up the pallet with a forklift and was backing it out of a storage building. Emir flattened the accelerator against the floor.

The crash was deafening as the ambulance slammed into the crate and smashed through it into the forklift on the other side. Emir’s head punched through the airbag with enough force to slam into the dash beyond, cracking open his forehead. Blood streamed down into his vision. Several spots of his face felt like they were melting where the chemicals from the sabotaged bullets had splashed against it. Smoke filled the air, making it difficult to breathe.

Emir reached over and tore off Nessa’s seat belt, dragging her out of the chair. He pulled her out of the vehicle, laying her down in the dirt. Her limp body was already bruising, but there were no open wounds or visible burns.

Once she was safe, he tore open his med kit, grabbing at some antiseptic pads. His fingers shook and his vision started to swim, making everything cloudy and hazy. He felt the burns spreading across his face. With a sudden jerk, the med kit tore open and the contents scattered on the ground around him. He dropped to his knees and grabbed the pads, using them to clean his face as best as he could. Eventually the burning stopped, but the pain lingered, and Emir could only curl up on his side, shaking.

He was still in that position when Lone Star responded in three minutes. Ares Atlanta security showed up only seconds later, both forces determined to find a person to blame for the destroyed shipment. They found him unconscious, the card clutched tightly in his left hand and smeared with his blood.

PAWNS AND BATONS

(3 of Batons, 8 of Batons, and 7 of Blades)

JAYM GATES

It can always get darker. In this new world, even the shadows have shadows. No matter how big a monster you are, there’s always something bigger looming over your shoulder, tasting your fear. You’ll never be safe. You can never go home.

I can never go home.

It was a strange mission from the start.

Usually jobs were assigned to groups within the Staves. The group leader would get a letter on her doorstep and a deposit for the expenses, she’d summon the selected troops and handle everything on her own. If the mission was successful, our cut would be automatically distributed into our hidden bank accounts.

This group has never worked together before. We each got our own letter. A red envelope, trimmed with gold embossing and closed with a red string, bearing an address and a thick wad of nuyen, slipped under our doors at night or into our pockets when walking through the market, or appearing in a pile of clean laundry. We never saw who left the letters, only knew what they meant. A strict warning to not tell our teammates, that they wouldn’t miss us. When we got to the address, a cloaked figure met us with terse directions and passports through the southwestern territories.

Even the team makeup was strange: two powerful mages, three snipers, the Voice…and the Sword. The Sword was a surprise, in an organization created to protect. We’ve all heard rumor of her, the lone killer in a group of shepherds, but no one in this group seems to have met her before.

Our task is pretty simple: the powers-that-be want us to ensure the safety of a mage. Apparently she’s been hiding here, or is a captive—no one’s really sure—but now she’s a target. There will be other people trying to hurt her. We may already be too late. That’s all we know. That’s all we need to know.

Keep her safe. Bring her back. Shouldn’t be hard. But Bast, this heat.

We’re used to the deprivations of a mission: long hours, tasteless food, poor sleep, and stale body odor. It’s not so bad in our usual digs, where the weather’s a little cooler, and there’s at least the possibility of finding a real bed and clean clothes.

Out here, all you’ve got is what you bring with you, whatever the desert allows you to keep. Thank Bast it’s not summer,  or we wouldn’t have a chance. Even so, we’re all red as lobsters from the relentless sun during the day, and huddling together for warmth at night. It wasn’t so bad when we had the Jeeps, but discretion and meddlesome spirits killed that option pretty quickly. Now we just have one, hauling our lukewarm water and extra ammunition. So we bake by day and freeze by night in this weird hellscape, our instruments useless and our water dwindling.

This world is an endless struggle for a little more power, a little more safety. When a source of power is found, it is never safe for long. If they can’t possess it, they’ll destroy it. That’s how it works.

That’s why I’m here. The Staves were never benevolent guardians. They were dupes, made to safeguard resources and develop dependents who had no one else to trust. I was a tool of that, and I have, through no greed of my own, stolen what they wanted.

Doesn’t that sound familiar.

They hunted her. Now they will hunt me.

We’re about fifty klicks out now, moving fast and low. Mary and Spruce have their magic damped down as much as possible to avoid attracting the wildlife. No lights. No noise. No spells. Even our cyberware doesn’t work so well, gummed with insidious dust. Everything feels slow, dragged down by heat and jammed by sand.

The desert is weird, you know? Sound echoes here. A clattering rock can rebound for kilometers. But a shout, a scream, a rockslide…the sound evaporates almost immediately. Goes dim. Goes weird. Makes you feel more alone than before.

I think we’ll go mad out here before we find what we’re looking for.

There are monsters in the desert, and spirits cruel and lost. No passage goes uncontested, no night passes without attack. We are wounded and bloody long before we find the forsaken corner of the Mojave that hides our target. Our ammunition stores are low, our water nearly gone. If there isn’t water at the target, we are screwed.

Her magic shimmers through me, earths itself from the tips of my fingers. I want to speak, to sing and shout and level mountains with a thought. I can feel her potential, her incredible ambition and might, but I do not know how to use it. The frustration seethes in me, burning my spine and eyes, nibbling at the control I have worked so hard to develop.

I was not built to contain magic, much less use it. I did not want this. I did not want to kill her. I grieve a little for what I took. She could have been so much, so brilliant. She was safe here, if not happy; the desert kept her safe. Kept the hunters at bay, kept her from hunting. It loved her, in its own way, this vessel of its power.

Bast, this heat. We’ve holed up in some rocks a couple klicks out from our target coordinates. We want to hit the place early in the morning, when the sun is just rising and the night-creatures are at their weakest. Even in the shade, it feels like my commlink is going to melt right out through my ears. The fuck were we thinking? Spruce was right. This was stupid.

The heat shimmers off the rocks and melts even our protein bars.

Fuck this mission. We should have stayed home. Should have listened to Spruce. He never liked the sound of it. But no one listens to Spruce. He worries too much. Except this time…he might have been right.

We lie on the floor together, her body even thinner now. Her blood runs from my sword, sucked dry by the sand sifting across the floor. No resource goes unclaimed in the Mojave. Stillborn magic spits and sparks from her fingers, a static storm of wasted potential. So many things we could have done with her power. So much waste. The desert doesn’t like waste.

Gods help me, I thought I’d hit rock bottom when I was first branded as a criminal. Lost my job, my girl—god, when you’re supposedly screwing the boss’s woman, and even your own girl believes you did it, maybe I made some poor life choices—and my girl had all the money, so there I was, homeless and alone and so very, very out of place. I figured it couldn’t get worse. Should have known.

A spark crackles from her fingertips to mine, and fire engulfs me.

We almost fall into our target’s hideout. It’s a steep climb up this hill, and we’re too tired by the time we reach the top to notice the heavy scent of damp earth. The ground drops suddenly into a steep slope, then down into a little valley.

Of course, this is when we see the broad floodplain to the south, which would have saved us humping all these hills.

A tiny cabin huddles in the center of the valley, shaded by a few straggled cottonwoods. The ground is moist, a small patch of green grass betrays the presence of a spring. There is nothing else here. No garden, no corral, no animals. No curl of smoke from the chimney.

We have won this far, at least.

Her breath hisses into my mouth with a taste of burned copper and pinyon pitch. Desert magic. It crackles through my teeth and trembles in my bones. Her hands are wrapped around my blade, the edge caught on her fragile bones.

It would have been easier if she’d fought me. She’s just so surprised. All her power, her fury, her magic, it falls away and she’s just a scared kid, eaten hollow by a gift no one taught her to use.

I sink forward, my blade passing through her body and hands with horrifying ease. I can’t stop myself, our breath has become entwined and she pulls me down with her.

We set up a perimeter around the place. Snipers—magic and mundane—in the nests, the bruisers guarding the road. The Sword ghosting close to the door, her fingers itching for blood.

“The door is warded,” Spruce says. “Touching it will kill us all,” he says. Whatever is inside doesn’t want to be disturbed. We prepared for this.

Our comms are having trouble, too. We can talk to each other, but our communication with the outside world disappeared as soon as we came within sight of the cabin.

We’re less prepared for that.

I can feel her hate infusing the shield around her. My sword turns hot in my hands, her fire warring with Spruce’s ice. My body is their battleground now. She pushes Spruce back, her power overwhelming him. I can feel her consuming him within me.

She forgets about the sword, so busy exterminating the threat she deigns to acknowledge. I am a battlefield, not an aggressor. The sword is a conduit, a part of her now.

The shield surrounding her weakens for an instant, and I nearly fall. Time slows, a saying I’d always considered idiotic hyperbole. Her eyes widen, latched on the blade. Her hands fly up, wrapping around the metal. Stupid girl. Stupid me. I never should have come to this spirit-infested desert.

The Voice, her pudgy body plastered with sweat-soaked khakis, sets herself up behind a rock, out of range of the cabin. She’s our first line of attack. Get the target into custody. Protected. Neutralized. We don’t know what’s in there, but we know it’s to be considered hostile, at least for now. Our orders were clear on the fragility of the package…and its sharp edges.

So for now, we need her to be friendly, so we don’t end up cut to shreds along with any attackers.

The snipers, their eyesight boosted with bioware, their heat signatures fuzzed by chameleon armor, settle into their nests. They scan earth and sky, adjusting for the heat-distortion and the wind picking up from the south. The Voice begins her siren song, weaving a net of safety and trust, a helping hand extended to the target. The bruisers play cards and sweat.

And so we wait. Wait for her to come to us. Wait for an attack. Wait for something to happen.

All I need is a moment. She’s too strong for our mages. If I can get to her, subdue her, we can deal with the attackers easily enough. I can hear what has to be Spruce screaming in rage and pain. “We need a focal point! Something to channel through!”

I carve through the spirits protecting her, my enhanced blade severing their semi-corporeal bodies and dismissing them. She has amazingly good control of the things, but she can’t seem to summon them quickly, and with the incoming attacks, she can’t focus enough to call more while maintaining her defense. She is incredibly powerful, but she is not a match for all of us.

I set the tip of my sword against her shield and open myself to the mages, feel their power pour through me in a flood of ice-cold water, and her rage-filled eyes turn to me.

The hostiles don’t waste any time, certainly not as much we’d hoped. We hear the choppers first, though maybe the weirdness glitching our comms kept them back too. We never hear more than the steady thump of rotors in the distance. Not long after, the low growl of tanks and troop transports as they come up over the floodplain. A big convoy, heavily loaded.

Sun glinting off gun turrets, the insignia of the Sioux Nation plastered everywhere. Magic shields sparking around the trucks and outriders. The heavy tramp of booted feet. They’re not even trying to stay hidden. Out for blood and power.

The package is still unresponsive. We have to hold the line. Good thing we prepared.

The earth explodes in a gout of fire, incinerating the first two trucks. Then another, tripwires activated by feet who don’t even think to see if someone’s been here first. Thought they were supposed to be the ones who knew everything first. Looks like our boss has better intel.

Our traps are working well, but we weren’t planning for a war. The convoy immediately deploys into battle formation. The snarl of machine guns erupts immediately, spraying the surroundings with suppressive fire to keep the snipers pinned.

But we didn’t just trap the road. Phantom beasts spring from the rocks, their containment wards shattered by hurried feet scrambling for cover. Soldiers go down screaming, but it barely checks the flow. We are outmatched, and in danger of being overrun. 

This is a horrible time to be unsure of my next action. Ever since I fell, since the Staves took me in, I’ve always known what I’d do, my next move, my ultimate goal. When you join the Staves, you forgo whatever vengeance you are rightfully owed. You’ve seen what can happen when people lose sight of humanity, and you make the choice to never be that.

But I’ve never really been a Stave. I never let go of the desire to find the man who bought his freedom at my expense, to make him feel a fraction of the loss I feel every second. My family, my friends, my life. They weren’t much, but they were something. They were enough. He took them from me to protect himself from the allegations of fraud, to keep living his lifestyle.

I’ve never really bought into the ‘protect those who have no one else to protect them’ thing my teammates believe in, but here I am, and the last vision of the Voice is pouring through my brain.

The Voice is pouring everything she has into subduing the target. Strain marks her face, sweat beads on her upper lip. It is the first time she has appeared uncomfortable. As she fights, the echoes of her discomfort spread across our communication web.

The Voice’s skill is in neutralizing fear and anger, in luring her target to side with her. This is beyond her, even with the target half-asleep, confused for some reason. The only advantage she has is that something else is holding the target down, keeping her passive. Another explosion shakes the earth, and the sleepy irritation blossoms white-hot, scorching the Voice’s mind in an instant.

But in that instant, she sees what the target really is, and what she will do. Her warning screams across the comms, deafening us even in the middle of battle. We are too busy fighting for our lives to pay attention, and we’re barely holding our own here. We can’t fight another enemy, we have no choice but to keep fighting the war we can see.

Even confused, magic crackles around her. I can hear the screams outside, her spirits and power slamming through the earth and frying nervous systems with a thought. Rage is the only response to the primal fear she triggers in me, and I raise my sword with a cry, diving for her.

The girl’s thin lips tremble, a manic smile flirting over them, swallowed by a snarl of rage. Mood after mood plays through her, too fast for the eye to track. She is humming with power, channeling it from an unseen source.

The Voice gives up, sinking into exhaustion. Her mind is overwhelmed by the target’s, by a swirling, chaotic firestorm. This is the thing we’re supposed to protect, this wild creature? She is the desert, uncaring of life, cruel in her casual disregard. She isn’t an ally, she’s a weapon, and someone wants to use her.

Indecision swamps us. The Voice is down, useless, her wisdom lost. We are without a leader, without a mission, without a plan. For a moment, doubt cripples us.

A sudden, alien taste of burning pine and wet copper, then the Voice blinks out of our shared web, disappearing. Dead or unconscious, who knows? It feels bad. Very bad. 

I pull my gun and send several scattered shots toward the rocks. Nothing aimed, nothing hit, but it buys me a precious moment to dive behind the target, putting her between me and the fire. Hey, the shots are clearly having no effect on her, and my shoulder tells me that they came loaded to kill. Maybe they did have better intel than us.

With the Voice down, and that last strange flare, the focus of the mission switches from “protect the target” to “survive.” The Sword is unresponsive, the target’s power disrupting any communication, but Spruce saw her dive into the cabin, and broadcasts it to the rest of us. The army is pinning us down, but our goal is clear: there’s nothing we can do now but survive.

I see her fury growing along with her awareness.

—Who are you how dare you attack me attack my home attack them how dare you how dare you you will all burn, burn like the ones who brought me here burn like all the others who come after you burn in the fire of the Great Dragon how dare you!—

Her nonsense shriek fills my head, the words garbled and running together, but the message is clear, and I am between her and the attackers.

I try to speak, to reason, to bring her attention away from the battle. My voice is snatched away, words muted by a growing roar. The package is powering up, her hair lifting from her shoulders by the light breeze beginning to swirl around her.

“We’re here to protect you! Please, let us in!”

No comprehension. I open my mouth to try again when a stray round comes through the doorway and hits the ward, shattering bones. The force drives an opening in a circle. Her eyes go to it immediately, and the air in the cabin suddenly because heavy and hot enough to burn my lungs.

Shit! I dive out of the doorway, a Sioux round clipping the top of my shoulder as I dive. Blood in the sand, she’s drawing from the earth, oh fuck can she control me now…I’m pinned by Sioux snipers and whatever that thing is.

Bast, I’m fucked.

A thin girl appears in the doorway, seconds after the Sword dives out of it. She looks horrible, wasted and wan, weaving on her feet. But fire cloaks her, and a sudden gale buffets the tiny valley.

“What do we do?” Janey’s voice borders on panic, the big bruiser pinned by heavy fire, unable to fall back. Her position had been smart when we thought that we’d only be facing a small team, but now…no. And Janey is unstoppable in pursuit of a clear mission, but take that mission away…we need to get her out of there. The Sword, too. Too many targets. Not enough time.

It’s all in the Sword’s hands now. We’re going to have to just hold on.

We dig into our positions and double down on the army, while the mages turn their efforts toward subduing the target. 

Spruce is the first to realize the danger. With the Voice down, we don’t have the triangle of power we’d relied on. Not only have we lost her strength, but the exponentially greater power we gained from her to begin with. There are simply too many soldiers.

She is still half asleep, a slight figure swaddled in ragged blankets, even in this heat. Her hair is blond and lank, hanging nearly to her waist, her limbs wasted. She looks…neglected, lost. Ragged around the edges, and somehow out of time. Her eyes are cloudy, burn scars wreath her hands and mouth.

Spirits surround her, looking equally groggy. How has she slept through the chaos outside?

A squad of soldiers charges toward the cabin behind a magic shield. A swirling wall of sand and wind gathers around them, obscuring them from sight. When it dissipates, they are on the ground, bloody, dead wrecks.

The ground erupts beneath the machine gun nest, flinging Sioux soldiers into the air. Flames roar from the new chasm, licking with a life of their own into the ammunition and vehicles. It finds the thin, dry grass and pitchy scrub and follows the path, racing in all directions to lick at clothing, vehicles, and flesh. For now, the Staves are safe; there is plenty of other fuel for the fire to devour.

We need to get control of the target. We need to neutralize her, and none of us have any ideas for how to do this without killing her. None of us can get in there.

The fire licks up the hillside, and Spruce turns his magic on the target, searching for a way to bring her down. We need an in, and frantically communicate across our web in hopes that the Sword will hear us. She’s the only one who can stop this now.

The interior of the cabin is as spare as the outside. A rickety bed, piled with ragged blankets. A pile of rotting boxes nearby. A pile of bleached bones…not a pile, a ward. Bleached bones, animal and human, containing the bed within them.

The Voice blinks and coughs up blood. Her mind is aflame with a nearly unbearable pain that seems to reach through her very core. She gathers the scattered remnants of her energy, creating a tiny bubble of sanity at the center of the maelstrom, and sends a message to the team. <We were lied to. She is the danger. She cannot leave.>

We should have known something was wrong with this mission from the start, but it’s too late now.

A stray round hits something important, and the wards around the door fall with a screech like a dozen alley cats. It takes me a moment to disengage from “How do I make this fall?” to “Get through the door!” I adapt and charge, weapon hot, and feel the comm crackle to life.

<We were lied to. She is the danger. She cannot leave.>

TO STRIVE, TO SEEK,

TO FIND, AND NOT TO YIELD

(The Avatars, The Ride, Strength)

STEVEN S. LONG

Orkus wiped his green hands on his pants for the third time. It felt weird for them to be so sweaty in the deep winter chill.

Okay, now or never.

He crossed the street, heading for a shop called Pawnmaturgy. No self-respecting mage would patronize such a dingy place in such a dingy part of the ’plex—which meant it suited Orkus just fine, since he’d long ago given up pride in favor of survival.

It didn’t look any better on the inside. Dusty and badly lit, it contained a bewildering mix of minor talismans, arcane bric-a-brac, old books, and weird curiosities. Only one item held Orkus’s attention, but he did his best not to show it.

A week ago he’d come in to browse—well, mostly to get out of the cold—and seen it:  a big, leather- and iron-bound book. It was written in Arabic or Chaldean, or some other language he couldn’t read yet, but he saw enough in the diagrams and illustrations to realize it was worth a lot more than the 100 nuyen on the price tag. But it might as well have cost a million, given his cred balance.

So he’d decided to steal it.

The only people inside were the grey-haired owner and a beefy street sam who stood guard over the shop’s “treasures.” The sam didn’t look like much—cybereyes, maybe some muscles, almost certainly a smartlink—so Orkus hoped the element of surprise would be enough to get past him.

Orkus browsed for a couple minutes, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness, then ambled over to the bookshelf. He could feel the guard watching him.

He took down a book, some old thing on the Kabbalah, and threw it at the guard’s head as hard as he could. Grabbing the grimoire, he turned to run, but stumbled as he tried to keep his grip on it—it was heavier than he remembered. He staggered into a display case, scattering curios and baubles all over the floor.

He felt the pain in his left arm at the same time he heard the shot. He dropped the grimoire, reached for it. A second shot whizzed by his head so close he felt the wind from the bullet. Definitely a smartlink.

Then he felt something even worse:  a spell being cast on his left. Drek, the old guy’s a mage! Abandoning his effort to recover the grimoire, Orkus dove for the dirty floor. A bolt of sizzling power shot over his head and destroyed a shelf of cheap ritual tools.

Get away now get away NOW! He took out his one good weapon—a smoke grenade he’d lifted off a dead security guard during a run last fall—pulled the pin, and flung it in the sam’s direction. Leaping to his feet with a speed only a man fearing for his life could muster, he ran for the door, taking the opportunity to punch the old man in his ugly face as he went by. A couple more shots rang out, shattering the storefront window, then he heard a satisfying yelp as the samurai slipped on a spilled curio he hadn’t seen through the smoke.

Orkus made it out the door and down the windy street before the owner or the sam could try anything else. He ducked into the first alley he saw, caught his breath for a few seconds, then cast Invisibility on himself before slinking away, cursing his usual luck.

A couple days later Orkus sat in another dingy business establishment. This one was simply named “Bar,” and catered to the sort of clientele who could only afford the cheapest drinks and didn’t want to be bothered while drinking them. Two other people had joined him at his table. One, a clean-shaven elf with ice-colored eyes and hair dyed jet black, had clothes and implants that said “rigger” to anyone who knew what to look for. The other was an ork woman a shade over two meters tall, muscles on muscles, who kept popping her handrazors and looking at her reflection in them. “What the hell’s the holdup?” she asked.

“He’ll be here,” Orkus said. “Just keep tranquil and enjoy the fine atmosphere of the establishment.”

As if on cue, a man walked into the place, looked around, then approached the table. He wore a greasy old overcoat with mystic symbols spray-painted on it, and carried enough bones, feathers, and medicine bags to show one and all he was some sort of shaman.

“Breeder,” the ork woman sneered under her breath as she saw his Native skin and iron-grey hair.

“Hoi, my brother Orkus,” the newcomer said, looking suspiciously at the other two. “I thought this meeting was just you, me, and the spirits.”

“It’s chill, they’re friends. This is Auriga and Liontamer. You guys, this is Two Shadows.” Two Shadows slid into the seat next to him.

“‘A Rigger’?” Liontamer asked the elf. “Couldn’t think of anything better than that?”

“It’s ‘aw-rig-ga,’ drekhead. Read a mythology book sometime, maybe you’ll learn something—assuming you can read.”

Liontamer drew back a huge fist to smash Auriga’s face, but Orkus grabbed her arm and held on for dear life, using all his body weight to stop the punch. “Hold it! Peace! Nobody meant anything. If we’re gonna work together, we’ve gotta get along better than that.”

“Work together?” Auriga asked. “Who said anything about that? I work for myself, maybe one partner at most. You know that.”

“So do I,” Two Shadows said.

“Listen to me, guys!” Orkus said. “You haven’t even heard what I’ve got in mind. I know you’re all lone wolves. I am too, most of the time, but you’ve each worked with me at least a couple times on small runs. You know you can trust me, right?”

No one responded.

“This job can set us all up for good, give us a chance to grab some major street cred. But it needs more than one or two of us. We have to team up. As a team we can do things none of us can do alone.”

“If it’s that good, how come the four of us could take it?” Auriga asked.

“Because the guy who owns the loot won’t guard it well enough.”

“What loot?” Two Shadows said. “What treasure have the Urban Ones revealed to you?”

“It’s a grimoire—an old magic book. A really, really old book. The guy selling it doesn’t know what it’s worth...” Orkus grimaced. “Or he didn’t until two days ago.”

“What happened two days ago?” Liontamer asked, leaning in toward him.

“I, uh...tried to steal it.”

“Fraggin’ great!” she said, loudly enough to draw stares from nearby tables. “So you hosed your own run, and now you want us to cover your ass so you can try again.”

“The owner knows it’s valuable now,” Auriga said. “Already improved his security. He’s probably moved the book.”

“No, he hasn’t!” Orkus said. “I’ve kept an eye on the place, either me or watchers. It’s still there, I swear!”

“But the security, brother Orkus?” Two Shadows asked.

“That’s what I said before. This guy, this old mage who owns Pawnmaturgy, is like us. He doesn’t have a lot of money. He lives day-to-day on what he scrapes up selling stuff at his arcane junk shop. He doesn’t have the nuyen for a Lone Star contract, or anything like that. He added a second samurai to help guard the book, and amped up the mystic security he provides himself, but that’s it.”

“Pass,” Liontamer said, standing up to leave. The other two looked ready to follow her.

“Wait!” Orkus said, grabbing her left arm.

She shrugged off his grip like he was an infant. “Touch me again and you bleed. Got it?”

“Just listen to me! Listen!” he said. “You know what it’s like out there on the streets. If you don’t have cred you’ve got nothing. When was the last time you scored a really good job, ’Tamer?”

“Well—that bodyguard thing I did three or four months ago, I guess.”

“And it barely paid enough to keep you going, didn’t it? That’s your definition of “really good”?” She shrugged. 

“You’re samurai, but what’ve you got? The lightest dermal plating, no reaction enhancer, meat eyes, cheap wired reflexes that don’t work some of the time, no muscle replacement.”

“Don’t need any more muscles,” she said, flexing her enormous right biceps slightly.

“But you see my point. Without the chrome, you’re sittin’ at home. You’re never gonna get the best jobs and the street cred that comes with ’em. Wouldn’t you like to have the full package, chrome from head to toe? The best ’flexes, bone lacing, eyes and ears, all the bioware you can cram into that huge body?”

“Yeah,” she said with a dreaming look in her eyes as she sank back into her seat.

“This job will bring in enough nuyen that you can afford all that chrome. Auriga, what about you? You’ve already got the best gear of any of us, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement. How about a Triox RCC, a Class III control rig, a garage full of the best cars, a whole fleet of drones?”

“Keep talking,” Auriga said.

“Look, you and me—we’re a lot alike. When I goblinized, things went to hell quick. My bigot parents kicked me out, and I’ve survived on my own ever since. If I didn’t have a natural talent for magic and a couple lucky breaks that gave me the chance to learn it, I’d’ve ended up dead in a gutter somewhere years ago. You had it a little better because your family sent you to boarding school in the Tir, but they still basically disowned you. Haven’t seem them in years, have you?”

“No,” Auriga said.

“So don’t you think it’s time to stop having to watch your back all the time and find a new family—one of your own choosing that you can trust and rely on? The money’s just a bonus. A big, huge, multimillion nuyen bonus, but not the most important thing.”

“Maybe...” Auriga said.

“There’s nothing I want, brother Orkus,” Two Shadows said. “You cannot persuade me with money.”

“You’re wrong. You do want something, and I know a way nuyen can get it for you.”

“You can see into my heart, brother Orkus? If so, you are a better shaman than I.”

“You want back into your tribe.”

Two Shadows opened his mouth again, but didn’t say anything.

“You don’t remember, but you told me all about it when we got stinkin’ drunk after our run on that Renraku research center. I know they ostracized you because they think your totem is dark and your calling is false.”

“I should never drink tequila,” the old Native said softly. “But what good would this run do me? Nuyen cannot buy honor.”

“Hell yes it can. Lots of people throughout history have bought their way into respectability. Your tribe’s not exactly the biggest or wealthiest around. Don’t you think that if you brought them your share of this run’s take and offered to, I dunno, build a school or something, they’d welcome you back? Maybe not with open arms, but you’d be back, and from there you just have to use your winning personality to make friends.” They all grinned at that, even Two Shadows.

“All right,” the street shaman said after a few moment’s consideration. “Our paths will run together for a time, brother Orkus—and brother Auriga and sister Liontamer?” The other two nodded.

All four of them sat back down; Orkus keyed for another round. “Okay, what’s the plan, then?” Liontamer asked. “Hit the place hard tonight?”

“Yeah,” Orkus said. “He’ll find a buyer soon, if he hasn’t already, so if we don’t get the grimoire fast it won’t be there anymore. Here’s what I’m thinking...”

“I’m freezing my hoop off out here,” Liontamer said. “How much longer we gotta wait?” The commlink she’d borrowed from her friend Monger worked perfectly. Hopefully so would the other gear he’d gotten for them.

“Not long,” Orkus replied into his comm. “Two Shadows, what’ve your watchers got?”

“Those two samurai are inside, and the owner. He has his own watchers on guard, but mine can hide better than anyone’s.” The Rat shaman was no slouch at hiding himself; Orkus had no idea where he was lurking. “They sense something dark in there, though—dark, and old. I can feel it as well, brother Orkus. Is that the book?”

“Could be. But there’s a lot of occult drek in there; who knows what the old man has squirreled away?”

“If it is the book...perhaps we should not sell it, but destroy it.”

“Frag that,” Liontamer said. “I’m here for the nuyen. Play the Star on your own time.”

“As much as it surprises me to say it, I agree with Liontamer,” Auriga said.

“All right, all right, we can talk about it later if we have to,” Orkus said. “Stay tranquil. T minus three minutes. Everyone in position?” A chorus of yeses followed.

“T minus 2.”

“Hold it,” Auriga said. “Car incoming.” He whistled in surprise and admiration. “Mitsubishi Nightsky. Gotta be the buyers for that book.”

“Drek, let’s go now!” Liontamer said.

“No!” Orkus said. “Too risky with unknowns incoming.” Time to think fast. Thoughts in his head spun like the wheels on an old-fashioned slot machine... and suddenly snapped into place. “Auriga, you still got those drones you used on that Aztech run—the little scorpion things?”

“Sure.”

“Once we see which way these guys are gonna go when they leave, deploy them on both sides of the road—hide ’em in bits of trash or something. When they’re away from the shop, blow their tires and we’ll hit the limo.”

“Hang on...” Orkus waited impatiently while the rigger did whatever he was doing. “Good, no run-flats on it—cheap-asses are gonna pay for that. We’re good.”

“Does the Nightsky have a sunroof?”

There was a moment’s silence. “Not always, but this one does. It’s armored glass, but still weaker than the metal.”

“How many aerial combat drones you got?”

“Three.”

“Can you rig one to use the stuff Monger gave us?”

“Sure. Take a couple minutes, though.”

“Do it, then launch all three.”

“Roger that.”

“Two Shadows, can you rustle up a pack for us?”

“I can, brother Orkus.”

“Call up as many of your little buddies as you can and have them ready to go on my command.”

“Ayuh.”

“What about me?” Liontamer asked. “What should I do?”

“Here’s the plan. Once Auriga blows the tires, you and the standard drones shoot out the sunroof. If you hit anyone inside in the process, great, but do not damage the book. Once the roof’s open, the other drone drops the flash-bangs into the limo to disorient whoever’s in there. Then Two Shadows sends in his rats to make the situation even crazier. We pick them off as they leave the vehicle. I run overwatch to deal with any surprises. Everyone got it?” Another chorus of yeses.

Now all they had to do was wait.

A minute later, the Nightsky pulled up: a long, gleaming black assertion of wealth and power warning the residents of this drek-filled part of the ’plex to stay the frag away. It parked at the curb in front of Pawnmaturgy and two men got out:  one in an expensive suit with a steel case handcuffed to his wrist; the other wearing armored clothing and an unzipped jacket with a couple of Ares Predator Vs in quick-draw holsters. He walked like a samurai, but didn’t have any obvious ’ware.

“Auriga?”

“Drones moving into position now. Ready in ten seconds.”

“Okay. Two Shadows, what do you see?”

“The man without the briefcase—an adept, and a good one, I think. Also there’s someone in the limo with some power.”

“Agreed. Gotta be a mage in there, probably the guy in charge.”

“Drek,” Liontamer said.

“Auriga, is that thing armed?”

“Hard to tell without running full scans, and that’ll tip them off that I’m here. But my guess is minimal weaponry; they want to focus on armor and speed.”

“Check.”

“Drones in position,” Auriga said.

Orkus looked up from his hiding spot and could faintly see the stealthy, hovering machines.

Two minutes passed. Three. “C’mon...,” Liontamer growled into the comm.

Four minutes. Nearly five, and the two men emerged, more cautious than before. The adept had one pistol drawn and tried to look everywhere while he escorted the man with what Orkus hoped was a now-full case into the car. They got in and slammed the door shut; the Nightsky pulled smoothly away from the curb.

The car approached Orkus’s hiding place. He let out a long breath, prepared to cast a spell.

He didn’t even see the little scorpion drones fire their explosive flechettes. The tiny darts penetrated both front tires and exploded, turning them into useless rubber scraps. The Nightsky wobbled and the rims sparked on the asphalt, but it kept going even as the drones took out the back tires.

“Fire!” Orkus said.

Liontamer’s Crockett EBR boomed from somewhere to his right; the sunroof became a spider’s web of cracks, but held. As Auriga’s two drones unleashed their own hail of bullets and turned the glass to dust, Orkus made himself invisible. He shook off the drain easily; the spell felt strong, giving him a boost of confidence.

