"You okay?" Talon asked Boom.
The troll nodded with a grunt. "No problem. Take more than that to get through all this armor. 'Sides, I'm pretty tough." Boom's own hide was natural armor strong enough to protect him against some weapons. That, plus the heavy armored jacket he wore, was enough to reduce the impact of even a 9mm round to nothing more than a bad bruise.
At the top of the stairs, Hammer and Boom covered each other as doors opened along the hall. Humanis members, alerted by the sounds of gunfire, began to pour out of their rooms, weapons at the ready. Boom grabbed the unconscious goon slumped over the railing with one massive hand, hefted him like he was no more than a sack of grain, and threw him at the oncoming Humanis members. Several of them went down in a heap, blocking the doorway.
Hammer pulled a small silvery sphere hanging from his combat vest, yanked the pin out with his teeth, and tossed it down the hall. Trailing white smoke as it went, the gas grenade went off with a dull "wumph." sending a cloud of thick white vapor spreading through the entire hallway. Talon could hear coughing and choking, along with voices cursing and yelling in German. From behind them on the stairs, Talon heard Val's drone cough out a staccato burst of gunfire, probably keeping any reinforcements from downstairs at bay.
Boom and Hammer fired into the gas cloud, picking off policlubbers as they tried to stagger out into clearer air. Talon and Silverblade moved up behind them into the hallway.
"Under control." Hammer pronounced, looking over the scene.
"One of the polis managed to get a window open before he passed out, boss." Aracos sent to Talon from his position in the astral.
"Wiz." Talon replied. "Makes things that much easier. Let's do it."
Talon raised his hands and spoke a short phrase, drawing slightly from Aracos' power to augment his own. A strong wind sprang up from where Talon gestured and blew down the corridor. It swept away the stun gas, which blew out the open window, then died away as Talon lowered his arms. There were nearly a dozen policlubbers scattered in the corridor, most of them unconscious or nearly so. Some were fully dressed, but others were wearing only their underwear, obviously awakened from sleep by the melee before being stunned. The doors of the barracks rooms were open, and Hammer and Boom moved to cover them.
As Hammer approached one of the doors, a shot rang out, splintering wood off the door frame. The ork pulled back fast enough to avoid being hit, and flattened himself against the wall next to the door. He looked like he was about to rush the room, but Talon held up a hand and shook his head. If there was a gunman holed up in the room, rushing through the doorway would only give him a better shot at one of the runners. Talon thought there was a better way to handle it.
"Aracos, take out the gunman in there, but leave him alive and able to talk."
"You got it." His ally spirit gave a wolfish grin and faded from sight, passing through the wall. A moment later, Talon heard a yell and another gunshot, a growl and a momentary scuffle. After a few more seconds passed, he nodded to Hammer and Boom and waved them toward the room. They wasted no time going in. Talon and Silverblade followed.
Lying on his back on the floor was an older human. He was dressed similarly to the others they'd seen, and had iron-gray hair in a short crewcut.
Perched atop his chest was a large wolf. There was a bloody bite-mark on his arm and his pistol lay about a meter away, just out of reach. The man eyed the slavering wolf with a look of terror in his eyes.
"Good work." Talon said to Aracos, coming around to ruffle the fur behind his familiar's ears.
"Who are you?" the man asked in German. Talon was glad he'd jacked his German language chip before hand. He bent down to look the man in the face. The icy blue eyes stared back, wide with anger and fear.
"We're asking the questions here." Talon told him. "First, what's the combination to the safe?"
The man looked like he wanted to spit. "Trog-lover!" he growled. "You won't get anything from me!"
"We're wasting time here, chummer." Boom said in his best "dumb troll" voice. "Let me rip one of his arms off, that'll get us some answers."
"Do your worst, subhuman! All of you are dead men anyway. You don't know who you're dealing with here."
Boom took a step toward the policlubber, apparently intent on carrying out his threat. He grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and lifted him bodily off the floor as Aracos hopped off his chest. The policlubber probably outweighed Talon by a good fifteen kilos of solid muscle, but Boom picked him up like he was a small child and pinned them against the wall.
