by Unknown
The five illuminated window sockets were in a line, one above the other.
"Looks like the stairwell," Druse commented.
Indeed, behind the light there seemed to be something like a staircase. The bottom window was three meters above the level of the platform, whereas the top one marked the last of the floors of the old high-rise that were still above water. If need be, one of them could climb on the other's shoulders and pull himself up to the opening. But the two men thought there had to be a simpler method of getting into the building. They looked over the front of the building.
There were other windows, whole rows of them in fact, some with intact-looking window panes, but none were lower than three meters above the balcony-like ledge jutting out from the building. Then Druse discovered a solid steel door at the other end of the balcony. It was under the last window of the lowest row and was level with the balcony.
The men moved towards the door with quick steps. Druse was almost running, as if he couldn't wait any longer to get into the building.
The door was covered in rust. Druse tried to depress the door handle, but it was just as rusted up as the rest of the door and couldn't be moved. He gave it an angry kick. Without success.
"Drek!" he swore.
Pandur, too, tried the handle. Nothing doing.
Both men looked round for something that could usefully serve as a tool, but there was nothing on the balcony apart from cracked concrete. Eventually Druse fumbled around in his trouser leg and produced a slim dagger with a ten-centimeter-long blade. It had been held in a sheath on the inside of his left calf.
"Let's try this," he said smugly and began to poke around at the rusted-up lock.
Pandur watched him silently. He had folded his arms over his chest below the belt of the cyberdeck to warm himself up a bit. Nevertheless, he was miserably cold. He wondered whether he shouldn't sacrifice an ammo clip to shoot out the lock and speed up the whole business. Not a good idea, he thought. If there really were people living here, they would be alerted by the shots. And a shot-up door was not a good calling card.
Druse was working away doggedly and was still trying to move the handle. But the sea wind had done good work and the chemical-laden air had doubtless played its part in eating away at the metal. At least Druse discovered by touch that the door was not locked.
Pandur realized for the first time that Druse was left-handed. While the redhead was scraping rust, Pandur thought about his companion. On board the hovercraft they had kept out of each other's way. From Pandur's point of view there was no antipathy behind this. He had maintained his distance from all the pirates on the Broken Heart, had remained a loner. Additionally, in Druse's case, there was a definite sense of competition. They were both wamo riders, and Tupamaro knew how to play one off against the other with praise and censure. That seemed to have worked with Druse at least, while Pandur had quickly seen through her game and tried to ignore it. There was no doubt Druse had been jealous. Jealous of the new wamo rider, jealous, also and especially, of Pandur as a man. He knew that Tupamaro had blatantly invited Pandur to screw her. She wasn't the least bit prudish and didn't even begin to show tact. She had issued her invitation to Pandur in the presence of half the crew: "Fuck me, chummer, I got the hots for yer." Also in Druse's presence, her chosen bedmate.
Pandur knew as much and as little about Druse's past as any pirate knew about another: a few throwaway remarks, this or that light cast on some past event, allusions to a more or less loused-up career, hints of passions voiced by a tongue loosened on alcohol or speed. What emerged wasn't necessarily even true. The sort of thing people just come out with: a kernel of truth, perhaps, some bragging, stories picked up somewhere and then served up as their own, and maybe with time even the feeling they were true.
Pandur's brain sifted the snippets of information concerning Druse. He had grown up near the Dutch border, had later done some boring job in Bremen as a sarariman, then discovered an artistic vein and tried his hand at sculpting. Apparently without any great success. How he had found his way to the pirates, Pandur didn't know exactly. It seemed to involve some affair with a woman. A violent argument with a rival or something of that kind. In any event flight triggered by the woman. Women trouble altogether seemed to have been the determining element in Druse's previous life. If his accounts could be believed.