“Special loads!”

The door on the side away from Orkus opened and the adept got out, both guns drawn. At the same time the Nightsky began to glow slightly. That mage has protected the vehicle—too little, too late.

The limo’s rigger tried to keep driving, but an armored vehicle on damaged rims wasn’t exactly fast or maneuverable. A machine gun hidden under the Nightsky’s hood popped up and opened fire, blowing one of Auriga’s drones out of the sky. 

The adept fired several shots from his Predators at Liontamer; Orkus heard her roar in pain, then a heavy thud. Before the adept could find another target, the flash-bangs from Auriga’s third flying drone landed in and around the car. Miniature suns flared, momentarily filling the street with intense light and sharp shadows; deafening thunderclaps accompanied them. The adept caught less than the full blast and stumbled back a couple of steps.

Orkus ran toward Liontamer. “Unleash the rats of war!” he said, and Two Shadows complied. From out of a nearby alley flowed a grey-black carpet of chittering ’plex rats heading straight for the limo. 

The adept, too dazed to keep track of every threat around him, left himself open to a scorpion droid. The explosive flechette hit him in the shoulder, turning it into scraps of bone and gristle. He collapsed, screaming, and the wave of rats flooded over him on their way to the Nightsky. Some stopped to feed. The scorpion fired again; the screaming stopped.

Orkus scrambled up a fire escape ladder to where Liontamer lay, bleeding heavily from two wounds, her rifle on the grating beside her. He glanced down and saw the mage—frag, he’s wearing flare comp glasses!—stagger from the limo, covered with hungry rats. With a shout of anger he cast a spell. Waves of fire washed over and around him, turning all the rats to charcoal. Holy drek, never seen that before! Someone still in the car shouted in pain and fear.

As Orkus bent over ’Tamer and cast the most powerful healing spell he could manage, Two Shadows finally revealed himself, stepping from his hiding place to cast a Manabolt at the mage. The calm anger on his face would have terrified most enemies, but not this one. The mage countered Two Shadows’s spell with little trouble and responded with a spell that began leaching the life out of the old Native. Two Shadows fell back against a wall, looking older and older with each passing second. The mage almost seemed to gain vitality in return, his body glowing, his expression exultant.

The healing spell took effect. Liontamer’s bleeding stopped, and her wounds, although still there, didn’t look nearly as bad now. This time Orkus couldn’t hold back the drain; fatigue washed over him and he sat down heavily, his Invisibility fading. He could only watch as the mage continued killing his friend, simultaneously horrified by the man’s actions and fascinated by his level of power and control.

Liontamer struggled to her feet, feeling with one hand for her Crockett. She didn’t even have the chance to raise it to her shoulder before Auriga’s van came roaring up the street. The mage, distracted by his lust for blood and deafened by the flash-bangs, looked up just in time to realize what was happening. Auriga hit him full speed and kept going. He plowed into the side of a building, leaving the mage little more than a bloody smear on the bricks.

While Liontamer helped Orkus down the fire escape, Auriga threw his van into reverse and backed up to Two Shadows. By the time the other two reached the street, he had the old shaman in the back.

“Time to get the frag somewhere else,” Liontamer said.

“The book—we can’t leave the book,” Orkus said.

“No drek, smart guy,” she said. Inside the limo they found the rat-eaten remains of a rigger and the guy with the case. Don’t throw up DON’T throw up. To keep from spewing his dinner onto the street, Orkus had to look away as Liontamer used her combat knife to chop through the guy’s arm and take the case.

By the time they reached the van, Two Shadows already looked better, thanks to one of Auriga’s stim patches. “You got it,” the shaman said as Auriga put the van in drive and left the scene of the run, then let his head fall back onto the headrest, almost instantly asleep.

“No,” Orkus said. “We got it. We did it together.”

“Frag yeah,” Liontamer said. Auriga grinned.

“Let’s have a look at this thing. Drek, we left the keys behind!”

Liontamer dangled a silver key on a broken chain in front of his face. “Whaddaya think, I’m stupid? Got this from around the guy’s neck while you were trying not to puke.”

The case contained high-impact padding covered with purple velvet. Fit snugly into the padding was the grimoire. Formed into the lining inside the lid was a symbol:  a rooster-headed man with serpents for legs, wielding a sickle-like weapon in one hand and carrying a shield emblazoned with the letters ASKI in the other.

“Oh, drek,” Orkus said.

“What?” Auriga said, braking.

“The guys buying the grimoire—I know them, I know this symbol. It’s the Lodge of Great Abraxas.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“A group of powerful mages—really powerful, with a reputation for doing anything to get what they want. Rumor on the mystic grapevine says these guys even delve into black magic...and blood magic.”

“So what you’re saying is we may have just pissed off a gang of sorcerers. Fraggin’ great!” Liontamer said.

“It gets worse.”

“Fraaaag. What?”

“I think Two Shadows was right. This book is dark, and dangerous. We should think about what we do with it.”

“You mean we can’t even sell it?” Auriga asked. “This whole run was for nothing?”

“No, no, just that we should be careful about who we sell it to—and for what.”

“Care to explain that?”

“Well, groups like Great Abraxas walk on the dark side, but there are some that stay firmly on the path of Light. Like the Lodge of Helios Ascendant, or the Brotherhood of Horus. They can lock away or destroy things like this to keep the world safe.”

“So let’s get in touch with some of these guys and get our payday!” Liontamer said. “Maybe we can start a bidding war.”

“We don’t want nuyen anymore, though—well, not just nuyen,” Orkus said.

“What the frag else is there?” Liontamer asked. “They got gear?”

“No, something better: protection. If Great Abraxas figures out who took the book and killed their guys, we’re going to need some Grade-A help if we want to stay alive,” Orkus said. “That...and we have to watch each other’s backs. What do you think?”

“Y’mean—form a team for real? Keep working together?” Auriga said.

“Exactly. We did pretty fraggin’ good back there, didn’t we? Let’s stop settling for the little runs and make ourselves some real cred.”

“Frag, I’m in,” Liontamer said. “If you can keep me healed up like that, there’s no telling what kind of drek we can pull off once I get some decent chrome.”

“How about you, Auriga?”

The rigger nodded. “Sounds good...omae.”

Orkus leaned back in his seat with a smile. Some of the sickening feel of drain still lurked in his gut, but for once he didn’t care. Maybe—just maybe—my luck’s finally changed for the better.

THE PLACEBO EFFECT

(6 of Blades)

MALIK TOMS

Nobody clapped.

In the tight, spherical chamber, the absence of applause was a harsh, living thing. It stalked around the room, echoing hollow and demanding. Then, mercifully, someone near the front of the conference room cleared his throat.

Finally, the applause came in light spatters, starting with the department head and trickling down through the ranks as though pulled through a strainer. They were clapping because they had to. Politeness, station, and the power of her name dragged their hands together and flung them back again in a rehearsed rhythm, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. It showed in the red of her cheeks.

Jasmine Mitsui glanced around the small conference room, focusing more on the pictures on the grey walls, the coffee service on the long mahogany table, and refusing to take in their faces. She bowed, partly to hide her shame, collected her tablet from the table, and quickly left the meeting.

Later, when the corporate building was just a shadow blotting the sun, she steered away from the busy throughways pushing toward Melbourne’s Southbank promenade and the river beyond. Water brought Jasmine peace and happiness since she was a child in Fukuoka. Eyeing the elm trees lining the bank of the Yarra River, she suspected here would be no different.

Jasmine parked near the bank of the river, taking a moment to smooth her dress before easing out of the car. No, Melbourne didn’t smell anything like her childhood home. It smelled like cat piss. She did her best not to crinkle her nose. At least the scenery was pleasing. A bench near the water seemed the perfect place to wind down. She buttoned her coat against the cold before checking her commlink.

Seven messages.

Four were from her husband. She ignored those. She knew what they said. Two others were from people in her department, updates on the upcoming Kaya project. The latest was from her VP. He’d called in while she’d been driving. She ignored this one as well, dialing her husband’s number instead.

He answered on the first ring. In the background, she could see the shelves of corporate awards lining the walls of their living room. Behind his head hung the samurai blades that had hung above her father’s fireplace as a child. Takahashi Mitsui wore a grim expression. His eyes looked gray in the false light of the commscreen. His mouth, mostly hidden by a black beard, was turned downward.

“Greetings from Melbourne, my husband.” Jasmine tried to look cheerful. She widened the camera aperture, and the beauty of the Southbank promenade unveiled itself around her.

His expression did not change. “The presentation?”

“It went very well, thank you.”

“I heard it was a disaster. I heard you fucked up.”

Her careful smile slipped just a little.

“You’re surprised? Did you think I wouldn’t be watching? After Hong Kong? After Vientiane? Do you understand how much time and energy it takes to correct your mistakes?”

Her mouth opened and closed, fumbling with an answer, but nothing emerged.

“Do you recognize that when you speak, you do so with my name, my reputation? Do you recognize the disgrace you bring to this house with your fuck ups?!”

But it isn’t your name, she thought. She wanted to say that, to own her own name, but instead she bowed her head and forced an apology through tight lips. It did nothing to slow his rage. He said, “We will deal with this when you get home.”

Afterward, Jasmine sat at the river’s edge, the afternoon damp settling into her bones. In time, she walked back through the busy streets of Melbourne, forgetting her car, losing herself in the crowds. She walked without direction, wrestling with a decision she realized she’d made long before she came here, yet trying to screw up the courage to make it real. Her hands shook when she placed the call.

The man’s voice on the other end was muffled, like someone speaking through a towel. “We thought you might contact us. Find a way to meet me tonight at Izakaya Zen.” After a moment, he added, “Come alone.”

Japanese women of station did not drink, so it terrified her to be seen at a place like this. Izakaya Zen was crowded with candlelit tables. Waiters dressed in bowties scurried between the tables toting sake tokkuris or bottles of wine. One slowed near her table, delivering a bowl of mixed nuts before vanishing into the gloom of the nightclub.

She noticed her contact before he reached the table. He was nothing like what she expected. The man was tall, with orange-red hair. He wore an off-the-rack suit as if it were a straitjacket, looking more accustomed to dealing with joygirls than corporate officers. She felt a thin film of sweat break out at her hairline and started to get up, to get away before he saw her and she couldn’t take all of this back.

“Miss Mitsui?” He spoke in a thick accent that wasn’t quite Australian.

“Mrs.”

“You can call me Ferguson if you like.” He extended a meaty hand. Jasmine returned the stiff handshake and sat back down. Ferguson set an item on the table between them. It looked like a commlink or a large optical drive. He noticed her watching and said, “I call it a babbler. It sends out signals in a dozen formats, designed to confuse anything or anyone that might be trying to overhear what we’re discussing.”

This should have put her at ease, but she clenched her hands around her purse until the blue veins ran like ant tunnels beneath her pale skin.

“Don’t worry, everyone gets nervous when they do this. That’s the reason so many back out at the last minute, but we aren’t going to have that problem are we?”

He waited for a response, but when none seemed forthcoming, he continued. “Please understand, my employer has agreed to pay a significant percentage of the fees for your relocation. However, they do ask that you cover a portion of the cost to ensure that you are serious about leaving your company. Call it insurance, for sticking our necks out so far.”

She didn’t want to make eye contact. She kept on looking at the waiters, trying to hide the fact that she was searching every other table for a face she might know. Ferguson popped a wasabi-covered pecan into his mouth and crunched loudly. “Usually the people I work with can’t wait to tell me why they want to be extracted. It’s the quiet ones that get me curious.”

He kept on staring at her with that lopsided grin, his lips smacking as he chewed. She scanned the room again, checking the other tables. Takahashi’s spies could be anywhere.

“Go on, now. I won’t bite.”

 She said, “I explained who my husband is when your people contacted me. He is a very powerful man. Very demanding. If I succeed in my work, he tells me to work harder. But if I fail him…”

“You’re smart and beautiful. It’s no surprise he married you, but you had to know what you were getting into marrying someone with that family name.”

She flushed with anger. “No, Mitsui is my family name. When we were married, he took our name. He claimed it was to honor my father, his mentor.”

Ferguson laughed. “Not sure my employers knew about that part. Good bit of work keeping it a secret.”

“Our family has many secrets, but Takahashi is not one of them. We grew up together. My father always treated him like a son. We were friends, but competitors as well. I was always the better student. I think he hated me for it. He drank and fought and cheated at school, but still my father loved him, so I always cleaned up for him.” She could tell by Mr. Ferguson’s expression that he didn’t care. He’d grown bored with the explanation, but she kept talking anyway. She didn’t understand why. Maybe she needed to hear the words for herself. “I made him appear to be the best version of himself. When we were both old enough, it was decided that we should be married.”

Just saying the words Jasmine felt a nervous thrill of possibility push through her. She went on. “In marriage, I kept on taking care of him. Even after I started my own career, my real job was to bear his anger.”

“So what changed?”

“I have children, Mr. Ferguson. A four-year-old girl, Sumiye, and a baby boy, Kenta. He would never hurt Kenta, but I don’t want this life for Sumiye. I want to leave. I want it to destroy him.”

She laughed and absently set her hand on top of his. Then the reality of what she was doing set in. She yanked her hand back as if she’d been touching a flame. How many of his spies were watching her right now? Jasmine wrapped her arms around herself, her body hot with fear.

Ferguson leaned in suddenly and she scurried backward, almost falling off her chair. He caught her arm and reeled her back to him, speaking in a slow whisper, “Nobody here notices us. If they did they’d see another sheila on vacation, picking up a local spunk for some extra-curriculars. No one cares until you make a scene.”

He rubbed her arm slowly, selling the ruse. His breath stank of tamari and wasabi. Jasmine fought hard not to cringe. In her mind, extractions were meant to be a formal arrangement, negotiated by well-tailored businessmen, not a smarmy man in a tacky nightclub. She straightened and said, “What now?”

“That’s up to you.”

“What will happen if I say yes? Will you send shadowrunners?”

“I can’t go into details on the specifics, but if you agree to our terms, you’ll be contacted by the people doing the extracting. They will give you enough time to get your children, as well as any data you feel might be beneficial to your new employer.”

Ferguson released her arm and leaned back before daring the next question. “So, do we have a deal?”

Jasmine thought about what would happen when she went home. She thought about her children, about what growing up in that household would do to them. She pulled out her credstick and touched it to his, exchanging a sum much larger than she expected.

Ferguson stood up. He scooped a handful of the nuts out of the bowl, popped three more into his mouth, smiled, and left.

Jasmine lingered a few minutes longer, her foot tapping against the base of the chair like a metronome. By the time she’d worked up the courage to leave, her companion was already out of sight.

Mitsuhama’s suborbital touched down in New York at 1500 hours. The markets were still open for another hour so, and she hoped her husband would still be at work. Jasmine fiddled with her commlink the entire flight, praying the call would come in before she went home to Takahashi. She didn’t think she could bear another night of pretending. A company car met her at the airport. When the driver opened the rear door, she had a sick feeling in her stomach that her husband would be inside, waiting. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he wasn’t.

Her commlink buzzed on the drive home, alerting her to an audio-only message. Unknown sender. Jasmine played it. She played it two more times before she finally accepted what the caller was saying. It wasn’t Ferguson, but a woman who claimed to be an associate. She called herself Mika. She had a reedy voice and spoke in drawn-out language, like her words were being recoded by a CourtesanSoft, or one of the etiquette manipulators her competitors made. When the message was over, Jasmine played the last part again, a thread of nervous tension building in her chest.

“I will be at your door in forty minutes. Be prompt for pickup. Bring only one bag. We will not have an opportunity to make additional stops once we are underway.”

Jasmine told the driver to take her to the office. She’d decided on the plane to take all the files she could. Jasmine didn’t know what would be relevant to her new employer. She didn’t even know what she would do at this new corporation. Regardless, it was a fresh start.

She grabbed all the specs for the Kaya project. She also took scans of the R9 package she’d been pitching in Melbourne. Then she logged back into the system under her husband’s name. It was an easy matter figuring out his password. Her own name, followed by the date he’d met her father and then the name of their son. She slotted a chip and downloaded the entire contents of his personal datastore. Takahashi would hear about the intrusion, but hopefully by then it would be too late.

The children were in daycare. Jasmine had stopped hiring nannies after one, a girl no more than seventeen, saw Takahashi hit her. Jasmine didn’t think the girl would have said anything, but she wasn’t willing to risk anyone knowing about what went on in their home. She was always polite at the daycare, the consummate corporate wife. She made time to partake in the requisite small talk that turned each afternoon pickup into a social hour. So when Jasmine stormed in and demanded her children be brought up to the front, everyone took notice. She didn’t care. It would make a nice bit of gossip, but she would never see any of them again. Time was all that mattered now.

By the time Jasmine made it upstairs to the apartment, she only had eight minutes left. She set the baby down in his play crib and ran from bedroom to bedroom, moving so fast that it made Sumiye nervous. She’d barely said a word to her children since picking them up. Her daughter stared up at her, firing off a dozen questions. When Jasmine didn’t reply, her daughter let out a nervous cry. Her voice started Kenta crying, alternating wails of panic and grief that made Jasmine want to scream.

Over it all came a knock at the door. The sound shocked them as much as it did her. They settled down immediately in an old habit born from knowing how to behave when father came home. It shouldn’t be him though, not this early. The person knocked again. Jasmine took a moment to settle her nerves own before opening the door.

The woman at the door was taller than Jasmine. In the light of the doorway her bangs looked tipped in red, like fingernails dipped in blood. She had brown skin and a pretty face buried under too much eye makeup. She wore a long black coat with what appeared to be leather pants and a Dolly and the Llama band shirt underneath. She looked like she was going to a club. Jasmine started say something, but the woman cut her off. “Do you mind if we speak inside while you get ready, Mrs. Mitsui?”

The woman closed the door behind herself and locked it. All Jasmine could think to say now was, “How did you get past the building security?”

The woman quickly looked around the living room and said, “It’s best if we move quickly.”

The bag was full of clothes. She’d made a bottle for the baby and even managed to scavenge some snacks from the kitchen for herself and Sumiye. She didn’t know how long they’d be in transit. She looked around her living room for the last time.

Three sets of samurai swords hung from the living room wall. Six swords in all. One set belonged to her husband when he was a child. Another he’d had made in Japan for their son when he turned old enough to begin training. The last set, the oldest, belonged to her father. The old man had given it to Takahashi on their wedding day; called him the son he’d always wanted. Jasmine thought about taking it with her. The blades belonged in her family, not here with this man who’d taken so much from her already.

Kenta began to fuss again. If Jasmine started taking everything that meant something to her old life, she would wind up taking her entire life with her. Besides, her father had chosen to give so much to Takahashi. It was time for her to make her own choices.

“I’m ready.” Jasmine scooped her son out of the crib. It was just her son, daughter, and one bag. Let the rest belong to her past.

“The boy isn’t coming with us.”

Jasmine stopped so quickly that Sumiye bumped into the back of her legs. The little girl flung her arms around her mother’s right leg and peeked out from behind it at the woman in the trench coat.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, but I was contracted to retrieve a mother and her daughter. No male child.”

“There must be some mistake. You can’t expect me to leave here without my children.”

Mika repeated the command.

“No.” Jasmine spoke louder this time and the baby winced, his lips quivering together in the vestigial stages of a cry. Sumiye wound her arms tighter around her leg and asked what was going on. “I’m not leaving him here.”

From behind them came the sound of tumblers spinning a lock free and the front door whooshed open. Jasmine knew who it was before she even saw the man step through the door. He was short and wide; his Vashon Island suit slimming him in all the right places, molding monster into man into executive. She drew in breath, afraid to let it out again that it might turn into a scream.

Mika said, “Shit.”

“Who is this?” Takahashi face was stern and stress-worn. He stared at Mika with small eyes and then looked at his wife. His eyes tightened to black points as he took in the scene. He saw the bag full of clothing hanging from the crook of her arm, the children clinging to their mother uncertainly. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Before she could open her mouth to answer, he was thundering across the room. Jasmine tried to get out of the way, but her daughter was behind her. She lost her balance and reached out with one hand to keep from falling. It wasn’t enough. She felt the baby slip.

The world went dark for an instant. When it returned her husband stood over her, red-faced, hands balled into fists. Then an arm appeared around his throat and he flew backward as if by magic, hurled into the couch. The shadowrunner flicked her wrist and a baton appeared in her right hand. She flicked her wrist again and the baton extended to three times its normal length. She pointed it at Jasmine’s husband. “Sit there and don’t move.”

Jasmine could hear Kenta crying, slurred and plaintive, like a siren winding up. He wasn’t in her arms anymore. She slowly sat up on her elbows. The back of her head throbbed. She tried to turn her head, but a lightning bolt of pain reminded her of her limits.

Her husband’s growl made her try again. Takahashi lunged to his feet, running toward Mika. The shadowrunner halved the distance between them in an instant, pistoning a knee into his midsection, then cracking the baton across the back of his head. Takahashi crumpled to the ground with a grunt.

“I told you to stay down. Final warning.”

Warily, shaking his head, Takahashi climbed to his feet and turned to the nearby wall. He pulled one of the six swords  down, and Jasmine realized it was the blade that had belonged to her father. He ripped it from its sheath and lunged at the runner with a wild downward slash.

Mika raised the baton to block, dancing under the blow, and buried an elbow in his throat. Takahashi dropped the katana instantly, both hands clutching at his damaged windpipe. He never saw the next blow land across his temple, knocking him unconscious.

Kenta’s tiny hands pawed the floor near Mika’s feet, struggling to push himself up. Jasmine went to him, but froze when she heard the click of a gun.

“No.” Mika said. A black pistol was in her hand, leveled at Jasmine. “We’re past our window. You need to decide right now if you’re coming with me or staying with him.” She pointed to Jasmine’s husband, still unmoving on the floor.  She looked down towards her son. His small arms smacked at the ground plaintively. She could see a knot of blue where his head must’ve struck the floor and her heart ached. She couldn’t move. She was rooted to the ground, unable to move forward or backward.

Mika shrugged again and turned to leave.

“Wait.” Jasmine gathered up Sumiye in her arms and whispered an explanation. The girl’s face scrunched up like she tasted something sour and she said, “But baba?”

“No, sweety. Not yet.” Jasmine kept the soft voice reserved for Sumiye, but stared directly at Mika when she said, “We will be back for him.”

Downstairs, a company car waited for the women. Jasmine recognized the driver as the man from the airport. He wore the same black suit and nodded pleasantly, just a chauffeur picking up his client. Both women climbed in back, Jasmine carrying her daughter, and Mika following with the bag. Her gun and baton had disappeared as if she’d never been armed at all.

The women did not speak. Jasmine held Sumiye the entire trip, whispering sweetly in Japanese. The girl asked about her father once and then about her brother several times after that. Jasmine glared at Mika, but gave no answer.

Finally they came to a dark stretch of forested road that ended at a fence line, beyond which Jasmine could see an airstrip. The car drove on through, towards a Gulfstream parked at the end of a runway, its engines quiet. An Asian man in a suit stood at the base of the stairs leading to the plane.

Mika was climbing out of the car before it completely stopped. She exchanged words with the man standing in front of the plane while the driver came around to help Jasmine from the car. He took the bag and tried to help her with Sumiye. Jasmine pulled her daughter towards her protectively. The driver bowed and said, “I’m sorry this was so difficult for you and your daughter, ma’am. Its never easy moving on.”

Ignoring him, Jasmine called to the man by the plane, the who looked like he was in charge. Mika walked past her and got into the front seat of the car. As Jasmine watched in horror, they powered up the engine and sped away.

The man from the plane approached Jasmine, reaching out for a handshake. She held her hand up for him to stop. “You, what’s your name?”

“Mrs. Mitsui, My name is Mr. Tanaka. I—”

She huffed impatiently. He might as well have called himself Mr. Johnson. “I want your real name. In fact, I want your supervisor’s name!”

“I do apologize if the service did not meet your expectations. We are grateful to have you with us. My organization has much to thank you for. Your husband has been a disruptive force to our corporate growth for some time.”

Jasmine turned and pointed. “You want to thank me? Get that woman back here and tell her to go get my son!”

“I’m sure this is a matter best discussed on the plane.” Tanaka’s smile never wavered. He placed a hand on the small of her back and turned her toward the plane.

“That woman left my son!”

“Yes, I was informed of that issue. Unfortunately, your sacrifice was deemed necessary. We felt leaving the boy would provide further damage to Mr. Mitsui’s personal reputation. After all, how much of a cockroach must he be if you were willing to leave your only son just for a chance to get away from him.”

Jasmine smacked his hand away. She said, “Get her back here now, or so help me God…”

Tanaka looked apologetic. She recognized the expression as the one she’d been tutored to use when she told a department head they were going to miss their quarterly projections. “I’m afraid I’m have to stop you right there. Turning back is not an option. I believe our operatives made that clear.”

“What’s clear is that you recruited me. You need me, not the other way around, and if you want—”

He raised a finger. “Again, perhaps you are not entirely up to speed on the nature of this arrangement.” He paused thoughtfully before adding, “Do you know what a placebo effect is?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

 “Of course you do, like when you give your daughter a sugar pill and tell her it is special medicine, and she feels better. The effect isn’t due to the drug itself, because the drug doesn’t matter. The drug isn’t real. It is what you believe about that drug that makes the effect happen.”

The car was gone now. She could no longer see taillights in the distance. Jasmine pulled her daughter closer to her. Sumiye was cold and scared. She was asking to go home. She was asking for her brother.

Mr. Tanaka said, “Conversely, the absence of a drug one believes to be effective can have terrible consequences on the user.”

“I’ll go back. I can go back.”

“Can you, now? My associate explained what happened at the apartment. I am willing to bet this isn’t the first time he’s hit you. What do you think he’s going to do to you if you go back now?”

Further down the airstrip, a small plane rocketed down the runway and banked into the night. Tanaka started up the stairs of his own luxury jet. He paused near the door, waiting for her to follow.

She momentarily imagined overpowering the man, pulling out a gun and forcing him down the stairs, down the runway, and back to the city, where she would force him to get her son. The moment passed, replaced by the rattling hum of jet turbines spinning to life in the near-darkness.

Jasmine scooped Sumiye into her arms and started toward the plane, doing her best to hold back her tears over her son. It was just her daughter and one bag now.

Let the rest belong to her past.

OVERWHELMING PERFORMANCES

(ace of cups)

BILL AGUIAR

Denver’s skyline was a dramatic backdrop for the Shinto shrine’s outdoor reception, but only two things were on Officer Kale Nakai’s mind. The first was the habitual annoyance of a dwarf having to almost run, even with his cyberlegs, to keep pace with his human partner, while the other was the hope their LandRover patrol van wouldn’t get into trouble as it endlessly circled the surrounding streets in autodrive mode.

“You sure that Shiawase exec is still here?” Officer Ripley Addison asked, trying to project professionalism despite his short-cropped hair giving him a boyish look as they entered the reception.  Unlike his partner, his thoughts were scattered, trying to remember a half-dozen things at once, his eyes also flicking to the skyline every few moments.

Nakai resisted a sigh. “Anything interesting up there?”

“What? No, just some spirits on patrol.” Addison’s abilities as an adept were useful, but still meant that sometimes he was easily distracted by sights only he could see.

Nakai waited until Addison focused back on him. “Fujita is responsible for the PR coup—I mean gift—this example of corp excess is celebrating. He won’t leave until he’s received jealous promises of revenge by every person here who now has to top it.”

A crowing cry brought their attention to a faux bamboo cage in front of the shrine and the bird preening within. Its plumage was magnificent, starting with bright, orange-yellow feathers shaped like a rooster’s comb on the head, and deepening to a rich crimson on the tail, so the creature resembled a living jet of fire. In the weak sunlight, it was so bright it seemed to glow slightly, and as both cops watched, it called again and spread its wings, which stretched more than three meters. The cage that secured it wasn’t really made out of bamboo, but the oddly-familiar bird didn’t seem interested in testing it.

“I still say that doesn’t look like a phoenix.” The paranimal’s arrival here was the reason for the celebration, and for Fujita to be in public, where they could approach him.  Addison knew he wasn’t as experienced a cop as Nakai, but thought he could at least sim a wiki entry correctly.

“It’s a Ho-o, a phoenix metavariant native to Japan, which happens to match the description of some important critter in Shinto belief. I’m surprised that one is so calm, they’re supposedly cranky.” Nakai scanned the crowd, trying to spot Fujita even as the Shiawase security guards shadowing them glared at their backs.

“Cybergear.”

Nakai stopped to look at his partner. “Really?”

Addison was still focused on the brilliant bird. “The spiritual damage is barely visible, but I can still spot it. Must be high end gear.”

Nakai grunted and went back to his task. “I wonder if the shrine knows? They probably weren’t expecting that.”

“Got him, moving toward the shrine.” Addison started ambling toward their target, slow enough that Nakai’s shorter legs could easily keep up with them.

With their direction clear, their shadows tried to close in without making it obvious. Fortunately, the crowd was dense enough that they couldn’t hurry.

“Remember, since the shrine is on Zone land, this is a public event, and security couldn’t deny us entry. But once we start ‘harassing’ guests, they’ll have reason to chuck us. So we need to follow the plan.” Addison merely nodded as Nakai finished his reminder.

They intercepted Fujita, a tall and lanky beanpole, by a nearly empty table with just a few sake cups and a serving jug on it. He felt the grimace on his face when he noticed their Eagle Security uniforms, but Fujita smoothed it away with practiced ease.

“I’m sorry gentlemen, but if you contact my office—”

“We have, for the last three days,” Addison began, according to his part of their script.

“My partner and I are with Paranormal Animal Control, and are investigating the incident at the Sioux Sector’s Denver International Airport, where the import records of all the quarantined paranimals were lost,” Nakai continued.

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that—”

“Oh, we know. In fact, your division is the only one of the regular importers that didn’t have any animals currently in quarantine.”

“Yes, we were very lucky.”

“We noticed, and if we noticed, I’m sure your competitors also noticed.” Addison smoothly worked his way back into the conversation, as if they hadn’t practiced on the drive over. “They were upset to learn that with the records lost, all of their quarantines would restart—”

“Well, there was that one record,” Nakai interrupted.

“There were surviving records?”

“Oh no, this was from one of the air transport firms, your Heavy Lift division, in fact. They had a fireproof animal enclosure missing from their inventory.”

Addison couldn’t believe in the great timing, and later would wonder if it was purposeful, but just then the Ho-o let loose a cry, louder than any other it had made so far.

They just looked at each other, the PAC officers purposely drawing out the silence until Fujita said, “The Ho-o came from a domestic source, so it never needed to go through a quarantine.”

Nakai and Addison gave each other an exaggerated look before Nakai continued, “I’m sure all the records are in place for that to be considered true. Not even a question about that.”

Addison continued, “But there were a lot of upset reps from the other firms.”

“Very upset. I’m just glad that you’re not among them.”

“What?” For the first time Nakai was certain he got something close to an honest emotion from Fujita, which was the whole point of this show.

“With the records lost, we’ve had to go to every importer and reassure them that we will do our best to find out who is responsible. The fact that you haven’t lost any records makes this meeting the most pleasant one we will have.”

“I appreciate being kept in the loop, but if that is all—”

“Well, we said this would be the most pleasant meeting, not that there wouldn’t be any problems.”

The guards had arrived by now, and looked like they were about to interrupt, but now Fujita was more concerned with where this was leading, so they held off, probably instructed by commlink message.

“What is the less pleasant news?”

“Since all of your competitors’ inventory will have to spend additional time in quarantine and since your division currently does not have any inventory at risk, well, there is not going to be any room for your inventory.”

“For at least a month.” Addison had reached his part of the conversation that he was determined to enjoy.

Fujita actually sputtered, “You can’t do that, I’ll lose—”

Nakai smiled. “You’re right, we can’t do this. But your fellow importers had a vote earlier today. They demanded all the evidence we had...”

“And our suppositions.” Addison’s attempt at studied casualness was not very convincing, but it got the message across of just what those suppositions were.

“They made their own decision from there.”

Fujita allowed himself a bit of righteous anger. “They can’t have a vote without contacting me.”

“We tried to contact you for three days, remember?” Now Addison wasn’t trying to hide his glee.

“But your secretary wouldn’t return our calls. Maybe because we mentioned we were also investigating the quarantine data loss? Funny how that works out.” Nakai knew it wasn’t very funny, but still forced a too-wide a smile on his face.

For a moment, everyone was silent; the only noise was the calls of the birds in the trees surrounding the shrine. There weren’t even the sounds of the city streets to ruin the shrine’s tranquility, probably thanks to some corp’s donation of sound dampening tech.

