Beyond the Pale

by Jak Koke

  Somehow, his aura was still elven at the very core, but like no elf Ryan had ever seen. Harlequin glowed like a sun going nova, sending out a shower of astral flares like volcanic spew into the flat light of the astral. Ryan marveled at the obvious power of this elf.

  Harlequin pulled the Dragon Heart to him and placed it in his lap. Then he looked up at Ryan. “This is certainly a strange item,” he said.

  The Dragon Heart’s aura flared for a second as Harlequin refocused his attention on it. “It was made by a dragon, that much is certain. And it seems to be fairly new.

  I don’t think it has held power more than a year, perhaps far less. It has little history.”

  Harlequin sat up suddenly and peered at Ryan. “What bothers me,” he said, “is that it’s too powerful. It has been imbued with more power than should be possible at this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did Dunkelzahn tell you everything about the cycles of magic?”

  “I think so,” Ryan said. Magic came and went from the world in tides that lasted thousands of years. The magic had just returned, forty or so years earlier, and would continue to rise for several thousand years before peaking. Then it would slowly ebb away over a similar length of time.

  “Well,” Harlequin said, “to explain it in modern terms, the mana level is too low to fashion an item of this power.”

  He held up the Heart. “But it is too new to have been made in the last cycle of high magic. Frankly, I’m impressed. Dunkelzahn must have made this recently, but unless his magic is far greater than we thought, I don’t know how he could have created it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Then listen! The very existence of the Dragon Heart is anomalous. It seems to be a lens for manipulating mana, for channeling it. But it operates on a scale far above what should be possible for anything created so early in the cycle.”

  Harlequin stood up and began pacing again, holding the Dragon Heart in his hands. He sighed. “Even if it were ancient,” he went on, “it wouldn’t be fully powered until the mana rose sufficiently high.”

  Ryan focused on the Dragon Heart, reaching out to maintain his connection with it just in case Harlequin decided not to help him. Ryan didn’t think he could prevent the elf from taking it for his own, but he wouldn’t give it up without a fight.

  “Are you going to help me?” Ryan asked.

  Harlequin looked up at him in surprise, as though he had forgotten Ryan’s presence. Then he tossed the Dragon Heart into Ryan’s lap. “Depends,” he said.

  Ryan breathed a sigh of relief as he clutched the Heart in his hands. “Depends on what?”

  Harlequin stared at Ryan. “Why are you doing this?”

  Ryan was surprised by the question. “That should be obvious. I’m going to use it to save metahumanity from annihilation.”

  Harlequin smiled behind his ruined make-up. “Just as long as you’re not blindly following the dragon’s orders.”

  A smirk formed on Ryan’s face. “I’d like to think I’m beyond that,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Foster entered the room then, striding with purpose, the hem of her mauve dress fluttering around her calves. “The crates have been unloaded, oh-painted-one,” she said.

  Talon entered the room just behind her. The Assets mage looked a little haggard from his magically induced slumber, and like Ryan, his tacticom unit had been removed. He examined Ryan’s aura briefly, and when he was satisfied that Ryan was unharmed, he merely stood and waited.

  Ryan tucked the Dragon Heart back into its sash over his gut, and spoke to Talon. “What’s the status with Dhin?”

  “He’s up and seems one hundred percent. Standing by for us to come back out.”

  “Good.”

  Harlequin turned toward Foster. “Where did you put the crates, my dear?”

  “They’re in the courtyard.”

  “Good work. Have Terrish unpack the contents, and tell him that we’ll be indisposed for a while.”

  “What’s going on?” Foster said with a heavy sigh. “It’s not another one of your save-the-world adventures, I hope.”

  Harlequin gave her a guilty shrug.

  “Frag!” she said. “All right, I’ll be ready in an hour.” She turned from the room.

  Harlequin laughed.

  “So you’re going to help?”

  “Like you,” he said, “I am willing to play the hero, if reluctantly. My motivations are a little different, however. I am partially responsible for Thayla being where she is, and if she’s in trouble, I want to help her. I can take us over from here, but we’ll need guards to watch our bodies while we’re on the metaplanes.”

  “I can contact a couple of street samurai right away,” Ryan said. “Plus we have Dhin and Talon.”

  Harlequin gave Ryan a shrewd stare. “I doubt there’s going to be any opposition,” he said. “Thayla should be just where I left her. But if something has happened, I’m pretty sure I know who’d be responsible.”

  “Who?”

  “A maniac called Darke, an agent of Aztechnology.”

  Ryan blinked. “Do you think they’d send troops after us?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Do you want me to get more security forces here?”

  Harlequin stopped at the archway and turned. “Yes,” he said. “Retrieve your communications equipment and make any plans necessary.”

  Ryan nodded and walked up into the verandah.

  “Okay,” Ryan said, “I’ll contact my decker. If anyone can get reliable, dependable help on short notice, she can.”

