Preying for Keeps

by Mel Odom

  “Has Tone done any wetwork for Carbone yet?”

  “No way to tell that, chummer.”

  “Could be interesting to ask.”

  “Could be interesting to see if you’re still standing when the question clears your lips.”

  “Do what you can.” Skater said. “I’ll be in touch.” He punched the telecom off, then pushed himself out of the seat, wondering who might have leaned on Carbone for Tone. There wasn’t a lot in the guy’s resume to make someone go to bat for him. Meaning he’d done something, or was going to do something, for someone who could.

  The sprawl turned on the cut of the deal, and there was always another one in the works.

  “Stinky-Fingered Al’s?” Duran said.

  “You listened in.”

  “Kind of hard not to. No offense.”

  "None taken.”

  The ork shifted. “I know the place. Want company when you go? It’s not really a joint where you want to go stag.”

  Skater looked at him. “I’d like that.”

  Duran nodded, then closed his eyes and relaxed again. “Just say when.”

  * * *

  In addition to the trip out of the Tir and various kinds of financial support, Lofwyr had also provided a suite of apartments near the Aztechnology complex that had its own private elevator so they could come and go pretty much as they pleased. Four vehicles were also at their disposal in the underground parking area. Skater had no doubt that whatever the dragon’s real scheme, the stakes were high. He wondered if he’d ever know what was going on, then hoped he wouldn’t. Too much knowledge could be deadly.

  The team arrived back in Seattle in the early afternoon. For the first day and a half, Skater had them all keep a low profile. They ordered take-out and charged it to the corporate account, and slept in shifts. Archangel set her own schedule, exhausting herself in the work of surreptitiously buying up the stocks through straw accounts as well as trying to find out who the other major players were. By the evening of the first day, she’d cut the list from six to four. On the morning of the second day after a round of heavy trading, she cut that list to three. But she still wasn’t able to put names to the buyers.

  Skater woke after each sleep, whether it was for his whole shift or a nap he’d managed, dripping wet from a cold sweat and in the throes of another nightmare about Larisa, and sometimes about the baby. After growing up on the Council lands, he’d never much liked being cooped up inside. Knowing the nightmares were just waiting for him to close his eyes didn’t make it any easier.

  When he stood trembling with the aftershocks of some nightmare and gazed out the bullet-and bomb-proof windows during the day or night, he could almost hear the streets calling out to him. It was where he needed to be, the battleground he was most familiar with.

  That afternoon, while Archangel was searching down names of players, Skater arranged an untraceable telecom call to four of the major trid media groups and talked with their investigative reporters regarding NuGene’s inability to make good on the stocks they were issuing.

  The story broke across the networks that afternoon and again that night. NuGene spokesmen, including Tavis Silverstaff, were unavailable for comment.

  At the end of the eleven o’clock news round-up, however, the society reporter for KOMA showed footage of Ariadne Silverstaff’s new daughter.

  Mother and infant were going home the following day, after staying in the hospital for routine observation. The delivery was easy, Ariadne Silverstaff was quoted as saying. The footage was short and to the point, taken in the private room where the two had stayed since birth. There were also a few seconds with Dr. Liam Reed, who said the pair were in the pink of health.

  The segment ended with a close-up of mother and child.

  "Is something wrong?” Archangel asked as she happened to come into the room.

  Skater had stopped dead in the middle of the living room, galvanized by the sight of the round-faced baby ogling the people around her. "No.” he said. But he was lying, because something was suddenly very wrong. What he’d seen in the face of that newborn infant was Larisa.

  During the trading the next morning, ReGEN stock rained down like confetti on the trading floors. The going price dropped by thirty-five percent at open, then continued falling another twenty-two percent before the close of the day. None of the new stock issued had moved at all. But Archangel and the three other buyers kept adding to their hoards, buying up from the people who were afraid of losing all their investment.

  At four o’clock. Skater found a message in one of his drops from a woman who claimed to be Larisa Hartsinger’s mother. She wanted to meet, to give him something Larisa had left for him.