All in all, the man did not make a likeable impression on Pandur. He was intelligent, if somewhat lazy, and tended to be erratic. Pandur didn't consider him very reliable. He often behaved crudely, but that was nothing unusual among pirates. He laughed a lot and had a sometimes deceitful sense of humor. Occasionally, however, he fell into depressive phases at the drop of a hat and was then unbearable. But he could also be surprisingly sensitive; he was the only pirate Pandur had seen crying over a death. He was a sensuous person, an epicure, perhaps, in his laziness, too adaptable. He was contradictory. He was - a human being. A human being who had become a pirate. As other human beings became shadowrunners. Or shadowrunners and pirates.
"You used to be a decker?" asked Pandur.
Druse looked up, nonplussed.
Pandur tapped his own socket. "That's why."
"Forget it," the other gave back. "I just wanted some fun."
"So ka."
Pandur said nothing, and Druse went on working. The answer matched the picture he had of the chummer. Of course, Druse had wanted to know what was behind the slogan "Better than Live", had had the socket enplanted and popped BTL chips. But he didn't seem to have become addicted to them.
Druse tried again and again to shift the door handle, but it wouln't budge an inch. Furious, he kicked the door and wiped the dagger on his trouser leg.
"Give me a leg up to a window," he demanded.
"Did you demonstrate as much stamina with the captain?" asked Pandur. "Give me the dagger."
Momentarily, Pandur had the impression Druse would comply with the business end of the knife to get even for the remark. But then the redhead passed him the weapon peacefully, haft first.
When Pandur bent over the door lock he felt Druse hadn't gone about it systematically, as if he didn't know how door handles worked. Pandur concentrated on the spot where the latch had engaged, picking at the rust. Then he drove the blade so violently between the latch and the door frame that Druse swore.
"Drek! You're gonna snap the blade!"
Paying no attention to him, Pandur pulled out the dagger, rammed it back in the same place and then pushed against it at a right angle. Something clicked, something gave, and the door sprang open.
Without a word, Pandur handed back the dagger. Druse put it back against his calf.
"My groundwork," he said.
"Your dagger mainly," Pandur rejoined.
The door led into a porch that opened to the right. Although everything remained quiet, the men drew their weapons. You could never be sure. When Pandur and Druse were in the building proper, a dark, windowless corridor lay before them, but further in a spot of light could be seen. The corridor ran parallel to the balcony towards the middle of the building and the light came from the stairwell they had already seen from outside.
The floor and walls were damp. They waded through ankle-deep mud and filth. There was the stench of putrefaction and chemical waste.
"The Minister of Health of the Alliance warns that entry to this corridor is not covered by the provisions of the statutory medical insurance scheme and will result in the withdrawal of all benefits," said Pandur.
"I'm privately insured," Druse threw in, grinning. "With the Beretta Corporation. Wanna see my policy?" He raised his gun slightly.
In the light from Pandur's minispot, plastic refuse and ancient, rusty beer cans were revealed. Far below and ahead of them there was a gurgling sound. They were reminded that the building was standing in water. Ten or more stories were submerged and for decades waves had been nibbling away day and night at the foundations. The fact that the whole edifice had not long since collapsed
bordered on a miracle. At some point it would. Pandur hoped that this moment would not occur precisely in the next few hours.
They reached the stairwell. The steps leading down were under water. Years of garbage floated in the swill. "Plastic trash is mankind's contribution to eternity," Pandur remarked. "A sort of monument. Future exhibits for an aliens' museum, in the section 'Extinct Semi-Intelligent Races of the Galaxy'."
When a storm was raging outside and the waves were flinging themselves at the outer walls, when the tide was thrusting itself through the window openings, the water level inside rose. Presumably, the corridor they had just negotiated was flooded at such times.
When the men had climbed the stairs to the next floor, they reached the first source of light, a grimed, dully-glowing fluorescent tube.
"Like to know where the power's coming from," said Druse. " This ruin's not likely to be connected to the public power supply."
"Solar cells on the roof, I guess. It'd be more interesting to know who goes to the trouble of keeping the system running."
"Kinda weird tenants if they get along in the dark but make sure the stairs are lighted." Druse shook his head.
"Maybe they're scared of being sued for damages if visitors break their necks here."