“Gentlemen, I’m Kojiro, the shrine’s kannushi, or priest. I hope that everything is going to remain peaceable.” Both Nakai and Addison were surprised the rotund priest had managed to slip up on them. Addison’s enhanced senses had not given him any warning.

“Everything should be, sir. Just needed to let Mr. Fujita know of some unpleasant things.” Nakai recovered first while Addison was still checking if anyone else had sneaked up on him.

“I hope that it has nothing to do with our Ho-o,” The shrine priest affected an air of unconcern, but he was more than a little interested.

Before either officer could respond, Fujita blurted, “There is nothing wrong with the gift.”

Kojiro nodded, but still looked intently at them.

“If Mr. Fujita says the Ho-o’s paperwork is good, I’m sure I will find nothing wrong with it,” was dragged out of Nakai.

The smile that arose on Kojiro’s face was one that he had practiced in a mirror for whenever he learned of bad news for others that was good news for him. “It was very kind of you to reassure me,” he said, even if he was unsure if he was really thanking the officers or Fujita, “and I feel I must hope that the news that you bring Fujita-san is not too upsetting.

“He has been very kind, as well as Shiawase itself. That tree—” The priest pointed to one with white bark by the torii gate marking the shrine’s entrance. It was surrounded by folded pieces of paper hanging on a rope. “—was a gift from another Shiawase vice-president, from their Heavy Lift division. A tree from a major shrine in Japan. After seeing that, Fujita-san felt it was his duty to ensure that our humble shrine had all of the paraphernalia of a major one.”

Rather than get distracted by the fact that it was the Heavy Lift division that had salvaged a record, probably to get back at Fujita for upstaging their gift, Nakai focused instead on the tree. “Really, I hadn’t realized the tree had come from Japan. Since we are concerned with paranimals, I didn’t even think to look for examples of parabotany.”

“I’m afraid that the tree does not fit into any mere parabotanical category.” At this point Kojiro seemed to be genuinely interested in educating the officers, since they no longer were talking about Fujita. The guards who had been waved off, first by Fujita and again by Kojiro, now looked bored while waiting to eject Nakai and Addison. “Instead, the tree is home to a powerful kami, what most people would consider nothing more than a nature spirit but is so much more.”

Before the shrine priest could continue, Nakai interrupted, “And the paper surrounding it.”

“Those are ofuda, paper talismans that carry magic and blessings.”

“That’s really interesting.” At last, the trap they’d spent all this time building was about to close. Nakai fished out of his pocket the card, still in a sealed evidence bag.

“Like I said, the investigation is still ongoing about the quarantine incident. But we know one person was on site because we found traces of a spell. There was a search, and we found this. Sure looks like one of those ofuda.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Nakai had been looking straight at Fujita, hoping to unnerve him with the reveal of their most damning bit of evidence. But even as he was surprised by the Shinto priest’s denial, he could tell what they had hoped would be the final nail was anything but simply from the progression of looks over Fujita’s face. First, there was a smidgen of surprise, then confusion, then condescension that told Nakai that whatever he had in his hands, it had nothing to do with whatever the corp man’s secrets were.

“It certainly looks like an ofuda,” Addison jumped in, attracting Kojiro’s attention so Nakai could stay focused on Fujita, though even they both could tell their big reveal wasn’t working as they had hoped.

“I’m sure Kojiro could explain far better than I how that isn’t an ofuda and has no connection to me or Shiawase.” Fujita who had been getting tenser as their confrontation had continued, now seemed almost casually to be willing to let others defend him.

“I can tell just by looking at it that it is made with cardstock rather than more traditional materials,” the shrine priest continued, as if he was not suddenly in position to help Fujita far more than expected.

“Maybe whomever created it did so in a hurry, and didn’t have those materials.” Still hoping to salvage something, Nakai tried to sound reasonable.

The shrine priest’s responding sniff showed how little he thought of that. “If someone considered themselves a Shinto practitioner and didn’t think to have basic supplies, he would have made enough other mistakes that you would have found them already.”

“What about the feeling of magic our forensic mages detected on it?”

“There is certainly a feeling of the spirit world about the card, but it is different from an ofuda. After an ofuda has been used, there would far less feeling of magic. This, however, feels almost...” Kojiro drifted off, staring at the bagged card.

Nakai tried to take back the initiative. “You understand that we can’t take your word for it.”

“You aren’t going to take the word of a knowledgeable kannushi?” Fujita smiled as Kojiro fished in his robes.

“It’s not a matter of knowledge, it’s a matter of—hey!” Kojiro neatly plucked the evidence bag out of Nakai’s grip and waved a short wooden rod at it.

“What are you doing?” Addison had been out of reach to stop Kojiro, and now he was almost entranced by the wisps of magic around every shake of the rod that his AR had helpfully labeled as a shaku.

“I’m not going to open the bag, and I’m sure that you did all the tests that you could before bringing this here. I’m just going to...” Kojiro finished with an especially emphatic gesture, and the wisps were sucked away.

“That is not the point.” Nakai jumped up, snagging the bag back, smoothing himself down after landing, to wipe away the indignity. “It is to...” The dwarf glanced at the bag. “What did you do?” His voice was now quiet.

“Revealed what had been hidden.” Kojiro remained nonplussed from Nakai’s change of tone. “May I see?”

“You may as well, since you will need to know.” Nakai handed over the bag with hardly a pause. “Hey, you!” The security guards that had been waiting to kick them out were momentarily taken aback to be directly addressed. “If your supervisor isn’t monitoring, page him. We have a potential threat.”

“You fool.”

“What?” Fujita, who had been quietly watching the back and forth, almost amused by everyone’s antics, was surprised to be verbally attacked by Kojiro.

“What kind of deal did you make? With what kind of creature?”

“I don’t understand, I just did…” Fujita looked at the PAC officers, “Nothing, nothing at all.”

“Well, your nothing is going to hurt someone. Addison, are there wards up?”

Addison had been taken aback by Nakai’s change, which was not in any strategy that they had discussed. “The wards are up. How strong they are, well…” He trailed off; that was a skill he’d been meaning to work on, but hadn’t yet developed.

“They’re as strong as I could make them for a public shrine, and I ensured that they would be even stronger for tonight,” Kojiro said. “There is always someone who has a disagreement with a guest at some point, and stronger wards discourage that.”

The trees around the shrine rustled.

With the anxiety Nakai was radiating, never mind how much he was feeling, it was little wonder that everyone in their group started, even the seemingly calm shrine priest.

“I can’t see into the trees. The wards are in the way.”

One of the security guards spoke, surprising everyone by actually contributing. “I can see a couple of medium-sized birds in the trees with my enhancements.”

“That’s it?” Fujita was angry. “We’re all worried about a couple of birds?”

“What kind are they?” Nakai had decided to write off Fujita for the time being.

The guard just stared at Nakai. “Do I look like I subscribe to a birdwatching service?”

“Subscribe to one now.”

Kojiro raised his hands in a placating manner. “Let’s calm down. There is danger, yes, but the wards are active—”

CRACK!

Everyone at the celebration jumped at the sound, especially the attendees who had been completely unaware there was anything unusual going on until now. But even for those expecting trouble, the crack was unexpected and unfamiliar.

“The cage broke!” The cry was heard, but it was the odd crowing that drew Addison’s eye toward the rooster-like phoenix that half-jumped, half-flew from the ruins of its cage.

“It can’t do that,” Fujita whispered. “The cage…the rigger….”

The whisper was not quiet enough. “You mutilated its nature with cyberware?” Kojiro abandoned his calm. “Oh, the spirits are going to be so angry.”

Addison wished he had his Ares Squirt. Sure, it was old, like all the equipment the PAC shared, but the phoenix was barely trying to dodge as it flew aimlessly, somehow missing clusters of people who were trying desperately to avoid it, even though it hadn’t ignited its flame aura—yet.

“My off-site rigger is saying he got kicked out of his network, and hasn’t been able to get back in.” Fujita turned toward the officers, trying to reestablish his confidence. “So there’s a loose paracritter, isn’t catching them what you’re paid for?”

“Sure, if our gear wasn’t still in our van where security made us leave it. All we have is our batons,” Nakai answered without taking his eyes off the phoenix.

The guard that had spoken before retorted to Fujita, “We were just hired to do security, we didn’t bring any fireproof bird nets with us.”

The phoenix finished flitting about and landed by the entrance torii. Addison could tell it calmed down as it reached the ward line.

Kojiro regained his calm. “It won’t be able to cross the ward line, and it is not going to cause any issues as long as it is by itself. It can wait...” He looked at Nakai, who still had not taken his eyes off it. “Or can it?”

“Maybe, but even if it can’t, creatures that can melt steel when they get annoyed are always things I like to keep an eye on.”

As if to make his words more meaningful, the phoenix let loose a cry unlike any it had before, one that had meaning and intent behind it. The attendees, who had started to relax now that the phoenix had stopped flying, began backing off again.

“Remind me again why we are not more worried about the bird that burns things.” One of the guards rested his hand on his holstered pistol.

“Because it isn’t doing that. If it didn’t attack once it broke out, it’s not going to do so now. It’s just an animal, it can’t plan…” Nakai froze in mid-thought. “Drek! Geek it, shoot it now, or I’ll beat you down and do it myself!”

“No! Are you mad? Do you have any idea how expensive one of those are!?” Fujita tried to get in front of the guards, but it was too late.

Flames erupted out of the phoenix, shaped like something no one could identify, but the fire seemed to be pushed back by wards. The heat could be felt as far back as they were, and the attendees who had been merely worried before were now running away from the bird heading toward them.

Through the flame, Addison saw the phoenix look toward them, then very deliberately turn its head and with an almost casual air, peck at the ward.

For a moment, all of the flame surrounding the phoenix suddenly hammered down at that point, the heat almost disappearing as if it were being sucked away.

If there was a sound to go with the wards fracturing, Addison would call it a tinkle, like the sound of thin glass shattering and falling to the ground. He saw Kojiro react to the noise, along with a scattering of people in the crowd, but in the confusion it was hard to tell who was reacting to a sound only the Awakened could hear, and who was merely panicking. Either way, it was impossible for Addison to determine who else could be of use in this situation.

Before the echo of the collapsing wards finished, all of the trees trembled as if they were shedding all of their leaves as dark masses exploded from them. Rather than leaves, the mass was made of birds of all breeds, types, colors and shapes, though other than the phoenix, none of them were paranimals. Not that it mattered when the first wave of diving raptors screamed in, mostly hawks but a single large eagle leading the charge.

The security guards throughout the reception had pulled out their pistols and were shooting at the birds, but none of them had automatic weapons, so each time one of the weapons spoke, just one bird exploded in midair with hundreds of birds remaining.

Addison waited until the last possible moment, then lunged right, avoiding the diving eagle but still getting clipped at the side. The blow was glancing, with the impact taken by his protective gear, but it twisted him around. The eagle recovered from its dive and went to come back around again.

The two guards who had been by them went back to back, shooting calmly into the air, until one was clipped on the side of his face by a diving hawk that managed to get under his helmet. The attack drove him to his knees, losing his gun. Instantly the smaller birds swarmed him, going for his face and hands. His screams distracted his partner, who holstered his pistol to beat off the birds attacking his colleague.

Fujita stood stock-still; he couldn’t adjust from the verbal fencing to physical danger quick enough, until Nakai hit him in the back of the knees, bringing him down to the dwarf’s level.

“Stay under the fragging table!” he bellowed into Fujita’s ear before cramming him under the table, one long leg still sticking out from under it.

Nakai turned to the priest. “Can you put up a ward to protect the idiot?”

Kojiro had been barely moving, just twisting his shaku back and forth, the glancing blows it doled out somehow hammering any birds that attacked him away, but still nodded at the request.

Addison took this all in while the eagle came back for another try, but now he was ready. With his baton out, he cocked it back like a baseball bat, swinging at the large bird. The shock of the impact shuddering up his arm, but the eagle was now deadweight, tumbling away.

Kojiro reached the table, and was attempting to do some sort of intricate movement around it, but despite Nakai helping, there wasn’t enough free space for him to finish. The remaining security guard stood up and pulled his gun back out. His partner was down on the ground, unmoving, with with tailfeathers sticking out from underneath his visor, and piles of dead birds around him.

They seemed to be making a dent in the surrounding mass of birds, having most of the their attention, allowing the rest of the celebrants to flee without attracting too much notice from the avian army. The responding security was still forcing their way past the attendees to reach them.

The shaku exploded rather than burning when the phoenix flew over Kojiro, its splinters scattering. Only after it was destroyed did Addison feel the phoenix’s heat as it circled back toward their group. For a moment, it seemed like the security guard’s gun would drive it off, but the rounds failed to reach to the phoenix even though it seemed to flinch from the little puffs of molten metal where the bullets hit the flame aura.

Kojiro reached for a sake cup and bottle on the table, untouched by the madness. Muttering under his breath, he began pouring sake into a cup.

Despite not having succeeded, the security guard tried advancing on the phoenix, Nakai joining after a moment’s fiddling with his commlink, to buy more time for Kojiro.

The phoenix retreated for a moment, long enough for smaller birds to fly at Nakai, forcing him to stop and battle them. The heat bloomed again, hot enough that everyone was forced to glance away from the phoenix. What brought back their attention back was a half dozen loud cracks as the ammunition cooked off in the security guard’s pistol, destroying both his gun and his hand, dropping him to the ground in agony.

Addison grabbed the table Fujita was hiding underneath, for the lack of anything better, and strained himself using it as a giant flyswatter to bat away the phoenix, the table catching fire as he did so. Fujita, startled by being back in the open, scrambled behind Kojiro, despite Nakai yelling for him to stay still. Kojiro finished muttering and spilled the full cup of sake in a circle around him. The swirling mass of birds trying to get at both Kojiro and Fujita were suddenly pushed out of the new ward marked by the sake on the ground. The remaining birds fluttered confusedly for a moment, then split into two groups, one heading toward Nakai and the other heading toward Addison.

There was a moment where Addison wasn’t sure how to respond, because there were so many birds, but the first one, some sort of starling, headed toward his eyes and he moved instinctively, headbutting it. Its beak scratched his forehead, but it lost its flight and fell to the ground where Addison stomped on it, ignoring the slight squish.

Nakai crushed birds with every sweep of his baton as he worked over to one of the fallen security guards. The terrible heat returned with the phoenix as it ignored the two PAC officers and swooped down at Kojiro.

As the phoenix dove, Addison tried to fight his way closer to Fujita, but a particularly vicious hit made him drop his baton without seeing where it fell. Nakai reached one of the security guards and ripped off his commlink, yelling into it, “Drop the traffic barriers, do it now!”

The phoenix got close to Kojiro, with Fujita deciding to run off into the crowd, but before the paranimal could follow him, the priest refilled his sake cup and threw it at the bird. Rather than boil away the sake as it had the metal of the bullets, the bird’s flame aura was extinguished instead, its terrible heat replaced by a crisp coolness. Addison took the moment to throw a punch at the bird, but it flew backward awkwardly even as its flame aura sputtered back into life.

The traffic barriers surrounding the shrine suddenly collapsed just as the Eagle PAC van blew over one, heading straight toward Nakai, its autodrive only swerving to avoid fallen bodies. But birds weren’t recognized by the van’s autodrive, so its windshield was quickly spattered with their bodies. It was a touch macabre when the van’s system recognized the debris on the windshield, and started the wipers in a futile attempt to clear it off.

The phoenix had only half-recovered its flame aura when it struck the van with its back, the flame aura sputtering out again even as it caved in the van’s front, bringing it to a halt, scorching it and shattering its windshield.

Addison saw his chance: the phoenix, while uninjured from the impact, no longer had its flame aura protecting it. He rushed toward the van even as the phoenix flapped frantically, trying to gain altitude. The adept felt himself fall into that relaxed state that allowed him to use all of his abilities to the fullest, absentmindedly slapping away the few remaining birds that tried to stop him.

First a step onto the bumper, then one on the hood, the last one on the roof, then a final surge as he leaped up and twisted his whole body around to roundhouse kick the phoenix.

There was a satisfying, wet snap from one of phoenix’s wings as he connected, then he fell back on the roof hard, dazed, losing sight of the bird and awareness of himself for a moment.

“The rear door!” Nakai yelled as he ran down the length of the van. Addison pulled himself together then somersaulted across the roof, launching himself into the air and landing beside the rear door just as Nakai wrenched it up.

Revealed, still secure in its racks, was their equipment.

“The Squirts?” Addison was already reaching for their standard gear.

Nakai slapped his hands aside. “Oh, frag no!” He reached further back with one hand while fishing in the ammo bin by the hatch with the other.

He emerged with a SPAS-22 automatic shotgun in his hands, sliding in a magazine Addison knew was loaded with buckshot. “Rip, the only way these chicks are getting out of here are roasted.”

“Okay, what the hell was that?”

Less than an hour later, the area looked very different than it had even before the birds had attacked. There were PACs from every police agency in Denver—the situation was far too large for any one to handle—but the security was still Shiawase, while a dozen ambulances had arrived to pick up clients.

At first Nakai tried to pass it off, but eventually he grumbled, “Maybe it came off a little strong, but the only other thing I could think of saying was fricasseed rather than roasted, and it sounded too pretentious in my head.”

“No, I mean, yes, that part was wiz, but what about everything else? Different species of birds swarming together, the targeting of weak spots by the hawks, a phoenix that broke a ward? Have we even found the phoenix yet? I’m pretty sure I broke its wing.”

“No, though there are a couple of patches of scorched earth where it could have self-immolated if it was hurt bad enough. As for what this was, have you ever seen the footage of a piasma wandering the back alleys of Seattle?”

“Sure, that’s a favorite of animal-attack trid shows.”

“That was ten or so years ago, when something similar to this happened in Seattle. Lone Star eventually blamed it all on a toxic shaman who got animals and paranimals to work together and make intelligent attacks.”

“So?”

“Well, despite the Star’s claims, even after that shaman was killed, it’s happened again and often enough that most PAC officers know someone who knows someone who’s survived a Ringmaster attack.”

Pause, then, “Do you think Fujita knew?”

“No, I’m pretty sure he was just thinking he was making a deal to get himself a Ho-o, not that there’d be an additional cost.”

During their talk, they had both moved around groups of crime scene techs, heading toward the sacred tree Kojiro had  pointed out to them.

“Hey Kale.” One of the techs held a sealed, empty evidence bag in his hands. “The tag on this says this is one of yours, checked out earlier today.”

“Of course it’s empty. Bag the bag, I’ll explain later.” To Addison, “You never saw what was on the card, did you?” At Addison’s headshake, Nakai sent him an image from his commlink just as they stopped on the far side of the tree.

Addison opened the file and looked at the image on the card: a tree seeping blood, surrounded by birds.

“Look familiar?”

In front of him was the image come to gruesome life, with the birds now dead, and the addition of Fujita’s dead body splayed out at the base of the tree being the source of the blood.

WIND AND WAVES

(The Comet, The Hermit, the Chief Executive)

JEFFrey HALKET

>      Entry: 20760326

>      Asset: Gomez, Ichiro

>      Project Falcon continues as planned. See attached documents for dossier on latest recruitment efforts. Viability of Project Falcon prototype increasing in accordance with Project Itztihotli prototype viability. Suspect a counter-intelligence effort in place. Mole within Project Itztihotli?

>      Entry: 20760330

>      Asset: Gomez, Ichiro

>      Met with supervisor Tanaka today—she is suspicious. Recruited two more shadow assets to assist in extracting a target. Attached files have details on target for extraction. Recommend allowing Renraku to extract their target, as interception would likely compromise my infiltration. Recommend ceasing communication for a while.

>      Entry: 20760404

>      Asset: Gomez, Ichiro

>      All hell breaking loose. Security is on high alert. Tanaka is going to arrest me today. Need extraction immediately. Send Hauser if possible.

With six words, he knew his life was forfeit.

“We need to talk, Mr.…Gomez.”

Naoki Tanaka was your typical Japanese executive: lithe, elegant, strong, and cold as steel. She was responsible for handling all the “talent acquisitions” for Renraku in Seattle. Her office was in the middle of the building, and it was relatively unadorned. She wasn’t one for big displays—when she struck for the jugular, she hit it with no flourish.

Ichiro Gomez had a strong jaw, with a thin beard that accentuated it. His half-Japanese ancestry gave him the almond eyes and somewhat flat nose of his mother, but his half-Aztec side gave him a bit darker skin and the broader shoulders of his father. However, his dwarven genetics gave him a sinewy strength, allowing him to be much stronger than his short stature and relatively wiry limbs seemed to indicate. He fit into his Armanté suit very well.

When she called Ichiro by his real name, he had sent out his final missive, begging for extraction. He knew everything had gone pear-shaped, but he accepted what was to come with grace and dignity. He stood and bowed to Tanaka.

“I hope we meet again, Tanaka-sama. It has been a pleasure to see how you work.”

The pile of recruits that Tanaka and Ichiro had gathered for Project Falcon was substantial. He had no idea what Project Falcon actually did, but he knew the scientists that had been extracted from various companies, he knew where they’d gone, and he knew which teams had done the extracting. Tanaka was thorough and meticulous, and with Ichiro’s assistance they had built a reliable stable of shadow operatives for Renraku.

However, Ichiro didn’t work for Renraku. He worked for Aztechnology, Renraku’s competitor. Aztechnology had been running a rival project campaign for several months, and the two megacorporations had been picking off each other’s employees and assets. The information Ichiro had given to Aztechnology had been vital in ensuring the rival project had continued effectively.

Somehow, Tanaka had discovered his true allegiances, and now that was all going to change.

Tanaka bowed in response to Ichiro, and gestured with one hand. Two Renraku security guards walked into her office and put Ichiro into metal restraints. They took him out of her office, down the hall, and into an elevator.

Ichiro knew he would have only one opportunity to get out of this alive.

“Twenty-seventh floor; destination fourth floor,” chimed the voice of the elevator pleasantly.

Inhaling deeply, he activated the cortical implant connected to his spinal column. When he exhaled, the digital interface with his contacts advised him that new software had been loaded into his Dassault Précis skillwire system.

It was times like these that Ichiro sometimes regretted being born a dwarf. His stature meant that as his left elbow flew out to one side and his right foot flew out to the other, they caught both guards in their respective genital regions. The two men buckled over, and Ichiro jumped. The momentum of the elevator gave him enough vertical thrust to drive his elbow and foot into both guards’ necks.

“Twenty-second floor.”

As both men dropped to the floor, Ichiro grabbed a commlink and hit the button to disable his manacles. The metal clattered harmlessly against one of the guards’ unconscious bodies.

“Eighteenth floor.”

He figured he had maybe five seconds before the elevator reached its destination. Ichiro grabbed one of the stun batons from a guard and looked up at the ceiling. Being a dwarf was really getting annoying. The ceiling felt like it was two meters away, and it might very well have been. He extended the weapon’s ferroplastic alloy shaft and jumped, using it as a lever to push the ceiling access panel aside.

“Fifteenth floor.”

The elevator was starting to slow down. This was bad news; he needed the momentum to get himself out. He dug down deep and pushed up as hard as he could with his legs, hoping the car would be moving fast enough that he could at least grab the ceiling. Luck was with him, as he was able to get his strong fingers around the edge of the access panel.

“Thirteenth floor.”

The upper part of the elevator was cluttered with electrical panels, gadgets, and gizmos. With his combat skillsofts loaded, Ichiro had no idea what these things were or what they did. He put the ceiling panel back in place and waited for the elevator to slow down.

“Fifth floor.”

After a couple seconds, the elevator had almost reached its destination. Grabbing the outer elevator doors for the 5th floor, he used the baton to leverage the doors open. It held them open long enough for him to slip through before the pressure finally snapped the baton in half.

An alarm began sounding throughout the building. He had to get out of there as fast as possible, and knew his face would be on the heads-up display of every guard in Renraku. His only hope was to use speed to his advantage.

Employees began filtering out of their offices and lining up in the hallway. Ichiro recognized the tactic as a means of quickly getting a headcount and also inspiring fear in the wageslaves in case any were tempted to help him escape. He watched in frustration as a pair of guards turned the corner and came down the hallway toward him. Renraku was not known for the genetic diversity of its staff, and generally hired only humans.

One of those humans was Janice, who worked in accounting. Ichiro had gone out with her a couple times, but the chemistry had never quite been right. For one thing, dating a co-worker was not allowed within the same division. For another, he was a dwarf, and Janice would fall off the corporate ladder if the two of them had continued seeing each other.

She spotted him immediately, and waved him off toward a janitorial closet. He ducked into the closet and tried to access his skillsofts again. Unfortunately, Renraku’s spiders were all over the local Matrix, and he abandoned his plan to access his cloud library. He was going to have to get out of here using his wits. Fortunately, the janitorial closet had direct access to an air vent. Finally, it would be useful to be small.

The footsteps of the guards began getting closer. The air vent cover was tightly sealed, and he had no tools to pull the grate off. The metal dug into his fingertips as he gripped it and attempted to pry it off with raw strength alone. The footsteps got louder as the guards approached. Ichiro’s fingers bled from the metal digging into them, but his flesh held out long enough to have the grate pop off with a clink.

Ichiro could hear the guards talking to Janice in the hall, asking if she had seen a dwarf. He hoped that his two dates with her had been sufficient that she wouldn’t reveal his position. Regardless, he squeezed into the narrow air duct, placing his feet and hands on either side to hold himself up. He wouldn’t be able to get the grate back into position to hide his exit strategy, but that was unavoidable at this point.

Gusts of air from the shaft below blew past as he tried to slide in increments down the duct. He thought about just how much technical expertise was necessary to keep a building as tall as this one from being over- or under-pressurized. Computers handled all that, but it was something he’d keep in mind if he ever needed to make another air duct escape in the future—if he even had a future, of course.

As he descended to the basement levels, he breathed a sigh of relief. He exited the air duct into the parking structure, and looked for a way to get out. The guards would still be looking for him several floors above, so this was his window of opportunity.

“Where you going, hot shot?”

Ichiro spun on his heel, the combat skillsoft driving his impulses. He managed to narrowly avoid hitting Janice in the abdomen.

“Janice! Wow…sorry. I’m a little jumpy.”

“What’s going on, Ichi? Security’s crawling all over the building looking for you. They say you attacked Tanaka-sama. Is that true?”

“Of course it’s not true. I did have to hurt my escort, though. Look, I don’t want to see you get in trouble. Please…just pretend you didn’t see me.”

“Ichi, I am going to get in trouble anyway—when they review their security footage, they’ll see that I signaled you to hide in that closet. Let me help you. Get in my car.”

Janice used her commlink to signal her car to pick them up. She popped the trunk, and Ichiro climbed in. He was wagering his life on whether Janice from accounting could convince a security guard to let her exit the building without an inspection. His stomach knotted at the thought, but it was his best way out.

Half an hour later, Ichiro was glad he had accepted Janice’s assistance. She had slipped past the security guard without even a second glance—Ichiro had no idea how she’d pulled it off, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Once they were out of the Renraku compound, Janice had pulled off the road and let him into the passenger seat. That was the first time Ichiro had had a chance to really breathe in what felt like ages.

“I suppose I owe you an explanation of what’s going on, Janice. My real name is Ichiro Gomez. My father was a citizen of Aztechnology. My mother was a Japanese citizen. I am an Aztechnology citizen,” he said with a hint of pride. His voice dropped and became sullen, “I suppose now I’m probably not. I imagine that right now there are spiders scrubbing all traces of me from Aztechnology hosts.”

“So, you’re a corporate spy?” Janice asked with genuine wonder. “I’ve never met a spy before.” She paused, and then her tone grew cold. “I knew you were trouble the moment I met you. Now you’ve got me mixed up in this? You’re a real drek-head, Ichi.” Clearly distraught, she buried her face in her hands.

“I told you to get away from me, and not to help. Look, I know what you’ve put on the line here. And I promise, once I’m back on my feet, I’ll repay the favor. Maybe I can even get you a position within Aztechnology.” Ichiro knew in his heart of hearts that Janice was likely going to be fired by Renraku, and odds were good that a number cruncher wouldn’t be valuable enough to anyone at Aztechnology to warrant extraction. But he had to say the right things, because the truth would destroy her.

Janice was a truly good person. She had never fully bought into the Renraku hype-machine many of the other wage-slaves had put their faith in, and that had earned her a reputation that she wasn’t a good co-worker. So leaving Renraku probably wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to her. Still, he knew how wageslaves thought, and he knew she’d be eager to find that comforting warmth of the corporate presence as soon as possible.

Ichiro took his old commlink and uploaded all of the stolen data he had to an optical disc. Then he threw the comm out the window. He took Janice’s commlink and threw it out as well. And his burner commlink got the same treatment. Renraku had some of the best hackers in the world, and it wouldn’t do either of them any good to get tracked down by making a small mistake. Of course Janice fretted at the idea of having to throw away her favorite MeFeed avatars and such, but such was the price of aiding and abetting a fugitive.

They pulled up to a Stuffer Shack, and Ichiro wandered in, trying to look as much like a casual browsing customer as possible. He grabbed a bag of Azito corn chips from the shelf, and took it to the counter. As the clerk checked him out, Ichiro palmed a pair of prepaid commlinks and shoved them in his pockets. Once back out in Janice’s car, he popped open the packaging and got to work.

First, he subscribed his skillsofts to the commlink’s personal area network, allowing him to access his skillsoft library. He replaced his combat skillsoft package with a technical one, giving him some extra skill with computers. He upgraded the software on the one he was using for his PAN, giving him a little extra security—though burners never had good security under the best of circumstances. The other, he used to contact his handler at Aztechnology, Luis Coyotl.

“Ichiro! Mi niño! How good to hear from you! I thought maybe we’d lost you after you didn’t report in.” Luis had a way about him—he was always charismatic, and treated everyone as his niño or niña. Luis had been Ichiro’s handler for several years, and the two of them had a great working relationship. When Ichiro failed to report in, he knew it would make Luis worried.

“So, I take it you didn’t get my last message about being exposed?” Ichiro already knew the answer, but asked it anyway.

“Ay, dios mio! Are you okay? What happened?”

Ichiro gave Luis the whole story, and explained Janice’s role in the events and how she had helped save his life. When Ichiro mentioned Janice, Luis said something a little unusual: “Put her on the line, niño.”

After talking with Luis for a few minutes, Janice seemed to be much happier. Luis spoke with Ichiro one last time, telling him that Janice and he needed to meet Luis as soon as possible, and that they could meet at Café Jalisco. This was one of Luis’ favorite spots, and Ichiro had met him there a number of times for doing data drops and such. The coffee there was sublime, but their real claim to fame was that they were the best Aztlán restaurant in Seattle.

The rain in Seattle seemed to never stop at this time of year. Normally this would be a consoling experience, but as Ichiro sat in Janice’s Ford Americar in front of Café Jalisco, his senses were telling him that he needed to be careful. He had the feeling that a Renraku drone had been following them the whole way to the restaurant. To be safe, he had Janice drive around for an extra half-hour. Still, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was being watched. The sensation was nothing new to a corporate spy, but it still ate at him, despite knowing he was finally going to be coming in from the cold.

Sitting in the rain, knowing that their lives were in constant peril, it was all sort of romantic. Janice looked especially fetching in the indirect sunlight threatening to pierce the clouds. Ichiro had a handsome jaw, and Janice had always loved the taper of his ears. Most dwarves had them, but Ichiro’s were a little more pointed and a little shorter than most. He was starting to get a five o’clock shadow, and Janice loved that scruffy look. The two of them shared a moment as they looked at each other, heedless of the world around them.

That moment was interrupted when Luis called Ichiro on his commlink.

“Ichi, come inside. I’ve ordered you a latte and the lady a cappuccino.”

Sighing, the two of them opened their doors and went into Café Jalisco. Inside, they found Luis’s table. A barista was working behind the counter, and two patrons were sitting in a booth between Luis and the door, talking to each other.

Luis was an older gentleman, probably in his sixties, with graying hair at his temples. Despite his age, he appeared to be in fantastic shape, either the result of hard work or cybernetic miracles. One of the rewards of being good at your job at Aztechnology was that they gave their employees extra training, magical goods, or technological advantages. They wanted to keep their assets operating in the field as long as possible, and Luis Coyotl was direct evidence of this plan.

Despite his physique, Luis used a walking cane. He always explained that the limp was the result of a childhood accident, and that he had intended to get it fixed but never got around to it. The story had become something of a joke between Luis and his friends.

They sat down at the table with Luis, who rose and shook Janice’s hand profusely. “Ichi, you did not say just how beautiful this Janice is! Mujer esta muy bonita! Janice, if I may call you that, please accept my heartfelt thanks for assisting my dear niño from the clutches of Renraku security. If there is anything that I can do to reward you, please let me know and I will do it rapidamente.”

“Thank you, sir,” Janice began, “I was happy to help. Ichiro has always been a gentleman to me, and I was afraid for his safety. The security guards at Renraku are not exactly friendly to metahumans.”

