The Eyes of the Rigger

by Unknown

  Patrick waved it away. "So ka, we could have expected those kinds of tricks. I don't see it can help them much at the moment." With more sympathy in his voice than Pandur would have credited him with, he said, "I wouldn't like to be in your shoes, chummer. Your ass will be up for grabs, you know that?" " Nothing new for me," Pandur gave back. He acted more relaxed than he felt. "You get used to it."

  That's bullshit chummer. You'll never get used to it. You didn't want to go through that ever again. You had more than you wanted from Renraku. And now you're back up to your shirt collar in the thickest shit.

  With a trace of bitter irony, he realized that not much had actually changed. AG Chemie had hunted him then and was hunting him again now. What was the difference? That there were a few more drekheads this time that his enemy could come up with? They didn't have him in their sights yet, not by a long chalk. At the moment all they had was a few thousand tiny black needles with eyes. Or was he fooling himself?

  If you only knew all your enemies, Thor Walez! It wasn't only AG Chemie that pursued you. It wasn't Natalie's vengeful ex that tagged you in Astral Space. Roberti isn't on AG Chemie's payroll. Nor the mad mage. What do you have that makes this damn rat-pack so crazy about you?

  The Warrior had made a decision. "We'll use the boat," he said, turning to the open window. "I'll take you to friends. They'll hide you and take care of the cyberdeck."

  Pandur had no intention of throwing himself on the Warriors' mercy. But it seemed reasonable to leave the depot as soon as possible. He had thought it a safe place. In the meantime he had begun to have his doubts. It was the hidout of a terrorist organization. In these organizations there were always a few traitors, undercover agents, megacon stoolies. The opposition gathered intelligence so as to be able to land a telling blow at some point. If AG Chemie knew about this hiding place, they would take it out in the next few hours.

  Pandur was troubled by the problem that he was ill-equipped and had no ebbie. It was clear to him that the Warrior wouldn't give him the ebbie until he performed his side of the bargain, i.e. provided the data. But Pandur would not let go of the deck.

  It would be hard to get by. On his own and hunted. But it would also be a relief. He had been on his own most of the time if he didn't happen to be running the shadows with a team. He had survived. He thought he had a chance to get away with it this time as well.

  The Warrior climbed onto the window sill.

  Suddenly he let out a gurgling scream, folded like a jackknife and plunged into the Surfglider. At the same moment a spotlight flared up, its beam directed at the window socket. Then a machine gun spoke.

  Pandur dived to the left into Jessi's legs, bringing her down and pressing her against him. Together they belly-crawled out of the spotlight's glare, out of the line of fire through the window.

  The rigger had thrown himself the other way. In mid-fall he swung up his Combat Gun and shot out the light. Then he rolled behind the shelter of a heavy metal case.

  Bullets bit into the concrete, clanged on the steel of the blinds, ricocheted away, zinging, tore up the floor of the storeroom, slapped into metal boxes, pierced wood palettes and

  plastic containers.

  When the Warrior had collapsed, Pandur had been standing nearest him. He saw the body hit the deck of the Surfglider, half twisted, the face turned up to the sky. The face wasn't the only thing that turned skywards. Pandur saw the blood, saw the staring, broken eyes. More than anything, though, he saw the arrow that entered the Warrior's head above the left ear and came out again above the right.

  The man was indubitably dead. Goodbye and farewell to all the dreams of a better world. Goodbye and farewell to the part that a cadre like Patrick wanted to play in this world. Goodbye and farewell to any crazy idea of riding the carousel with Jessi again. The grey cells that might have dreamt it all, that had worked on realizing one dream or another were spitted, pierced, compressed, and had been replaced by a five millimeter wide, four hundred millimeter long hollow object made of aluplast. No more room for plans and dreams.

  Pandur knew someone who fired arrows like that. Who was positively obsessed with sending arrows like that flying from the string of his composite bow. Who had turned his hobby, piercing the flesh of total strangers, into a lucrative occupation.