"Then they oughta have the decency to clean the corridor. It ain't polite to offer your guests a shithouse as a foyer."
"The janitor is on a seaside vacation in Ibiza right now. What you got against shithouses? Better to step on shit than have the shit blown out of you."
They reached the lowest window they had seen from the balcony. To their right the stairs led up, to the left a dark corridor presented itself. It made a cold, empty and dead impression. Dust, filth, putrefaction, no footprints. The two men paused and strained to hear anything in the corridor; not a sound beyond the indolent slapping of water against the steps below them.
"Let's go higher," Pandur decided.
Druse nodded. "Far as I'm concerned, it can all stay this quiet. The main thing is we find a few wool blankets and a place to get our heads down. I wouldn't say no to a mug of soykaf and two or three soyburgers either."
"No problem," said Pandur. "This here's an Aldiburger branch and we're passing through the kitchen. Although the manager's a bit negligent and forgot to switch the neon store sign on outside."
"Didn't know you were such a joker," Druse gave back. "Back there on the ship you hardly spoke two words together."
"Blame it on that oily tipple I swallowed - loosened my tongue." But Druse was right, thought Pandur. He was talking too much. Probably a reaction to the recent events. He'd do better to reactivate his shadowrunner instincts. They found themselves in a strange, unknown place, and strange, unknown places were very rarely peaceful places. He'd do well to regard this ruined high-rise as a semi-detached piece of the sprawl. A little place to call home, which demanded heightened senses. He shouldn't expect too much from Druse in this respect. Pirates weren't subtle street fighters. They lived in a rhythm of rest and frenetic activity. In the jungle of the megaplexes, other rules held sway and Pandur had lived eight years according to these rules. He had mastered the rules. He had survived.
When Druse, inspired by the word "tipple", added a bottle of rum to his shopping list, Pandur responded sarcastically. " Let's see if there's a party going down somewhere. I'm keen, though, to turn up as a surprise guest. So ka?"
Holding his Secura purposefully out in front of him, he crept up the stairs as quietly as possible. The staircase turned out to be as filthy as everywhere else in the building, but there was less dirt in the middle of the steps than at the sides. Pandur didn't have to spot any wet bootprints to know that these stairs were in use. Druse mumbled into his beard but then fell silent and followed. He did his best, but he didn't move quite as skillfully as Pandur.
Try as he might, Pandur just couldn't make sense of the light. More than four decades had passed since the disastrous floods that had destroyed Bremerhaven and many other coastal towns. He ruled out the possibility that the lights had kept burning all those years without people being involved. But if there were people living in this ruin, or had recently been here, the question arose as to what sort of people they could be. The place would be ideally suited as a hideout for pirates or a distribution point for fences. But they would hardly be dumb enough to draw attention to themselves by doing something as ridiculous as keeping the stairwell lit. So, people from Proteus after all?
The megacon yacht must have lain in wait for the Broken Heart somewhere nearby. If the yacht wasn't sent by Proteus, it couldn't expect assistance from the arcology. It would follow a certain logic if a competing megacon set up a covert base right under Proteus's nose, only just beyond their sphere of influence. Maybe some brainless wonder actually had forgotten to switch out the lights.
If these deliberations were right, it could be assumed that more megacon guardsmen were stationed here. But somehow the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle didn't fit. The guardsmen would definitely have been in radio contact with the yacht. They should have been alerted...
Pandur gave up. But his musings had at least had the effect of bringing tension back into his body. He was ready for anything.
The next two floors appeared as abandoned as the level they had already passed. More unlit corridors, silent and empty, covered in dust and undisturbed. Pandur didn't stop to explore them. He also ignored the corridor on the next floor up after briefly checking for any sounds.
"If there's anybody here, then either at sea level or right at the top," he whispered to Druse. "One's the dock, the other's the crow's nest, so ka?"
The redhead made no comment. He seemed morose. Presumably he accepted for the moment that Pandur had taken over. But this by no means made him euphoric, and his face showed it.