“Indeed, I know exactly what you mean,” said Luis. “Renraku and the other Japanese megacorps are often a little more resistant to change than the rest of us. Aztechnology, as you may be aware, was built upon change. We were created shortly after the Awakening, with the resurgence in magical power that is native to Aztlan.”

”Actually, I didn’t know that,” Janice said. Ichiro was getting impatient waiting for the pleasantries to end. “Maybe if I get to see Aztlan as Ichi has suggested, I’ll get the chance to learn more about your culture.”

“Ah.” Luis paused. Ichiro knew that this was the part that might break Janice’s heart. “Well you know that mi niño here is not allowed to speculate about job opportunities in Aztechnology. Still, it is possible that we could give you a reward for showing your loyalty to the company. As we discussed on the commlink, you are entitled to a reward for working with my division in such a capacity.”

Janice seemed excited by the chance to maybe see more of the world, or get into one of Aztechnology’s famous rest and relaxation facilities. What did Luis promise that would make her so giddy? The hairs on the back of Ichiro’s neck stood up, his gut telling him that something was about to happen.

Luis paused for a moment, and gripped the head of his cane. He sipped his coffee for the first time in the whole meeting. He stared directly into Janice’s eyes. “There is one thing that we value above all else at Aztechnology—lealtad, loyalty. It’s embedded into the very fabric of our being. We reward those who are loyal, and we destroy those who are not.”

With a deft motion, Luis pulled on his cane handle and out came a sword, glistening in the light and reflecting the look of horror on Ichiro’s face. In the briefest of seconds, Luis’ sword flashed across the table and stabbed into Janice’s throat. “You betrayed those you had sworn loyalty to. There is no place for you in Aztechnology.”

Before Ichiro could react, he found that all of his skillsofts and cyberware had been shut out by a remote command. He had been completely crippled by Luis.

The barista behind the counter pulled out a submachine gun and leveled it at Ichiro. One of the patrons in the booth gestured, and his hand began to glow with blue light—magic, clearly. The other patron in the booth had pulled out a pistol and was aiming it at Ichiro as well.

There was nothing he could do. His old friend, his mentor, had lured him into a trap.

“Luis, what is the meaning of this?!” Ichiro raged, unable to move for fear of being obliterated in a hail of gunfire and magic.

“Well mi niño, it’s simple. You did great work while you were undercover, but you were unable to maintain that cover. So you failed. As you know, we have a second tenet at Aztechnology—éxito, success. I am very sorry to do this, but you need to—”

Luis was abruptly cut off as the magician in the café shouted and hurled a crackling lightning bolt through the front door. Luis and Ichiro both turned to follow the bolt, and saw a man in red samurai armor thrown out onto the street by the force of the strike. The two gunmen turned and opened fire on the street as bullets ripped through the glass window of the café.

Ichiro noticed four other people in samurai armor walking across the street. Two of them had Nissan Optimum assault rifles, another had a minigun of unknown manufacture, and the fourth one was standing back with a katana in hand. Luis stood and sheathed his sword, heading to cover. Ichiro stood as well, taking the opportunity to try to escape.

The Red Samurai were Renraku’s elite security force. Whatever data he had was worth them sending a squad of elite killers after him, and presumably they had been following him this whole time. For all he knew, Janice was helping them out. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was getting out alive.

He flipped a table and ran to cover behind the counter with the barista and Luis. Silverware flew all over the room as the mage conjured up a telekinesis spell. Ichiro reached up into the cloud of shrapnel and snagged a flying knife before the whole thing was thrown out the front window. With a grunt, he slammed the blade into Luis’ hand and pulled the knife through, severing his thumb and bringing a chunk of flesh with it.

Luis shouted in pain and turned to Ichiro, but before he could draw his sword, a bullet hit his shoulder and sent him to the ground. Ichiro seized his chance. Grabbing Luis’ commlink and thumb, he took off for the kitchen.

The chrome double doors swung wide as he barreled through them, ducking at the last possible second. Another samurai stood in the kitchen, sweeping the area with an assault rifle. When the doors opened, the samurai reacted by putting a slug through the door from his underbarrel shotgun. Ichiro considered that Jaguar was with him, giving him the grace, agility, and downright luck needed to avoid getting turned to paste.

However, even Jaguar couldn’t compensate for his lack of skills. Ichiro was no moron—but he was not a good fighter and he knew it. He was great at avoiding combat, infiltrating places, convincing people to believe his lies, that sort of thing. But without his skillsofts, he barely knew which end of a gun a bullet escaped.

Luis had disabled his skillsofts with a remote command, so Ichiro took out Luis’ commlink and thumb, pressed one against the other, and gained access to it. There it was, a giant AR button floating in the trideo display. Ichiro jammed the button, and immediately felt all his cyberware coming back online. It was like being pumped with adrenaline and novacoke at the same time. He felt alive again.

With his skillsofts reactivated and the combat suite loaded, Ichiro knew exactly what to do. He snuck around the side of a cooking station and grabbed a pan from the counter. When the samurai came around, Ichiro swung the pan with all the force his dwarven body could muster. The pan gave a resounding and satisfying “CLANG” against the samurai helmet. He followed it up by grabbing the gun, another Nissan Optimum, and shoved the barrel against the samurai’s helmet. He looked away and squeezed the trigger. The ensuing blast deafened him, and blood went everywhere. Ichiro grabbed the Optimum from the dead samurai’s hands and continued his escape.

At the back door, he poked it open slightly with his foot. A bullet ripped through the door the moment it moved. A sniper out back would certainly prove difficult to deal with.

He went back in the kitchen, grabbed the samurai’s body, and dragged it to the back door. Hoisting it up, he pushed the corpse through the back door and followed it, using the body as a human shield. Another perk of being smaller than most people is that snipers don’t necessarily aim for your head immediately. Bullets plunged into the samurai, protecting Ichiro long enough that he could get out to wall on the other side of the alley. Once out of sight of the sniper, Ichiro ran off as fast as he could.

Ichiro Gomez was no more. According to official reports, he was killed by gang violence at Café Jalisco. As far as either Renraku or Aztechnology is concerned, the fight ended in a stalemate, and both sides think the other got Ichiro under their protection. Seattle’s Barrens got the public blame; the megacorporations each blame each other; and the world keeps spinning. Such is the way of things. Ichiro learned the value of not trusting those who seemed to offer hope, because the world is full of things that will take advantage of that naiveté. He learned that the megacorporations are too powerful to fail, and will blatantly lie to the public to protect their images. And he learned what was on the disc he’d recovered from Renraku. All the files he had stolen for his Aztechnology corporate handlers, and there was nothing he could do with it.

Well, until recently there was nothing he could do with it. The shootout had happened almost six months ago, and now the man formerly known as Ichiro Gomez stood in the middle of Club Penumbra. His skill at manipulating people had gotten him a good deal on an apartment in the Barrens, with no name associated with it. He even worked out a decent agreement with a local gang to provide protection. Basically, all the people he’d ever worked with while undercover at Renraku had provided him with the education he needed to survive on the streets of Seattle. Now it was time to cash in his payday.

He danced with a female dwarf, the two of them enjoying the rhythmic pulses and flashing lights. The augmented displays showed him even more wondrous effects, images like dragons floating through the crowd.

One of the effects was especially weird—he had this visual of a person sitting at a table, flipping over a series of cards. As soon as the last card was flipped, the person looked up, directly into Ichiro’s eyes. Ichi froze for a moment, unnerved by what he had just seen. When he blinked, the figure was gone. Maybe it was a hacker playing a prank on him, but he didn’t need something like that happening on a night like this.

“Voxel, can you confirm that the AR feeds haven’t been tampered with?” Ichiro talked into his subvocal microphone to a hacker he’d hired to help out tonight.

“Nothing here, Nami-san,” the Japanese elf replied.

He decided to chalk it up to exhaustion. Ever since he’d recovered the data on the disc, he knew what to do with it. He had a massive database of the shadow community in Seattle, he had a lot of skills that people like him would pay a lot of money for, and he needed a way to stay off both Renraku’s and Aztechnology’s radar. So he reached out to the one person he knew would be looking for the disc—Naoki Tanaka.

As she entered the club, Voxel provided a notification. Ichiro and the female dwarf both stopped dancing and headed toward the bar. Ichiro pretended to care what the dwarf said, but was mostly focused on making sure Tanaka saw him standing there.

“Mr. Gomez,” said the cold timbre of Tanaka. Ichiro told the dwarf to get lost before turning to face Tanaka head-on.

He looked at her and smiled a wide grin. “Oh I don’t go by that name anymore. You and yours helped make sure that happened. I go by Namikaze now. My friends call me Nami.” He slid a drink toward Tanaka, who caught it and looked down at it for a moment. It was as if she were afraid of the blue haze in her glass, or unsure of who she was talking with.

“‘Wind and waves’—isn’t that a bit poetic for a street thug?” Tanaka was off-balance,  Namikaze’s gregariousness throwing her for a loop. She was used to dealing with him as a professional at Renraku, not as a potential recruit.

“So here’s the deal.” Namikaze looked at Tanaka directly, his eyes boring into hers, starting the staring contest that was part of their negotiation process. “I need some work, and I know you’re hiring. If I’m not mistaken, Project Falcon has been undermined by some of the folks at Aztechnology. I’m willing to help you find those folks currently doing what I used to do. I’m also willing to give you all your data—the only copy there is. In exchange, you will pay my team fair wages, offer us future work on other projects, and you will ensure that my old existence is gone for good.”

“Tell me, why I shouldn’t just kill you and take your intel right now?”

“Tanaka-sama, you wound me! I would never show up to a meeting unprepared. I have security in positions that would prevent you from getting away, and I don’t have the disc on me. If I don’t report in to the person who has the disc in the next four hours, it goes public. Can we please stop all the dancing around and just get to the point?”

Tanaka shifted from one foot to the other, while Nami waited patiently. He knew what she was going to say, and finally, she spoke the words that started the next portion of his life.

“Okay, Namikaze. You have a deal.”

THE LEAST OF THESE

(5 of Coins, 6 of Coins)

PHILIP A. LEE

Huddled behind a bin, Saint Louise took a long hit off her too-big respirator and zeroed her attention on all the colorful nighttime goings-on across Great Queen Street. The respirator band was sized for adults, but that didn’t bother her much. The whole world was sized for adults, and nothing served as a more stark reminder than the sheer size of the towering stone temple across the way, at the corner of Great Queen and Wild.

She’d be an adult one day—assuming she ever lived that long—and that was good enough for her. But until then, she’d linger huddled behind filthy bins in alleyways like this one, and fancy what being an adult was like. There were plenty of them across the away, girls and blokes frocked up all dapper-like, going in and out of the giant building whose impossible-to-miss sign out front declared: United Grand Lodge of England’s Annual Charity Ball: Help the Needy, Help the World. Next to the sign lay an ocean of tables covered in corrugated cardboard boxes. Outside was for dropping off donated clothing, but inside was some posh party where the super-rich would donate actual money.

Charity drives of any kind always seemed the best places to pick up a few extra things for her mates without getting fingered, and Freemason-hosted drives like this one might as well’ve posted a giant neon bill out front reading Happy Christmas.

Not like anyone else was gonna get her a Christmas present, so she might as well nick one for herself. But first, she had to take care of her pals. They didn’t call her Saint Louise because she put herself first. What was the point of nicking herself a nice, new designer jacket if she knew one of her mates, especially one of the younger ones, would go the night shivering in a falling-apart, drek-stained one? She’d lived on the streets a lot longer than any of them, so she knew how to survive cold London nights with only minor discomfort. Some of her mates though—all runaways, orphans, and other kids who’d fallen through the cracks—they were new to living on the streets and didn’t quite know how to fend for themselves yet. A good coat—designer label or otherwise—could easily mean the difference between surviving the night and not, especially with winter coming down the pike.

A phlegmy cough at her elbow pulled her attention from the Freemason temple. Lou’s left hand instinctively shot to her lower back and caressed the polymer grip of a Streetline Special—but she recognized the face. Her fingers relaxed.

“Cripes, Skint. Don’t fraggin’ sneak up on me like that.” Lou elbowed the young ork’s ribs hard, but inside she beamed with pride. Skint was probably about eight or nine—he didn’t even know for sure—only a few years younger than her, and already he’d learned a lot from her. He’d be going places someday. Maybe even get to where he was supposed to go.

Lou had lost that chance ages ago.

“Sorry, Saint Louise. Din’t mean ta.” Skint took a drag from his own oversized respirator to combat the smog blowing into London’s neon-energized evening, and hacked long and hard this time. The cough, brought on by all this pollution, wouldn’t get better. She’d seen it before. “So, what’s the plan, eh?”

“Give us a sec….” Lou peered all the way out from behind the bin, and her eyes followed a rather expensive-looking couple getting out of a swanky black limo of some kind. Him, an ork in a broad-shouldered, night-blue suit; her, a nicely coiffed raven-haired elf in a slinky crimson dress, holding a ruby-encrusted clutch. Amid the neon-and-smog bustle, the man held his companion’s satin-gloved hand to help her out of the car, all genteel-like.

The display made Lou want to gag.

Something seemed dodgy about the pair—but then again, all rich slots seemed dodgy. Getting all that money without really having to work for it, all while Lou and her buddies had to nick and scrape and hoodwink just to keep themselves warm and fed? Just wasn’t right, so she never felt guilty about tagging marks, casing joints like this. Rich slots with millions of pounds in the bank weren’t gonna miss a few pence nicked from their pocket. Rich slots like those two oblivious wanks walking up the temple steps. She’d seen a lot of folk wander in so far, but these two were by far the richest.

Lou let a mischievous smirk bloom across her face. “All right,” she said to Skint, “let’s go see what we can see. Once I give you the signal, you run distraction for me, yeah?”

The young ork nodded and melted back into the alley shadows. They each went their separate ways, her down Great Queen Street, him doubling back around and heading west down Wild Street, so no one would ken they were together.

Lou jaywalked across traffic, right in front of a slightly overweight constable who seemed more interested in keeping an eye on all the rich wanks who got their jollies showing how kind and charitable they were. The bobby paid her no mind—until she tried to stroll right past him toward the Mason temple entrance.

“Nothin here for you, kiddo,” the copper said, shooing her with a collapsible baton.

She noted the holstered pistol, stun gun, and pepper spray on his belt. “Just passin’ through, officer,” she said with a shrug and a what-can-I-do-about-it smirk. “Tryna get to the sweet shop down the way.”

To most people she looked like riffraff—and she was, no two ways around it—but wide eyes and a half smile went a long way. Always used to work on her parents.

The bobby frowned, but waved her on through. “Just keep moving.”

When he looked away from her, she turned and playfully stuck her tongue out at him. Then she nonchalantly juggled the matte-black can of pepper spray she’d nicked from his belt just because she could. This would certainly come in handy. Pistols were nice and all, but they could wake up a whole neighborhood. Quieter and less violent options were always preferable.

Of course, if she could sling spells—real spells, not the rubbish tricks she could already do—that’d be a whole different game of cricket. Bam! Out like a light. Bam! Head exploding in a ball of fire. No one would mess with her mates then. If only she could afford to attend proper magic school…

For now, pepper spray would do. Fiery juice in a can.

Lou disappeared into the pavement crowd so the bobby wouldn’t hassle her anymore. Once out of sight, she focused on the real mission. Each of the boxes on the tables lining the sidewalk overflowed with clothes donated to the charity drive. For most rich folks, this was an excuse to toss out their grotty, outdated fashions, replace them with the latest trendy outfits, and feel like they’d done the world a favor without really sacrificing anything.

Of course, most needy folk like Saint Louise and her mates had no use for adult-sized expensive designer outfits that had only been worn once. Some fussy frock with a leg slit all the way up to here wouldn’t stave off a wintry cold, and most of the trousers and shirts and jackets would fit comically large on her or any of her pals.

But even old fashions could fetch a good price from the right buyer. Lou had seen folk beat each other half to death over a Mortimer of London handbag at least two or three seasons out of style.

Surrounded by a flood of pedestrians, Lou strolled past the boxes as casually and innocently as she could, looking like she had some destination in mind but taking her sweet old time getting there. Stop and smell the smog. Inhale…

And fake-cough as loud as she please. Just give these wanks a good show. A few passersby stepped aside as though she was the poster child for the next VITAS outbreak, but everyone else ignored her. Even among these richie-richs, she’d turned invisible. Which was how she used the coughing fit to cover reaching in one of the boxes and coming out with…

One—uno—black-leather Armanté glove.

Bollocks.

Gloves were nice and all—she’d nearly lost a finger to frostbite during that first winter out on her own—but you really needed a pair of them. And it was too late to swing back past the box to look for the other one without drawing suspicion. Ah, well. Mismatched gloves weren’t no big deal in the long run, and better to have one glove than none, even if it was a little on the large size.

Maintaining her blissfully unaware smirk, she quickly jammed the glove in her coat pocket and pressed on past the veritable shopping mall of donated designer threads. All the rich wanks assumed these donations would find their way to those who really needed them, but not many needy folk had much use for cocktail dresses or dry-clean-only tuxedos. These donations would just get shipped off to some so-called charity shop where people would buy them for a substantial markdown—like five pounds for a high-end Liverpool footie jacket that probably cost three hundred or more originally. But street kids generally didn’t even have two pence to rub together, let alone five quid, so all these donated items would just get bought on the cheap by people who didn’t really need them, and then the charity shop would allegedly give some of that money to the needy. Lou had never seen a single penny of that money, so she and her mates were merely cutting out the middlemen.

Besides, nicking stuff without getting caught was fun.

After her parents had left her at the Tube station years ago, she’d tried to get a real job of some kind, but no one would hire an eight-year-old kid. Something about child labor laws or other drek. She knew she had a System Identification Number, but couldn’t rattle it off—honestly, what eight-year-old could?—so no one could look her up in the system: there were apparently a billion “Eloise Smiths” in the UK’s SIN registry. And a shop hiring an effectively SINless kid under the table apparently looked bad in all kinds of ways Lou didn’t quite understand yet.

So this was what she’d come to. Didn’t hurt nobody, and she could at least make sure her mates stayed warm, and dry, and fed.

But wandering past all of this glitz and glamour outside the Grand Lodge—the neon lights, the brilliant cars, the dashing men in suits that cost more money than she’d ever see in her lifetime—what she really wanted was to go to magic school at King’s College. One of her buddies once boosted a commlink, and before the battery died, she had borrowed it to look up how much their magic program cost. Lou hardly ever cried—she’d cried it all out when her parents had abandoned her at Victoria station three years back—but that night she had bawled herself to sleep.

The glove and pepper spray juggled around in her pocket as she idly fiddled with them.

Someday…

Lou glanced over her shoulder at the now-distant box she’d nicked the glove from. Lo and behold, there was its mate just sitting on top of the clothes pile, pretty as it pleased.

“Ah, frag it,” she said under her breath.

All of her concentration focused on that glove until she could see nothing else—not the oblivious pedestrians bumping into and saying rude things to her, not the distant copper, the sidewalk, the box, or even the other clothes. Colors muted, and everything else became a slight shimmer at the edge of her awareness.

A determined smile cracked her lips.

The glove wiggled ever so slightly, as though catching a tiny gust of wind.

“That’s it,” she said, slowly walking backward with the flow of foot traffic. She repeatedly curled her index and middle fingers toward her, beckoning the glove to follow. “That’s it. Come to mummy…”

As though imbued with a life of its own, the glove slithered atop the clothing pile. Lou wasn’t quite sure how she did it, just that it worked. It just felt right. And she had to really, really concentrate on it. Only worked with small objects, which was a great help in picking pockets. Maybe if she could get to King’s College and show them this, show them she could magic an object with her mind, like invisible fingers, then maybe they’d give her some kinda scholarship.

The limp glove wriggled along through the clothes and worked its way onto the lip of the box. Just one more nudge, and it’d flounder onto the sidewalk, where she could snatch it up before anyone could notice. Just a little more…

A series of disturbing pops came from behind. Before she could turn to look—

Pow! A freight train rammed her right in the back of the head. Bowled her over. Exploded colors in her eyes. Sent her reeling into the sidewalk. Right elbow struck cement hard. Sidewalk grit ground into her left palm. A table clacked over—a paff! of a cardboard box exploding from being struck by the same freight train, and unwanted designer clothes fluttered down around her like a swarm of butterflies.

Lou glanced up just in time to see that ork bloke in the dark-blue suit running into the street like the devil himself was after him. He whirled around in the middle of the street, just long enough to raise a chunky, mean-looking pistol and squeeze off two deafening shots aimed somewhere behind her. Two heartbeats later, that elven doll in the crimson dress dashed right after him—clack clack clack went her stiletto heels on the pavement. The dress, all torn up, didn’t look quite so slinky anymore.

But that wasn’t what caught Lou’s attention. Amid the screams and chaos, the elf, she was waving her hand—the one not clenching her ruby-encrusted clutch—like she was having a seizure or something. And from where Lou was trying to push herself up from the sidewalk, it looked like the elf was mouthing some words—something clearly not the Queen’s English.

A whoosh and a wave of heat burst from behind Lou, and a man in an inexplicably burning security guard uniform stumbled down the lodge’s front steps with a shriek. The scent of charred meat would’ve watered Lou’s mouth had she not known where it came from.

Lou’s head snapped back to the elf fleeing the scene. Her eyes went so wide she thought they’d pop right out of her head. Her jaw hung slack.

Magic.

She’d just witnessed someone use real magic, not the stupid little spells she used for nicking stuff. Forget hold-out pistols or pepper spray. Setting someone on fire would be the perfect way to keep folks from messing with her mates.

Part of her wanted to follow the elf, ask her how to do that fireball trick, but her survival instincts, long honed from three-plus years on the street, told her that bobby would be by any second now. She knew better than to stick around an active crime scene. All it’d take would be one funny look, and the copper’d make her turn out her pockets, and she’d get in deep drek even though she clearly wasn’t the biggest fish on the scene.

If she didn’t know any better, it looked like those two were running like they’d stolen something, but that was a ridiculous notion. What could rich wanks want to steal from a place like this? Enough money could buy anything.

The second glove, wherever it had ended up in the chaos of pedestrians running for their lives around her, wasn’t worth it. She’d find another.

Pushing herself back to her feet, Lou looked up and saw Skint coming her direction, a look of terror on his face. They locked eyes and shared a knowing look that translated loosely as Get the frag back to the alley before we get arrested too.

Lou swallowed and ran across the street, ducking and weaving through confused and angry drivers like an old pro. She didn’t stop until she’d reached the alley from where she’d scoped out the charity drive. It wasn’t the most ideal spot, but the back of the alley formed a t-shaped junction with the surrounding buildings, so it offered plenty of options for skipping out if the fuzz spotted them. Winded and jittery from the whole ordeal, Lou braced herself against the overflowing, foul-smelling bin and stumbled around it to get out of sight.

Lying there in a mound of rubbish, all disheveled and pale, was the elven doll in the crimson dress, ruby-encrusted clutch still grasped in one hand.

Lou had seen dead bodies before, but not up close like this. 

She flinched when the elf gasped like someone had forcibly pumped air into her lungs. So she wasn’t dead. What now?

Lou glanced around her. Where was this lady’s companion, the ork in the blue suit? 

“M-Miss?” she said, cringing. She’d helped her mates clean up scrapes and bruises, but this was something totally different. Judging from the elf’s pallor, she’d been shot, but the dress’s color and the near-darkness of the alley hid any bullet wound.

Blood burbled from the elf’s lips.

If this woman died, she’d never be able to teach Lou magic.

“Sakes alive, Saint Louise,” Skint said from over her shoulder, also out of breath. “What a horror show that w—”

“Go on home, Skint,” Lou cut in, not taking her eyes off the dying elf in the rubbish. “Meet you there.”

She swallowed hard and knelt, unsure what to do. Touching the woman might do more harm than good.

The blue-suited ork rounded the alley’s back corner with purpose in his steps, a scowl twisted across his lower tusks. He stalked toward her, hard enough that she felt the cement shudder beneath his bulk. Even in the alley darkness she got a good look at him, immediately regretting it. His left eye glowed with unnatural blue light, and the skin around the damaged cybereye had torn away to reveal a shiny, chromed skull underneath. Clicks and whirs and buzzes accompanied his approach.

This wasn’t no man. This was a slotted-off robot of some kind.

And it was coming right for her.

Heart pounding in her neck, Lou fell back on her arse and tried crab-walking away from this mechanical monstrosity—

And felt herself lifted up into the air, dangling by her coat from the robo-ork’s surprisingly strong grasp.

“Lemme go, ya big oaf! Lemme go!” She fumbled around for the pistol at her back, the pepper spray canister—anything—but couldn’t reach either.

“I don’t have time to mess with you right now, street rat,” he barked.

“You…hurt that girl, Rook,” the elf spluttered between ragged gasps from the garbage, “and I’ll cack off just to spite you.”

“Sorry, Starling.” The ground slowly descended to meet Lou’s worn shoes, and the ork let go of her jacket. “G’won. Scat.”

Lou pulled her arms back into her coat sleeves and stuck her tongue out at the ork when he wasn’t looking. And then for revenge—and just to prove she could—she nicked from his pocket a small cylinder with a metal ring at one end. She glanced down to realize she’d boosted a live grenade. It got tucked into her other pocket—so it wouldn’t clink against the pepper spray and accidentally go off…

“Told you going out the front door was a bad idea,” the elf said, grimacing.

Rook stared down the alley mouth and growled. “Agh! Where the bloody goddamn hell’s Royce? And why in the flaming frag are you still here?”

Lou ignored the scary ork and knelt next to the elf again. She looked bad. Real, real bad.

“Look,” Lou said, “I can help. I got pals ’round here. We can get you to a doctor or something, help you get ’round the cops or whoever you’re running from.”

Starling lifted her head, a struggle that required the last of her reserves. “Help us…?” Her irises reflected light like a cat’s. “Why … would you help us?”

Lou swallowed, then took a long hit off her adult-sized respirator. “I wanna learn magic.”

A wet cough bubbled from Starling’s throat—no, she was trying to laugh. Gallows humor. Her eyes flagged and deadened, and for an instant, Lou thought she’d given up the ghost.

Then she blinked. “So…the street urchin’s got the gift, eh?” Her throat twitched with a pained swallow. “You…wanna help us? You turn…you turn and you run…Forget you ever saw us…”

Lou understood all too well. This was an adult-sized world. Kids need not apply.

Without a word she stood and wandered farther down the alley, toward the t-junction. She refused to show either of them the stinging tears forming in her eyes. It was Victoria station all over again—just two more adults telling her she wasn’t wanted.

Not until she ducked around the corner did she bother investigating the ruby-encrusted clutch hidden under her jacket. Starling probably hadn’t even realized she’d nicked it. The purse itself could fetch a few thousand pounds to the right buyer—assuming these were even real rubies—but Lou was honestly more interested in its contents. What in the world could those two have stolen that would cause this much fuss?

Aside from some normal adult-lady items—lipstick, an unmarked credstick, a commlink—the purse held only one real item of note: a black, wooden case about the same size as the commlink, carved in all manner of strange, unreadable symbols. Starved by curiosity, Lou popped the case open widthwise along the hinge and pivoted it toward the nearby streetlight so she could see what they’d scored.

Inside, on a bed of wine-colored velvet, lay what looked like an oversized playing card. The swirling design, bright green and black on a gray background, resembled some kind of primitive-looking art of two dragons locked in some eternal struggle. Lou grimaced and flipped the card over.

The scene depicted on the reverse lay upside down, so she turned it right-side up.

In the card image she saw a young girl clutching a large teddy bear. She sat outside a tube station with a suitcase, looking abandoned and angry and sad and worried all at the same time.

Lou’s heart stopped.

She knew exactly what this girl was feeling because it was her—Eloise Smith, long before she’d become Saint Louise. This wasn’t some artist’s rendering. It was damn near a photograph of that moment.

Eight years old, at Victoria station. They were all supposed to go on holiday in France, but her parents had gotten some urgent phone call while they waited for the Tube. Her dad told her to wait there, and he and her mum both wheeled their luggage off to go—well, to go somewhere. Lou never saw them again. The luggage she was sitting on, that was the first thing someone stole from her. And later that night, she’d found an unoccupied space behind a bin in a nearby alley and used her teddy bear, Mr. Cotton Cottington, as a pillow. She liked to fancy that her parents were secretly MI6 agents that had gotten called away on some secret, hush-hush business at the last minute, and they had died heroically for Queen and Country.

She’d never told anyone that story, not even Skint. How in the bloody hell did this card know about the most traumatic moment in her entire life? Had to be a trick.

Grimacing, she turned the card back over and flipped it again, but the same angry, accusing face of Eloise Smith glared daggers back at her. Why’d you abandon me?! the eyes accused. You said you’d be right back!

Why?

Why?

Lou fell back against the wall and wept at the memory.

Police sirens went off nearby, but she didn’t care if they fingered her this time. She knuckled her eyes dry and stomped around the corner, holding the case open for Starling and Rook to see.

“What the bloody fragging hell is this?” 

But Starling’s eyes stared at nothing. Blood—too much blood—stained the alley floor. Rook was taking cover behind the bin, trading shots with unseen foes somewhere out on the street. Lou flinched at ricochets that zinged and zanged off the masonry behind her.

“Geddown!” Rook roared at her.

Lou did. Sprays of cinderblock and brick from more missed shots showered her as she snapped the case shut and shoved it deep into her inside coat pocket.

“No time to explain!” Rook blind-fired a few rounds around the bin. “Just stay down! Gaaaah! Royce, where the frag are you?”

Her pickpocket instinct told her to turn and scarper. The purse she could pawn for enough to feed her mates for months—but this Rook bloke was the only one who knew why there was a card with her face in her pocket, maybe even why her parents vanished. If he died…

On her belly in the disgusting alley, she army-crawled until she could carefully peek around the bin on the other side from where Rook hunkered. Across the street, two shadowed figures hid behind pushed-over tables and strewn designer clothes.

Lou fixated on one of them, on the snub-nosed submachine gun spraying down the alley. It was big—bigger than anything she’d ever tried to tug with her crude magic before—but if one of those bullets somehow found her—

Reality vanished around her, until the assailants glowed like ethereal swirls of color.

Try or die.

“Come to mummy,” she whispered. Please.

And she tugged.

To her surprise, the weapon wrenched free and cartwheeled out into the street, far from the shooter’s reach.

“Nice one, kiddo!” Rook congratulated. He took careful laser-sight aim across the street, fired a single round. An instantaneous scarlet spray burst from the second shooter’s head, and he collapsed backward into the night.

Lou glanced up, past the tattered remains of the clothing drive, to see two human men in long gray coats descend the temple steps. They looked like rich wanks, just like Starling and Rook had, only something about them filled her with a sense of utter dread, a black feeling that went even beyond that moment when she first realized her parents weren’t coming back for her. These men walked with a purpose, neither fast nor slow, hands down at their sides, brows dark, somehow not caring that a firefight had just happened out here in the street. And they approached, one sure step at a time.

Cars screeched to a halt as the newcomers approached undeterred by traffic.

Lou’s coat pocket pulsed with warmth.

Rook’s ejected magazine clattered onto the cement, and he jammed a fresh one home. Two shots aimed across the street. Both bounced away, as though the enemy pair were protected by some kind of magic bubble.

“Oh, frag me!” Rook pounded a fist on the bin, ringing the whole thing like Big Ben. “Damn it all to bloody hell, Starling! Why’d you have to go and die on me now?”

He turned to Lou. The haunted look of terrified desperation on his face somehow even reached his damaged cybereye. “Run!” he hissed.

He’d just gotten the warning out when his whole body shuddered in a hideous light show of electricity, as though he’d jammed a fork into a light socket, and he collapsed against the bin, now reeking of burned-out electronics and charred meat.

Lou turned and ran down the alley without sparing a glance behind her. She ran like her own insignificant life depended on it.

Those two, they were after the case pulsing with heat in her pocket. The case Starling and Rook had died for, the case holding some secret from her past. Survival instinct told her that handing over the case or simply abandoning it in the alley wouldn’t make them stop chasing her. She had committed some mortal sin just for having seen it. She had to get away, had to get away…

At the t, she veered right and ran like police dogs were after her.

The alley mouth, leading onto some side street, loomed ahead, a seeming football pitch’s length away. If she could just make it…what then? They’d follow her out onto the street, follow her around every corner until they had what they wanted. But if Rook couldn’t stop them, what chance did she have?

The metal casing of the pocketed grenade slapped against her side with every step. Without fully thinking it through, Lou clenched the cylinder with all of her fingers, and yanked the pin with her thumb, squeezing the grenade’s spoon tight so the explosive wouldn’t go off in her pocket. Then, she turned in mid-stride and underhanded the grenade to roll it along the cement without bouncing. With any luck, the shadows would mask its approach and blast those scary goons to a pulp.

