by Mel Odom
Duncan threw himself forward, throwing his arms wide and taking down three of the gangers with him in a tangle of arms and legs. Is0bel barely held back from unloading a grenade into them and switched to her pistol.
I fired my assault rifle into the lead ganger’s face, watched it come apart, and followed his corpse into the mass of gangers as a handful of bullets peppered my armor and tore off a chunk of my right earlobe. Someone grabbed the AK-97’s barrel and I started to fire, but I wasn’t certain where Duncan was. Instead, I swung the assault rifle and buttstroked the guy in front of me in the head, then released the weapon and let my momentum carry me into them.
One of the guys bent low, grabbing his gut, and I thought maybe Is0bel had shot him or Gobbet had hit him with something. I threw myself forward, rolled across his back, and slid between two other gangers. Landing on my feet, I yanked my pistol out and turned back to the gangers, who were only then realizing I’d slipped behind them.
I brought the pistol up and fired rapidly. Warm blood flecked my face and got in my left eye, but I kept firing till the pistol ran dry. By that time I was shooting gangers on the ground, making sure they were down for good.
Battered and broken, the earth spirit roared and banged its fists against its chest in savage celebration.
To my surprise, Duncan echoed the sentiment, howling and thumping his chest as well. It was an old thing, something that harkened back to the days when men had lived in caves and gloried in bloody victory.
I felt it too, but before I could make up my mind whether to join them, someone shot me in the back. The armor held, but I felt the breath go out of me as I staggered.
A machine gun-equipped drone fired a volley of rounds into the earth spirit. No longer strong, the creature collapsed and fell, then vanished.
Duncan raised his pistol and for a minute it looked like he was about to shoot me.
An arm wrapped around my throat and someone screwed a pistol barrel into my bloody ear. Hot breath cascaded across the back of my neck.
“Put down your weapons!” Hwang roared. “Put them down, or I will shoot this dog just as I killed that elven thief!”
Too late, I remembered the hand he’d put on my shoulder. I’d been right. He’d tagged me with a tracker and had his drone keep an eye on me during the battle.
Two other Seoulpa gangers joined Hwang, standing to one side as they covered my team.
“Duncan.” I subvocalized over the commlink so Hwang couldn’t hear me. “Take out the drone.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Maybe, but even if you get him, that drone will take out me or one of you. It has to go.”
Duncan’s face hardened beneath the splotched blood coating it. “Copy that.”
“Gobbet, Is0bel, that leaves these other two for you.”
“I want the goods!” Hwang bellowed, and spit coated my neck.
Before they could reply, I reared my head back, turned to my left as I brought my left arm up into Hwang’s forearm. The gun fired, and the bullet burned across my cheek. I kept turning, throwing my weight into it, and fired my left elbow back into Hwang’s face, smashing his cyber eye and driving shards into his head.
The drone blew into pieces a few meters away as Gobbet and Is0bel opened fire. I chopped my pistol into Hwang’s right wrist, breaking it and knocking his weapon away before he could fire again. Still in motion, I spun and shoved my pistol into the center of his face and fired until he went down and the pistol blew back empty.
Nobody moved for a moment. I looked around at my team. We were all still standing.
Then, blood leaking from under the armor at her waist, Is0bel fell.
Chapter 67
“Be Prepared to Shoot Your Way In.”
At Is0bel’s side, I tore away her armor and shirt and saw where a bullet had pierced through her side. Blood ran steady, not in bursts, letting me know no arteries had been hit.
“Let me tend to her,” Gobbet said as she knelt beside her friend. Her rat companions stood on her shoulders and chittered anxiously.
I backed off and pulled up my AK-97, watching one end of the alley while Duncan watched the other. When I glanced down at Is0bel, Gobbet was pressing her hands to the wound and shimmering energy turned her flesh blue.
“I’m not gifted enough to completely heal her,” Gobbet said. “We’ll have to get her to a doctor. Kindly Cheng will have someone who can take care of that. We just have to get her back to the Bolthole.”