They reached the fifth and last story. The corridor, stretching away to the left, was lit up. It was, God knows, too much to claim that a cleaning gang with vacuum cleaners and floor polishers set about things every Wednesday. The corridor was scruffy and dismal. But someone swept here at times, perhaps even washed the floor. That was evident.
From the far end of the hallway came a peculiar sound. At the same time Pandur caught a whiff of a musty, suffocating and yet acrid smell, as if someone were setting fire to wet socks he had previously filled with some noxious weed.
Pandur and Druse had stood still and were listening. The noise sounded like deep sighing issuing from the belly of some huge animal. It was inarticulate. Pandur was reminded of the distant, distorted singing of a whale. Doors led off both sides of the corridor, but the two men followed the sound. Now it sounded more like groaning. The corridor led to an exterior wall with windows in it, then went on at a right angle.
The groaning or sighing or singing - it seemed to be all three at once - swelled up. Pandur and Druse reached the bend in the corridor. Pandur peered cautiously round the corner.
Still not a soul to be seen. The sound came from a source that must be to the right of the passage.
The men continued their stalking. To the left the windows, some still intact, others with plastic sheeting stretched over them to keep out the weather. Somebody seemed to be sensitive to drafts or appreciated a cozy home. There were, however, no oil paintings of roaring stags or ember-eyed gypsy girls hanging on the walls. But a few buckets of light-blue paint had gone on decorating the place. Even the fluorescent lights had been cleaned.
Observantly, Pandur registered that the painting gang had not restricted themselves to giving the hallway a radiant blue finish. Odd, angled lines stood out from the background. At intervals of two to three meters, these signs were to be found in varied groupings, each a half meter high, at eye level. Runes! They must be prepared to encounter magic. Pandur pointed the signs out to Druse and he nodded. It remained unclear if he could make anything of them.
There's going to be trouble. Only shamans of the Runenthing could be behind this. Folkish sorcerers were all that was missing from my collection.
The boneheaded guardians of Germanic custom were hardly likely to tolerate a metahuman in their Aryan guild. Possibly, runic sorcery had broken away from its traditional circle, or the Thing had split up into factions. However, Pandur could not claim that the thought of elven hitmen had produced a relaxing effect.
On the right there was nothing but the blue-washed wall and red runes. Then a fire extinguisher hove into sight. It hung in an alcove. Going by appearances, its practical value tended towards zero. The painting gang had gone over it in blue. It too bore red runic symbols. At least appropriate as far as the color went.
Ahead of them was a double door. One of its wings was only pushed to. Through the crack came the noise, which had become increasingly loud the closer they had got to the door. Pandur now believed he could identify it. The runes had jogged his memory. It was a sing-song of many voices. Gregorian chants in Germanic, Aryan atonality well stirred in, a dollop of Wodin and the whole mixture brought to a light Valkyrian simmer. No individual words could be made out, although individual sounds had a familiar ring.
"Let's get outa here," Druse whispered in his ear.
"I thought you wanted a burger?" Pandur whispered back. "In here you'll get one with a swastika on top."
He didn't wait to hear how Druse saw things. If they were ever going to leave this damn ruin without getting their feet wet, they would somehow have to deal with these people.
"Let's go, chummer!" he hissed. Gripping the Secura with both hands, he leapt forward, kicked the door open with his right foot and flung himself into the room.
"Drek!" he heard Druse swearing behind him, but then sensed him at his back. He made space. Druse squeezed past and straightened up next to him, his Beretta ready in his fist.
In front of them lay a hall with rows of upholstered seats for at least a hundred people in a tiered semi-circle. At the front there was a stage with a podium, where a row of men and women clad in long, light-blue robes bearing red runic signs were sitting cross-legged on the floor. Pandur counted thirteen robe-wearers. Closer examination revealed that the seating in the rows was provided by scratched, plastic shell-seats, their dark-blue covers worn through in places to reveal crumbling foam rubber. Only in the front five rows were about thirty figures sitting, draped in dark-grey linen cowls, their heads covered by hoods.