She covered her ears and started counting under her breath, like folks did in the movies:

One…

Two…

Thr—

The blast rocked the whole alley, nearly threw Lou off balance from the deafening thunderclap and sudden storm of dust and blinding white showering her from behind. She slammed her right shoulder into the unmoving brick wall of another rubbish bin to her right—that’d leave a right nasty bruise—but kept on going, praying her gamble had paid off.

A fizzling cloud of white smoke hung in the air behind her. The two lodge goons stepped right through it, their eyes deadened and in shadow, smoke whirling around them like demons summoned from hell. And she saw their lips moving, starting to chant something not-quite Queen’s English—

A piercing screech from beyond the alley mouth diverted her attention just as a white car careened to a burnt-rubber halt on the sidewalk, blocking off her only exit. Both alley-facing car doors opened. Two suited men emerged with large, terrifying guns and trained them down the alley.

At her.

Guns in front. Magic behind.

Lou froze. Felt her heartbeat in her neck, in her ears.

The case was moving inside her pocket, wriggling to get free—

From the street came a high-pitched squeal, a flump sound—and a black limo smashed into both the parked car and the two gunmen with a sickening crunch of metal and bone. Broken glass and bodies littered the sidewalk.

The driver’s side window was already down, and a passenger door flew open, even though she saw no one inside to open it.

A dark-complected woman wearing a chauffeur’s cap stuck her head out the window. Cords and wires ran from the base of her skull to somewhere out of sight. “Kid!” she shouted, waving a pistol toward the open door. “I’m Royce. Get in! Hurry!”

Royce fired off a few shots—deafening at such close range—but Lou knew they’d do no good.

Two steps from the open door, something snagged Lou from behind.

Some unseen force was dragging her—no the case was being dragged, pulling her coat and her whole body across the cracked cement along with it. And farther down the alley, she saw the two silent men waiting to collect their prize.

Lou screamed and held onto the case with both hands, for fear it would tear clean through her all-too-threadbare coat. She couldn’t let them have it, couldn’t let them kill her—or worse. Images of hellish torture and demonic spirits flashed before her eyes.

Her gun was useless. The grenade was useless. All her pickpocketing cantrips were useless. Nothing could stop them.

Her shoulder throbbed.

Nothing but a brick wall.

All of her focus shifted to the rubbish bin, until her whole awareness became nothing but shifting unreal colors. The two magicians’ silhouettes and the magical thread dragging her toward them burned like radioactive fuel rods, too bright to look at directly. But she didn’t care about them. She zeroed in on the bin. Probably weighed a ton, but that didn’t matter. Magic—real magic—could do the impossible.

“Come to…mummy…” she whispered, barely able to hear herself over the drumming of her pulse.

The bin shot from one alley wall to the other as though it were made of crêpe paper, crushing the two magicians against the stonework with a resounding metal crunch.

Feeling as knackered as a wrung-out dishrag, Lou managed to pick herself up and stagger to the waiting limo without waiting to see whether her attackers had survived. The moment she got inside, she fell onto the seat, the world spinning into darkness as the car pulled away from the curb.

The limo door closing awoke her with a start.

The posh passenger compartment of Royce’s fancy limousine had been empty, but now an impeccably dressed woman slid into the seat across from her. She wore a friendly face and a forest-green pantsuit that had to cost as much, if not more, than Starling’s outfit. Metal bangles etched with intricate patterns decorated her wrists and neck, and she had an impeccable iridescent green manicure that shimmered in the dome light. Whoever this was, she was loaded. And a quick glimpse of her showed she burned with colors just as bright, if not brighter, than the two creepy magicians Lou had escaped from.

“Hello,” the woman said. She leaned back in her seat and poured some kind of adult drink from a minibar hidden in a side console. “I’m Ms. Johnson. Saint Louise, isn’t it?”

“How did you—”

“I monitored Starling and Rook’s progress during the extraction. They were trying to recover a dangerous magical artifact from a secret organization we call the Black Lodge. They’ve been using the Grand Lodge as a front for years. And it was a good thing you were there to help us out. Otherwise things may have gone…poorly. May I see it?”

Lou removed the case from her pocket and held onto it as though it was her last earthly possession. “What is this thing?”

“Did you look at it?”

She nodded.

“It’s a very special tarot card, one imbued with magic. May I?”

Lou swallowed and handed the case over.

Ms. Johnson snapped open the case. “Ah, the Five of Coins. This card shows you the moment where you were the most vulnerable, the most isolated. It is meant to show the root of your greatest weakness, but also your greatest strength. Seems you’ve been living on the street for awhile now, yes? Unless I’m mistaken, I imagine it showed you the first night you spent away from your folks?”

Something plucked at Lou’s insides. “How—how’d you know that?”

“I’m good at reading people,” Ms. Johnson said. “And I can tell you’re more than just a normal pickpocket. You’ve got some magic in your blood. More than you realize.”

Lou exhaled and hung her head. “Don’t matter if I do. I’m a street rat. Can’t afford to go to proper magic school. And I’ve got pals to look out for.”

Ms. Johnson smiled like she knew some secret. “You’re in luck, Saint Louise. Because the Draco Foundation can teach you all the magic you want to know. You’re still young, but you’d make a great addition to our team. You join us, maybe use your gift to help us find more of these cards…” She waved the case for emphasis. “And we might even be able to help you find your parents.”

Lou’s insides bubbled with delight. But then she thought about Skint, about all her mates waiting for her back at their bolt hole, hoping she’d come back with something—a new coat, a single glove, maybe a pound or two—something to last them the winter. This was an adult-sized world, and child-sized concerns didn’t matter.

Lou straightened in her seat and put on her best negotiating face, like she’d seen adults do. “I’ll do it, but under one condition.”

“Name it,” Ms. Johnson said, not even batting an eyelash. 

“My mates, they’re all street rats like me, and I’m the one who takes care of ’em. I can’t just run off and abandon ’em. I wanna make sure they’re okay, do everything I can to help ’em out while I’m away.”

Ms. Johnson nodded. “All right. That can certainly be arranged.”

On the busy street corner, the afternoon London air tasted different somehow. It wasn’t just Lou’s appropriately sized respirator: its fresh, mildew-free filtration cartridge only gave a slight scent of plastic to each hit. She also caught a whiff of synthleather from her new jacket, but that wasn’t quite it either.

No, today she wasn’t just the leader and protector of a ragtag band of orphans, but something much, much more. And that shrank the whole adult-sized city into something far more manageable.

Skint hovered off to her left, sporting a healthy glow from his latest round of respiratory treatment. Gone was his threadbare coat and the shoes with the flapping sole that had nearly torn clean off. The Draco folks had provided Lou more than enough quid to buy all of her mates brand-new, high-quality threads and kicks that actually fit them for a change.

And instead of squatting, Lou’s mates now had not one but three different flats around the greater London area for all of them to share. According to Ms. Johnson’s reps, three potential boltholes was better than just one. Just in case things ever went south.

Because those new clothes, those nice roofs over their heads, they didn’t come free.

Lou inhaled again, glad for the clean respirator scent. “Okay, I’m sending some snaps to your commlink. Memorize ’em, and send ’em to the others when you get a chance.”

Skint was already like an old pro, nonchalantly staring at his cheap-but-new commlink as though absently perusing his text messages, like any normal kid might do.

Lou didn’t need to review the vast collection of known Masonic symbols and suspected Black Lodge emblems. She’d already gone over the images a dozen times. A hundred. Each one had burned into her mind until she could recite the list front to back and give a detailed explanation of each symbol and their known or suspected meaning.

“You or the others see any of these things anywhere,” she told him, “on someone’s ring, a bumper sticker, street graffiti—I wanna know about it. Tail ’em. Eavesdrop. Find out anything you can. And you call me.” She held up her own brand-spanking new commlink, an untraceable burner unit she’d been trained to wipe and ditch at a moment’s notice. “You run into any kind of trouble, you call me. Gangers. Fuzz. I don’t care. You call me. Got it? You think you’ve grown a tail, you bail and head for the nearest safe house. Got it?”

Skint nodded. He knew the deal. No one ever paid attention to street kids—which made them the perfect informants for Ms. Johnson’s little tarot project.

Lou was proud of all her mates, Skint especially. “All right, go do your thing. I’mma check in with you every few days. But until then…”

Concern flashed in the young ork’s eyes. “Where ya goin’, Saint Louise?”

“Me?” She looked down at her commlink and remembered the entry-level magic textbook the Draco folks had also loaded into the device’s memory. Not quite a full ride to King’s College, but it was a start. “I’m gonna go learn magic. Real magic.”

TROMPE L’OEIL

(6 of Cups, 7 of Cups, 8 of Cups, 4 of Coins)

CZ WRIGHT

The nearly empty store erupted in howls. Ed whipped his head around from the news feed to stare, gaping, at Lotus. His shock of black hair with purple ends gave him a permanent back-lit effect, but the glow of the trid feed behind him amplified it. “That’s you!”

“Yeah, yeah, this is what I was tellin’ you about—move over.” Lotus hopped up onto the checkout counter near Ed and sat, transfixed by the news feed.

The corner of the news feed—the corner dedicated to puff pieces—showed a perfect newscaster standing near Lotus, smiling and nodding while the crowd around them whooped and danced.

“Ever since I was a little girl, you know?” The Lotus on the screen was flushed and, the Lotus in the store recalled, a little drunk. “I prayed every night: just this once—just this year, and I’ll never ask for anything again—let me win the Lottery.”

“Prayed to win? That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” A plastic smile from the ’caster.

“No, see, my dad fragging obsessed over that grand prize money. On June first, we started eating Taco Temple every single meal of every single day during Lotto season. Every summer I can remember. I figured it out, once. It came to, like, 1,750 meals before I moved out. Odds were good that a given meal would have been a 3T Special. And yeah, I calculated for the fact that 3T didn’t start until fifteen years ago. It’s a lot of Taco Temple.”

“My, I can picture the baby bottle he must have fed you. It’s not a very pleasant image.” Har har har.

“Yeah, we bought so much Taco Temple, and he kept so many receipts and plastic tokens that Dad had to start cutting new space out of our house for them. He would have been that old crab ass ahead of you in line, demanding they print a paper receipt for him because he ‘needed it for his records,’ you know? Bookshelves all over the fragging place. Little paper notebooks all stacked up in a row, laid on top of the rows, and then just sort of stacked in front at the end. Fraggin’ ridiculous.”

“That it is. That it is,” the ’caster jumped in. “Reporting live from—”

“I still like Taco Temple, if you can believe it. And, you know, for as annoying as his habits were, I miss Dad, so I kept up the tradition. Tomorrow’s June first, and I’m gonna rock that opening line, woo!”

“Back to you, Tom.”

The puff piece winked out, and an ad for the Seattle Screamers took its place.

“Nice job, kiddo!” Lightstep shouted across the store aisles as another howl pierced the air. He twisted the arm attached to the howling elf under his booted foot. “Stay quiet till I’m finished with you,” he told the guy.

“Oh, yeah!” Lotus rocked her shoulders back and forth in a seated victory dance. “Oh... yeah.” She stopped, scowled, and gestured with her pistol. “Before I forget: I need to be outta here by three. There’s no way I’ll get a good spot in line after four, and I need time to get there.”

“You heard the lady.” Lightstep peered down at the elf. “What’s that code, chummer?”

Every other track playing tonight covered the typical money, sex, partying, and mayhem integral to popular summer music. Taco Temple themes comprised the rest; the Lotto was a big deal in Mid-Town, and the Lotto season’s Grand Opening attracted huge crowds. The line stretched from Taco Temple Mid-Town, past the music shop, the bank, the ’ware repair shop, to the cleaners, and down the other street.

The latest song by Three Fleas Please, “Take My Taquitos,” ended, and Lotus leaned against the plascrete foundation of the bank, the same spot on the sidewalk she’d rested after the six previous songs.

A smallish man in a green hooded sweatshirt shook his head. “How in the world are we so far back in line?”

“This isn’t that bad. At least this year they wove VR visitors in among the meat space visitors. I can’t believe they let it go on that long, letting people cut ahead from the comfort of their own fragging house? I’d just rather be here, you know? Makes me feel like a kid again. But I don’t think it’s fair we don’t get first dibs on the line since we committed so much earlier. I mean, how hard is it to visit in VR? We actually traveled here, you know?” Lotus snorted. “I guess I’m old fashioned.”

The man stared at her. She wasn’t sure when he had started staring at her, but she found herself staring back. There were flecks of gold in his irises—though if someone forced her to categorize them, they weren’t so much flecks as flakes. It looked like he had real fragging gold flakes in his eyeballs. She leaned closer to verify that, yes, they even resembled snowflakes.

The pupil of his eye closed in from both sides and rounded out again just as quickly, causing the gold flakes to catch the light in a flash. It was a fluid movement, like a single heartbeat.

Lotus started, recoiling from the man, who simply smiled. Sudden self-awareness (How much was she talking? Should she stay quiet? Where should she put her hands? Should she look at him or away? Turn toward him, at an angle, away?) flooded Lotus’s other thoughts utterly out of her head.

“There’s no cause for a tone of resignation when talking about how old fashioned one is, my dear.” The man continued the conversation as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “It is a badge of honor, if you ask me.” He examined his fingernails. “Which you should.”

“Should...what?” Lotus blinked rapidly and peered at the man, placing her hand to her forehead. “I didn’t catch—”

The man clapped his hands together. “I’m so glad you asked!”

He closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and inhaled. He inhaled for what Lotus would conclude later was about fifteen seconds. He exhaled a small sigh and locked eyes with her. His mouth cracked into a radiant, rapturous smile.

“I just adore this place, and would never miss the celebration of Lottery season.” He gazed at Taco Temple. “The libations, the flesh, the colors, the olfactory orgasm I suffer simply walking through those shining glass doors!” His thin shoulders rose and fell. “What can I say? I’m obsessed.”

Lotus scowled in surprise. “So am I! I’ve never met anyone who liked Taco Temple so much...” She trailed off, distracted.

“But I think I’m a bit more obsessed than you.” The man prodded her temple with his finger.

She glanced up at him and smiled. “I doubt it,” she said and told the man her story. “I’m sorry,” she said afterward. She patted at her eyes and nose with a wadded-up tissue. “I’ve just never felt a connection like this.”

“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart.” The man patted her wrist. “We have each simply found in one another a kinship few are lucky enough to enjoy in one lifetime. It is a significant enough episode that I should expect you would experience some—” He waved his hand around. “—leakage. I understand it is your feminine nature. But at least you’ll remember the connection.”

Lotus bowed her head and nodded, dabbing at her nostrils. After a moment to compose herself, she blinked once, twice. She pulled her hand away from her eyes and peered at the tears on her fingertips, brow furrowed. Sparing a glance over each shoulder, she wiped her hands off on her jeans and hoped no one had seen that.

No one was looking at her.

Summer heat radiated off the pavement, and Lotus wiped a forearm across her brow. Sunlight flashed into her eyes as the doors to the restaurant opened. Two girls walked out, each carrying two four-packs of tall drinks. Lotus crossed the parking lot to meet them, and took two carriers from the shorter girl, who took one of the taller girl’s carriers. Together, they walked a block and turned into an alleyway.

The girls kept watch as Lotus picked the lock on the fence. She ushered them through and locked the gate behind them. They crouched down and through the half-ruined foundation of an old parking garage, emerging into a tiny, forgotten space between buildings at the center of the city block. The three entered a small shack constructed at the end of the space. The concrete foundation of the parking ramp provided three of the shack’s walls, the fourth wall and door were cobbled together from scrap, and the roof was thick cardboard. Lotus sniffed the air before she sat, checking to see if the stench of mildew merited changing the roof. It was tolerable for now.

They sat on the floor of flattened cardboard boxes and set the carriers on the grate the kids would later use to leave the shack for their hideout. Lotus smeared away thick condensation from the side of the cup, then flicked at the tab of the token with her nail and pulled it away. She removed every token from every cup in careful sequence. Once she had gone through all the cups, she picked each one up from her right-hand side, verified that the token was gone, and handed it to one of the girls to her left. Tokens in hand, she pulled up the Taco Temple Matrix site on her commlink. Glowing orange and red lines reflected like firelight off the girls’ eyes as they watched Lotus’s AR feeds. One by one, she entered a token code into a small personal file, labeled with the day’s date, and entered the code onto the Taco Temple site. Then she rifled through the tokens again, compared them to her entries on the site and to her file.

Satisfied, she tapped <Submit> and took a deep breath. A half-second later, the screen shifted and twirled. It was a representation of a large stone circle, with symbols spread evenly around the circle. A little drink cup sat at the bottom, a fries container at the top.

The Lotto had a complicated series of combinations of symbols that won you certain things. So far this summer, Lotus had won seven containers of fries, four Really Big Drinks, and twelve Frooties: awful, pasty, jelly-filled things, and the only thing on the menu she truly disliked.

“What kind of house you gonna buy, Lotus?” the shorter of the two whispered, red glinting off the lenses of the goggles she wore on top of her head.

“Shut it!” the older girl hissed.

“She said she’s gonna put us up in a house if she wins.”

“I said shut it!” The older girl’s Mohawk of pigtails jostled with the force of her reprimand.

The wheel spun and symbols flew from the circle to a grid, resembling playing cards set facedown. After sixteen spaces of the grid filled, the circle stopped spinning and the cards flipped to reveal themselves. No four cards matched a winning combination. This venture was a dud.

“Damn. Better luck next time.” Lotus slapped her thighs and stood up by unfolding her legs. She gave a handful of tokens to the girls. “Here’s the stuff I’ve got so far.”

“Frooties!” the smaller girl shouted gleefully.

“I got a job this weekend, so you bring more of your crew Sunday. We’ll get extra Drinks and increase our chances to win, neh?” She exchanged a businesslike nod with the older girl and used the end of her sleeve to wipe dust from the goggles the younger girl wore on her head.

She left the shack just as they started arguing about which of them deserved to carry one carrier instead of two in exchange for a larger share of Frooties.

“I’m showing movement along the north side, ground floor. Watch yourself, out.”

“Thanks, Ed. Will do.” Lotus padded up the east side of the building. Stepped up with her left foot, followed by her right; reached with the left arm, then the right. She made no sound and if anyone would have been able to spot her, she would have made an impressive figure: she seemed to levitate up the wall, her fluid and regular movement just for show.

“East center window clear?” she sub-vocalized, watching the sidewalk on the northern corner.

“Affirmative.” Ed’s reply came a half-minute later.

Another half-minute later, Lotus stood on the other side of the window.

A shifting mass of vines and branches appeared to grow out of the floor, assuming a vaguely meta-humanoid shape. Lotus jumped and drew on the thing, biting back a curse. She stared as the vines coiled around themselves; at a spot near the top of the mass, a maw opened and the thing spoke.

“If you are hearing this, then you are my dearest. I do apologize for any shock my messenger’s arrival may have caused. I did not hear from you this evening, and so, brought my tools, servants, and shenanigans to bear in order to deliver you my thoughts. I will accept your thanks when next we meet—”

The mass spoke quietly. Lotus’s arm lowered until it hung at her side, pistol held loosely in her hand. There was something she was supposed to remember. Something important. What was it? She winced and paged Ed. “Can you verify...” She trailed off, distracted. What am I supposed to remember?

“Say again?” Ed asked, quiet and concerned.

She pressed a hand to her head. Focus. No, there was something she needed to do... Attention. A plant thing stood before her, delivering a message from her new boyfriend.

Why can’t I remember what I’m supposed to remember?

Situatio— No one can hear it or the job’s over! “Ed, verify the surrounding area is clear!” Tempo. She took a steadying breath, let it out. “Quickly, please.” She stepped to the door.

“A-Affirmative. What’s going on?”

She pressed her ear to the door. The mass of plants continued the message.

“—and you, my dearest, are the luckiest. For I have chosen to bring you home with me. What a sight we will be! Draped in whatever color best suits my tastes for the evening, we shall ride the red carpets like boars! You, with your shining morals and your bright perspective, you will be as a rare jewel upon my arm. When they hear of you, my fellows will beg me on hands and knees to bring you home. Dukes will scoop out their own eyeballs for a mere chance to taste your idealism.”

“Lotus! What the frag’s going on?” Ed’s voice burst in her ear bud, causing her to straighten up with a jerk.

She turned wide eyes on the door as though it had grown arms. “Verify the surrounding area is clear!” she said into the sub-vocal microphone.

“I already did—it’s all clear. I don’t know what’s going on up there, but I’m sending—”

“No! It’s fine.” She turned in a slow circle, examining the empty room.

“I’m just resting my eyes at the door, nothing to see here,” she muttered to herself. Into the sub-vocal mic she said, “Everything’s fine. I’m headed out now. Expect me back in two. Out.”

Two days later, as promised, she left the shack poorer by the price of twenty Really Big Drinks, with the kids hollering and arguing over the free food tokens in her wake. She relocked the gate behind her and walked into the alley.

An AR display popped up in front of her eyes. Her hands flew to her chest as her jaw dropped. “Oh...my...ghost...”

<Silver Second Place Drawing!> The display flashed before her. <YOU WERE RANDOMLY SELECTED: select an icon.> The AR screen lit up Lotus’s face and the alleyway behind her.

Lotus shook her head, mouth still agape. “I’ve never even heard of a Silver Second Drawing,” she muttered. The symbols, none of which she recognized, spun around the stone circle. There flew wings above a goblet, there a tree with...were those dragons underneath it? As far as she knew, wings and dragons had little to do with Taco Temple food, so the prizes for this drawing must be especially good. The spinning slowed with the barest wobble just before stopping.

She licked her lips and looked over the selection. Trees, wings, a hand with a star in it, a skull... What the frag is all this? But there was something she recognized: the nuyen symbol hung over a cup near the bottom. And that’s what this all came down to, wasn’t it? A triumphant smile rose upon her face as she batted at the symbol.

The symbol shifted to the center of the circle and grew. When it reached the edge of the circle, it exploded into smaller nuyen symbols, which scattered all over her AR. In their place, a number appeared: <¥33,550>.

Lotus brought her hand to her mouth and shook her head. Her eyebrows knitted together and she clenched her hand into a fist. She mouthed a silent scream, jumped in place a few times, and then tapped the button flashing <Claim>.

She could barely think, she was so overcome with excitement, and despite the strange questions (“How often do you visit your family?” “How many close friends would you say you have?”) and a reminder to ensure that her living will is up-to-date, she finished the forms and deposited the funds into the several accounts she had set up long ago for just this eventuality.

“What are you looking at so intently?” His hand brushed her hair from her face.

“They’re definitely snowflakes,” she said, peering into his eyes from above him.

He barked a single laugh and slid out from under her. Rising from the bed, he strode to the kitchenette. “Speaking of snowflakes, remind me to order more ice today.”

“For what?” She sat up and rested on her elbow.

“For the icebox.” His tone suggested she had the intelligence of a donkey. Lucky for him he was as pretty as a dirty picture, or she would have sent him on his way by now, she told herself.

She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Icebox. Right. Tell me again why you hate refrigerators?”

“I have no personal vendetta or, in fact, any qualms regarding refrigerators or even miscellaneous refrigeration devices. It’s the,” he scowled and waved his hand around in the air. “It’s the ambiance.” He cast a glance at her and smacked the counter with his palm. “Things like that destroy it.”

“‘The ambiance.’“ Lotus stood, wrapping his green silken robe around her and following him to the kitchen. “Is that what you get when you have money? Because I’ve got money now, and I think you should show me the ropes.”

He turned then, smirking. His eyes flashed. “‘The ropes’? Do they still call it that? I would have thought it bastardized into some modern technological equivalent. Surely no one works with rope anymore. Electronic fastenings or none at all, I say!”

“So, you should show me the—myomeric ropes?”

He spat. “I mock. Technology is a crutch utilized by the weak. No one here realizes this because none among your kind rises above the rest.”

Lotus closed her eyes, frowning. “Wh—what did you just say?”

“I said that you alone rise above the rest, darling,” he said, and pulled her close, eyes flashing. “Come away with me. You said you needed money to come away, and now you have it. You have no more excuses.” He tipped his head and locked eyes with her.

Lotus snapped her mouth shut with a click of her teeth. “I—” She grimaced, struggling to get the words out. “I can’t. I have friends here.”

“Ah.” He straightened to his full height. Was he really that tall? “I trust you have places to be today, so I will not keep you. You may see yourself out.” The bathroom door closed with a thud after he disappeared behind it.

“It’s too perfect.”

“Can you just quit with all the perfect drek?”

“No, scan this: it covers my debt to KJ, the rest of the lease on my apartment, and the ten percent I promised the kids, leaving me with ten K. Which is exactly the same amount I figured out I wanted before I would consider leaving. It’s fragging creepy.”

Ed turned to face her, his expression a blend of annoyance and something she couldn’t place. “Look, I get it: the money is causing you problems. You’re a big girl, and I’m sure you can work it out on your own.”

“What’s your problem?” Lotus scowled.

“I don’t want to hear about it anymore!” He rose from the table, palms up. “You go on and on about it all during the forum yesterday, and expect that I want to hear about it again today?”

“On and on about what?”

“About that damn prize! You made it pretty clear you’re done with us once this run is over. And it’s oh-so-gracious of you to see it through to the end, though from what you said yesterday, you don’t need me to tell you that—”

“What the frag, Ed? I wasn’t even at the forum yesterday. I asked Lightstep to send me the brief.”

Ed’s eyebrows furrowed, and he smiled a tight smile. “Okay then. Tell the computer guy that wasn’t you.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“’Ey! Can I get you all’s attention over here, or are we being too much of a burden on your highness’s time and energy?” Lightstep’s shout dripped with annoyance.

Lotus jumped to her feet and spread her arms wide. “Will everyone stop fraggin’ treating me like I’ve just kicked all your puppies? I didn’t say those things last night, I wasn’t even there!”

Ed and Lightstep shared a long look, then they both met Lotus’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t say that kind of stuff. I hoped you would have known me better than that.” She tried to meet Ed’s eyes, but he looked away. “Come on…at least entertain the possibility I’m telling the truth?”

“All right, fine. Hand it over.”

Lotus set her commlink on the table and slid it toward Ed.

“It was terrible!” Lotus sobbed into his chest. “You wouldn’t believe what happened! ... I just don’t understand!”

“Oh my: ‘terrible.’ I hope for all the world for enlightenment to bestow itself upon us both. Tell me what happened.”

Lotus told him about her meeting with the team, including Ed’s and Lightstep’s accusations.

When she reached the part of the story where she’d handed her commlink to Ed, and Ed told Lightstep that Lotus was telling the truth, and the three of them had developed a plan to ruin the man in green, she told a different story. Instead, she told him that her friends shut up about the whole situation and were strictly business for the rest of the evening, glowering at her all the while. That they had completely shut her out.

“Yes.” He patted her head. “I am sure this strikes you as a malicious twist of fate now, but I am afraid I must play the role of ever-present optimist and remind you that now you have lost your excuse. You must leave with me at once!” He flashed a perfect smile, rose to his feet, and held out his green-gloved hand for hers.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She scowled at him. “I just told you that my only friends have abandoned me, and you’re still on me about running away together?”

“What better time than the present? I have been here quite a long while,” his voice thickened and his eyes flashed, “and although I adore the vices your world has to offer, I find myself bored with the constant decadence and debauchery, if you can imagine that! Perhaps I simply long for home. It is time. And you are exactly the prize I need to purchase my entrance.”

Lotus stared at him, face inscrutable. After a moment, she said, “How could I let my friends know why I chose to leave?”

“Why ever should you care to tell them?”

“It’s a simple thing. I just feel the need. Maybe it’s my feminine nature getting the better of me.” She pressed her lips together, annoyed with herself for allowing that barb through.

“Mmm, yes, perhaps.” He nodded, oblivious to her tone.

“I mean, how do you send quick messages to people if you hate—I mean, have no need of technology?”

He pondered, tapping his finger to his lips. “Well,” he said, folding his arms and gesturing with his index finger. “There’s a trick I know to get a spirit to deliver a message for you. You know that one.” He nudged her with his elbow and chuckled. “There’s a spell, if the message does not need to reach the recipient’s ears as much as the mind. That won’t work with everyone. Then, if the worst comes to pass and I have to rely on a crutch, I have a fellow downtown who performs any technical duties I may have for him.”

“Oh? That’s convenient.”

“Not terribly. He is simply the best at what he does and charges accordingly.” His mouth twisted.

“What if they’ve blocked my contact information?”

“No need to concern yourself, darling. My man can do anything to communications technology.”

Lotus nodded. “Good. I have another question for you.”

“You have but only to speak, and I am your servant. Ask your question.”

“Where does he work? Were you in contact with him last night?”

“Hmmm.” He made a show of gazing at the sky, caressing his jawline. His eyes flashed as he met hers. “He conducts his business from a rat hole of an office in the center of the city. As for your second question, I find it difficult to fully recollect the nature of my activities that eve, for it was a capricious and yet mercurial time, and the details simply elude me, though they leave me with a faint sense of frivolity—

“It’s not a difficult question.”

His eyes narrowed to slits and glittered. “As I was saying.” He coughed loudly and cleared his throat. “The details simply elude me, though leave me with a faint sense of frivolity and carelessness I find quite intriguing indeed. Can you tell me? I adore a good story.”

The plaza blossomed around them. Where traffic and advertisements darted past, a river flowed. Street lights became trees. Lotus tried to hide her gasp and she bit down hard on her tongue. The city seeped back into focus and her head ached.

Despite the pain, she managed to put on a serene smile. “I’m not feeling like storytelling today. I just needed to get in touch with your computer guy before we leave, is all.”

His gaze softened and he returned her smile. “Of course.”

They walked, arm in arm, out to the street. “That was a rat hole of an office,” Lotus said, chuckling.

“Yes, yes, now we can go.” He snapped his finger and a cab veered dangerously off course, crossed two lanes of traffic, and parked with a screech in front of them.

“Oh, wait!” Lotus patted her pockets. “I left my commlink at your house.”

His eyes blazed. “You won’t be needing it, my dear.”

“I don’t think you fully grasp the urgency of this situation,” Lotus said and smiled at him. “It’s my commlink. I need it.”

The taxi tore across town and dropped them off near his apartment. He unlocked the trio of locks and strode inside the apartment.

Lotus breezed past him and into the bedroom. Moments later, she returned, her head down and arm up, holding up her comm. “Got it. Sorry about that. Now we can go.” She hurried out the front door.

He flashed a begrudging but benevolent smile and closed the door behind them.

“Oh, ghost! The kids!” Lotus clapped her hands to her head. “How could I have forgotten the kids?” She whirled and grabbed the lapels of his fine green coat. “Last stop, I swear. I can’t leave without saying goodbye to them.” Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

His jaw shifted with the clenching of his teeth. “Last stop. Then we leave.”

“You know what? You deserve a last ‘hurrah.’ Let me bring you a 3T special and a Really Big Drink.”

His eyes locked onto hers and he licked his lips. “I like the way you think. I await your swift return.”

Within a half-hour, someone rapped the knocker on his door. He flung the door open and narrowed his eyes at the—what is it, a page?—standing on his front stoop. 

“What are you and what do you want?”

The delivery boy thrust a fat Taco Temple bag forward and pulled up an AR display. “Here is your food,” he read the words haltingly, “‘I need a little more time with the kids. Enjoy your meal and I’ll be back in an hour. Love, Lotus.’”

The delivery boy glanced back and forth between the man in green and the message he had just read.

From within the hood of his fine green travelling cloak, the man’s face distorted into an expression of rage, then smoothed out just as quickly. His eyes flickered from the food to the delivery boy, who jumped when the man snatched the food from his hands, took one enormous and improbable step backward, and slammed the door.

One hour later, the man in green sat before his fireplace, his table laden with the remains of a Tres Tacos Time special. Condiment packets, wrappers, and water from the sweaty Really Big Drink littered the table. He puffed on a cigar, belched, and glared at the clock on his mantle.

There was another knock at his front door. He scowled toward it and stretched his arm toward an ashtray, but before the cigar touched the glass, his gilded front door splintered into shards strewn toward him. Several black-clad figures, with large heads like beetles, rushed in. They carried batons and tower shields and their shouts were like the grunts of animals to his ears.

His eyes flashed at the lead beetle. The figure stopped its charge and stood, swaying. Maintaining concentration on the beetle, he glanced at the rest, envisioning jarring lights, sounds, and shadows in one chaotic burst. He bared his teeth at them. “What more do you have for me, insects? I cannot begin to fathom how—”

A rifle butt struck him in the back of the head and he fell in a heap.

