Into the Shadows

by Jordan Weisman

  The Hunters would have pursued Thorn anyway. They would hardly want to leave behind someone who could identify them to Prince. But Thorn'll taken two of the gang's members down when he broke out of the ambush. That made it personal.

  I should never have agreed to meet out here. I'm running blind. I don't even know the lay of the—DAMN!

  The link fence seemed to appear out of nowhere. Thorn barrelled into it without even a chance to slow down. The rusty metal tore at him as he bounced a good two meters backward, ass-over-elbows into a rank of overflowing garbage cans. The noise was horrendous and the smell defied description. The squeals of the Hunters rose to the limits of audibility as they charged into the alley.

  Thorn struggled to his knees. What . . . this is it? Snuffed by a bunch of do-it-yourself mutants in an alley full of drek? He pawed under his jacket for his gun, but a heavy boot swung out of the night and knocked the half-drawn weapon away. Thorn rolled aside from a follow-up stomp to the ribs, feeling the familiar rush as his speeded-up reflexes went into overdrive. He came up into a low crouch and whirled, one hand clamping against the kicking leg’s ankle, the other bringing pressure against the side of the knee, obtaining the nikyo hold. He twisted, bringing his weight to bear, grinning savagely as he heard the knee snap. The Hunter dropped in shrill agony. The others stopped their headlong charge Thorn felt the sweat break out icy-cold as his night-sight caught the subdued metallic gleams of various implements of destruction. With the immediate threat of gunplay cancelled out, the Night Hunters could finish Thorn their way, at their leisure. Speed alone wasn’t going to be enough. He was one dead elf.

  Thorn contemplated the crowd of Hunters, now edging forward and spreading out to encircle him. He ruthlessly rammed down the panic gibbering in the back of his mind and sought the tranquility that Nitobe-sensei had tried to teach him years ago. The worrier is fulfilled only when he resolutely accepts death, the old man had said. A random glint of light flashed up the blade of a knife as death came closer.

  "Frag that samurai drek," he snarled, and snapped a side kick into the nearest groin. A pair of Hunters charged from either side. Thorn took sudori, "vanishing" as he ducked low and knee-walked out of their way. They collided with a thud, and one of them yelped as his partner's extended spurs rammed into him. A flailing chain sideswiped Thorn’s head, dazing him as it tore a gash in his scalp. He muffed an avoidance, and a club slammed into him.

  Dropping one arm to pin the weapon against his side, he ran his free hand up the wood until he touched flesh. Thorn pinned the club-wielder’s hand under his own and turned his hips, breaking the attacker’s grip on the weapon and snapping his pinky as a fringe benefit. The goon screeched and tried to pull away. Thorn reversed the club and drove it into the former owner’s throat, then dropped the weapon as a boot took him in the kidneys. He tried to roll away from the impact and ended up taking a hard belly flop onto the greasy concrete of the alley as his legs were swept out from under him. He screamed as a knife slashed a line of pain down his arm and his mind yammered at him. Get up, get up, get the hell UP! The gang closed in for the kill, kicking and slashing.

  A Hunter in the back ranks leaped clear over his companions’ heads, apparently driven by sheer bloodlust. Bloodlust, it seemed, spoiled one’s aim, for the attacker also sailed over Thorn and hit the wall of the alley with a resounding splat. An improbably large fist reached through the press and slammed down onto the head of a Hunter who was about to knife Thorn.

  Ripping thunder echoed through the narrow confines of the alley as a burst of autofire blasted a howling ganger back into the fence. The muzzle flashes blinded Thorn, and judging by the pitch of their shrieks, didn't do the Hunters a whole lot of good, either.

  A hoarse baritone cut through the din. "S’right, chummers, funtime’s over. Y'can jog on outta here, or wait for the body bags in the mornin'. I ain't choosy."

  The Night Hunters were notable for several things, but stupidity wasn’t one of them. They split. Thorn blinked up through the blood that dribbled down into his eyes from the tear in his scalp. A heavily muscled figure cradling an assault carbine loomed over him. "You Thorn?"

  "Yuh-yeah," mumbled the elf. "Who the frag’re you?"

  "We’re just lucky, I guess." came the answer. "I didn’t figure we'd find you this quick, only some guy said you’d prob'ly be hangin' out with some Night Hunters. Didn’t quite figure he meant this, but what the heck."