“Roger that,” Duncan said. “Prep her and I’ll carry her.”
Gobbet reached into her medkit and took out slap patches loaded with coagulants and pain blockers. After a moment, Is0bel’s eyes rolled back up in her head and she relaxed.
“Ready.” Gobbet gathered her things and stood.
Duncan slung his shotgun, then carefully picked the dwarf up. She looked incredibly small in his big arms, like a child.
“Let’s go,” he growled.
I took the lead and we went.
Kindly Cheng wasn’t happy about getting a doc for Is0bel. In fact, she wasn’t happy about a lot of things. I sat in the Bolthole’s main room, along with Duncan and Racter, and listened to her rant. Gaichu sat in a corner by himself, munching on something from a takeout container that I was certain wasn’t found on any restaurant menu.
Gobbet was with the doc and Is0bel in their cabin.
“I don’t know how to describe this job other than by calling it a complete clusterfuck,” Kindly Cheng stated.
“Either way it went down,” I said, “we—you—weren’t getting paid. Both of those guys meant to double-cross us on some level.” I didn’t tell her that the idea of turning over what we’d found sickened me.
She drummed her lacquered nails on a tabletop, took a hit off her cigar, and softened a little. Maybe she recognized the hard spot we’d been in, maybe she was glad Is0bel hadn’t died.
Finally, she said, “You did the right thing, killing both Tigath and Hwang. I don’t appreciate worms who try to stiff me, and I sure as shit don’t like the Seoulpa rings.”
I didn’t say anything, simply because I figured that was safest.
“I’ve attached payment,” Kindly Cheng continued. “Nobody paid me, but I’m sure I can sell the data and samples you brought back. Consider this your eventual cut of that sale.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that I’d erased part of the data and contaminated the tissue samples. If someone resurrected the Omega Sequence project, it wasn’t going to be through anything I’d given them.
“Let’s discuss new business,” Kindly Cheng suggested.
Of course. Duncan growled a curse.
Unruffled, Kindly Cheng went on. “Little birds have been whispering in my ear about an urgent and high-paying run. Steel Arm Lu, a Red Pole, managed to get his hands on information concerning a prototype laser weapon in development by Ares Asia Holdings.”
AAH was a division of Ares Macrotechnology. Headquartered in Detroit, the megacorp was heavily invested in security and weapons development. They also ran Knight Errant, one of the largest security providers in the world.
“For years,” Kindly Cheng continued, “the Yellow Lotus and the Red Dragon have been locked in a cold war. Despite this, we remain evenly matched. Neither one can attack the other without being exposed to devastating reprisals.”
So this was a run on a personal level.
“Lu wants to change this, and he has a plan. Rather than strike directly, he intends to aim external forces at the Red Dragon. Specifically, Knight Errant. He intends to frame a White Paper Fan named Golden Fong, making it appear that the Red Dragons have been bribing Ares researchers for classified data. Two leading drone and energy weapons researchers have recently transferred from London to Hong Kong, and are running the laser project.”
Received files began stacking up on my commlink.
“Doctors Taylor and Hardingham were respected in Europe,” Kindly Cheng said, “but in Hong Kong, they remai
n unknown quantities. They’re untrusted, and therefore are considered untrustworthy— in other words, perfect targets.” She lit a fresh cigar. “We will provide data that will make it look as if the researchers were contacted by Golden Fong and made quite a bit of money, but grew tired of the arrangement.”
Already I didn’t like the way this job was shaping up.
“Transfer the attached files to a datachip,” Kindly Cheng said. “They are bundled with a worm program that will auto-execute when inserted into the appropriate systems.” She grimaced. “Is0bel’s wounds will sideline her for a time, but you should be able to accomplish this easily enough.”
I hoped that was true.