"No, chummer, you don't know who you're dealing with here. You know, I don't much like it when scum like you thinks I'm beneath them. It makes me mad, and when I get mad, I start to break things."
Some of the man's bravado faded when he was face to face with three meters of angry troll pinning him to the wall and backed up by a gun-wielding ork and a grim-looking elf, to say nothing of Talon or the fierce wolf at his side.
Talon came up next to Boom.
"You're right, chummer. We're wasting time. I was hoping to do this the easy way, but. . ." He shrugged and reached out to touch the man's forehead with the fingertips of his right hand. The man almost immediately began squirming and struggling, but Boom's iron grip kept him from escaping.
"What are you . . . ?" the man sputtered. "No. No! Stop! You can't . . ."
Talon spoke the words of a spell and the protests fell silent. In an instant he was inside the policlubber's excuse for a mind. His mind probe spell reached out, sifting and probing through the man's thoughts and memories.
Well, well, Talon thought. What have we here? He continued probing for a few moments, isolating some other pieces of information, in addition to the combination of the safe. Then he withdrew from the gibbering policlubber's mind. He started to come out of the fugue state almost immediately as Boom turned to Talon.
"All finished?"
Talon nodded.
"Good." Boom pulled back and punched the man in the face hard enough to crack the plaster wall behind his head. Then he let go of the man's shirt and allowed him to slide down to the floor, unconscious, with blood dripping from his broken nose to stain the clean white shirt he wore.
Talon went over to the safe and knelt down, quickly going through the combination. With a tug, he pulled open the safe door. Inside were Talonclaw and Argentine. Talon reached in and retrieved his mageblade, then handed Silverblade his sword. The safe also contained some hardcopy deutchmarks and nuyen, which Talon and Hammer loaded into a backpack. They could use the money to help defer some of their expenses, and Talon rather liked the idea of the Humanis Policlub helping to fund their run against Winternight.
"Team One, this is Two." Trouble's voice said over Talon's headlink. "Word's out to some of the locals about your visit. You can expect some company in a few minutes from the sound of it."
"It's a wrap up here." Talon said. "We're heading home. Start doing some digging. According to our friend's memories here, Mitsuhama is sponsoring some kind of benefit concert in Berlin. Find out everything you can about it."
"Okay." Trouble replied. "Do you think it ties in with Winternight?"
"I do. More importantly, our target does, too. Team One out."
Talon opened up a channel to Val.
"Yo, Val, are we clear?"
"All clear downstairs." the rigger said. "And all clear on the street, although you're starting to draw some local attention. Time to go, chummers."
"Took the words right out of my mouth." Talon said. "Get ready, we're coming down."
He turned back to the rest of the team. "Let's go."
Hammer and Boom headed for the door as Aracos faded back into the astral plane. Silverblade stood for a moment over the unconscious body of the Humanis ringleader, one hand resting on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
"Do you always show your enemies such mercy?" Silverblade asked.
"I don't kill everyone who gets in my way, if that's what you mean." T
alon said, slipping Talonclaw's sheath onto his belt. "As for mercy, I wouldn't exactly say leaving him alive is merciful. He and his boys just got shown up by a gang of 'trog-lovers' and 'sub-humans,' as he so eloquently put it. Not to mention that they've seriously disappointed Winternight. I'd wager that this here skag won't be top-dog with the Humanis around here much longer, and they'll do things to him that would take me days to think up."
"Why, Talon," Silverblade said with a sardonic smile, "you could almost be an elf."
"Thanks." That was about the nicest thing Talon had ever heard Silverblade say about anybody. He decided not to spoil the compliment with a comeback. Instead, he simply gestured toward the door with a mock bow.
"After you." he said.
"As it should be." Silverblade returned as he moved past Talon and through the door like royalty leaving an audience.
So much for not spoiling a nice moment, Talon thought.