Two hours later, he sat, alone, draped in a magehood and bound with magecuffs as a tinny voice informed him he was found in possession of an illegally modified commlink and was being held for questioning by the Grid Overwatch Division.

His eyes flashed, but none could see him.

LOVERS IN A DANGEROUS TIME

(Discipline, the Hanged Man, 3 of Batons)

O.C. PRESLEY

I have killed very much, but changed very little.

Aufheben could have nuanced that thought further, but the assassin tossing fireballs at him was keeping his higher brain functions off balance.

Just moments ago, he’d been meandering down the streets of the Dubai sprawl during a sweltering late afternoon, noting how it had changed in the two decades since he’d last been here. Preferring the parts of the city tourists weren’t supposed to see, he spent most of his time in the Sonapur district, where the lower class fled to when they weren’t working for pittance. He enjoyed the squalor, not because it gave him any pleasure as such, but because it was honest, and in his experience, the people in these places were more honest than their wealthy counterparts. He enjoyed it, right up until he heard a group of children gasp behind him. His years of dodging would-be assassins took over, and he spun just in time to evade the magic fire headed his way.

He threw himself behind one parked car, and then another. This fight would already be over if he could have brought his sniper rifle into play, but the mage was too quick. The fireballs weren’t elegant or even that large, but at the end of the day, they were still balls of fire hurtling toward his blond, German head.

“Which corporate master are you slave to, Herr mage?” Aufheben called out, his face wrinkling as if smelling sour milk at the answering silence.

Taking out a frag grenade and arming it, he switched on its wireless control, shoving it underneath the back-rear tire of the Gaz-Willys Nomad he crouched behind. Aufheben sprinted and rolled behind a Matrix repair van, but didn’t stay put. The van’s height gave him cover enough to throw himself behind the corner of a brick fountain.

The mage repeated the same pattern of fireballs, not powerful but reckless, and gained ground at a relentless pace, obviously hoping to keep his prey on the defensive as he closed the gap.

Aufheben signaled the grenade to detonate as the spell-slinger ran by. After the initial concussion passed, he grabbed his rifle, lurched to his feet, and jogged toward the wreckage while taking aim at his enemy.

Only a few steps brought him closer to the mage, now missing his legs. Blood pushed itself out around shrapnel that had shredded his chest and arms. Aufheben winced at the dying remains, his lips pursed.

He can’t be more than sixteen, he thought. Not much like a corp to have kids working as assassins. Too much bad PR. He was struck by the worn-out armor the mage wore. Looks older than he is, Aufheben thought. Surely whoever was trying to kill him could have sent someone more professional and better-equipped. The young man was Arabic, from the looks of him, making it unlikely that this had anything to do with his past trying to catch up to him.

“Sorry, magischkind.” Aufheben said as the mage breathed his last. Slinging his rifle across his back, he ran toward the shadows. There was something about the kid’s face that bothered him. It was somehow familiar. A mystery for another time. Because if someone as green as this kid knew he was in Dubai, others surely would as well.

Two months ago, Jinn’s motionless body sat in a luxurious chair whose comfort level bordered on obscenely pointless. Two chromed datajacks interrupted his smooth, Middle-Eastern elven features. One connected him to the Shiawase Cyber-4 cyberdeck in his lap. He wore a silk suit, decorated with red and purple whirlwinds, and pointy, crimson boots with five gaudy gold buckles along the side. His long, dark hair was pulled behind his head by ornate wooden chopsticks with gold trim.

Inside the Matrix, however, he looked much different. In the artificial, interconnected, digital realm, his icon appeared as an enraged, purple genie whose bottom half was replaced with a violently-spinning red and purple tornado.

Shadow work had been slow lately, but his luxurious lifestyle left him with a need for constant cash flow. That was why, between runs, Jinn pushed his skill to the limits testing himself against corporate countermeasures, looking for top secret paydata he could sell to the highest bidder.

He knew if he spent as much nuyen upgrading his cyberware and deck as he did on clothes and shoes, he could compete with the best deckers alive. Well, maybe once upon a time he could have, but lately, he spent as much time shopping and attending expensive parties as he did on the Matrix. Be that as it may, he still took pride in being able to brute force his way into nearly any node, no matter how tough their intrusion countermeasures were.

Nothing about his decking was subtle. Lightning and flames erupted out of the whirlwind he rode when he smashed through Global Sandstorm’s classified data collection node. Its Matrix sculpting gave the appearance of an oil refinery, with tributary pipelines feeding into it from around the world. This was a sort of digital hopper for collecting audio calls, video, news, and other information that may be of use to Global Sandstorm’s intelligence ops, but which hadn’t been organized or analyzed yet. Boring economic contacts and data from other corporations, bombings of small villages in Central Aztlan, conspiracy theorists on the radio in Chicago…yawn, he thought.

Then, he saw something of interest. The subject line read: SUFI MEVLEVI (DERVISH) MYSTIC CLAIMS LEGENDARY ARTIFACT NET OF MARDUK FOUND IN DUBAI.

That’s certainly enough to get the attention of the corporation’s higher ups, he reckoned. It may be nothing, but they’d surely investigate, seeing as Dubai is one of Global Sandstorm’s most influential markets.

Jinn copied the file and placed the copy inside his tornado. He had just decided to watch the attached video later when he was slammed by a blast of fire from the mouth of a mechanized sphinx that had materialized behind him.

IC already? Jinn puzzled. This must be hotter than I thought. He spun around and checked his icon for damage. Time to get my fearsome self out of here before I get more than singed.

The wind beneath him grew and thundered as Jinn fired up his Hammer program and pummeled the sphinx with hails of lightning. The IC was no match for what he did best: Matrix beatings. With one virtual monster down and more on the way, Jinn knew it was time to jack out. What have I stumbled onto? was the last thing he remembered before he passed out for a long time.

A scorching wind whipped across the street below, and Aufheben watched shapeless trash scrape against weathered building walls. Refocusing his attention to the door of the building, he waited until his target appeared. He tracked her movement away from the apartment where she was staying, north along the narrow street. She wore her long, dark hair mostly around her shoulders, but the top half was pulled back in a bun. Its normally red streaks appeared dark, almost black in the moonlight.

Climbing down the fire escape, he silently followed. She turned a corner into an alley between two large buildings. As he passed, a lone devil rat hissed at him, guarding a half-eaten meal behind a restaurant. She picked up her pace, and he found himself almost running to keep up.

At the alley’s dead end, which smelled of urine and curry, she paused, turning around only when he was within arm’s reach.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you even remembered me.”

“Please. You knew I’d come. It happens that I was looking to leave Bogota anyway.”

“I thought your Anarchist Bright Star was still fighting the fight?”

“They are, but the bounty on me is so high that every few weeks we were fighting off bounty hunters and wannabe shadowrunners trying to make a name for themselves. I thought it best to leave for a while.”

“Why’d you start Bright Star in the first place? Black Star kick you out?”

“Black Star is dead. Only Liberator and I survived the war, and neither of us left Bogota.”

“Odd that you say that. I ran into some runners not two weeks ago that said they were with Black Star.”

“Pretenders, I’m sure.” Aufheben paused, and his eyes widened with the faintest lift of his lips. “It’s good to see you, Mara.”

It was strange saying her name again after so many years. With effort, he pushed those feelings back into the past.

Mara took her commlink out of her bag and tapped the display. She motioned for him to check his messages. “That’s why I asked you to come.”

Aufheben scanned the file she’d sent, and a childlike excitement welled up in him. “These people: Shaheed Zahir, the Shura, the Sharif of Mecca, and representatives from Jamil Islamyah, the IUM, and Global Sandstorm. They are all going to be together, here in Dubai, in two weeks.”

“Yes! The Caliph, the tribal leaders, and the political, spiritual, social, and economic leadership of the Arabian Caliphate are in one place at one time. And we know where and when.”

He shook his head. “Now I see why you invited me here. This isn’t about helping people or reconnecting with me. This is about using me to help the Israeli government take out all their caliphate enemies at once. All while being able to deny involvement. I should have known. How can you stand to work for them?”

“Ah, the old Aufheben moral superiority.  Do you ever get dizzy looking down from your ideological high horse?”

“Don’t dodge the question. You know how corrupt they are. This isn’t you. You used to be so passionate, so alive. You used to take no drek from anyone. I remember a woman who used to pounce on cybered-up thugs who tried to order her around. Now, you just lick government boots like everyone else.”

“The Kidon have done things—I have done things—that we aren’t proud of. But we save lives. Stay focused. We have a chance to do good here.”

“Hmmph.”

“What’s that about?”

“Whatever do you mean, Fräulein?”

“That dismissive noise that crept from your smug mouth just now.”

“Oh. You say you save lives, and that may be true, but which lives? Just Israeli lives? Lives of people like you? What about the Palestinian lives in your backyard? Lives of people in Iran? Iraq? And let’s be honest, if eliminating the leaders of the Caliphate didn’t help your own country’s interests, you wouldn’t be giving me this info. You don’t care about the ordinary people in the Caliphate that suffer under the Caliphs and corps.”

“He says, ignoring the lives of the ordinary people who die in revolutions that only place even more violent men into power.” Her cheeks reddened. “I put those naïve beliefs behind me when I was given a chance to make a real difference.”

“You don’t understand anything about the real world.”

“Funny, I was about to say the same about you.” Damn you! Mara’s eyes said, even if her voice did not.

Aufheben relented. If he got a rise out of her, she wouldn’t let up. Being here, with her, flooded his mind with memories of when it was just them against the world.

“Are you going to act on this?” she asked, “or should I find someone else to help?”

Aufheben’s eyes narrowed. He clenched and unclenched his jaw several times before answering. “I’m in. Did your intel say why they were having such a high-powered meeting? And in secret, if I read the file correctly. This has no precedent.”

Mara cocked her head sideways, as if listening to something far off. “We should get moving. I have a safer place not too far from here. We can talk on the way.”

Annoyed, Aufheben followed, as he had many times before. He used to argue, but experience had taught him that when she had one of those feelings, it was best to play along.

Mara sighed as she walked and then, pausing, she took a knee on the concrete at Aufheben’s feet. She began rummaging through her duffel bag and removed a slightly curved sword with a hand guard resembling a Rose of Sharon. “At least I brought my street fighting clothes.”

“Why do you say tha—” Aufheben’s reply was cut off by the revving of a Suzuki Mirage motorbike throttling towards them. “Oh. Think they’re after you or me?”

“We’ll ask ’em in a minute.” Aufheben reached for his sidearm as Mara crouched, raising the blade above her and focusing her breath as the rider bore down. The spirit mask of her mentor, Lion, washed over her, giving her the untamed visage of a lioness herself. No matter how often he saw it, it always sent chills down Aufheben’s spine.

The rider’s features were obscured by a helmet, but he saw the glint of an arm-blade from a cybered forearm. The bike skidded against the curb in front of them and spun in a crescent. Aufheben aimed his pistol, but before he could get a clear shot, Mara sprang at their assailant.

Momentum and mechanical speed slammed into magically enhanced strength and skill with an eruption of sparks. The grace with which the rider tracked Mara’s movements and anticipated her strikes impressed Aufheben. Even with Lion bolstering her strength, he sensed this would be a tough fight. Waiting in the background made him feel impatient—or was it something else? Aiming carefully, he fired a single shot from behind Mara and the rider fell, clutching her suddenly fountaining neck.

“I thought we were asking questions?” Mara’s Lion mask faded as she whipped her head back toward Aufheben.

“People try to kill me all the time.” Aufheben lowered his rifle. “It’s all the same.”

“It’s not all the same! Since when did killing people become your first response?” She didn’t wait for an answer. When she pulled the helmet off the rider’s head, the face of a defiant Arabic woman stared back at her. Her gaze didn’t last long, but shifted toward Aufheben as he walked to her side.

He was struck by how much she looked like the mage who had attacked him earlier. The same angry eyes, just before death stole their passion.

So familiar, Aufheben thought. His sister, perhaps? He said nothing of it to Mara. “The world does not always leave time for reflection.” He paused and looked up slightly, as if he had just figured something out, but then snapped back to the present.

“Take your cues from the world now, do you?” With a shake of her head, she stood up. “We’re out of time.” She motioned to the people staring at them from windows and doorways, having been awakened by the commotion. “We need to go.”

“Fine. Lead the way.”

Mara sheathed her sword, slipped it back into her bag, and started running towards the Al Rigga district of Old Dubai.

Upon arrival at the safe house, Mara had been silent. The smell of roasted lamb and tabbouleh wafted in from outside, making Aufheben hungry, but he didn’t want to intrude upon her thoughts to ask about eating. Why did he care about someone’s feelings all of a sudden? He’d spent the last two decades of his life doing what had to be done, pleasantries and feelings be damned! And now, he’s sitting here with an old lover, and didn’t want to, what? Spoil the mood? He was beyond this, he decided.

“Where’s the food in this place?” He purposefully projected an edge in his voice to mask his discomfort.

“Check the cupboards. You’ve never been to a safe house before?”

“Not in Dubai. At least not for a long time,” he said. “Not since ’55.”

“When you…” her voice softened, “Failed to stop the Caliphate from forming?”

“Yeah.” Aufheben was no longer hungry. He took a seat at the table across from her. “There wasn’t much I could have done, looking back on it. I knew the Caliphate was going to be just another consolidation of power. Just another Empire in collusion with the corps and dragons. But youth and anger and charisma were on my side.”

“Now what drives you? Just anger?” Mara asked.

“Funny. But now I want you to tell me what else you have. Knowing all of those motherfraggers are in one place isn’t enough for a revolution. Why are they meeting? And more importantly, what are we going to do about it?”

Mara tapped away on the face of her commlink. “There, I sent you another file.”

Aufheben began reading in his commlink. A file about a Sufi mystic who had a bad dream? He clicked his tongue in disappointment. “What is this, Mara? People have stupid visions all the time. Please tell me you have more than this.”

“Keep reading.”

“Okay. It says that this Net of Marduk could…trap a dragon? I’m still not convinced.”

“Our adept prophets looked into it. They confirmed it with Greece’s oracles. The Net of Marduk is real. It’s far more ancient that the Babylonian myth, of course. I assume you are familiar with some of the other artifacts that have been found recently?”

“A bit. It’s not really my area. But I have colleagues who know about them,” Aufheben replied.

“The fact that no one has said a word about this publicly, in addition to the Caliphate recently taking this mystic into custody, and that my sources tell me that this high-level meeting includes a discussion about the Net, makes me say that it is legitimate.”

“Where did you get this intel?”

“From Jinn,” Mara replied. “He sold it to Mossad a week and a half ago.”

“You believe him? That arschloch’s just a Shiawase shill!”

“So he’s at his best with a specific brand of products.” Her eyes narrowed. “So what?  He came to us first. He knew we pay well for that sort of information. And it checked out. So calm down and talk to me.”

 “I’m tempted to ignore all of this, and let the Caliph and his buddies try to kill a dragon with this Net. But I think I know where you’re going, and I like it. If we can take out everyone at the meeting and grab the Net while we’re at it, we’d have social change and an anti-dragon artifact to put to good use.”

“Bingo. I love it when we’re on the same page, mensch.” She hadn’t called him that in a very long time—not since he’d left her for Dubai decades ago. It caught her off guard, and apparently did the same for him. Outside, a neon Taco Temple sign flickered, its orange glow washing on and off Mara’s olive skin, nearly hypnotizing him. 

“Mara…” Aufheben waited until her eyes met his. “I never meant to hurt you when I left.”

She took a deep breath and released it slowly, then got up and walked to the cot where she had set down her bag. Reaching inside, she pulled out something and came back to set it on the table in front of Aufheben. It was a small amulet, brown and square, with a circular hole right in the center. 

“After you left, I was broken and aimless. A lovely and wise woman took me in and helped me find a new path. She gave this to me when she died. Said it was an heirloom, and showed me this…”

She spoke a word in Hebrew, and a circle of light surrounded her, approximately one meter in every direction. “Speak the Name, and it protects the wearer against any physical harm.” She spoke the Name again, and the globe of light dissipated.

“That would certainly come in handy. Does it actually protect you?” Aufheben asked.

“Yes, it’s an anchored enchantment. In fact, it has saved me many times; from bullets, magic, even grenades.” Her face looked tired as she raised her head to look Aufheben in the eyes. “I want you to have it. It meant a lot to me, but I want you to have it now. Keep yourself safe.”

“Mara, I can’t take this. What I did to you—”

“That was over twenty years ago, Aufheben. We were both young and stupid then. I was over that a long time ago. You didn’t owe me anything.” Her expression Aufheben didn’t recognize, as if her eyes and her mouth did not agree.

“Of course I did. I owed you everything. You were the one who got me out of Saeder-Krupp. You were the one who helped me survive in Berlin. You were the one I fell in love with.”

“Love, Aufheben?” Mara stood up. Turning away from him, her hands rose and swung down again. She turned back to face him. “I loved you, too. But I don’t think you know what that word means anymore. You’re different. I’ve read the files on you. I’ve seen what you’ve done. You don’t love anything except violence. You say you are working for the people, but all I’ve seen in your wake is the death of those same people.”

That was enough. Whatever moment they could have had was gone. She was stabbing at open wounds that he was already struggling to bandage. In order to do what needed to be done, he couldn’t afford to get sentimental.

“I’m not going to take this from some nationalistic boot-licker,” he snarled. “I have fought for the people, bled for the people. The same sort of people you bomb and care nothing about! If you want my help to assassinate a bunch of world leaders, fine. But your lecturing stops now. And when this is done, we’re done. Don’t ever contact me again.”

“Fine.” Mara snapped.

“Fine!” Aufheben shot back.

But it was a lie. It was not fine. Even when—perhaps especially when—she let her emotions get the best of her, she captivated him. He took a deep breath, his gaze lingering on her face. Mara looked down and began entering data on her commlink. She raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to see what she was seeing.

“Let’s get working, then,” she said.

He was still for just a half-second, looking at her. Her eyes seemed bigger and warmer in the orange light. He glanced at the amulet lying on the table, and nodded as he reached for it. Putting it around his neck, Aufheben twisted his mind toward making plans for murder once again.

The day of the meeting had arrived.

“Jinn, are you in position?” Aufheben asked on his comm. On Mara’s suggestion and Israeli Intelligence’s nuyen, Aufheben had resigned himself to hiring Jinn for Matrix support. He’d suggested others, but Mara insisted Jinn’s reputation was solid and he deserved the chance.

“Yes, sir, that I am. And if you don’t mind me saying, that suit and tie look really good on you, Mr. Heben. Much better than those tired black fatigues.”

“Every time you speak without need, I am going to dock your pay, idiot.” Of course, Aufheben wasn’t paying Jinn, so it was a hollow threat. And to be honest, Aufheben had to agree that he did look good. The Burj Khalifa was once the tallest building in the world. More than eight hundred meters high, it had become the symbolic heart of Dubai. From afar, the glass and steel gave the appearance of a spiral minaret emerging from its Y-shaped foundation. He couldn’t simply march into this place, where Global Sandstorm had its Dubai offices, looking like the anarchist revolutionary he was.

“Understood, captain.”

“Ugh. Mara, I hate him so much.” Aufheben rolled his eyes. “Are the packages secure?”

“Yes. The Mossad agents embedded at Global Sandstorm planted the components of the bomb on the 153rd floor last week.” she replied. “Remember the plan. Ever since they remodeled the spire of the Burj Khalifa in ’65, the upper floors are reinforced and magically warded. If you don’t place the bomb right where Jinn specified, the spire won’t collapse, and we’ll have wasted our chance.”

“Roger. Jinn, I’m headed in. I expect the surrounding floors to be evacuated without alerting the spire levels. Our target is Global Sandstorm, the Caliph, and the rest of the Caliph’s goons, not brainwashed wageslaves.”

“So little faith, captain. Remember, I have no love for the Caliph, either. Sufism continues to be outlawed by the Arabian Caliphate, despite how much we have grown in influence since the awakening.”

“Jinn—”

“After the failed New Islamic Jihad, the Islamic world is looking for alternatives to our violent history. For what they did to my Aunti and Uncle, I want them dead as much as you.”

“Then shut up! Your reasons are your own—all I care about is killing these oppressors so the people can be free.”

Aufheben headed to the elevator that would take him to the 153rd floor using the forged Global Sandstorm ID Jinn had procured. He found it odd, after a decade of guerilla warfare, to get back to the sort of shadowrunning his colleagues on Jackpoint were used to.

“All right team, going radio silent on my end.”

“Roger,” came from Mara.

“Understood,” Jinn replied.

The doors opened onto the 153rd floor. This is exactly why things need to change, he thought. Everyone here was male and human and, if they were consistent with their backward society’s institutional bigotry, un-Awakened as well. He felt his anger welling at the oppressive regime that kept this nation stuck in the Middle Ages.

Thankfully, the salarymen all ignored him when he came in, so he began wandering around the floor, making visual contact with the air ducts that held the chemicals to mix the bomb. This was one area common to all corporate culture in the Sixth World; everyone was so busy securing their own status they had no time for people they didn’t recognize.

“Jinn, I have eyes on the Caliph’s personal guard making their way to the elevator,” Mara said. “I tried astrally perceiving them, but it looks like the Caliph himself is masked with a spell, so he could be any one of the entourage. Two tribal leaders on the Shura just exited their vehicles as well. Wesley Saade from Jamil Islamyah is in the lobby lighting up the Astral like it’s Chanukkah. That’s our Net of Marduk, I’m sure. Aziz and the others are already upstairs, so these guys should be it.”

Aufheben decided to walk through the floor once last time to maintain visual contact. He kept his peripheral vision on the ducts, but his mind raced back to what Mara had said to him in anger the week before. Almost all of his life had now been spent in dangerous circumstances of one sort or another. Most notably, the last decade he’d spent fighting Aztlán for the city of Bogota. Of course, his team, whether Bright Star, or the Anarchist Black Star before it, was no match for Aztlán in a straight fight, but Aufheben never gave them a straight fight. He’d gathered the disgruntled people of Bogota, and trained them into a fighting force. They’d led a rebellion to fight tyranny.

He had done the same thing, here in Dubai over twenty years ago. He had gathered the oppressed, many of them Sufi like Jinn, and had taken to the streets in a guerilla war to prevent the Caliphate from coalescing. Like those from Black Star who had fought with him in Bogota, almost all of them had died. Yet he had lived. Why him, and not the Arab woman who had died in his arms? Juhaina Awan. She wanted a better life for her children, but never saw it. He could still remember her face—

“Mein Gott…” Aufheben whispered. “It was her face.”

 She was their mother. The girl I killed last week. And her brother the day before. Their mother fought with me. They were there when she died in my arms. They blamed me for their mother’s death. But her cousin fought with me in Bogota. He knew I was coming. No! This is not how things should be!

The realization shattered decades of righteous confidence, and Aufheben’s knees nearly gave way. Mein Gott…

“Okay, Jinn, they should have all arrived now,” Mara said. “Do your thing.”

“Sure thing, doll face.” With that, Jinn entered the Global Sandstorm grid. He had neither the time nor inclination for stealth. He knew he was good enough to get his will done with raw power. He slammed lightning bolts and fierce winds at every obstacle, and finally reached the fire control panel.

Zap! One lightning bolt mark. Slam! Two down, one to go…and three. “Success! I’m in.”

“Great, Jinn!” Mara said over the comm. “Start the evac on the 153rd, then the floors above, then below. Go now.”

Jinn spun his hands into miniature versions of the twister underneath him and plunged them into the climate controls.

Chaos erupted on the 153rd floor. As the fire sprinkler system engaged, white-collar employees scrambled to salvage essentials and run for the stairs.

Aufheben headed to the air duct on the far side of the floor. Kneeling, he unscrewed the faceplate and removed the package. He found it hard to focus, his mind sluggish. Even so, less than a minute later, he had grabbed the package from the second duct as well. Jogging toward the third duct, he lifted his head to see if anyone had spotted him.

Same as always, he thought. Too absorbed in their own lives to think about others.

Unable to force the irony of that statement from his mind, the face of Juhaina Awan flashed into his thoughts again. Had he ever thought about her life, or was she just another asset to throw at his mission? And what did it get her? Her kids? They’d grown up in the Caliphate anyway. Without a mother.

In the Global Sandstorm Matrix, Jinn reached to engage the fire suppression system on the floors beyond the 153rd. As he plunged his hand into the system again, searing pain shot through his skull. The angry genie spun around to see two Global Sandstorm sphinxes flanking a smaller sphinx with black oil covering its feet and dripping out toward him. Behind them, a golden dragon approached.

Four against one and a tarpit? Subhan’Allahm. I’m in trouble.

Uncharacteristic guilt was making Aufheben’s every move heavy. As he reached the final air duct, he let his rage propel him as it so often had before, empowering him to complete his mission. But his anger had somehow shifted, from all of the oppressors he has always hated, to himself.

Corporations, nations, dragons, and empires, great or small, were all singular personalities, controlling others and shedding others’ blood to further their own ends. And now, at this very moment, Aufheben realized that in practical terms, he was no different. He used others for his own ends, as noble as his goals may have been, and they died. And nothing changed.

How many husbands, mothers, sons had he led to their deaths for nothing other than ideology? And how many wives, fathers, and daughters had he killed in order to resist what he decided was tyranny? And Mara. Had he given up the best thing he’d ever had for a lost cause?

While he fought through the maelstrom in his mind, Aufheben’s body was on autopilot, assembling the bomb that would bring about an instant, lasting change. This time, at least, things would be different.

Elsewhere, a golden dragon clawed the arm off an angry genie. The two sphinxes continued their fiery barrage on Jinn’s icon as well. The programs they used caused him to feel all of this in his physical body as well.

Panicking, Jinn’s only thought was to destroy the Sphinx with the black oil on its feet. If I can just geek that tar pit, I just might make it out alive.

He felt the dragon bearing down again as he flung one last bolt of lightning at the oily sphinx…

Scanning the floor, Aufheben could see everyone had evacuated. He switched his comm back on to tell Mara that the bomb had been armed and that he was activating the amulet.

“—eben! Aufheben! Answer me, damn it!” Mara shouted.

“I’m here. What’s happened?” he replied, now fully present in the moment.

“Something happened to Jinn. He didn’t set the alarms off on the other floors. There are still hundreds of people up there!” Mara’s voice was pleading.

“That…is unfortunate.” Aufheben kept his voice calm, centered.  This was one last chance to really make a difference, to make all that blood matter, to make those sacrifices count. “Mara, we can’t let that stop us. This is the only chance we’ll ever get like this. We have to take it, no matter what the cost.”

“I thought you would say that. So I came up to be with them.” Mara’s voice was resolute. “You were right. When you said I only save the lives of people like me, you were right. It’s all I’ve thought about since then. I know the bomb is active, and I know I can’t save them, but I’m going to stand with them. Like I never had the courage to do before.”

“Mara! No! Get out!” He switched on the image link to see through her goggles. There she was, a Jew standing among citizens of the Caliphate, many of whom would want her dead if they knew who she was. Yet she stood with them now.

He cursed at the god he had never believed in. He finally had a chance to bring about real change, taking out all of the major players at once, but now this! In thirty seconds, it would all be over. He looked through Mara’s eyes at the people in the building. It made him even angrier at the tyrants who oppressed them. But they weren’t the ones who would kill these people.

He would.

Aufheben stared at the amulet that would save his life when the bomb went off, but wouldn’t save theirs. If history is any indication, another ruler or rulers would take the place of the oligarchs upstairs, and nothing would have changed except more people would be dead.

He took another look at the bomb, and closed his finger around the amulet, his determination growing stronger.

In a world built on greed and domination, perhaps the only true revolutionary act is a selfless one.

Clutching the amulet, he ran to the bomb and held it to his chest. As the time ran out, Aufbehen spoke the Name. His last rebellion against the powers was complete.

Outside the city, Mara looked toward downtown Dubai. It looked peaceful from the shore, with the rising sun casting half the buildings in shadow, but bringing a sort of angelic illumination to the parts of the city facing the dawn. Mara knew she couldn’t stay in this moment forever.

As if in response to her thoughts, her commlink rang. Allowing herself a sliver of hope, she answered it, 

“Mara? They just confirmed it. Aufheben is dead. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that no one else died.”

“I’m not,” she said. “Jinn…I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, hon. If you ever need me again, I’d like a chance to redeem myself.”

“It wasn’t your fault. We couldn’t have known Saeder-Krupp was attending the meeting as well, and had bolstered Global’s defenses. It wasn’t your fault.”

“If you say so. Many thanks.”

“You too,” she said as she ended the call. Aufheben had failed. She had failed. And soon, they would come looking for her.

As she lingered, considering her bleak future, a bellowing roar came from above. She looked up to see the distinct form of the Great Dragon Aden soar overhead, flying so quickly she could barely track her. She seemed to enter the Burj Khalifa, near the spire where the bomb should have exploded. Mara shuddered as she imagined the dragon finding the Net. Would she kill them all? Just take the artifact? Would they try to trap her?

Minutes later, the dragon launched itself out over the Persian Gulf, hovering just long enough to cast a backward glance at the city before resuming its terrible speed and flying off toward the Northwest.

A revolutionary is dead, she thought. But the sight of the dragon reminded her: revolution can’t die. Someone has to stand with the people.

And she vowed that as long as there was even one tyrant left, someone always would.

FINAL STROKE

(2 of blades)

SCOTT SCHLETZ

“A true warrior does not die to a killing blow. A true warrior lives on to complete his final stroke, no matter how broad that stroke may be.”

Family. Dead.

Friends. Dead.

What was left?

Looking down, Cal pressed the small oval button on his watch, the connection to the commlink tucked into the small of his back, but currently not transmitting. With the light touch, the screen’s soft, blue glow erupted like daylight in the dark of the city sewers. The piercing light stung his eyes like the pungent stench of the dank water stung his nose.

23:47. It was thirteen minutes to midnight, and Cal knew he needed to hurry up. The garbage was only brought down from zero hundred hours to zero hundred ten. It was the only soft spot in the security. A narrow window for a quiet entrance.

A soft whirring came from a side tunnel, and he moved away from it. One of the signs he’d memorized while taking this walk a dozen times in the last thirty-two hours. He’d only waited once, listening as the garbage was dumped before heading back the same way he came. All done in near pitch-black. He managed thanks to his eyes’ low-light modification, because too much light would give him away. 

It was light when his life was darkened.

The sun shone high in a cloudless sky. The recreation area the family rented was quaint. A small pavilion alongside a park with six swings, a slide, and a small jungle gym. It abutted a large open space with a volleyball court set up just past the outfield of a softball field. A few trees gave a little shade, but most of the area was cast in the bright light of the noonday sun. All of this a thousand meters up in the Chicago Core. It was where they gathered every year. A rare expenditure for a combination family reunion and end of summer bash.

Hamburgers were sizzling on the grill, with Uncle Dan handling the fire like a pro. A plethora of salads, each the specialty of one family member or another, lined the tables. Watermelon and ice cold drinks, all of the non-alcoholic variety due to local regulations, filled coolers and ice-filled tubs. It was a smorgasbord of gluttonous consumption laid out all over the pavilion. Much like the location, the food was a rare treat for many in attendance. It was all real.

The kids buzzed around the swings, slide, and jungle gym like electrons whizzing around a nucleus. Filled with an unending supply of childish energy, they slowly burned out the older kids who tried to chase them around. It was picturesque. Like something you’d expect from an ancient Norman Rockwell painting.

A few of the elder cousins were on the softball field playing 500. Cal and a few other middle-agers were doing their best to fight off the onslaught of the college-agers on the volleyball court.

It was a bliss-filled moment, leaving Cal oblivious to the trouble about to rain down on his head and drown his family in the flood.

Two beeps in his wired earpiece let Cal know he had one minute until the garbage would be tossed. He was already in position. It was going to be a long minute.

Nerves made him lay a hand over the cargo pocket of his pants. He could feel the stiff edges of the card there as he reassured himself that his lucky charm was still present. He knew it was more now, knew it had connected to him in unknown arcane ways. The Lady of the Blades was linked with him, for good or ill, until she was done with him. 

The service elevator was built out from the wall, an addition to the structure from a former age. It had only a wire cage shielding its open front. It opened into a squat, two-meter-wide concrete hallway, with a large compactor fifty meters down. The single compactor serviced six buildings in the Core, each with a room just like this one. They all attached to the sewer system, a design and system older than all the corporations currently housed in the revamped skytowers above.

Despite his fears, time passed and with thirty seconds to midnight, the sound of the elevator coming to life echoed down the silent corridor. Lights came on, bathing the center of the room in harsh orange tones. Cal slipped further back into the shadows of the nook created by the elevator and looked out. Low-light adjusted rods made it look like daylight.