  Thorn puzzled over this one for easily two seconds before deciding the hell with it and passing out.

  * * *

  "Melegit samriel qua?"

  It was a voice out of dream: soft, husky music, the humming of bees in a summer field.

  "Thorn! Melegit samriel qua?"

  Floating in darkness, soft hands roving up and down his chest, that lovely voice murmuring in Sperethiel, the tongue of the elves. The last I remember, I was bleeding all over a stinking alley. So I'm either hallucinating, or I’m dead and the preachers had it straight, and there IS a heaven.

  "Serulos makkanagee! Thom, verespo? Melelgit samriel qua, versoniel!?

  Nah, that can't be it. If the preachers have it straight, I don't make the cut to get into heaven. And besides, why would an angel call me such names in Elvish? OUCH! what the frag was THAT!

  Thorn sat bolt upright, cursing. Clattering noises accompanied the movement, as pieces of medical gear went flying. The damp cloth that had been over his eyes dropped away. He was on a gelfoam mattress, stark naked, covered with skinpatches and bleeding cuts, and staring at a woman who was a knockout even as elves went (and elven women go rather far in that direction).

  She was wearing a thoroughly irritated expression, and one long-fingered hand held a surgical stapler. "Versoniel-ha! Carronasto tel ego morkhan ..."

  "Hex! Hey, gorgeous, hold on second. Easy with the Speech, O.K.? Uh, ni hengar Sperethiel, savvy? I don't speak Elvish."

  She bit off a convoluted observation on the sexual habits of his grandparents and a faint flush of rose colored her ivory cheeks. "I . . , I, ah, was trying to keep you relaxed, and I thought hearing Speech when you came to would, uh, would, aaah, fraggit! You must think I’m the versoniel around here."

  Thorn grinned. "Well. I’ll grant you I’ve picked up a word here and there, and that’s a useful one to know in any language. You’re a medico?"

  She smiled back. "Maybe not on paper, but I’m what you’ve got. Thorn. You can call me Iris. Now, why don’t you lie back down and let me finish gluing you together?"

  He glanced at the stapler in her hand, and his smile started to slip. "No, I’ll take a pass on that."

  "Thorn, don’t be stupid. You were cut up pretty bad, and you wouldn't believe some of the crud that was in your wounds. I had to cut a lot of it out, and I haven’t finished closing the incisions."

  Thorn’s hand flicked out, knocking the stapler spinning away. "Look, I said NO, dammit! Just fraggin’ keep off with your damn knives and needles, awright?"

  A voice from behind him interrupted Thorn’s rising tirade. "Trouble wit' dis guy, Iris?" It was a hoarse, high-pitched, almost childish sound, reverberating like falsetto thunder in a barrel. Thorn twisted around against the clinging softness of the gelfoam, and saw the biggest damn troll he’d ever come across stooping down to look through the door.

  "C’mon, pal, let da lady finish up wit’ ya. We din’t haui ya outta that fracas just ta have’ya bleed to death on us, right?"

  Thorn’s boggled mind was still trying to come up with an answer when he felt a butterfly-light touch on his back. Waves of warm relaxation radiated from the drug-patch that the woman had slipped onto him. His muscles turned to warm butter, and overbalanced, he would have fallen out of bed if the troll hadn’t reached out a massive hand to steady him.

  The troll got Thorn back onto the mattress, while Iris picked up her scattered equipment. "O.K., Thorn, watch the ceiling and think happy thoughts. I just hit you up with enough beta-endorphin and what-me-worry to make a mouse fe
el good at a cat convention. Believe it or not. you’re among friends."

  Thorn felt the panic drown in a warm cocoon. He sighed as he sank back into the gelfoam, feeling Iris’s feather-light touch on his body. "I think this is where I came in," he murmured. "Say, what does ‘melegit samriel qua’ mean, anyway?"

  Iris giggled as she ran the stapler along a shallow cut on Thorn’s arm. "Um, the closest translation would be, 'Can you feel anything when I do this?’ "

  * * *

  A few hours later, stitched up, cleaned off, and wearing a short kimono covered with HiLite patches advertising Kirin beer. Thorn was sitting up in bed, cussing out his rescuers. Iris sat cross-legged on a throw pillow in one corner. The troll, who bore the improbable name of Smedley, was hunkered down next to her. leaning his huge bulk against the wall. A heavily muscled human, wearing an enormous revolver on one hip, stood in the doorway. Thorn hadn't caught his name, if indeed, he had offered one.