  * * *

  The apartment was in the Tukwila neighborhood in the south downtown section of Seattle. It was a third-floor walkup at the back where plastitwine ran stitches back and forth between the adjacent buildings, and clothing was hung on them. Human and meta kids played together in the grass and weeds that sprang up through the cracked plascrete that had once been a courtyard. Graffiti, both the old spray-paint kind and the new neon tubing that was the latest in use, scarred the pitted walls, violence and degradation and pride all wrapped up in bright colors.

  Skater walked easily, dressed in street clothes and boots, the Predator tucked under his Kevlar jacket at the back. His heart was pounding in his chest when he reached the door of 305, but it wasn’t from the exertion of the climb. The doorbell had been broken, and only two wires stuck out. He rapped his knuckles on the scratched surface of the door.

  Archangel had checked the address out for him, finding that it was listed to Kalika Chilson, who was cross-referenced on both Larisa’s birth and death certificates. Skater didn’t think the message was a trap, but Elvis and Duran had ridden along as rearguard, maintaining a position in a van only a few blocks away.

  The door opened hesitantly. “Yeah?” a harsh female’s voice demanded.

  “I’m Skater.”

  “You alone?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman opened the door and stuck her face out suspiciously. She was short, thin, and frail, looking like a bleached mop that had been up-ended, given arms and legs, and shoved into a worn set of black synthleathers. She had on a white tee shirt that had gone sickly gray under the jacket, and the sagging breasts advertised that she wasn’t wearing underclothes. Her ears and features were elven.

  She didn’t invite Skater in, taking time to fire up a cigarette butt that sent her into a fit of coughing. She squinted up at him when it passed. “Larisa said there’d probably be some money in it for me.”

  “Depends on what you have.” Skater said.

  “A telecom message chip she said you’d want.”

  “Did she say what it was about?”

  “No.” A black circle ringed under her left eye, a bruise already past its prime.

  “Then why should I be so ready to pay you?” Skater asked.

  “You come, didn’t you?”

  Skater didn’t have a reply for that. “How much?”

  She shrugged, trying to play it off and let him make the offer. She obviously didn’t know what the message chip was worth. “Got my eye blacked over it.” she said. “Two guys come to my squat yesterday. Wanted to know if I’d been in touch with Larisa before she died. I lied. Told them no. They hit me, wanting to make sure I was telling the truth. But I’ve been hit before. I can take a pretty good beating if I have to. Anyway, them showing up here like that made me start thinking Larisa wasn’t lying when she said there’d be some profit in me calling you. At first, I was afraid it would only bring trouble. Since that had already got here, I figured I'd give you a call this morning.”

  Looking at the woman and listening to her, Skater wondered how Larisa could have even been in the same gene pool, much less the woman’s daughter.

  Evidently she thought he was still looking at her eye. “Larisa’s father could throw a good punch when he wanted to.” Kalika Chilson
lit another cigarette from the stub of the first, then hacked her way through another coughing fit. This time it ended with a gob of phlegm sailing over the side of the railing and splatting near a trio of troll boys who immediately started yelling profanities at the woman.

  “Who were the men who came here?" Skater asked. "Gutterkin.” she answered. “One of them had on a fancy suit and a new face, but the mark of the street was still there. Fragging pieces of drek is what they were.”

  “The name Synclair Tone mean anything to you?”

  “One was called Tone. The other one was Bobby. It was Tone who done the hitting. He liked it; you could see it in his eyes.”

  "What’s on the chip?” Skater asked.

  The thin shoulders rose and fell. “Don’t know. It’s password protected.” She smiled at him, showing gapped teeth. “I’ll admit, I ain’t no saint.” She licked her lips. “Think you want to spend five thousand nuyen to find out what’s on it?” Skater dug his hand into his pocket and took out one of the credsticks he had there. A brief glance showed him it was one with five thousand nuyen keyed on it. Lofwyr’s coffers ran deep. “It’s open-coded. Put your passcode and SIN in and you’re wiz.”

  She took the credstick hesitantly. “I don’t suppose I could ask for more?”