The shadowrunners left the Wolf's Lair quickly and ran to the alley where Val was waiting in the van. As soon as they were all inside, Val pulled the van out into the street, to the blaring of horns from oncoming cars. Then they were off.
"Man, I miss driving in Germany." she said with a grin as she swerved to cut off another car and turned the corner, flipping off the driver as he blared his horn at them. "Cities like Boston just aren't much of a challenge."
Talon never thought he'd hear anyone say that about his hometown, but he had to admit that driving in Berlin was more like a demolition derby than anywhere he'd ever seen. Plenty of cars and trucks on the street looked more like armored rigs than simple passenger vehicles. Val certainly seemed to be enjoying herself.
"So, was there anything inside that Neanderthal's underdeveloped excuse for a brain?" Silverblade asked once they were underway.
"A few things of interest." Talon said. "First off, said neanderthal is none other than Klaus Kühnen, the head of the local Humanis chapter. That's his place we just trashed, and his men."
"Couldn'ta happened to a nicer guy." Hammer rumbled, while Boom grinned.
"Seems ol' Klaus has some ties with Winternight," Talon continued, "only he doesn't know it. Winternight supplies him with some of their tech, particularly a kind of simsense chip that inspires berserker rages; great for Humanis gangs to use when they're out hunting some metahuman skulls to bust. Winternight has Klaus convinced they're some kind of ultra right-wing Germanic nationalist organization opposed to metahumans. They work through fronts like Alt Welt and der Runenthing. Klaus doesn't even know that Winternight really exists."
"Doesn't sound like he has much information of use then." Silverblade said.
"Not quite." Talon replied. "There was one thing. Seems that the skag who gave our mageblades to Klaus for safekeeping was none other than our old buddy Zoller."
"Zoller?" Boom said. "But Alamais turned him into a frog!"
"Maybe Alamais' spell wasn't permanent," Talon said, "and Zoller is back working for his old boss, or else it was and somebody's pretending to be Zoller. Three guesses who that could be."
"Alamais." Silverblade said.
"Whoever it is, he's got all the earmarks of a Winternight shaman. Apparently, there's something going down very soon in Berlin. Herr Zoller got some extra muscle from Kühnen's Humanis cell to beef up his own followers. Kühnen thought he had something big planned."
"Something involving a stolen nuclear weapon." Silverblade said. "But what? And more importantly, where?"
"Let's find out." Talon said, and keyed open his headlink. "Trouble, you there?
"Right here." she said.
"Hang on, let me put you on the speaker." Talon said. He leaned past the passenger seat and activated the portable receiver that rested there. The speaker on it crackled a bit before Trouble's voice came through.
"We on?" she asked.
"Loud and clear." Talon said. "What did you get on that concert so far?"
"Some very interesting stuff. You were right, the entertainment division of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies is sponsoring a big benefit concert in Berlin tonight, in cooperation with DeMeKo, the big European media corp. It's part of a multinational world tour by some of the hottest bands and performers out there. I think you're also right about it being a likely target for Winternight."
"Why is that?" Silverblade asked.
"Three reasons. First, part of the concert is a benefit for charities in Berlin. Second, the guest list includes the VP of MCT Europe, Ryu Takahashi; the President of DeMeKo, Wolfgang Osterwald; and the VP of Saeder-Krupp Deutchland, Karl-Heinze Beminger."
"And the third reason?" Silverblade asked.
"The name of the show," Trouble said, "is 'Ragnarock, the Concert of the Century.' If you were Winternight, could you pass up on irony like that?"
"But why a concert? And why this concert?" Hammer asked.
"Simple." Boom said. "Think about it. This show is a big Mitsuhama production supporting Berlin, which everyone knows hacks off Lofwyr. Alamais has already struck at S-K by attacking Lofwyr. While the dragon is out of commission, his Winternight chummers set off a stolen S-K nuclear weapon at a major concert in the heart of Germany, sponsored by S-K's chief rival in the heavy industries business. Of course, with everything going on after the attack on Lofwyr, you can bet that Herr Berninger will cancel his appearance at the concert. So a nuke that could only belong to Saeder-Krupp goes off, killing two major rival execs, and handing MCT a PR nightmare, while the S-K exec is mysteriously absent. What would that look like to you?"