  At the foot of the bed, seated in a comfortable-looking armchair, sat a middle-aged man in conservative business clothes—conservative, that is, if you overlooked the gaudy jewelry, bundles of feathers and bones, and pouches covered with embroidered symbols that clustered here and there about his person. He studied Thorn through a glittering monocle, as the elf yelled at him.

  "Tell me something, Fortescue, are you people out of your fraggin’ minds?"

  Nathaniel Edward Fortescue, B.A., Harvard, ’32, Th.D., Cambridge, ’39, crossed one elegantly tailored trouser leg over the other and leaned forward in his chair. His hands rested on the polished crystal knob that topped a gnarled walking stick. "I assure you, Mr. Thorn, we are quite sane."

  "Oh yeah, that’s obvious. You guys just want to raid a corporate facility where the security people are already foaming at the mouth because you loused up your first shot at them. They’re gonna have everything but tactical nukes and a SWAT team of Dragons waiting for anyone who frags with them now. Gee, if I think a peachy setup like that sucks oozing drek, I must be too far gone to deal with reality!"

  "Please, Mr. Thorn," the other murmured in pained tones. "Do not lay that initial debacle at our doorstep. I will grant you that certain late agents of our employer lost the element of surprise by their ill-considered actions in this matter. However, if I may review the conditions under which we presently labor, I think you will see why we require your services." Thorn glared for a moment, then turned to Iris. "Does he talk this way all the time?"

  Before she could reply, the man with the cane raised one hand. A ghostly nimbus of light played around his fingers. With a murmured phrase, he pressed the flat of his hand toward Thorn. The elf found himself being forced back against the gelfoam mattress, pinned by a tremendous weight, unable to move. He opened his mouth to curse, and could only produce a strangled wheeze.

  Iris jumped up and ran to the bed. "Dammit, Neddy, I just finished putting this guy back together. If you mess up my work. I’ll take that fancy cane and . . ."

  "Please, my dear," protested the wizard, with a pained expression. He did not rejoice in the nickname of "Neddy."

  "I merely wished to finish presenting our case to Mr. Thorn without any further interruptions. I would hardly do any serious harm to a specialist possessing the qualities we require to fulfill our contract." He turned to Thorn. "Do I have your attention, Mr. Thorn?"

  Thorn managed to nod. "Excellent." The dapper magician flicked his hand, and the elf gasped as the crushing weight evaporated. "Ca . . . can the ‘mister’ drek," he panted. "It’s Thorn. Just Thorn. O.K.?" Halfhearted defiance was about all he could muster at the moment.

  "Indeed. Well, ah, Thorn, we require an expert in, shall we say, physical security penetration. A burglar, in other words." The dapper mage grinned suddenly. "I realize that when a wizard looks for a burglar, he’s supposed to hire a hobbit. Unfortunately, there are none available."

  Thorn and the troll protested simultaneously at dragging Tolkien into the discussion. The 20th-century fantasist was not well-regarded by many metahumans. After the first wave of Goblinization in 2021, the stereotypes created in Lord of the Rings had been used to whip up public distrust of the new races, especially the orks and trolls. A lot of elves also objected to the "airy fairy" image that the old talespinner had pinned on them.

  "So tell me, Fortescue, haven’t you got any decent talent to choose from hereabouts?" Thorn demanded.

  "Seattle does, indeed, have a fine selection, but as you have noted, the guardians of our objective are a trifle upset, and we must assume that the local experts are being watched. On the other hand, you, Thorn, are a recent arrival from the capital of our great republic, and while your reputation in DeeCee is notable, your presence here is not yet common knowledge. Your departure from your home ground was rather covert, after all. I believe it involved certain transactions that had attracted the scrutiny of the Federal authorities, not so?"

  Thorn gaped at the mage. "How did you . . .?"

  Fortescue smiled. "Please, Thorn. One does not name sources, as you are well aware. In any case, we had hoped that you would not be under surveillance. While we were concerned that your involvement with the Night Hunters might indicate that you were compromised, that appears to have been a private matter."

