Preying for Keeps

by Mel Odom

  Quickly and efficiently, the team started making their preparations. Everyone knew the waiting was over and the countdown had begun.

  * * *

  Three hours later, Skater stood in the doorway of the room where Emma lay sleeping, quietly watching the child. Her features were so much like Larisa’s it hurt. Her hair was black, like his, and so fine he could see through it, but her doe-shaped eyes were Larisa’s. She slept on her back, one pink-fingered hand knuckled up to her mouth. Her pointed ears looked longer than most elves’ and were plastered against her head, running toward the crown. Elvis had fed and changed her only minutes ago, then dressed her in the yellow sleeper she wore now.

  She looked so small, so frail and vulnerable on the big bed.

  And Jack Skater was more afraid of her than anything he’d ever faced.

  “Is she sleeping?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Archangel. “Yeah.” Archangel joined him in the doorway. “She’s a pretty child, Jack.”

  “I thought I was just prejudiced.”

  Archangel smiled. “No.”

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  “Tonight?” Skater asked. “Elvis has arranged for some troll chummers to take care of her. They’ll stay here. No one has a fix on this doss yet. If we make it through the meet with Silverstaff and McKenzie, we should be okay.”

  “I knew about that.” Archangel said. “I meant what are you going to do with her once this is all over?”

  “You must be feeling awfully optimistic.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  Skater looked at the sleeping baby. “Larisa asked me to take care of her. No one’s ever asked me to take care of anyone. And I’ve never asked anyone to take care of me.”

  Archangel looked at him quietly, and he could feel her eyes on him. But he didn’t know what she was thinking.

  “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Guilt’s not a reason to take something on.” Archangel said. “Feeling responsible is a somewhat stronger reason, but it’s still not one that’s going to help you through the hard times. And there will be hard times.”

  He nodded. “It’s going to take some time to sort all this out. I wasn’t expecting any of it.”

  “Whatever it is.” she said. “You’ll make the right decision.”

  “If everything comes off the way we’ve planned tonight,” Skater said, “Ariadne and Silverstaff should get out of this in one piece. I could leave her with them. They’ve got more to offer her than I do.”

  “Do they?” Archangel reached out and laid cool fingers on his cheek, turning his head to face her. “Do they really?”

  “He’s the head of a corporation. They’re a couple. They wanted a baby. They don’t live in the shadows with each heartbeat dependent on how quick your next move is or whether or not you can smell a setup. Are you forgetting I’m the frag-up who got us into this jam in the first place?”

  “No, I'm not forgetting. But you had no way of knowing how it would turn out.”

  Skater gave a shrug of hopelessness. “I’m just trying to survive.”

  “That’s the first and biggest adjustment anybody has to make. You’ve got that edge, Jack. Something inside you wants to live so fiercely that you’ve got the strength to do it. That’s only one of the things I admire about you. Not all of us have that edge.”

  Skater didn’t know what to say when he saw the unshed tears glimmer in her eyes.

  “You’re a builder.” she said. “Your survival instinct is only part of that. Whatever you need, whatever Emma needs, you’ll find a way to get it. You haven’t lived outside your own skin because you haven’t had to. But that child in there, she has the power to make you live from the best of yourself.”

  “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

  “I am right.” Archangel turned away and crossed her arms over her breasts, bringing the icy cool back to herself. The tears went away, still unshed. “As for the Silverstaffs, NuGene is no longer his. They’re a couple, for now, but the secrets they’re going to have to carry around, even if we’re successful tonight, may be more than they can handle, no matter how much they love each other. And even though they say they wanted a baby, they never had the guts to do it on their own. A child would have been another secret they’d have had to protect; not a baby. And the shadows? The shadows can reach out and take anyone down at any time. You know that.”

  Skater turned her words over in his mind, his gaze fixed on Emma. There was a lot to think about. When he turned to Archangel once more, she was already gone.