“You will need to plant data in the visitor records system and the camera systems in Hardingham and Taylor’s lab,” Kindly Cheng said. “Financial data is to be transferred to Doctor Taylor’s personal terminal. That in and of itself will not be enough to ensure Knight Errant’s involvement, however. Planting the data is only the first part of your task. The next part is where a heavier touch will be required.”
I swapped concerned looks with Duncan; we both knew things were going to get bloody on this one.
“You will also need to steal the prototype laser weapon. There is a GPS tracking device attached to it, which Lu will plant deep in Red Dragon territory. The apparent theft of a prototype weapon by a disgruntled triad member should convince Ares to dispatch overwhelming force against the Red Dragons, dealing them a vicious blow. As a note, Lu does not care what becomes of the laser weapon, if you wish to sell it or keep it, feel free.”
“Hell yeah,” Duncan said. “We’re the ones taking the risk.”
Racter leaned forward, forgetting about his cigarette dangling between his lips for a moment. I wondered about his sudden interest.
“I have also attached a map of your extraction route from the building,” Kindly Cheng told us as more files landed in my comm. “During the facility’s expansion in 2052, Ares Asia was forced to extend their foundations deeper into the island. They drove piles through the former site of the Central MTR station, which partially collapsed during the Dalu Bay earthquake of 2044.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound dangerous at all,” Duncan groused.
Kindly Cheng ignored him. “Practically, this means that you can exit through the basement, directly onto the MTR line through Central. With any luck, you can be gone without anyone knowing how. Unfortunately, this route is heavily alarmed, so you will be forced to go in the front door. If you can con the front desk, you should have no problems—the facility is both an office and a residence, so strange people coming and going at odds hours is not unusual.” She paused. “If you’re not up to fast talking, however, be prepared to shoot your way in.”
That was not going to be the way we got in. There had to be another way.
“Lu does not care if you are loud or quiet,” Kindly Cheng said. “But a word of caution: he came by all this information via the loose lips of one of the research team. Other fixers know of this job. Move fast, and you are guaranteed success—but there are definitely other shadowrunners with an eye on your prize.”
“Great,” Duncan said. “Competition is just what this run needs.”
“Just be better than those other people, my sweets,” Kindly Cheng told us. “Now, may I tell Lu that you will take this job?”
When she asked in that tone of voice—or any tone, actually—I knew we couldn’t refuse.
Chapter 68
Droning On
“My friend, there is something that I would like to discuss with you.”
Glancing up from my battle kit, I saw Racter standing in my cabin doorway. I’d been wondering if he was going to come clean about his interest in the latest run. “Say your piece.”
“Thank you.” Racter stepped into my cabin. “There are men—former colleagues of mine—at that Ares facility. I tracked them here from Russia.” His voice was cold and hard as Siberian permafrost. “They are thieves. They stole my research. Tracking them is the reason why I moved to Hong Kong in the first place. I want—no, I need—you to bring me along on this job.”
“With Is0bel off the grid for the moment,” I said, “we can use you on this. Especially with all of the computer work ahead of us.”
Racter smiled. “Thank you, my friend. You will not regret this decision, I guarantee it.”
I hoped not. I nodded, and he left. I went back to packing everything I thought we’d need. Getting a lot of weapons through security wasn’t going to be possible, so we had to go in light, and take what we needed along the way.
We arrived in central Hong Kong at midnight. Even though the Ares corp worked 24/7, I’d figured fewer employees would be on the clock at that time. I hoped to lower the odds and lessen the amount of collateral damage. Maybe Steel Arm Lu didn’t care about the people there, but I saw no reason for innocent wageslaves to die.
The building stood like a towering icon of greed among others just like it. Neon glared out over all the exteriors, advertising each corp’s wares. Skybridges connected them to each other, creating a spider’s web of transportation several floors above the streets.
We went up to the fifth floor without any problems, and ended up in a gleaming reception room. Ares ads covered the walls and vids juiced the built-in screens. An antiseptic odor burned my nostrils.