  While Pandur kept his Walther Secura aimed at the gaping window, he wondered whether the ash-blond killer elf had his dark-skinned female companion along. Probably. The rifle fire seemed to be coming from a single weapon. The two were a practised team. A deadly team. Pandur still had a score to settle with both of them. They had killed Natalie.

  Jessi worked her way over to the micro-transmitter lying on the floor and tried to close the steel blind. The gadget flashed its light, sent out the impulse, the servo-motor turned. The blind didn't move down. The shots seemed to have jammed it.

  The rigger shifted into a crouch, the weapon held at the ready. "The spotlight's gotta go," he called. "Cover me as well as you can."

  Pandur and Jessi raised their guns and sent one shot after another into the bright rectangle of the window. The rifle fire fell silent for a moment. Festus leapt out of cover and in one bound reached the window, landing with knees flexed, exposing himself side-on to their assailants and firing from the hip. He pumped ammo out into the night, turning slightly to the right and then to the left as he did so.

  Plastic shattered. The spotlight went out.

  An answer came from outside with not a kind word in it. Only crude ammo. Then another arrow came whistling through the air.

  The rigger wasn't hit. He dived behind the shelter of the windowsill.

  "They got an armored boat," he said. The spotlight wasn't able to dazzle his cybereyes. And for him the night by no means made everything look the same. "They managed to sneak up some way. Quiet electric motor or something. There's three of 'em. A white-haired elf with a bow, a black elf with a shooter and a black-haired norm with a scarred face. He's steering the boat."

  "The black-skinned elf's a woman," Pandur said. So, he'd been right. The elven hit squad was back to full strength, having found a replacement for the third member, who'd been nailed by Natalie. But why were they associating with a norm?

  "Can you get them or shoot a hole in the boat?"

  "I told ya already, it's armored. The drekheads are holed up real good. Hard to get at."

  "Drek!"

  "Old friends o'yours, chummer?" Festus asked.

  "Could be." Pandur suddenly felt dark foreboding. "What kind of scars does the norm have?"

  "Cross-hatching on the cheeks. Mafia scars."

  Although Pandur didn't let it show, he had flinched inwardly. Ricul! The encounter in the ghetto, and probably in the Kropotkin as well, hadn't been coincidence. For some reason Ricul had allied himself with the murderers of his half-sister and with them was hunting the man he had followed to hand over a fat credstick to. Why?

  Why, for fuck's sake? He cursed me and held me partly responsible for his half-sister's death. But two years have gone by since then. Surely he can't seriously have got it into his head to kill me for that.

  But then Pandur remembered that Ricul was a Roma who set a lot of store by blood feuds. What was more, he was a mafioso. And maybe Nasha's mother had egged him on. Maybe he had simply joined the headhunters, had taken on a job.

  "The drekhead with the scars was shadowing us in the Kropotkin," he said.

  "Then at least we know how he tracked us down," Jessi put in. "He followed Patrick."

  Her voice sounded quiet and toneless, her eyes were staring. Pandur didn't have rigger eyes that could pierce the dark. But he could see enough. The girl was in shock. He didn't know if she had witnessed how the Warrior had died. She couldn't be in any doubt that he was dead, though. She had split up with him, but his death couldn't leave her cold. The demarcation lines the Grim Reaper draws are deeper than any gulfs that divide people from each other.

  To make matters worse Festus said, "Schmidt's a gonner. Th
e elf with the bow gave him his ticket for the Hallelujah Chorus."

  He pushed the Combat Gun over the window sill and sent a burst of fire out into the night.

  Crouching next to the girl, Pandur put his left arm around Jessi's shoulder and pulled her to him for a moment. She let it happen, pressing herself against him.

  "It... it's just the shock," she whispered.

  "Those two elves out there," he said just as quietly, "killed Natalie, too."

  Festus fired again. This time several shots came back in reply. Then it was peaceful again.

  "But why are they here now? Do they want you?"

  "No idea, Jessi. I don't know." He hesitated. "We might have a chance to get back at them... "

  "Maybe," she said. "But they'd get us as well, wouldn't they?"

  "Probably," he admitted. "Wouldn't it be worth it?" " Don't do it, Pandur," the girl asked him. "Even if she meant a lot to you. You'll get a better chance."