  Ariadne had been asked to return to her room and stay there while they finished gearing up for the run. Not once had she asked to see the baby. Skater thought about that and it hurt. He remembered the little boy who’d been left in the Council lands, waving goodbye to his own mother, abandoned to strangers. The memory brought a tightness to his chest that was overwhelming, but he knew he couldn’t leave this baby. He felt the ties that bound them. What he didn’t know was if giving in to those feelings was going to be good for her.

  He crossed the room and sat down on the side of the bed, careful not to wake her. He ran a finger along her arm, watching how her soft skin pinked up at his touch. He stopped at her hand, marveling at how small it was up against his finger.

  “How about you?” he whispered. “Do you think I can pull this off, too?”

  Her hand came open for an instant, then curled tightly around his finger when he froze, trying to stay still and not wake her. She hung on to him tight.

  And he let her.

  * * *

  Kestrel’s call came in an hour later, just before eight. It was brief and to the point. “Hidalgo Republic Trading Company is a front for the Seattle Mafia to move contraband around. But Conrad McKenzie pulls the strings.”

  Skater thanked the fixer and hung up. Elvis, Wheeler, and Duran were already hours gone, taking care of the setups they needed at the meeting site. After he told Archangel and Trey what he’d just learned, he called the others over the commlink, letting them know the op was green.

  By ten, Archangel had finished with her part of the mission and presented Skater with an ebony credstick.

  “It activates with a cellular scan that registers your DNA.” she said.

  “Silverstaff has it too?”

  “Along with your passcode.”

  Skater took the slender rod and slipped it into his shirt pocket in a protective case.

  “It's loaded with everything I could think of.” Archangel promised. “I’ve got attack utilities programmed into that credstick that’ll bring most portable decks to their knees, backed by mirror utilities and a shield program that should buy me the time I need. I also layered in browse and decrypt utilities that will get me to the files and break them into information I can use almost immediately. The deception and sleaze utilities are some of the best stuff I’ve ever written. Seconds after that credstick slots into a reader, the programming will unleash a virus that will create a node slaved to my deck that temporarily establishes itself as their system’s CPU, giving me control of their deck for a minute or two until the IC reacts and dumps me back out. It should be enough to get what we need.”

  “We’re going to find out soon.” Skater said.

  * * *

  At eleven-thirty-two, Wheeler called and let Skater know everything was set. The troll chummers of Elvis arrived a few minutes after that. While Trey gave them their orders concerning Emma and Synclair Tone, Skater called Tavis Silverstaff. Once again he left the vid function off.

  Archangel jacked into her deck.

  “Have you got it?” Skater asked.

  “Yes.” Silverstaff said.

  “You’re familiar with the monorail circling the inner city?”

  “Yes.”

  “Board it at the King Street Station at twelve-oh-seven. Car eight. If you leave now
, you can make it.”

  “How will I know you?” Silverstaff asked.

  “I’ll know you.” Skater promised. “And you’ll know your wife.” He broke the connection and glanced over at Archangel as she surfaced from her deck.

  “Hidalgo Republic Trading Company again.” she reported. “They were there from the beginning.”

  Skater nodded as Trey brought Ariadne into the room. She looked tense and nervous. All of them were dressed in the stolen orange repair suits worn by monorail maintenance crews that they’d gotten from a fixer Trey knew.

  “Let’s do it.” Skater said, and led the way to the private elevator.

  35

  Skater and his team caught the monorail at the Belmont Avenue station. Midnight was still eleven minutes away when they boarded.

  The original Seattle monorail had been destroyed in 2036 during the Night of Rage, and since been rebuilt. Where it had once risen only eight meters off the ground and traveled along a linear track, the new monorail operated on a maglev propulsion system that circled the inner city four stories above the streets. Two trains worked twenty-four hours a day, passing each other in opposite directions. At the front of the trains were the bullet-nosed control stations that regulated the magnetic fields generated that pulled the train along the superconductive metal rail housed in the center of the track. The original monorail had been built for the 1962 World’s Fair, and had sailed along an electrified track. With the new maglev system, the trains could never be sabotaged by someone simply shutting down the electricity.