The elevator hit the bottom with a loud clunk, followed by the rattle of the cage door being rolled out of the way. An out of tune version of JetBlack’s “Prima Nocturna” echoed off the walls from the garbage man singing as he worked. Cal let him pass by with one load, only observing. The man looked to be in his early twenties, dark hair, pale skin, sharp features, zip-up grey jumpsuit, work boots, and an ancient pair of headphones, complete with a cord running to his pocket where he must have tucked an ancient audio player.

The singing trash man had a black bag in each hand that he carried down the hall to the compactor, then dropped. Pulling the door open with both hands, he picked up a bag and tossed it in. Leaving the second bag on the floor, he walked back to the elevator, still oblivious to Cal in the shadowy recess.

Hands filled again, the garbageman emerged from the cage and headed to the compactor. This time Cal followed.

As he stalked, thoughts of this young man’s innocence raced through Cal’s head, but he asked himself yet again, “what’s left?” and pushed aside any compassion he may have had yesterday.

The unaware singer tossed one bag, then the other, into the compactor as he approached, then bent to pick up the one he left.

Cal stepped in for a quick kick, but the garbageman saw him out of the corner of his eye. His reaction was just enough that the kick, intended to shove him into the compactor, glanced off his hip as he dodged forward.

The quick movement left them both off-balance on a slippery wet floor. The singing sanitationist flailed, reaching for something to save his fall as his feet slipped. Blind luck landed his fingers on a long lever jutting from the wall near the door. The grip kept him up but left him defenseless.

Cal wasn’t expecting to miss, but years of training taught him you don’t always hit your mark. His recovery was faster, and he snapped another kick out. The blow made solid contact and pulled the garbageman’s fingers free. A second blow, a rising knee, sent him tumbling over the lip of the compactor.

Singing was now replaced by screaming as the janitor’s feet dangled out of the compactor, kicking wildly in the air as he tried to scramble back out. Cal swung the massive metal compactor door hard. It shut with a resonating clang, neatly tucking the janitor’s feet in. Boot heels pounded on steel, but were soon drowned out by hydraulics coming to life. Large red letters flashed to life, warning users that the trash was compacting.

Innocent or not, Cal thought, I have a bigger fish to fry.

Not everyone saw it happening. All of these men’s movements seemed surreal to the partygoers. Those who did notice, watched in awe, but no one understood. No one but Cal.

Four Osprey 22Ts, tilt-wing transport aircraft, rose up over the lip of the skypark. Their doors rolled open in unison and disgorged their load of black-clad men. All carried small assault rifles with bulky, complex-looking scopes, and long cylindrical silencers. Most at the affair didn’t know more than that, but Joe, a cousin heavily into action trids, could’ve told everyone they were Colt M-23 Type 4 carbines, kitted out for Special Forces use.

The kids continued running all over the playground. The bat still cracked for 500. On the volleyball court, Cal ripped a line drive serve just over the net that caught his cousin Sean square in the face as his attention was elsewhere. Cal’s attention stayed on the court as he ran to make sure his cousin was okay. His aunt, Sean’s mom, ran with him, but everyone else had turned their attention toward the pavilion and the Ospreys.

The next moment was seared onto Cal’s memory like a brand. It was a scream, not of fear or physical pain, but the howl of a banshee, full of emotion that pierced not only his ears, but his very soul.

The elevator creaked along on its slow ascent. It stunk. Not of garbage, but of the strong chemicals used to clean and cover the smell of garbage. Cal’s eyes burned from the acrid stench.

Blinking rapidly, he pulled up the rifle hanging from the strap across his back. The small , silenced assault rifle was comfortable in his hands, but then again he’d never held a weapon that wasn’t. Guns, knives, swords, clubs. All of them felt like part of him.

As the elevator rose, he gave the rifle a quick once over and pulled the bolt back to chamber a round. He looked over the silencer one last time, because once the shooting started it would be too hot to check.

The weapon review kept his attention focused and nerves settled until the elevator stopped. The abrupt halt was a surprise. It was one of many Cal had to be ready for as he entered the uncharted locale. He knew the sewers. Knew the compactor room. Knew the elevator. But all he knew about the office was the number.

1401.

It was the only office on the fourteenth floor, or rather the thirteenth, but superstition meant there was no thirteenth floor. The thin cover was all well and good but, no matter what the numbers said, bad luck was still on its way.

Cal pulled the cage open with one hand while the other stayed on the grip of the rifle and tucked it into his shoulder. With the cage clear, he opened the door that protected the building’s interior from the stench of the elevators to reveal his first surprise.

Directly in front of the door was a black-clad guard who turned toward the elevator. Cal could tell he was beginning to say something friendly, probably expecting the young singer who would have been returning. The banter stopped in mid-word when he saw Cal.

The guard’s hand shot for his hip. With only one hand for control, Cal raised the rifle and squeezed the trigger.

The first shot was low, hitting the guard in the meat of his thigh. His hand changed paths to grab for the injury, but the second shot stopped that. A soft crack and the clicking of the bolt, followed by the soft thump of a bullet hitting flesh, made the guard’s eyes widen before he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Cal stepped over the body, hoping his soul would quickly find its way to the hell it deserved. He’d seen his face before, and knew his sins.

Cal turned toward the scream. For a moment he wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing. It was like slotting a simchip, feeling both real and surreal all at once. But it was no sim. It was real life. And it was crumbling before his eyes.

The men from the Osprey swept in; one right, one left, one center front, one center rear, a tight black-clad diamond of death. The rifles were like chittering bugs as they spat hot lead. But the guns weren’t the focus, the screams were.

They weren’t all the feminine screams so common to trideo tropes. There were deeper bass screams of men, high soprano screeches of children, and the cracked-pitch screams of the teenagers cursed by the stretching vocal cords of puberty. Cal was surprised to find the screams getting louder and the men closer, until he realized he was running.

But not fast enough.

Cal watched in horror as the massacre played out. His nephew’s vintage White Sox jersey was instantly soaked in gore as it acted as a strainer between blood and tissue. His cousin, freshman year of college only days away, was hit square in the center of his neck, the round splintering his spine as it exited. Identical twin cousins fell next to reach other, now easily recognizable by the differences in their death wounds. One of the gunmen emptied his magazine into the children playing on the jungle gym. Their bodies ended life hanging and tumbling through the bars like limp towels. Aunts and uncles in the pavilion ran to try and save the kids, only to be cut down steps away or with the children in their arms.

Cal was both proud and horrified by his niece all at once. She’d always been a fighter, and charged the nearest gunman with the bat that only a minute earlier she’d been using for 500.

He watched in horror as the gunman raised his rifle to fire, only to lower it at the last moment and let a wild swing drop past as he sidestepped. His booted foot slammed into the teenage girl’s knee. He lashed out with the stock of the rifle, connecting solidly with her temple. She was down. Not a threat. But his next move was cold and swift.  He leaned down and picked up the bat. Giving it a little spinning flourish, he took a single fast swing that connected with her neck, and reset the young girl’s head at an odd angle. A quick double step put him right back with his team, and his rifle was spitting death once again.

It was the smirk on his face that had burned into Cal’s mind in that horrible moment.

Cal stepped out over the dead guard, no smirk on his face now. His stride was long to avoid the blood slowly spreading across the utilitarian gray carpet. Ahead, recessed cans in the ceiling cast cones of light at wide intervals. The narrow hallway was a desperate mix of form and function colliding. Walls split between rich brown paneling and mundane white wallboard were broken up by unevenly spaced doors. Framed prints filled the blank white walls between each door, which were wood-framed, with frosted glass filling the interior. Names made from black and gold stickers in varying typefaces identified the occupants.

Cal hoped they were all empty at such a late hour. All except one. But that one was still another ten stories up.

The trash elevator had only reached the third floor, leaving him to decide between the stairs or the regular elevators, both of which were at the far end of the long hallway, for the rest of the journey.

Moving cautiously, Cal listened briefly at each door, more to make sure he was undetected than worrying if anyone was present. He passed dozens of doors before stopping just short of a flickering cone of light cast by a slowly dying bulb. Behind the pool of flickering light was the final quartet of doors but Cal’s attention was held by the two doors directly below the failing light.

These two were different from the rest. Both were solid wood. Instead of black and gold stickers, they had carved wooden stick figures of a man and a woman that seemed to dance in the flickering light. The universal symbolism struck Cal, once more pushing his mind back to a dark sunny day where the doors were gray metal rather than wood and the little stick figures cheap blue plastic.

Cal ran, but moved slow. At least that’s how he felt. His legs pistoned rapidly, but no matter how fast he covered the ground, death seemed to spread faster all around him.

He hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone in his sprint back until the gunmen changed their direction of focus. The cluster on the right of the death diamond peeled off after cutting down all the kids on the softball field and shifted their attention toward the volleyball court. The barrels of the gunmen’s rifles flashed, and Cal felt a warm spray hit his cheek. An instant later, he saw his cousin’s body flop to the ground ahead of him, then roll back out of sight. A quick glance back revealed all of the former volleyball players sprinting fast behind him. There were twelve when their dash began, but only four by the time they approached the back wall of the pavilion. Most were shot as they ran but two had stopped, dropped to her knees, and began screaming at the sky, having already seen too much, before they were silenced.

While the sprint seemed to last forever, the moment before Cal reached the cover of the pavilion blinked by in a horrifying instant. He saw, clear as day, the muzzle flash of a shot cleanly aligned with his head. He felt hands plant themselves solidly into his back and shove. The force shattered his balance. Spinning as he fell, he saw his brother’s icy blue eyes locked with his. On the periphery he saw the slug launched by the flash slip into one temple and explode out the other.

The pain of scraping along the concrete and slamming his head didn’t even register over the pain in his mind from the loss of his brother.

From flat on his back he looked up. Cal’s mind wrapped around the reality that his brother was dead. That he had died saving him, and that Cal saw it all in vivid detail. But as he looked up, all he could focus on was the gray door with the blue signs.

Another elevator arrived with a ding that echoed down the silent hallway. Cal slipped to the side and out of sight. The light within the elevator cast a shadow into the dim hallway for a moment, then the shadow moved forward. Cal sank deeper into the recess of the second elevator’s closed doors and waited. The tip of a black boot crossed the threshold and Cal recognized the thick toe style of combat boots. He pressed himself tight into the narrow recess, only ten centimeters deep, but enough to give him the extra second he needed.

The head that leaned out looked first to the left, toward the long hall of doors. The hair was cropped short on top and buzzed around the rest of the head. It was the familiar high and tight style favored by real soldiers and their wannabes. As the head turned back to look right, toward the second elevator and Cal, he saw a small patch of scraped skin high on the cheek, directly on the cheek bone. Before the guard’s eyes made the complete turn, Cal pulled the trigger.

His rifle rested across his chest, but the targeting software in his smartlink placed a virtual dot in his vision showing exactly where the barrel was aimed. The bullet tore across the bottom of the guard’s throat. It wasn’t an instant kill, but rather a slow, satisfying death that unfolded before Cal. The bullet passed through the front edge of the neck, low but not very deep. It missed the major arteries but punched clean through the windpipe below the larynx. The guard’s hands wrapped his throat and his mouth opened as if to yell, but all he could do was emit a wheezing gurgle as air bubbled past a sudden torrent of blood.

The guard stumbled forward, hit the far wall and slid down. His eyes locked on Cal. As if the horror of his pending death wasn’t enough, Cal could see the look of deeper terror. The horror of a man seeing a ghost.

Cal considered how many pennies he would’ve given for this dying man’s thoughts, but knew he didn’t give two cents for his life.

This dying man had been there.

Cal had given him the scrape on his cheek.

And now he’d finished the job.

From the ground, Cal tried to look at his feet. He knew he’d see his brother there. He knew his childhood idol was dead. He knew that death had saved his life. He knew, most of all, that his brother had died happy, saving his little bro.

Cal heard more bullets impact as he stood. He was one of four, now three, to get behind the building. His Aunt Denise and cousin Finnegan both made it, but while Cal had fallen and began to rise, Finnegan continued to run around the far corner. His run took him headlong into the team sweeping around the far side.

Cal could hear the wet slap of each bullet. Aunt Denise, seeing her son torn apart by gunfire dropped to her knees and began to scream.

Cal noted somewhere in the back of his mind that each scream didn’t add to the others, but rather, replaced them. One wailing voice would cease and another would start. Never more than a second of overlap or silence. Cal could name each screamer, too. Despite the harried situation, each scream brought a face to mind. Each a smiling image from the last hours, as if seeing a bit of their life flashing before his eyes.

Aunt Denise’s image was only minutes old. She was making a ‘got you’ face and doing a little dance after a beautiful block of Finnegan’s spike on the volleyball court. It seemed like ages ago. Her scream continued, but Cal’s attention shifted to the nearby corner.

The black cylinder of a silencer was passing the corner in advance of its holder. Blind to everything but his own loss-fueled rage, Cal took two quick steps to the corner and grabbed the barrel. All the firing had heated it, and his hand was burned raw in an instant, but his grip never wavered.

Cal pulled hard toward the wall, gaining a brief moment of pleasure from the sound of steel scraping stone. The rough grunt of pain that followed was enough to make him giddy. This gunman was left-handed and while his grip on the rifle never wavered the sudden yank pulled him off balance and caused his face to drag along the cinderblock wall of the pavilion’s privies.

Momentum carried him forward, and Cal got a good look at his handiwork. A bright red patch of freshly torn skin was like a tiny moment of sweet revenge. Despite the massively uneven levels of injury being dealt, Cal felt vindicated by making one of them bleed. A little revenge served hot made him feel ready to take them all on.

Dead eyes stared into the elevator as Cal pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. The door closed, and he was once again alone with his own mind. Alone to think about what he was doing.

Did it mean anything?

Did it matter?

To him it did. Cal had lived a long time in the shadows. He’d heard many say, “Only God can judge me” or “It’s only God’s right to judge” as an excuse for atrocities. Cal knew he’d never be sure whether there was a God until he was dead. For now, he was delivering these men to judgment and accepted his own place. It was his place now, and he’d accept one death for another as just and fair.

Right or wrong, it was the final path he was set upon.

There was no counter above the door, but at each floor the corresponding button lit. It was an odd sort of reverse countdown that left him at T-minus ten floors and counting when he entered. The thought brought an unexpected smile to his face. The expression was almost painful. It disappeared quickly when the floor chime rang. It was that last moment of suspended silence before the doors opened that swirled his memories again.

The scream of Aunt Denise still filled the air as Scrapeface rotated to bring the barrel to bear on Cal. He kept his death grip on the silencer, and as the gunman moved the cylinder began to unscrew. Scrapeface fired once before he had a good line, and suddenly the world went quiet. Cal thought briefly that maybe he was dead, or the loosened silencer had released the noise of the shot to deafen him. His hand was still burned and throbbing. He could hear Scrapeface grunting as they struggled. Not dead, not deaf. Then he saw it.

In the reflection of the gunman’s mirrored wraparound shades, he saw his aunt’s kneeling form crumble, folding in on herself like a marionette collapsing with its strings cut.

And suddenly he was alone. He was the last. Mother, father, three brothers, three sisters, five nieces, two nephews, nine aunts, twelve uncles, forty-eight cousins, and six friends, all lay dead within fifty meters of where he stood.

Ninety silent bodies.

There were other sounds. Bootsteps, wind whistling through trees, and distant murmurs of drone traffic, but to Cal it was silent. Almost peaceful. A peace he hoped no one else would ever know.

The doors slid open smoothly. Cal stood in the center of the square floor, rifle tucked into his shoulder. He lifted the barrel into the spreading void left by the door and quickly identified two targets. Both looked at the opening doors, obviously expecting the man left dead on the third floor. The twin looks of shock and stupefaction were replaced by vacant eyes and slack jaws with two quick shots, both slightly left of center mass. Two more faces Cal recognized. Two more sent for judgment or tossed on to balance the scale of right.

Between the fallen men was a finely crafted door of carved hardwood. At the center were four numbers in thick gold: 1401, and the corporate logo, a tribal-patterned wolf surrounded by the company’s name: Black Wolf Consulting.

The company was a front that claimed to do asset assessment and money management. In truth, they managed a stable of shadowrunners. Cal had been part of that stable. The assault on his family party had been his pink slip, sent special delivery on Saturday after he’d asked to retire from the company on Friday.

Their response was loud and clear. Behind the door ahead was someone Cal had a reply for that they were definitely not expecting.

Despite the late hour, or maybe because of it in their line of work, the door was unlocked. Cal assumed the office would have more guards and after the first response he hoped they all would recognize him before their deliverance. After a slow turn of the knob Cal looked down one more time at the two dead men, spit on one of the corpses, and slipped quietly through a slightly cracked door.

Inside was much like he imagined. Runners rarely visited the HQ; it was part of keeping deniability. Cubicles lined the walls and filled the center of the room. To the right was a lone reception desk. The half circle where the receptionist sat was empty, something Cal found strange for this company. From among the cubicles he could hear a Matrix music station playing “To Me It’s a Dream” by elven crooners Nobilis through a tinny mono speaker. More than likely a late night dedication show to be playing such an old song. On the wall behind the reception desk was another symbol like the one on the door, this one more detailed.

Cal raised the rifle back to his shoulder and moved forward into the cubicle farm, toward the music. A moment too late he saw movement in the reflection from a picture frame resting on the ledge above a center cubicle.

Cal felt each bullet hit in rapid succession. They dug deep into the flesh of his back, splintering ribs and sending shards of bone to embed in the outer tissue of his lungs while the bullet dug in deeper. Cal knew all this from his recently developed kinesthetic sixth sense, a gift from the Lady of Blades. The force of the bullets knocked him to the ground directly beside the musical cubicle. From his back Cal stared at the ceiling, eyes wide and unblinking.

Soft footfalls shuffled toward him. At the lower edge of his peripheral vision, Cal saw the vague shape of a male figure moving closer. The figure slowly came into focus as he stood above Cal looking down at what he thought was a dead man.

The guard’s hand left the grip of his SMG, a compact HK-227, and went to the commlink clipped to his belt.

“Fox two to base, target is terminated. Send cleanup,” the guard spoke without ever checking a thing.

The guard looked directly into Cal’s eyes while the commlink squawked a reply, “Base to Fox two, verify and reconfirm. Cleanup is en route.”

Cal was happy to discover that like all mediocre hired help, the guard did his job half-assed. Cal felt a boot kick his right foot and he saw the guard nod, satisfied with the limp reaction.

“Verified,” he responded smugly, continuing to look down.

Cal winked.

The guard’s eyes went wide in alarm and his hand reached for the HK, but it was already too late. Cal raised the assault carbine and fired twice. The first round hit just below the sternum, punching easily into the soft tissue of the chest cavity. The second round slipped in below the chin and passed completely through the guard’s head. It ended somewhere beyond the suspended ceiling of the office.

For a moment, the guard joined Cal on the floor. Then, feeling a little crowded, Cal got up. He looked back at the floor, where six small, misshapen lumps of metal and some thick red blood were left behind. It would be a confusing mess for the cleanup crew, which he had no desire to meet.

Cal held the power button down on the comm in the cubicle, and the music ceased. There were no other signs of life in the vicinity. Without the tinny sound of the music, he listened for other guards or late-night workers, but caught no signs of more unseen trouble. Confident in his assessment, he moved quickly to the door behind the reception desk.

While it was made to look like wood, the door was actually thick metal—something Cal could tell from the overly large hinges. He gave the handle a quick tug, not at all surprised by the lack of movement. Locked. He slipped in behind the desk to scan the array of monitors. There were five in total, three changed images on a three-second rotation while the other two held stable on a single locale each. One showed the elevator foyer where two bodies were now sprawled on the floor. The other slowly panned the ground in front of a door that Cal was yet to pass. Below the monitors were a series of switches and buttons. On the left side of the desk, a metal panel with rows of switches, each with a number to identify it, adding to the array of options Cal had for controlling the cameras and doors, but nothing was marked. Cal couldn’t help appreciating that sometimes operating way behind the tech curve was the best way to stay secure.

Cal heard the scratchy squawk of a voice over the reception guard’s comm while still surveying the desk for a way past the door. Focusing, he caught the end: “—door to Fox two. Open up, Garson, you fragsack.”

It was the cleanup team, obviously waiting impatiently for the dead guard to open the door for them. On the panning camera Cal could see four men, all armed, waiting by the door below the camera. The leader, at least the one in the front talking into the comm clipped to his shoulder, looked directly into the camera and called again. “Garson, stop fragging around and open the door, I got a game of Go to get back to, and the boss wants an ID ASAP.”

Cal rapidly flipped switches while listening for the lock to click on the nearby door. When he heard the distinctive metallic click behind him, he raised his rifle while slipping around the reception desk to be out of view.

As the door pushed open the lead cleaner piped up again, “Took you long enough, drekstain.”

The lead cleaner pushed the door open with his back while he spoke. He turned just in time to hear Cal flick the selector switch. Before the guard could react, Cal fired.

Rounds stitched across the guard’s chest, but Cal didn’t stop. As the lead guard fell, Cal kept firing. The second guard took several rounds. One shattered his glasses and the eye behind it. While the first two guards fell, the last two dodged to the sides, raised their HKs, and returned fire. Bullets passed in the air as the two sides exchanged volleys.

Cal swung the rifle in an arc between the last two, sweeping left to right, then back, before their slugs ripped into his chest and knocked him back, fouling his aim. The sharp cracking of the silenced weapons ended abruptly and Cal heard them replaced by wheezing, gurgling gasps.

Cal regained his footing and stumbled forward. He flipped the selector back to semi-auto and silenced the wheezing, near-dead guards with tiny red blossoms in the center of their foreheads. Though still slightly dazed, Cal moved behind the desk and flipped all the remaining switches on the panel, opening a clear path to wherever he wanted to go.

As he leaned over the desk and scanned the images on the monitors one last time, a small misshapen piece of metal fell to the desk, forced from his body. Cal spotted no more guards on the monitors. His eyes stared blankly at the monitors while four more of the deformed bullets clanked down onto the desk. He moved toward the door, now held open by a corpse, and hit the release for the magazine of the assault rifle. The small metal box fell onto the motionless form as he passed through the doorway. From a pocket he pulled a fresh mag and slipped it into place without missing a step.

The hall beyond the entrance office was floor-to-ceiling wood, and stretched almost the entire length of the building. It ended in large wooden doors that looked intricately carved, though Cal couldn’t make out details at this distance. The fine wood of the walls was broken up by four doors set equidistant over the length of the hall and heavy-framed artwork set at odd intervals. Some artistic asymmetry. The carpeting was a deep red, and so plush Cal could see the impressions left by the booted feet that now lay limp around the door where red blood soaked into the red carpet. The only change was a wet sheen.

Cal moved ahead with silent footfalls. He gave the first pair of doors only a cursory glimpse. The bootprints in the carpeting had originated there. Three from the right and a lone set from the left. The doors bore only a black number at the center of the frame. Three above the left door, and four over the right. He passed without checking further.

Approaching the second pair, he slowed to listen. He heard nothing. He gave one handle a slow push. From the level of resistance he could tell it was locked. With no further thought for doors five and six, Cal swiftly covered the remaining distance to his final objective.

The nearness to the goal pushed thoughts into Cal’s mind again. Questions without answers were forced back down with a simple admission.

It was all he had left.

But those thoughts of an end to this hunt made him think back to another ending. An ending which was actually a beginning.

The silence held for an eternity until it was finally broken by speech: “You’re fired.”

The man with the scratched face delivered the line with a smirk. Obviously feeling very witty. Cal could see his own face in the goon’s mirrored wraparounds and he was smiling too, but they were very different smiles.

Cal’s smile was the gleeful smile of the insane. The smile of those who have the answers to the unaskable questions.

Cal pushed the rifle’s aim away, but kept his grip on the silencer, unsure of whether he could release it even if he tried. Cal pushed down and right, using his body weight to hold down the gun. Scrapeface stepped out in a wide arc but made no attempt to raise the weapon. Cal’s hand was too burned to feel the heat of the next shot, but his arm felt the jerk of the rifle. An instant later, his thigh erupted in new pain.

The shot hobbled him, and Cal crumpled to his knee. He kept his death-grip on the barrel, using his weight to pull Scrapeface forward. The move pushed the barrel down to the concrete beneath him, but Scrapeface kept firing. The bullets made loud cracks as they ricocheted off the concrete. The impact sent tiny flecks of chipped concrete tearing into Cal’s bare legs, arms, and neck. It was like hundreds of tiny pinpricks.

Cal suffered from the excruciating pain for only a moment before the numbness set in. Sharp pains turned to dull aches as his body flooded with endorphins. The natural painkillers cut out pain to keep the mind sharp for enough time to escape danger.

At least that was how it worked in the animal kingdom. Metahumanity was a different beast altogether.

With no pain to hold him back, Cal lunged into an offensive. He pushed up from the ground to slam his shoulder into Scrapeface’s midsection. The move caught the goon by surprise, and with no defensive maneuver at the ready, he was lifted from the ground and onto Cal’s shoulder.,

Scrapeface fired blindly, but Cal’s hand still clenched the silencer like a vise. He could feel it vibrate with each shot. Cal rose to his full height. All of his attention focused on the lone target of his anger dangling from his shoulder. He used his free hand to reach out and wrap around a flailing leg. Ankle in hand, Cal pulled hard while he bent at the waist. Scrapeface flipped fast. Cal enjoyed the solid thud the goon’s body made as it slammed down onto the ground.

The enjoyment was quickly doubled when Cal realized he now held the entire weight of the assault carbine in his burnt grasp. He savored his small victory for the brief moment before the others opened fire.

The mind is a wonderful thing. Most amazing is its ability to continue working without the body. Every bullet that hit, fifty-six in total, nuzzled its way into the tissues between Cal’s neck and pelvic bones. No head shots. His heart, liver, lungs, ribs, intestines, stomach, bladder, kidneys, and the majority of the muscles in his torso were instantly Swiss cheese. His mind still had a supply of unmoving yet oxygenated blood to fuel his synapses.

A plan was formulated on those soon to be dead synapses. A plan fueled by Cal’s fleeing lifeforce and a lucky charm he carried in his pocket. A plan like a samurai’s final stroke, made to deliver a deathblow even after his own defeat. A plan that led to an office on the thirteenth floor of a rundown high-rise in the Chicago Core.

Three meters from the door, Cal could finally make out the intricate carvings. He stopped his approach to take in the entire image. The door was similar in size to all the others, but it was immediately obvious that it didn’t open the same way. A staggered seam split the height at the center. The jagged separation was created by the mingling of the paired carvings. Even the handles were carefully merged with the original artwork.

The right door depicted the forces of good carved from a pale white wood. Angels, handsome knights on horseback, and thick-maned lions lunging toward the center of the door with the roaring flames of the sun at their backs. The crystal knob was a lion’s paw, extended as if to draw a visitor to their side of the battle between good and evil.

Evil was on the left, in deep red wood. Demons hovered in the air behind half-animal, half-man creatures on foot, with leaping wolves leading the charge at the center under a sickle-shaped moon in the sky. The “evil” handle was a smoky crystal wolf’s head with mouth agape pushing out from the carving.

The scene depicted had no obvious victor between the battling forces, and Cal took that to be the whole point. In the battle of good versus evil no one would ever win, but the person behind the door did their best to play every angle no matter the side. A master of the gray area between black and white. A shadow. Neither light nor dark, but a result of both together.

A sad point struck him as he stood there. It was the first time Cal ever really thought that much on his chosen line of work, and shame rose from the blind eye he had turned for so long. Cal looked back and forth at the two sides of the same door. Which side was he? Was he either? Was he just another shadow? Had the shadows here grown too dark, and he was now the light?

It was more philosophy than he had time to consider. It would all be over shortly. A single stroke was left. One queen and whatever pawns she still controlled waited behind the door.

Cal let the rifle hang free, the strap keeping it close at hand. He grabbed both crystal knobs simultaneously, turned them, and pushed.

The scene split along the jagged battlefield of beasts to reveal the office beyond. Red carpet gave way to deep gray, but lost none of its lushness. The far wall was a single pane of solid glass, floor to ceiling, wall to wall. A large metal desk sat beyond four chairs, an amalgam of the desk and floor, with gray cushions and silver frames. Behind it was a single high-back chair. A throne, some would say.

Filling the seat was a pale-haired woman, her face a blend of exotic features. Almond-shaped eyes as blue as the clear sky. A slightly flat nose over full red lips. Pronounced cheekbones made her face look chiseled from stone by an artist who could make stone seem soft. She wore a narrow-cut suit coat with a deep red blouse buttoned to her throat, where a silver metallic rose accented her thin neck. Her arms rested on her desk, hands clasped, index fingers extended toward Cal. The desk was neat and devoid of obvious work. Decorative bits of office supplies were aligned atop the desk for best aesthetic affect.

Cal took in all these details as his hands came off the knobs and returned to the assault rifle. With the smooth grace of decades of practice, his right hand wrapped around the grip and pulled the stock up to nuzzle into his shoulder while his left hand slipped around the foregrip for stability.

His finger wrapped around the trigger while his eye sighted down the barrel.

The woman smiled, pearly white teeth shining.

Cal’s finger muscles flexed, squeezing the slim crescent of metal smoothly back.

The stock pressed harder against his shoulder for an instant.

A single empty casing sailed through the air.

A tiny red blossom formed on her narrow forehead.

In Cal’s pocket, his lucky card crumbled to dust.

Cal’s knees crumpled. His arms went slack.

The woman stared on with dead eyes.

Cal hit the floor. The slim shell casing landed next to his head.

The final stroke was complete.

EVERYBODY  PLAYS THE FOOL

(THE BASTARD)

JASON M. HARDY

He pulled on a tuxedo, painted his face like a clown, and once again girded himself in the armor of what he was not.

Oscar knew the physical markers were only a small part of the disguise. His attitude and the way he carried himself were far more important. He needed to walk with a subtle swagger, and the paradox of those words was the challenge. He had to have pride, confidence, and even arrogance, but also had to be so comfortable with those traits that he did not throw them in other people’s faces. Meekness is easy to exude. So is brash arrogance. Subtle confidence? That’s easily mistaken for diffidence or aloofness. It’s not easy to go into a room and, without talking, make people understand that you are fully in control of the situation, because you deserve to be in control. But that was the sweet spot he needed to hit.

The costume helped. It was distinct. Word got around. People talked, which was good, because that was the whole point of wearing it.

He traveled by limo. There was no alternative. Public transportation wouldn’t do with this guise, and he certainly couldn’t be seen driving his own car. It didn’t fit the profile. Maybe screaming through the streets on a motorcycle would have worked, but one of his deep secrets was that he didn’t know how to ride one well enough to keep up the appearance he had assumed. So chauffeured travel it was.

The black Mitsubishi Nightsky dropped him off in front of a mechanic’s shop with a boarded-up door but functional entry bays. Light peeked out from under the closed garage doors. The clown snapped his fingers and one of the doors slid up, just clearing his head as he passed under it. He had spent all night a few days ago in an abandoned parking garage, working on the timing of that particular move, but he was almost thrown off by the fact that this heavier door moved up slower than the old grating he’d used for practice. He was able to slow his stride enough to compensate, though, so the intended effect held.

He walked into a dark garage strewn with auto parts, rags, and grease. His contacts provided the low-light vision his heritage did not, so he picked his way smoothly and easily around the obstacles, making sure nothing oily touched the finely creased trousers of his three-piece suit (one piece, the jacket, was slung over a chair in his doss—leaving it behind allowed him to show off his pin-striped vest). He was aware of the surprise and tension building up around him. He did not respond to it, telling himself over and over to stay poised, act casual, look languid, even though he was pretty sure at least two guns were pointing at him.

A voice called from near one of the work lights hanging off the frame of a bullet-ridden auto. “Who the hell are you?”

“The tragedy of living in a vulgar age,” the clown responded, “is that any transgressive power profanity once had is lost. While in times past your exceedingly mild curse word might have acted as a signifier of your malicious intent, in the world we live in it is mere punctuation, if even that. It is glossed over, ignored. The meaningful has become meaningless.”

“The fuck?” the voice from the darkness responded.

A deeper voice spoke. “Don’t matter. Wax him.”

The clown could not be sure his ability to watch guns fire without flinching was all his own. Yes, he had practiced it for many long, fearful hours, but avoiding incoming gunfire was a deeply intrinsic instinct, and one did not write such things over with ease. He spent many long nights worrying about how his employers may have altered him, and then despairing over his failure to discover what they might have done. Regardless of how the fearlessness had been instilled, when the bullets flew his way, his posture did not change. His emotions did not rise.

The projectiles stopped in mid-air, dropping to the floor in front of him.

“And these bullets. So common. Barely commas.”

He made a little exploding motion with his hand, and the windshield of the car in the shop shattered, glass flying outward. The men hidden in the dark yelled briefly as glass pebbles tinkled on the floor.