"Retaliation," Talon said, "for the attack on Lofwyr."
"Right, a magical attack, and guess who's the Number Two corp in magic R&D?"
"Mitsuhama." Silverblade said. "So Mitsuhama thinks they've been attacked by Saeder-Krupp. They retaliate . . ."
"And, boom! Pretty soon you've got a major corporate war." Boom said.
"But they'll figure it out." Val chimed in from the driver's seat. "I mean, Saeder-Krupp will tell them . . ."
"What?" Boom said. "That they're innocent? Do you really think MCT, or any other corp, will believe them? By the time the megacorps decide to trust each other and start putting the pieces together, they may already be too deep in the conflict to pull out without risking a major loss. At the very least, things will go on for a while, maybe long enough for Winternight to keep stoking the flames."
"So they're trying to trigger a final war, a real Ragnarock." Trouble said.
Talon nodded grimly. "That's what it looks like.
Trouble, dig up everything else you can about this concert. I want everything there is to know about it. If we're going to have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping Winternight, we're going to need it."
22
The crowd gathered for the Ragnarock concert was like a sea of humanity, with waves of anticipation rippling through it as the time neared for the show to begin. As he moved unnoticed through the crowd, Talon hoped that the terrorists were planning to take advantage of the powerful swell of emotion he could feel rising off the concert-goers, like heat rising from asphalt in summer. Winternight had a lot of magicians, and they knew the power of unleashed emotion. Hopefully, they wouldn't act until the mood of the crowd built a little further.
The massive stadium was usually used for sporting events. Now the playing field below had been converted into a giant stage for the Ragnarock concert. Tens of thousands of fans were gathered in the stands above, most of them clad in street leathers and denim, gleaming with chains and metal studs. Talon also spotted more than a few well-off corporate kids and twenty-somethings doing their best to look like they fit in with the rest. The stadium lights were on, but the shadows in the stands were heavy and it was nearly impossible to see more than a dozen or so meters, much less across the stadium to the other side.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, Talon thought as he made his way up the stairs to one of the tunnel entrances to the outer ring of the stadium. Winternight could hide an army in this crowd and he'd ne
ver spot them. Pulling the collar of his long coat close around his neck, Talon mentally keyed open his headcom.
"Come in, team." he said. "Give me an update. Anything?"
"Nothing unusual on the fly-bys." Val said. "I've run four passes over the stadium and scanned to the limits of the sensors on this thing. There's just too many bodies and too much electronic gear down there to get any kind of accurate reading. Not to mention that Winternight could be using magic to hide themselves."
"Same thing from down here." Trouble said. "The scanning gear in the van is limited, and we're not in the best position out here. Can't pick up any signs of the nuke or of Zoller, or Alamais, or whoever he is."
"What about Silverblade?" Talon asked.
"He's still out-of-body." Trouble responded. "At least, as far as I can tell. I'll let you know as soon as he's back."
"We've got nothing, so far." Boom said. "Security's pretty tight. We're lucky you were able to get us past it with those invisibility spells." Fortunately, the hired security forces didn't include a lot of magicians to spot-check everyone coming through the gates, so the guards didn't notice a few invisible shadowrunners slipping past them, avoiding the metal detectors and weapons sniffers.
"How about getting into the backstage areas?"
Talon said. It was certainly possible Winternight might have something set up there.
"Working on it." Boom said.
Talon sent his thoughts out into the astral plane. "Aracos, anything yet?"
"Got a possibility," the spirit replied, "but it's hard to be sure. There's a lot of emotional static floating around in the astral from all these people getting it up about the show. But I can sense some faint magical emanations coming from understage."
Ragnarock Page 19