  The station was raucous even at this late hour. Few innocents were abroad because the thriller gangs ruled the night and the streets of the inner city. Dressed in their colors, they pushed and shoved at each other, laughing when someone got mad and took a real swing. A knife flashed as Trey reached back to help Ariadne Silverstaff into the monorail car, and one of the thrillers went down with a blade buried in his gut. His companions boarded the next car up from the shadowrunners and yelled obscenities as the downed ganger dragged himself away, leaving a bloody trail.

  A double row of seats ran down either side of the car, with synthleather loops hanging from the ceiling for passengers who had to stand. In the mornings and afternoons, the monorails were crowded with commuter traffic. Now, the weak lights barely illuminated the interior of the car.

  Trey led Ariadne to a seat, then sat beside her, keeping up a calm and cool front to reassure her. The woman’s face had blanched white as they waited for the train and she still looked pale.

  Archangel moved immediately to a corner in the back of the car and removed an access plate, quickly dropping a tap into the car’s emergency com and booting up her deck, hidden inside a scarred orange toolbox.

  “Please secure all items and keep hands and feet inside the cars.” the pleasant male voice recording announced over the intercom systems.

  With a lurch and a hiss, the monorail took off.

  Skater jerked with the sudden acceleration. Adrenaline was pounding inside him, setting him on the razor’s edge of awareness. The boosted reflexes were only a heartbeat away.

  The monorail car was twenty meters long, three meters high so most trolls only had to duck slightly, and seven meters across. On the outside, it looked like a flat-gray sausage and bore the blue pattern of Line Two. Line One cars were painted with red patterns. The colors were always layered over with graffiti, and the city had given up trying to keep the trains unmarked. Emergency access doors were at either end. and were never supposed to be opened without authorization. Usually, at night, that rule was violated.

  There were four other passengers in the car, all of them looking like late-shift workers just trying to survive the trip home. None of them looked like McKenzie’s people. But then, Skater supposed, none of them would.

  “Something wrong with this car?” a slender girl asked. She wore ripped clothing, had her face pierced above both eyebrows and through one side of her mouth, and sported a brilliant chartreuse bowl cut. Her eyes were dead behind the rectangular sunglasses.

  “No.” Skater replied. “Regular monthly maintenance.”

  “And it takes four of you?”

  Skater looked at her. “It’s not exactly safe.”

  “Yeah.” The girl showed him a bloodthirsty grin. “No drek.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  Looking out the smeared and streaked windows. Skater watched the sprawl pass by four stories below. He seldom rode the monorail. Larisa had liked it, but it always left him feeling exposed and vulnerable. The train wound between some of the buildings, and soared over others, moving along the support track.

  During the day, it took almost forty-five minutes to circle the city, even with the automated stops and locked doors keeping the lines moving. But at night the time was nearly halved.

  Skater accessed his headlink to make sure they hadn’t been jammed as they approached the King Street Station.

  “We’re ready.” Duran reported.

  The ork, Wheeler, and Elvis were further back in the train, waiting to back up the play.

  Skater glanced at Archangel, and she gave him a nod. Her spot offered some protection and would keep her out of sight for awhile.

  The monorail eased to a stop. The automated voice announced the station and opened the doors.

  Three of the passengers off-loaded, leaving the young girl behind.

  Skater unfurled a TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE banner with suction cups at the four corners and affixed it to the windows. He walked to the door and turned away a half-dozen passengers and pointed to the sign. They grumbled but moved on. Still blocking the door, he turned to the girl and said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to find another car for the rest of your trip.”

  “I like it here just fine.”

  Skater gave her a hard look. “You’ll like it more somewhere else, or you’ll have to catch the next circuit.”

  “Fragging ditbrained sprawl service-drone.” the girl muttered as she gathered her bag and pushed herself up. She ignored the door and used the forward emergency exit to get into the next car.