The clown waited for it to be silent, then spoke. “At some point you will come to a full realization that I am serious, and you will decide to listen to what I have to say. The only question before you is how long that will take, and what I will have to do to you before that point is reached.”

Silence again, then some muttering.

“Say what you gotta say,” the deeper voice said.

It was truly pathetic. The third person, the one moving behind the clown, thought he was being silent. Had he only worked with low-class criminals who couldn’t afford decent gear? His feet scraping the cement floor were as plain as the red diamonds painted on the clown’s face.

The clown didn’t turn. He stood straighter and pulled on the bottom of his vest, as if preparing to make a speech.

The third man leaped. And hit an invisible wall behind the clown. The force of his own momentum laid him out on the filthy floor.

The clown still did not turn around. “Here’s the message: Know your place. Your appetite has been getting too big. You can steal cars from all the middlemen you want and still keep the revenue flowing. But you’ve climbed too far up the ladder. Don’t keep ascending. Back down a few rungs, or I’ll cut the whole thing down from beneath you.”

The clown knew the next part of this was where they tried to reassure themselves about their toughness by denying that he had any power over them.

The higher-voiced speaker spoke first. “You think you can show off a few magic tricks and then start giving orders? Shit, no way.”

The clown sighed theatrically. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that I hoped for better. But even after all this time, I’m still ready for humanity to surprise me. Maybe someday it will. Now, I could do some more flashy magic, or put a squeeze on your throat and cut off your air supply without touching you, but while fun, those things would have limited long-term benefits. So I’ll just move on to the good stuff, and here it is: You’re broke. Out of money. Personally and professionally. I would say I hope it doesn’t cause you much inconvenience, but that would be a lie.”

More mutters, then movements as they checked AROs only they could see. The reactions were rapid.

“Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!”

Another mutter, difficult to hear, but the clown was pretty sure it was along the lines of “What’d he do?”

The deeper voice was not so deep anymore, and didn’t bother to hide its words. “My personal account, my secret account, our operations account—hell, if there’s a source of money, he took it. Damn it!”

Oscar was relieved—but not surprised—that the money had been moved as planned. His employers were shadowy, but quite good at whatever they set out to do. “And I’m going to assume the operations account for this fine establishment was not made with your personal funds,” the clown said. “I’d wager it’s someone else’s money—someone who will expect to see it again at some point, correct?”

The following pause was brief. “Look, I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’ve killed us. You know that, right? With that money gone, I’m a dead man.”

The clown shrugged. “A single vulgarity edited out of the manuscript of life.”

“Look, look, look, you went too fast! You know we can’t just be intimidated by someone who walks in and flashes some magic, but okay, you showed us you’re the real deal. We’ll scale back, all right? I’ll tell the bosses. Just get that money back in here, all right? We’re just damn car thieves. You don’t have to make this deadly.”

“All I’m doing is showing you the ramifications of your own choices. Are you saying you’d like to change them?”

The man paused a moment before answering, likely choking on his pride. “Yes, dammit.”

“I will graciously allow that change. To err is human, to forgive is mine.”

“That’s not how the saying goes,” the higher-voiced man said, likely out of reflex.

The clown snapped two fingers, and the three small casement windows located two meters high on the wall shattered.

“It is today.”

The rest was mere negotiation—which, honestly, was more like the clown giving orders than a discussion—before Oscar sauntered away in casual triumph.

He had done this sort of thing a half-dozen times before, and each time, when he was done, he felt like curling into a ball and whimpering, and also like walking down a crowded street so that others could bear witness to his magnificence. If there was a temper on his emotions, it came off once the work was done, leaving them to spin from high to low and back again. He wanted to go to a bar and both huddle in a corner unseen while drinking a full bottle of scotch and pick up every attractive person in the place, regardless of gender.

He had not yet found a way to reconcile those dueling impulses, but he had noticed with each job, the swagger impulse grew stronger.

He could not, of course, go out in public without taking a few moments in his car to clean off his face paint, remove his fake ears, and assume a normal appearance. He had this down to a polished routine, so he was ready to be seen in public after only ten minutes.

He drove to Featherstone’s, a restaurant in the CAS sector that was pleasant, low-key, and frequented by neither tourists nor foodies. The food would be simple and unpretentious, and the drinks would have plain names and generous pours.

At this time of night, the main room was closed, and six patrons sat at the bar. An old man in a fedora that looked like it had been purchased in the twentieth century stared into a glass that had maybe three drops of scotch in it, a man and a woman sat in a dark corner trying to look casual while all too obviously scanning the area for anyone they would prefer not to see them together, and the last three people huddled together around a small table with about ten empty mugs and four full ones. Clearly they had ordered a number of rounds and then told the bartender (a weary-looking ork woman in a stained white blouse and apron from some multi-national chain, of which this bar was not a part) to leave them be. She seemed only too happy to oblige.

The three people with the empties were an elf male, an ork male, and a dwarf female. Their tones were low, and their glares telling people to leave them alone were practiced and professional. They were not, however, Awakened, and it was not a large trick to create a channel of sound that brought their voices to Oscar’s ears.

“—This isn’t about having ears on the ground,” the dwarf was saying. “No one on the streets knows anything until after it happens. There’s never advance word. If we rely on street rumors to clue us in, we’ll miss out.”

“The only way that works is if the information we already have is good,” the ork said. “Do you trust Mr. Johnson?”

“Of course not. But I trust myself. If he’s lying about anything, I’ll find out and adjust. Thinking on the fly is what we do.”

The elf spoke up. “If you think you can adapt to anything the world might throw at you, you haven’t seen enough of it.”

The dwarf shrugged. “Running away counts as an adjustment. I can do that any time I need to.”

“What if they’re faster than you?”

“If they’re faster, I’m more elusive. If they’re more elusive, I’m faster. No one combines the two like me.”

“Dwarfs aren’t exactly known for their speed.”

“Only cuz not enough people know me.”

“Look, the attitude is important. I’m not saying it’s not. But it’s the attitude you show in the field that counts, not while sitting around a table with your friends.” The words were out of Oscar’s mouth before he realized he was talking.

“Consider this practice,” the dwarf said.

Oscar leaned back and looked at the dwarf while stroking his chin. The ork reached over and clapped him on the shoulder. He hadn’t thought he had placed himself within arm’s reach of the ork, but apparently he had.

“You’re not going to talk him out of his attitude,” he said. “Talk can only go so far.”

Oscar tilted his head. “That’s the kind of thing people who aren’t good at it say.”

In the darkest corner of the joint, the woman slammed the table. She wore a tight black shirt without a right sleeve, showing off a black cyberarm with a satiny finish. A piece of the table might have splintered under the blow.

“I need more than just talk!” she said. The man next to her looked around panicked while reaching for her left arm to pull her back into her chair.

She became quieter, but not much. “If I need someone who can break promises, I have the whole damn world. You’re supposed to be different. Your actions matter. They say what you really are.”

The man’s mouth moved, but he apparently had an excellent sotto voce, because no sound carried beyond the edge of his table.

The woman shook her head. “You can’t just explain it away. I know what happened. What I’m trying to figure out is why.”

The man in the fedora glowered down at his drink. “Dames, huh?”

“Dames? Really?” Oscar asked.

The man in the fedora looked up long enough to shoot Oscar a glare that could have flash-frozen a whale. “You gotta problem?”

“Not really. Just didn’t think that word got much use this century.”

“I talk how I talk. You don’t like it, talk to someone else.”

“Sure. I don’t remember why I wanted to talk to you in the first place.”

“Because with all the jokers and kiddies in this joint, you knew I was the person who might tell you something real.”

Oscar leaned back. He was trying to look amused and distant, but something inside his head was spinning. He hoped leaning back would make the world settle down. “I did? So just what truth do you want to hand out?”

The man looked up again. There seemed to be no distinction between his irises and pupils. “The world is not a senseless place. People do things for a reason. Sometimes they’re stupid reasons, but they’re reasons. Understand the reasons, and you understand the world.”

“Might be a little beyond me,” Oscar said. “The world is big.”

“Then let’s understand at least one thing,” the ork shadowrunner said. “The chop shop. Simple job, really—a little intimidation, set some over-reaching thugs in their place. Why go to so much trouble?”

Oscar shifted in his chair, moving a bit away from the ork and his team. How had word gotten out so fast?

“It’s punctuation,” the elf said. “It’s making sure that the message is sent with an exclamation point.”

The ork nodded. “Probably, but it’s good to get the right message. The easy message is the one that was stated: ‘Know your place.’ But there’s more. First, ‘I know what you’re doing.’ Second, ‘I can get to you.’ Not messages stated in words, but important—possibly more important than what was actually said.”

“And the messenger is as important as the message,” the elf added. “That’s part of the question—why him?”

“Why her?” the woman said. “Just because she’s available? Maybe you don’t think commitment is possible, or desirable, or whatever, but if that’s the case, tell me. Don’t just yank me around.”

The man, as was his custom, moved his mouth without making any noise. Then he buried his face behind a menu.

“Maybe this is just some sort of game to you. Maybe that’s all this whole thing is, a big game. Money is a way to keep score, but so are…how should I say it…conquests. A game that goes on forever, and there’s no way to win, so it can never end.”

The man didn’t reply, but Oscar didn’t think something like that, from a person so clearly upset, should just hang there. He blinked a few times to ward off dizziness, then leaned toward her.

“Even if that’s how some people treat life, you don’t have to,” he said. “You never have to play by someone else’s rules.”

The woman moved a corner of her mouth in a way that might have, in other circumstances, attempted to become a smile.

“Of course you do. Unless you want to be alone.”

“We’re all alone.”

Her smile somehow became more bitter. “Were you trying to cheer me up or depress me more?”

Oscar shrugged. “Just trying to get your mind off that jerk.”

The man dropped the menu, and Oscar recoiled. He was wearing a clown face, white paint with red diamonds over the eyes, spiked eyebrows, and a grotesquely wide grin. Oscar knew the face. He had seen that face, or a reasonable facsimile of it, in the mirror many times. He jerked back and got ready to stand up and run, then realized it must have just been a trick of the light. The man might have been a little pale, yes, but who could blame him after what the woman had said? But he had no red diamonds, no wide grin. Oscar must have been tired or overly stressed to be imagining such things. Taking a deep breath, he settled back into his seat.

“There is only one real part of love, and that’s loss,” the man in the fedora said. “The rest is just a myth you force yourself to believe. A story you beg your emotions to convince you is true.”

“Did you practice that line a few times in your head?” Oscar asked.

“Being fooled by others is bad, but it’s nowhere near as embarrassing as fooling yourself. Entertaining illusion after illusion because you don’t have the will to see through them.”

“And you know the truth, and this is where it gets you? Drinking alone in some crap bar?”

“It gets me free of strings.”

“You mean you’ve got nothing left to lose,” Oscar said. He reached his right hand up to scratch the left side of his neck, and it stayed there after his fingers stopped moving.

He looked down curiously at his right hand sitting on his left shoulder. It raised a centimeter or two and waved back and forth a bit. Something light but scratchy brushed his cheek. He focused. It was string—or maybe twine—running from the back of his hand to the ceiling. Did it stop at the ceiling, or go beyond? He couldn’t tell. And there wasn’t just one. He had a string attached to the back of his hand, to each finger, to his elbow. They pulled, and his hand went up. Then his left went up too, since it had an identical set of strings attached to it. His hands spread apart, his arms rising above the level of his head, palms down, putting him in an odd sort of position, like he was trying to fly, but had no real idea of how flapping worked. And didn’t realize his arms were not wings.

But despite the awkwardness, he rose. Only five centimeters off the ground or so, but far enough so that he could only touch the floor if he straightened out his ankles. Then he could scrape the ground with his toes. He hung there, swaying gently.

The man in the fedora looked up, the nearly empty glass still clutched in his hand. “They’re using you. Making you into a toy. They had to know what was coming. You had to know I was coming. But you did it anyway. I would spend time wondering if you were foolish or bold, but I no longer believe there is much difference between the two. The important thing is, you had to know that you were taking a stroll on the train tracks, and if you kept that course, you would see the train approaching. You can’t be surprised when you finally hear the whistle.”

Oscar abruptly fell down into a chair. He tried to make the drop and the pain look natural.

“So you get a message like that, you want to respond,” the ork said. “What’s the response?”

“Here’s the thing,” the dwarf said, leaning forward. “We know about the messenger. But who actually sent the message?”

“Yeah, that’s important,” the elf said. “A message saying ‘Don’t cross me’ doesn’t mean as much when you don’t know who ‘me’ is.”

“And if you’re told not to cross boundaries, it helps if you know where those boundaries are,” the man in the fedora continued. “This is what I’m saying. The message is not complete.”

The ork threw up his hands. “Why go out of the way to send a message and not send the whole thing?”

“Because you’re playing a game,” the woman said. “Not having a relationship. With the one, you talk. You communicate. With the other, you do some fool thing, and think some stupid thing like ‘I made my move. Ball’s in her court.’ Whatever stupid metaphor you want. It’s being childish instead of being a grown-up.”

This earned her another soundless response.

“The problem is, you want me to play by your rules, to make one of the moves you predict, or the one you like. If I try another move, you get angry. But if it’s my move, I get to do whatever the hell I want.”

The strings were back, pulling Oscar’s hands, palms down, to shoulder level. Then there were strings on his back, his neck, pulling. They hurt. His ass was off the chair, then his feet were off the ground. He looked down—his feet were almost half a meter off the ground, just that quickly.

The woman looked up at him. She had to. “Faithlessness is the plague of our times. Do you have faith in anything? What would you die for? Are you about to die for the right thing?”

The three shadowrunners solemnly pulled out their weapons. Oscar could have sworn they each had three or four arms, because it seemed like an entire firing squad’s worth of gun barrels were pointed at him. But the only things the barrels held were bullets. He could block those. He knew how. He started gathering mana.

A scream entered his skull like a drill punching through bone. He gritted his teeth, even though they felt like they were shattering. He let in his astral sense, only to see what he should have noticed as soon as he’d entered the bar. Magic. Magic everywhere. He might have been the only real thing in the bar. And he wasn’t even sure about that.

His heart raced. His breathing had turned to panting, and his ears mostly heard a rhythmic echo. He had missed important information, and he was going to pay.

The man dropped the menu he had been hiding behind. The clown face was back. The red diamonds had the moist glisten of wet paint. The smile had the twist of a sidewinding snake. 

“You do have a pair of balls on you,” the clown said. “My first inclination was to remove them.”

Oscar thought about responding, but new strings had grown binding his lips together, and wordless grunting seemed beneath his dignity.

“I suppose I should do something about that if we’re to talk,” the clown continued. He snapped his fingers. The thread on Oscar’s mouth had one loose end on the right side. It wriggled forward, pulling the rest of the string behind it. With no anesthetic, Oscar could feel every millimeter as it moved through his lips, pulling and straining, tearing his skin. When it was finally out, he moved his hand to his mouth. The strings held it back for a moment, then loosened, and he was able to rub his lips. When he moved his hand away, he was stunned to see no blood. He was also a little surprised to see he was back on the ground, in a chair.

He flexed and pursed his lips, then spoke. “You could have just made it disappear. You didn’t have to do that the hard way.”

The clown lowered his chin, glowered, and said nothing.

Oscar sighed. “No, you couldn’t. I know. I understand.” He wiggled his toes a little—hanging in mid-air had made them numb.

“I suppose this is a sort of cease-and-desist letter,” Oscar said, since the clown still wasn’t talking. “For what, trademark infringement? Identity theft?” He stretched his neck to the left and to the right. “I suppose the exact cause doesn’t matter. But what happens next? I promise to stop? You kill me? Where do we go from here?”

The clown walked over to the man in the fedora, who was the only other person left sitting in the bar. He sat at the man’s table and grabbed his suddenly full shot glass. A quick toss of his head, and the glass was empty again. He reached out and patted the man’s shoulder.

The man looked up and doffed his hat, revealing the face of Oscar, without the makeup.

Oscar considered the two versions of himself, sitting side by side. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

A deck of cards appeared in the clown’s hands, long cards with grey and green dragons and birds on the back. He laid them on the table, one by one.

“The Hanged Man,” the clown said, turning over the first card. His voice was leather sandpaper. “Change is coming. You will see the world in a new way.” The next card. “Two of Cups. New partnerships and the resolution of a former conflicts.” Next card. “Ace of Swords. Cutting through confusion. Overcoming deception. Gaining clarity.” Next card. “Seven of Swords. Secret plans. Following the Ace of Swords, it means battling deception with deception.” Next card. “The Fool. Or the Bastard. Take your pick of what you want to call him. A troublemaker, a force of chaos.”

On the last card, a clown with red diamonds over his eyes was stomping on the hand of a man dangling outside a broken office building window.

“Nice read,” Oscar said. “Are you going to attempt to convince me that you didn’t stack the deck?”

The clown smiled, and the corners of his mouth seemed quite close to touching his ears. “Why else would I use cards?”

He placed his right hand on the Bastard card, showing a man who looked very much like himself looking out a broken window. He spun it slowly. “Inverse. Upright. Inverse. Upright,” he said with each turn. “Positive or negative. Good or bad.”

Oscar remained hanging, but the nerves, the rapid heartbeat, the fog in his mind that had possessed him were gone. The clarity of the Ace of Swords was making its cuts.

“What will make this good?” he asked.

“You tell me,” the clown said. “I made a move. It’s what the people pulling your strings wanted. I’m sure they have a response planned. What is it?”

Oscar was on the verge of shaking his head and trying to put together a denial, when there was a rush of sound, a blinding headache that came and went almost instantly, and he knew. He knew the information, and he knew what he was supposed to say, and he felt like he maybe had a choice about that, but he probably didn’t.

“Here’s the rest of the message,” Oscar says. “Jane says you’re not the only one who can push buttons.”

He waited for a reaction—a sign of surprise, a few stammered words—then he remembered who he was dealing with. There was not so much as a tap of the clown’s fingers. He just shook his head, maybe in sadness, maybe in disappointment. “This was a roundabout way to deliver a message,” the clown said. “Overly elaborate.”

“Because you’re all about efficiency and directness, right?” Oscar said, then couldn’t believe that he said it.

The clown didn’t seem to mind. “Touché.” He might have even smiled. “It’s a character flaw, I suppose. I’m used to being one of the few unchanging things in the world. I forget that sometimes even I have to adapt. So. You are not the student, I am not the mentor. How would you like to define our relationship?”

Oscar paused, tilted his head, and tried to understand the message he was receiving. “I don’t think she believes it needs definition. That’s too—confining, I guess?”

Oscar didn’t even blink, but the clown was suddenly immediately in front of him, teeth bared, chin down. He had a serrated, sharp-looking blade in his hand. 

“I could end you now,” he snarled. “I could have ended you when you walked in here.”

Then, just as abruptly, the clown was back in his chair, stroking his chin, looking contemplative.

“You’re not scared. Not at all. Why aren’t you scared?”

“I…” Oscar paused to consider. “I’m not sure.”

The clown stood and walked over toward Oscar. It was a smooth, unhurried walk. Some part of Oscar’s brain told him that maybe he should be worried. He tried to become worried about not being more worried, but that didn’t work either.

The clown lazily waved a hand over Oscar’s head. “There are strings I’m not even seeing. So much work to impress me. Confining someone else so you can demonstrate your freedom.” He took five steps away, then turned back to Oscar. “I’m going to talk to you as if Jane is listening. Jane, do you remember visiting Roggoth’Shoth? We saw that plain of rocks, with a faint aura on them? You asked me what it was, and I wouldn’t tell you. You were very put out, launched on one of those speeches where you said I didn’t treat you as an adult—as if an adult is the high-water mark of how a person should be treated. You found out what it was, though, didn’t you?”

Oscar was silent until the knowledge was given to him. “Bodies. It was bodies.”

“A remnant of the War of Sorrows, idiots playing with magic we don’t understand now, and if there is any mercy in the world, we will never learn it again. Though hope for mercy is not something I spend much effort having. If they were dead, though, how come they still had auras? After all this time?”

Oscar again waited for an answer. It was slow in coming.

“Because they weren’t entirely dead. There was some form of life sitting in that petrified skin. They sat there, for centuries, in motionless agony.”

“And your response to that knowledge? How did that affect your study of the field?”

Another longer pause. “I haven’t been back since I learned what it was. I can’t bear to walk among them.”

The clown waved his arms in dismissive disgust. “The sentimental weakness of humanity. We’re not supposed to have that. Your pity for the dead of the past keeps you from learning things that might keep people from dying in the future. Foolishness, but I knew you’d fall prey to it. If there are facts that might hinder your learning, my job was to keep them from you.”

“I’m not here to argue,” Oscar said, using words that came quickly. “Well, I’m not here at all, but that’s beside the point. You don’t see as much as you think you do. You made a nice trap here, but you didn’t catch me. You didn’t even know I was behind it, wouldn’t have known if I didn’t tell you. You don’t get to decide what I know anymore. I am not your puppet, and these are not your strings.”

The clown stood stiffly, then nodded once. “No, this puppet is all your own. So what happens to him?”

Again Oscar waited for an answer. None came. He kept waiting, then began to feel awkward. He didn’t like it, but at least he was finally allowed to feel something. If he was going to have an answer, it would have to be his own.

“Maybe we could let me grow up to become a real boy,” he said.

The clown might have hinted at a smile, or it might have just been his make-up.

“You’ve been fearsomely manipulated,” the clown said. “What could be more grown up than that?”

Oscar had no good response.

“You had to know you were inviting trouble when you did all this,” the clown said. “But you did it anyway. Which means either your emotions were out of your control, or you have some brass balls. I can’t punish you much for either offense.”

He snapped his fingers. “But I can punish you a little. The most fitting punishment I can think of. Be me.”

The bar changed. It was empty, closed, abandoned. Oscar looked around, startled. There was no trace of food or drink anywhere. Only one set of footprints in the dust, and they looked his size, made by his shoes. He stood, but his legs were weak. He didn’t move for a moment until he felt stronger, then he strolled slowly toward the door, which sat halfway ajar.

He caught a glimpse of himself in a cracked mirror behind the bar. His face was white, with red diamonds around the eyes. He ran forward, almost tripping over what used to be a chair, to get a closer look. He rubbed his face, but nothing so much as smudged. He tried some counterspelling, but nothing had an effect.

He glanced toward the door. It looked dark outside. There were people out there who knew the clown, or at least knew what he was supposed to be. He’d have to be careful, but if someone caught him, hiding in the shadows, looking like that while trying to hide—it wouldn’t be good. But being out in the open didn’t seem like a good idea either.

Outside the door, an intersection was empty of cars while lights slowly shifted to green, yellow, and red and back. He stared, thinking about where to go.

He had played the clown once; now he had to be it.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Bill Aguiar is happy to have his first Shadowrun short story published in this anthology, along with the opportunity to continue a plot he started a decade ago in the adventure “Baser Instincts” in Predator and Prey. He currently lives inside the DC Beltway, and has a job that has absolutely nothing to do with his Political Science degree or Big Brother style surveillance. Really.

Dylan Birtolo resides in the Pacific Northwest where he spends his time as a writer, a gamer, and a professional sword-swinger. His thoughts are filled with shape shifters, mythological demons, and epic battles. He’s published a few fantasy novels and several short stories. He trains in Systema and with the Seattle Knights: an acting troop that focuses on stage combat. He jousts, and yes, the armor is real—it weighs over 100 pounds. You can read more about him and his works at www.dylanbirtolo.com or follow his twitter at DylanBirtolo.

Jennifer Brozek is a Hugo Award-nominated editor and a Bram Stoker-nominated author. Winner of the Scribe, Origins, and the ENnie awards, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS. Jennifer is the author of the award-winning YA Battletech novel The Nellus Academy Incident, and the Shadowrun novella Doc Wagon 19. She has also written for the AAA MMO Aion and the award-winning videogame Shadowrun Returns. When she is not writing her heart out, she gallivants around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Read more about her at www.jenniferbrozek.com or follow her on Twitter at @JenniferBrozek.

David Ellenberger has been playing Shadowrun since first edition and done freelance writing in SR Missions adventures and supplements for almost ten years. He enjoys running a monthly Shadowrun game that has been going for the last four years, as well as running games at Gen Con every year.

Jaym Gates is an author, editor, and public relations manager. She’s edited the anthologies War Stories, Genius Loci, and Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows, among others. Her short fiction appears in anthologies Kaiju Rising, By Faerie Light, Robots!, and Aether Age. She can be found on Twitter as @JaymGates, or at her sadly-neglected website, jaymgates.com.

Jeffrey Halket has been a Shadowrun freelancer for several years, and has contributed to such books as Rigger 5. He lives in Colorado, where he works on the help desk for support of Department of Defense personnel working on the U.S. Air Force’s Satellite Control Network.

Jason M. Hardy is so smug. I mean, come on, have you ever talked to him? I swear, he’s all “I wrote the Shadowrun novels Undershadows and Hell on Water,” and “I’m the Shadowrun line developer, so why don’t you comp my tab, you scouse git?” and he’s not even British, so what’s up with that? And then he’ll say that he’s published nine novels and some weird book about aliens called Stranded on Earth or something, and you’ll ask, “Have you published any short stories,” and he’ll be all, “Yeah, totally, but I’ve kind of lost track of how many,” and then you’ll want to punch him in his stupid arrogant face. He lives in Chicago with his wife, son, and daughter, who are all perfectly pleasant.

Chris A. Jackson has been sailing and writing full time since 2009. As a sailor, writer, and gamer, nautical fantasy came naturally. His Scimitar Seas novels won multiple gold medals from Foreword Reviews Magazine for best fantasy novel of the year, and his Pathfinder Tales novels Pirate’s Honor and Pirate’s Promise, have received high praise. The non-nautical Weapon of Flesh Trilogy has become a Kindle bestseller, spurring international interest. His first Iron Kingdoms story, “Blood and Iron,” debuted in 2014. More Pathfinder Tales stories, the Weapon of Fear Trilogy, and other works are coming in 2015. Drop by jaxbooks.com for updates.

R. L. King is the author of the Amazon-bestselling urban fantasy series The Alastair Stone Chronicles, as well as writing for Shadowrun (officially and unofficially) since before many of its fans were alive. Her first SR novel, Borrowed Time, was nominated for a Scribe Award by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and her next one, Veiled Extraction, will be published in 2017. She lives in San Jose, CA, with her ever-patient spouse, a herd of assorted cats, and a gecko named Lofwyr who’s expecting to come into his powers any day now.

Philip A. Lee is a freelance writer and editor whose many contributions to the gaming industry include more than a dozen short stories for BattleCorps.com and sourcebook/fiction writing for the BattleTech, Shadowrun, Cosmic Patrol, and Valiant Universe Roleplaying Game universes. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife and their three cats. To learn more about his work, look for @joechummer on Twitter and visit philipleewriting.com.

Steven S. Long is a writer and game designer who’s worked primarily in the tabletop roleplaying game field for the past twenty-some years, during which he’s written or co-written approximately 200 books. He’s best known for his work with Champions and the HERO System, but has worked for many other RPG companies. In recent years he’s focused more on writing fiction, and has had numerous short stories published. His Master Plan for World Domination has reached Stage 65-Epsilon.

Kai O’Connal is the author of the Shadowrun novels Fire & Frost and the forthcoming The Johnson Run. Kai is rumored to live somewhere near the Arctic Circle, where the Northern Lights are always bright, and illuminate whatever story is being created at that time. To say any more would be invite undue speculation, which is why this paragraph stops exactly where it does.

Devon Oratz received his BA in Creative Writing in 2008 from the Charles & Lily Lieb Port Creative Writing program at SUNY Purchase, and was thence imbued with such delightful skills as talking about himself in the third person with a straight face. In 2011, he got his dream job (since the age of 10) working for Catalyst Game Labs as a freelance writer for Shadowrun, the greatest tabletop RPG ever created, and which inspired his own game Systems Malfunction. Since then, Devon has written for numerous Shadowrun products, including Street Legends, Corporate Intrigue, Artifacts Unbound, Street Legends Supplemental, Jet Set, and Clutch of Dragons, as well as being chosen for the design team of Shadowrun 5th Edition.

O. C. Presley is better known in the Shadows as Opti, host of the Neo-Anarchist Podcast, giving shadowrunners the chip truth on Shadowrun history. When he isn’t doing that, he waters the garden of marriage and learns from his two amazing kids. His true passion is inciting everyday folks to rebellion against the global domination system of therapeutic, technological, consumeristic militarism. He likes Thai food best.

Aaron Rosenberg is the author of the bestselling DuckBob series and the Dread Remora space-opera series. His tie-in work contains novels for Star Trek, Warhammer, WarCraft, and Eureka, and the upcoming Shadowrun novel Shadow Dance. He has written children’s books (such as the award-winning Bandslam: The Junior Novel and the #1 bestselling 42: The Jackie Robinson Story), educational books, and over seventy roleplaying games (including the original games Asylum, Spookshow, and Chosen, work for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, and Pinnacle, the Origins Award-winning Gamemastering Secrets, and the Gold ENnie-winning Lure of the Lich Lord). He is the co-creator of the ReDeus series and the O.C.L.T. series, and a co-founder of Crazy 8 Press. Aaron lives in New York with his family. You can follow him online at gryphonrose.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/gryphonrose, and on Twitter @gryphonrose.

Scott Schletz has been lending his quirky creativity (in an official capacity) to the Shadowrun universe for the past five years, though if you ask his friends it’s more like 25. He’s contributed to over thirty projects in his short run, including adventures, sourcebooks, short stories, and even a video game. A few of those projects have even won awards. When not freelancing he teaches high school science in Bug City and takes his friends on occasional adventures into the madness of his mind. His greatest accomplishment to date involves a massive expenditure of Karma in order to manipulate fate to grant him his amazing wife Nikki and son Avi.

Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author. She wrote the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, and Switchblade Goddess, the nonfiction book Shooting Yourself in the Head for Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide, and the collections While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. You can learn more at www.lucysnyder.com or follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.

Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning writer, game designer, computer game designer, podcaster, screenwriter and graphic novelists who is best-known for his New York Times-bestselling novels I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer in Residence at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. When not writing or teaching, he spends too much time playing games and figuring out how to cook things that taste good.

R. J. Thomas is a Northwest Ohio native, certified deputy sheriff/peace officer, and Shadowrun freelancer who got his job by joining the Catalyst Demo Team just to stalk the line developer at a gaming convention (ironic). No charges were filed, and five years later, he’s contributed to multiple Fourth and Fifth Edition products such as Hazard Pay, Ten Mercs, Run and Gun, Street Grimoire, Rigger 5, and Battle of Manhattan. When not causing chaos in the Sixth World, he runs games at home and at conventions as a CDT Agent where he uses his professional knowledge against his players whenever possible.

Malik Toms has been writing and playing Shadowrun since before the age of Xbox. When not pondering the fate of the SINless, he teaches English and Creative Writing at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Malik currently resides in the sweltering pits of Arizona with his three kids and Pokemon-themed cat.

Monica Valentinelli writes stories, games, essays, and comics for media/tie-in properties and her original works from her studio in the Midwest. She co-designed the setting for Shadowrun: Court of Shadows, is the developer for Hunter: the Vigil Second Edition, and was the lead developer/writer for the Firefly RPG books based on the Firefly television show by Joss Whedon. Her new book, The Gorramn Shiniest Dictionary and Language Guide in the ’Verse, recently debuted from Titan Books. When she’s not obsessing about deadlines, she designs jewelry and dabbles in other artistic endeavors. For more about Monica, visit www.mlvwrites.com.

Author and editor Josh Vogt’s work covers fantasy, science fiction, horror, humor, pulp, and more. His debut fantasy novel, Pathfinder Tales: Forge of Ashes, was published alongside his urban fantasy series, The Cleaners, with Enter the Janitor and The Maids of Wrath. He’s an editor at Paizo, a Scribe Award and Compton Crook Award finalist, and a member of both SFWA and the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Find him at JRVogt.com or on Twitter @JRVogt.

CZ Wright is a freelance writer living in Wisconsin. She spends her time with her husband, kids, and too many pets, and may be found reading, writing, gaming, drinking too much coffee, and putting off learning guitar. Find her on Twitter or on The Arcology Podcast.

Russell Zimmerman doesn’t, apparently, have to write about elves every single time. While he cut his Sixth World teeth on Ancients and Tír-centric stuff like Elven Blood and went on to put together story after story about the elven PI Jimmy Kincaid (in hard-boiled yarns like Neat and Shaken, with more to come!), here the stars—or would that be cards?—aligned to make him only have a single elf in this whole story, and to make that lone, pointy-eared bastard a cowardly, weak villain to boot. Maybe he just lost a bet. That practically makes this a limited edition!

MORE SIXTH WORLD FICTION

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