  “No.”

  Her gaze was belligerent. “And if I did?”

  “I’d book.” Skater replied. “Maybe you could find the two guys who showed up here before. Maybe I’d even call them and tell them you lied. It doesn’t sound like you’d get more than I’m offering.”

  Without another word, Kalika Chilson reached into an inner pocket of her jacket and retrieved the message chip. “Don’t suppose you’d want to see the things she left here.”

  “She hasn’t been here recently?”

  “No.”

  Skater shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He inserted the chip into the portacom he’d brought and powered up. Larisa formed on the display immediately.

  “Jack,” the message said, “if you get this, I guess it means—”

  Skater shut it off. Whatever Larisa had left for him was private. He meant for it to stay that way. “I thought you said it was password protected.”

  “It is.” the woman insisted. “You let it play a little longer, she’ll tell you that.”

  Skater nodded and said thanks. He held the portacom as he went down the steps, wondering if the message held all the secrets. Some, he felt certain, he’d already guessed.

  29

  “Jack, if you get this, I guess it means I’m not around to talk to anymore.” On the portacom screen, Larisa looked drawn and tired. She was wearing some kind of black outfit that looked good on her, and behind her was the living room of the Bellevue doss. Her figure hadn’t quite bounced back from the pregnancy, but Jack thought she looked better than anytime he’d known her. And she’d changed her hair, wearing it shorter and more daring than before. The corpse Skater had viewed in the Lone Star morgue hadn’t revealed that.

  The time/date stamp in the lower-right corner showed that the message had been recorded only three days before she’d died. “First off, I want to tell you I’m sorry about what happened with us. There were a lot of things I never got to say to you that I wanted to. We fought, and I wish I’d had the chance to set that straight, too.”

  Seated in the back of the van as Elvis drove it back to their hideout, Skater felt a stab of pain at seeing her face and hearing her voice. Duran sat in the passenger seat with the Scorpion canted across his knees.

  “I love you, Jack.” Larisa said. “I just wish there was more time to explain. Everything got so twisted up so fragging fast.” Tears glimmered in her eyes.

  Skater’s throat felt thick and tight, and he was uncomfortable knowing that Kalika Chilson had heard even this much of the recording. He rubbed his fingers lightly over the flat screen.

  “It’s hard to talk.” she went on. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to get emotional. I’m going to passcode the rest of this. One word. If you don’t know about it, then you don’t need to. Just remember that I love you.”

  The picture on the display faded out, leaving a password prompt blinking. Without hesitation, Skater hit the keypad control and converted the entry into letters instead of numerals, He punched in five letters. C—H—I—L—D.

  The prompt showed a reject flag.

  He tried again, this time thinking that Larisa would have ragged on him for being so impersonal. Four letters, this time. B—A—B—Y. A word with more promise, more joy.

  The prompt Hashed an accept.

  The screen cleared again. When it did, Larisa was visible once more, this time with another room of her apartment in the background. “Her name is Emma, Jack. It means ‘one who heals.’ I hope you like it.” Then she held up a baby in her arms.

  The round face and wispy dark hair and pointed ears reminded Skater of Larisa. It was like he’d seen the baby before, like he knew exactly what she would look like. Part of it, he knew, was because of the resemblance between mother and daughter. Then, his heart seemed to thud to a stop inside his chest. The tiny face he’d seen on the trid the night before flashed in his mind. Ariadne Silverstaff’s new baby. He peered closely at Emma and knew with cold certainty that the pictures had been of the same baby.

  “She’s your daughter.” Larisa said, and there were tears that went along with the smile on her face. She kissed the baby, then gently laid her in the crib. “And if you’re watching this, it means they’ve killed me and taken her.” The flat screen grayed out.

  “Oh frag.” Skater said, feeling like a hole had suddenly materialized in the center of his chest.

  * * *

  “This all started about a year ago.” Larisa went on, taking up the narrative after a brief pause. She no longer had the baby in her arms.

  Skater paced the floor of the suite of apartments while the others watched. He’d already seen it all in the van, but he wanted them to see it too.