  “There he is.” Ariadne said. She was looking through the window.

  Peering through the gloom of the King Street Station, Skater saw Tavis Silverstaff walking hurriedly toward the monorail car.

  The elf was dressed in casual wear that had already drawn a pack of Cutter thrillers, their gold and green colors marking them even in the shadows. Silverstaff merely ignored them, stepping quickly into the car.

  “Hold it right there.” Skater said, unzipping his jumpsuit to get at his Predator in its shoulder leather. He wore Kevlar under the jumpsuit as well, and he was already sweating with the heat of it.

  Silverstaff froze in the center of the car. his eyes locked on his wife.

  Trey moved slightly, revealing the pistol he was holding.

  The thrillers tried to follow Silverstaff into the car, but Skater stepped in front of them, blocking the way. “Car’s closed." he said, indicating the banner in the window.

  The lead Cutter was a gap-toothed male with sandy hair that looked like it had been styled by a blind man wielding a lawn edger. “Think you can keep all of us out?” he taunted.

  Skater lifted the Predator and shoved it between the thriller's eyes. "You won't be around to know.”

  Angry noises started in the back, egging the leader on. But he didn't move, even after the canned message about the doors started up. As the train pulled away from the station. Skater put the pistol away and turned to Silverstaff.

  “You’ve got the credstick?” he asked.

  "‘Yes.” Silverstaff reached inside his jacket and pulled out the ebony rod. “I received the payment earlier. The credstick holds the stock. Your DNA is locked into the access codes.”

  Skater plucked the credstick from the man’s fingers. He’d already sensed the shadows gathering on the other side of the emergency exit when he heard Elvis’s warning over his headware.

&nb
sp; “It’s happening.” the troll samurai said. “They’ve got guys coming at you from both ends.”

  Wheeler had replaced the monorail’s dog-brain remote control with the one he’d rebuilt at the suite. As a result of the new dog-brain interface—equipped with masking utilities courtesy of Archangel so the replacement wouldn’t be detected by the main transport CPU downtown—the dwarf rigger not only had access to the monorail’s controls, but the security cameras as well. The other members of the team could see everything that was going on in all the cars.

  “We’re on our way," Duran promised.

  Over Silverstaff’s shoulder, Skater saw the front emergency door yanked outward. He drew the Predator again and pointed it at Silverstaff. He also took advantage of the confusion long enough to switch the credstick for the one Archangel had prepared.

  “I told you to come alone.” Skater told Silverstaff.

  Ten yabos filled that side of the car, pulling weapons. They were obviously McKenzie’s muscle.

  “Skater.” Trey called, playing out his part of the scenario. He stood up facing the rear door to the car, holding his gun out and using Ariadne as a shield.

  “I see them.”

  “We’re almost there, chummer.” Elvis said over the Crypto Circuit. The sound of the wind whipped in over his transmission, blotting out some of the words.

  Skater knew Elvis, Wheeler, and Duran were by now making their way across the top of the train. He couldn’t stop them, because the train would be pulling into another station soon and the passengers getting on or off would give them away. They were only two cars away; things would have to happen quick.

  Grabbing Silverstaff, Skater jammed the pistol to the elf’s head. “Stay back,” he warned, “or I’m going to start a direct oxygen feed to his wetware.”

  A scarred man with big hands just smiled and said, “Don’t mean nothing to us, drekhead. You’re the joker we want.”

  “Don’t hurt my wife.” Silverstaff said to Skater. “Please. I didn’t know anything about this.”

  Skater glanced around the car, seeing that they’d garnered interest from people in the cars ahead and behind them. Some of those passengers had begun to file out, moving in the other direction from the yabos filling the cars. The monorail kept clattering along. Archangel had jacked into her deck and lay slumped out of sight between the seats. Trey had turned and, like Skater, had dropped back to the center of the car, menacing the yabos at his end with a pistol.