“We’re looking for a lab between floors fifteen and forty,” Racter said in a soft voice. His drone stood poised beside him, tethered to its master through a cyberlink. Koschei blinked and twittered like some kind of giant insect. “Everything below fifteen is shopping and recreation, and the residential area spans forty-one to ninety-two.”
He’d cased the building earlier, and added his intel to the information Kindly Cheng had sent. Duncan had hit up a contact he’d made at Club 88, a street sam who called himself El Duce, and got the same info.
“The auto-repair circuits should be up there as well,” Racter went on. “I know Taylor and Hardingham. They’ll keep it close to the main lab so they can work on the project in their off-hours, and they’ll need specialized testing equipment—things you can’t fit in an apartment, even a big one.”
“So everything we’re looking for will be near the main lab?” Duncan asked.
“Yes.” Racter nodded. “Once we plant the altered visitor record data, we can find the lab’s precise location. From there, everything we need should be nearby.”
We stepped up to the reception area, where a young man in a crisp shirt and tie looked us over. He didn’t appear to be impressed, and his hand dropped below the desk.
“Welcome to Ares Macrotechnology,” he greeted with a false smile. “May I help you?”
“I am Doctor Racter.” The gravitas in the Russian rigger’s voice surprised me. “I am a former employee of Grishin-Aviakor. I was the director of drone development for over ten years, and the drone you see,” he waved to Koschei, “is part of my latest project.”
The receptionist checked the screen on his PDA. “You aren’t on the guest list.”
Racter’s voice rose, filled with self-importance. “It’s a fully autonomous quadrupedal defense and attack drone with integrated fire direction data management, adaptive autosoft parsing, and modular weapons integration. This drone re-defines bleeding edge. What’s more, it has an adaptive experience registry subprogram—to wit, it learns!”
For a moment, when the receptionist just blinked at Racter, I thought he’d overplayed his hand.
“Oh, I see.” The receptionist opened up a window on his PDA. “What should I put down on the arrival sheet?”
“Put down that I am here to make a sales pitch,” Racter said. “If there is any company in this world with an interest in cutting edge combat drones, it should be Ares Macrotechnology. I have a full report on field and stress tests, part time-to-failure, and combat efficacy.” He pursed his lips. “And I do not like being delayed.”
“Very well.” The receptionist finished a final note and
handed us visitor identification tags. “Please stay on this floor until your escort from the drone research division arrives.”
We walked to a nearby corner, and I felt like everything was slowly and steadily sliding out of control. “Are you ready to deal with an escort?” I asked Racter.
“Of course not. I just wanted visitor badges.” Racter looked around. “Perhaps I could arrange for some downtime regarding security measures.”
I disliked that idea as well, but the only other choice was to scrub the mission.
“Come,” Racter said imperiously. “I know what needs to be done.”
We followed him into a nearby bathroom.
“Secure the door,” Racter ordered as he reached under his jacket and took out a multi-tool.
Duncan stuck a big boot in front of the door and leaned on it. Gobbet stood near him, looking as tense as I felt.
Ignoring us, Racter removed the duct cover on the wall and commanded Koschei into the ventilation shaft. “This connects to the room where the elevator controls and some of the security measures are. Once Koschei has disabled the security card readers, no one will know where we are, and the badges don’t reveal that information to the naked eye. We’ll have to walk up, but no one will stop us.”
Koschei scuttled out of sight.
“You’re sure about that, Doc?” Gobbet asked.
“Quite.” Racter smiled. “Now give me a moment.”
I had to give it to the guy. Koschei didn’t make a sound and was quick, returning within a few minutes.
“All right,” Racter said as he replaced the vent cover. “It’s done. We now have access to the upper floors.”
An escort hadn’t arrived, so apparently Racter wasn’t very high on their to-do list. However, we had the badges, and I had to trust that the security measures had been altered—we didn’t have much choice.