  “A man named Ridge Maddock came to me.” Larisa said. “He said he had information about some shadow work you’d done. He told me if I didn’t cooperate, he’d give you up to the people still looking for you and that they’d kill you the minute they laid eyes on you.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t want that to happen, Jack.”

  Skater worked hard to keep his face devoid of emotion. A lot of anger was moving in him, as well as confusion. He had a daughter. That was something that was going to take a lot of getting used to. Until now he’d always been alone, responsible for no one other than himself. That had been one of his laws. No extensions of self to render him more vulnerable. Larisa was as close as he’d ever come.

  “He wanted me to have a child.” Larisa said. “They were going to artificially inseminate me. You know how I feel about that. Machines poking inside my body. I’m a dancer, and a good one without being chipped. I couldn’t handle that. So I went to a street mage I know, and he gave me a mojo that would prevent the embryo from taking. Sometimes they don’t take anyway, and the procedure has to be done again. Maybe more than once.”

  Unable to face the hurt in her eyes anymore, Skater turned away from the screen and looked out the window. Night was coming to the sprawl, and the lurkers were starting to come to life.

  “I used the mojo, but they agreed to wait another month and see if I’d gotten pregnant.” Larisa said. “I was going out of my mind trying to figure out what to do—I still had to come up with a baby. Maddock is connected to someone named Synclair Tone. The whole deal came from him. If he’d found out what I’d done, he’d have killed me for sure.” Slowly, Skater sipped his soykaf, hoping it would wash the bitter taste from his mouth. It wouldn’t cut the guilt. Larisa had been trapped and alone, and he hadn’t even noticed.

  “I could think of only one thing I could do.” she said. “They were practically mainlining fertility drugs into me by then, and so I just let nature take its course when you and I were together. When I went back a month later, I was p
regnant and they were satisfied. They never questioned whether it was the embryo they’d tried to plant in me. I thought maybe it would give us some time to work things out. Only you were never there to work things out with.” She paused. “Part of it is my fault, because I didn’t tell you. Spirits, with everything that had happened, I wouldn’t have known where to begin.”

  Skater’s fist clenched. Somewhere out there in the sprawl, Synclair Tone was enjoying himself, maybe making himself happy at someone else’s expense. Skater was a shadowrunner; he stole, sometimes he even killed, and he lived between the cracks of society, but he didn’t intentionally harm innocents. Most times he worked for one corp against another, and he hadn’t met an innocent corporation yet.

  And one thing he was sure of, Larisa had been one of those innocents. She wouldn’t have ended up dead if it hadn’t been for her association with him. He blamed himself as much as anyone.

  “For the first few months it was no problem seeing you.” Larisa said. “You were a ghost during that time, so it was easy for the other girls to cover for me when Maddock asked about it. He got pushy sometimes, and demanding, but it was easy to lie to him because I didn’t like him. And to tell the truth, I don’t think he cared what I did as long as I stayed pregnant.”

  As Skater listened, he dwindled down to the cold core of himself where he’d learned to live while with his grandfather.

  “But then, five months ago, everything changed. I was starting to show. He told me I had to stop seeing you and two months later, he moved me to a new apartment. He said I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to protect you. And even if I didn’t, then I was protecting myself now, too, because he had an investment in me.”

  Glancing at the display, Skater saw Larisa sitting on the big couch in the living room. He suddenly remembered he’d never seen it all in one piece. She had her hands fisted together and squeezed between her knees. It was a habit she had whenever she felt stressed or overwhelmed.

  "I realized that I was protecting more than that, then too. During the time I was pregnant, I started to feel the baby more and more.” She paused, as if trying to find the words. “I can’t explain, but it was like she was kicking and twisting and turning just to let me know she was there. It was the only way she had of getting my attention, of communicating with me. I knew she was ours. Mine. But I didn’t know how I was going to keep her. That became my whole purpose in life. And now that I’m gone, Jack, know for chiptruth that I didn’t give Emma to those drekkers. No matter what they say.”