  "And you?"

  As if he were tired of the quiet conversation of the two, the rigger straightened up again and fired. The other side replied at once. A plastic trash can riddled with bullets clattered to the ground.

  "The drekhead with the bow killed a chummer," said Jessi slowly, when the noise had died away. "And I hate him for it. Patrick did a lot for the Warriors. They'll miss him. But it wouldn't be right somehow to follow him into death. It would make me his woman again - something I'm not anymore. Don't think of it as cowardice, Pandur, but I don't consider that sacrifice... appropriate."

  For a moment Pandur was disappointed with her. But then he could understand her. She was sad. But she had moved too far away from Patrick to be blind to the realities. He was grateful for her decision. It was no solution to go to their deaths just to take a few drekheads with them. There were bigger drekheads than these characters, who only hired out their deadly instincts. He had things to do. He had data in his cyberdeck. Uncle Lucifer's barbecue would have to wait.

  "How do you two envision the further course of this most pleasant evening?" the rigger asked. "Sooner or later this shootout's gonna attract other drekheads who think they got to demonstrate that they keep their hardware well oiled."

  If Ricul and the elves were hired by AG Chemie, they got in touch with them long ago. Then there are reinforcements on their way. We've got to get out of this hole. As fast as we can!

  "Let's... " he began, but he didn't get round to finishing his sentence.

  Somewhere overhead, one or two stories up, a grenade exploded. There followed a second, third, fourth, fifth explosion. Outside, there were the flashes of cannon fire. They were under fire from grenade launchers. Maybe there were other high-caliber weapons involved. Lots of hard stuff being fired out there. Not bags of paint, not tomatoes, not custard pies. They could count themselves lucky the people firing weren't quite sure where the runners were. They raked the building as if it were their personal enemy. Maybe the din was also meant to be a farewell firework display. Something colorful one last time before the lights went out.

  In a brief lull in the firing, the chopping of helicopter rotor blades could be heard, standing out clearly from the sound of boat engines. The boats were approching fast. The helicopters were already there, hovering. The blind gunmen again set about molding the individual clauses of their wage agreements in steel. The elf woman, who knew at least where the quarry was cowering, joined in.

  "Let's go!" Jessi's clear, high voice rose above the inferno.

  Festus was already on his way, belly-crawling out of the enemy's field of fire towards the door. Jessi and Pandur crawled after him.

  "Don't!" the girl called as the rigger made to get up and shoot at the door lock. She herself stood up, flattening herself against the wall and inching along it, the codechip in her hand. She inserted it into the lock.

  "Scared of being charged with damaging property?" asked Festus, grinning.

  "Scared of the ricochets finishing off the work those drekheads haven't managed yet!" she yelled at him.

  The door leapt open.

  The shadowrunners threw themselves into the small, dark room behind it. Jessi slammed the door shut to hamper pursuers who would get in through the window sooner or later.

  The firing had stopped. For a few seconds there was a positively ghostly silence. Then heavy boots could be heard pounding along on the floor above. Judging by the noise, there were dozens of megacon guardsmen on the move. They seemed to be systematically combing the building.

  Jessi's flashlight flared up.

  "Hold this a sec," she said, pressing the flashlight into Pandur's hand. "Give me some light!"

  Pandur directed the beam onto the girl's hands. She was holding the micro-transmitter in her left hand and entering a code with her right. On its underside, a cover slid aside with a gentle purring sound. A red knob was revealed.

  "Down on the floor and take cover!" She snatched the light out of Pandur's hand and took up a crouching position. "And now pray everything works the way the Warriors planned."

  The men had thrown themselves to the floor and were trying to protect their heads with their arms.

  "Hope you know what you're doing!" the rigger grumbled.

  Pandur shared his skepticism. If Jessi detonated the explosive charges in the room above them, the ceiling would come down. But there was no time to debate the matter.

  The girl pressed the red button.

  There was a dull thud. Straight in front of them the wall imploded. A clean, almost circular hole measuring one and a half meters in diameter had appeared. Nearly all the pieces of concrete landed in the adjoining room. The runners only caught a few smallish fragments and grey dust.