  "That’s just wizard! So I’m going to make my public debut here in Seattle by getting my ass shot off on your little run?" muttered the elf.

  The other continued as if Thorn had not spoken. "Your fee for this operation will be 10.000 nuyen. plus any reasonable expenses. That is enough to take care of certain financial embarrassments that presently face you, according to my sources, with a tidy bit left over." Thorn started a profane reply. "I would also point out," Fortescue interrupted, "that the Night Hunters have long memories. To be blunt, if you don’t accept our offer, we can kick your sorry butt back onto the street and let them finish what they started."

  Thorn stared at the magician, his mouth still open. Then. "Drek! You drive a hard bargain, Neddy." He smiled as the name drew a wince from the mage. "O.K. chummers, you got yourselves a deal. But let’s get two things straight, up front. First, if you want me in, then I call the shots. If you need my help, then it means I know more about this kind of deal than you do. Second, if this mess starts to hose up the way the last one did, you won’t see me for dust, savvy?" Fortescue smiled. "My dear Thorn, if this operation goes the way of its unfortunate predecessors, dust will be our common destination."

  "Say what?"

  "As in dust to dust, my lad, or more properly, ashes to ashes. You see, our target is a research laboratory belonging to United Oil."

  As Fortescue had said. Thorn was not a Seattle resident. So it took him a moment to realize what the wizard was driving at, where a local would have known at once. "United . . . holy crud. Fortescue, aren’t they the corp with a Dragon running security!?"

  "Exactly, Thorn. If we should err seriously in executing this commission, we'll be dead so fast, we won’t know what hit us."

  * * *

  Orderly. Everything neatly in place. A cluster of buildings lit by sodium arcs, standing behind the diamond grid of a chain-link fence. Inside, the structures sat like drab building blocks on a table top. The ground was flat. Some giant hand had smoothed the earth here, leveled it, and smeared plasticrete over it in a shiny, sterile film. Bonsai your planet, Thorn thought. A corporate idea of heaven.

  Thorn had had two days of it, studying maps, holos, schedules, and rumors while he finished healing up under Iris’s meticulous care. He was beginning to enjoy the tingling rush of biz as he played with different plans for getting in, getting the goods, getting out.

  Ms. Johnson had come through in style. She’d delivered a composite holomodel of the place, computer-enhanced to fifty-meter resolution. You could even use a magnifying glass on it. Only the most minimal details were lost. Of course, those were the ones that could blow you away.

  "First problem, class," Thorn said. "There’s a four-meter high fence surrounding the whole co
mplex, with sensor boxes every ten meters or so around the perimeter. They look like standard Ares Security pressure-and-movement detectors, but you never know what else might be wired in. If you look at the top of the fence, you’ll see cerametal supports, but no visible concertina wire or other barrier. Anyone have an idea what that means?"

  Nameless, the street fighter who, with Smedley, had bailed Thorn out of the alley, walked over to the holo projection and poked a thick finger through the image of the fence. "Monofilament . . . two, mebbe three strands, guessin' by the way they got the supports rigged."

  "Gold star on your term paper, chummer. Now the fence’s tough enough, but once we get inside, things get really interesting. There're pickup domes scattered around on the plasticrete they smeared over the grounds. They could hold anything: motion sensors. IR pickups, radar, God knows what. We gotta play tag with those."

  "Why not the main entrance. Thorn?" Iris asked. "Neddy can spin illusions or compulsions to get the guards to pass us through."

  Thorn shook his head. "Not this place, dear lady. United Oil maintains a staff of wagemages on site. Magical checks on incoming personnel, random mind probes, the whole bit. Any heavy magic is out. They’d pick it up and be all over us like flies on drek. I’ve got an angle on beating the perimeter defenses, but I want to go over it with you before I lay it out. Let’s look at the next stop on the itinerary.

  "The main research building, twelve stories high, almost a block long, bang in the center of the enclosure. The facility mainframe is on the eighth floor. They use a personal I.D. transponder system to track people through the building. Motion detectors on every floor are linked in to pickups that read a signal from an employee’s badge. Every badge gives off a unique signature. If you show up in an area for which you have no clearance, alarms go off. If the system picks up someone who’s not wearing a badge, lots of alarms go off.