  "Go, go, go!" Jessi shouted, jumping up and running for the hole. "We got just fifteen seconds!"

  She dived through the opening. Behind her, Pandur crawled through, half under his own steam and half pushed by the rigger shoving from behind.

  The girl was already back on her feet, lighting the way for them and hastening on. They found themselves in a large, dark, damp, windowless room. At the other end there was a door.

  Jessi made a beeline for it.

  Pandur had been counting the seconds to himself. When he reached fourteen, there was an almighty explosion diagonally above them. The entire building shook. For a moment Pandur thought the whole, sorry edifice would collapse in on itself. But it stayed up. Only one or two loose lumps of concrete, flakes of paint and ancient filth fell from the ceiling.

  "The Warriors are ace!" Festus shouted out his praise. " There's nothing like canny terrorists who know how to handle explosives."

  The girl had reached the door. A steel fire door, neglected but only recently freed of the worst of the rust. Jessi pressed down the handle and jerked the door open.

  Before the shadowrunners lay a hall, most of its floor cracked and broken. Pandur recognized the place immediately. He had noticed the lone door at the end of the hall when he had set off for the run against AG Chemie hours ago. And when he had returned.

  In the hole, a meter below the level of the floor that was still intact, there was water. It stank of petro-chemicals. Good north German water, nothing more.

  This room was also dark and windowless. This is what had allowed it to pass the Warriors' aptitude test and had earned it the hole in the floor.

  At the crumbling, improvized quay lay the Delphin, just as they had left it. Stern and bow were made fast to the building's twisted steel girders.

  Jessi sent the flashlight beam flitting across the submarine as if she wanted to assure herself that it was really there, undamaged, and had not been visited by anyone. Pandur was just as skeptical. Deep down he expected the quiet scene to be a trap. He wouldn't have been surprised if, in the next moment, spotlights had flared up and words of welcome of the special variety had been conveyed through the air from every nook and cranny. They were spared these marks of respect. This was no guarantee that welcoming gifts wouldn't be passed out later. If the guys on the copte
rs' rocket-launchers got it into their heads, the room could, in the end, easily get the window frontage that the architect had denied it. Moonlight would then be the least of the things that would come through.

  Festus was the least bothered of them about checking things out. He seemed happy enough that there was any chance at all of getting out in one piece. It proved to be a fortunate dispensation that no one had asked the rigger to hand back the Delphin's remote control. He already had it in his hand and was sliding up the plexdome.

  "Move it!" he said, untying one of the tethers. "Or would either of you prefer to make a run for it in the Michel? You'd sure as hell need a thick hide."

  The Michel Standard, tied up outside, offered no alternative. If the megacon guardsmen hadn't long since shot it to pieces or sunk it, it would happen as soon as someone tried to escape in it. Pandur and Jessi climbed on board the Delphin and squeezed through the narrow entrance shaft into the body of the submarine.

  Festus released the other rope, jumped aboard, closed the dome. Without wasting a word or a second, he wired himself up to the rigger console. The ballast pumps started up and pushed the boat underwater. Only then did he put on the cyberhelmet.

  "What're the odds?" Jessi asked.

  "I'm no clairvoyant," Festus gave back. "I've only got a cyberhelmet. And it tells me everything's quiet underwater at the moment. That can soon change." After a pause, he continued, "If the drekheads don't know we've got the Delphin, we might slip through. If they know what's up, they'll be waiting for us at the exit. Bang. Zap. Goodnight."

  He now concentrated totally on merging with the boat, feeling it as he did his organic body and guiding it as naturally. The Saeder-Krupp engines started up. There was no other choice. They could only hope the enemy didn't pick up the noise of the engines. The prospects were good. AG Chemie had too much in the air and on the water to be able to detect another source of sound so easily. The Delphin's electric motors operated extremely quietly anyway. The question that remained was how well equipped and prepared the megacon's task force was. If they were expecting the runners to disappear, they would have a helicopter with sonar location circling above the scene of the action.