  Harlequin smiled at him. “I need some time to prepare,” he said, walking to the edge of the parquet flooring toward a low archway at the far end of the room. “We’ll perform the ritual downstairs. Normally I’d have to go to the physical location of the Great Ghost Dance to be able to take someone with me to the metaplanes, but you’re a very high-level initiate. I should be able to do it from here.”

  Ryan nodded and turned to walk outside. He didn’t know what Harlequin meant about him being a high-level initiate, but this was no time to argue the fine points.

  “And Ryan?”

  He stopped, pivoting around to look at Harlequin.

  “Get your two runners out of the water.” The elf gave a little laugh. “Nasty creatures have been known to prowl around my island—water elementals, gorgons, storm dolphins. I’d hate to have your friends fall prey to something. The guilt on me would be unbearable.”

  Ryan couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll bring them out immediately,” he said.

  “Good, we’ll proceed when everyone’s ready.”

  Ryan nodded, trying not to let himself feel the excitement that was building inside him. Harlequin has agreed to help! Now it’s only a matter of time before I can get the Dragon Heart to Thayla.

  “You know, it’s ironic,” Harlequin said. “Dunkelzahn and I are finally working together on something.” There was a touch of sadness to his voice. “It’s too bad it took his death to make it happen.”

  12

  Jane-in-the-box watched the different faces of her virtual cube. The riveted stainless steel box rotated around her as she shifted points of view in order to keep track of the runners. She alternated between Axler’s headcamera, showing the view through her scuba mask—the blue depths of the Mediterranean disappearing below—and Dhin’s awareness in the helo. The inputs from Ryan and Talon were blank since they had removed their tacticom units and entered the chateau.

  As far as runs go, Jane thought, this one has been a major cluster frag.

  “Hold position, Axler,” Jane said.

  “Copy,” said Axler. “Grind and I will wait.”

  “We’ll give them five minutes,” Jane said. “Then we’re going in.”

  “I don’t know, Jane,” came Dhin’s husky voice. “I don’t trust that mage slitch, Foster.” The ork was standing next to the cooling helo, looking toward the archway where Talon a
nd Foster had disappeared five minutes earlier.

  Jane laughed. “Stay sharp, Dhin. Just ’cause she took you out, doesn’t mean she’s the enemy. I think she was being tested by Harlequin, and we were the test.”

  “I just don’t like being out of communication.”

  “Me neither,” said Jane. “Me neither.”

  Through Dhin’s eyes, Jane watched Talon emerge from the archway, followed by Ryan who still had the Dragon Heart tucked inside the sash around his waist. Dhin walked up to them. “Good to see you, Bossman.”

  Ryan smiled, looking pleased for the first time since the whole Dragon Heart mission began. His voice filtered through Dhin’s electronics. “Good to be seen,” he said. Then, “Better make yourself comfortable. We’re staying for a while.”

  Ryan donned his tacticom headgear and activated it. “Jane,” came Ryan’s voice out of the darkness. “Copy, Jane.”

  “I’m here, Quicksilver, what’s your status?”

  “Talon and I are alive and well,” said Ryan. “I’ve got Harlequin online. He’s agreed to perform the ritual that will take me and the Heart across to the metaplanes. We’ll need the others topside.”

  “You got that, Axler? Grind?”

  In her video link, Jane saw Axler hold out her gloved hand and make a fist with thumb extended upward.

  “They’re coming out now, Quicksilver,” Jane said.

  “Good, I’ll meet them down by the dock,” Ryan said. “Also, we’re going to need more runners to provide security in the physical world just in case the Azzies decide to come after us.”

  “The Azzies?”

  “You heard right. Harlequin thinks they’re the ones who’d come after us.”

  “Fragging great.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Jane started thinking. She knew a team who was based out of Marseilles, runners who had previously worked with Carla Brooks and had an excellent rep. But she didn’t know if they’d be available on such short notice. “I’ll contact one of the teams I know who work this area,” she said. “They did freelance sec-work for Black Angel on the night of the assassination.”

  “Uh, Jane,” Ryan said.

  “What?”

  “They must not have done a very good job,” Ryan said, his tone deadpan.

  Jane paused for a second, not sure if Ryan was joking or serious. “They were the best,” she said finally. “Black Angel will vouch for them.”

  Ryan laughed. “I trust you, Jane. I was kidding.”

  “Frag you!”

  “You name the time and place.”

  “No, forget it. Nadja would kill me.”

  “Me too.”

  Jane laughed, and had her system load the telecom number for the team’s fixer into her virtual reality. Most shadowrunning teams didn’t know Jane, except perhaps as a decker for Assets, Inc. They didn’t know she used to act as an cyber-fixer for Dunkelzahn or do his decking. That was just the way she wanted it, so she always worked through other fixers.

  “I’ll be out of touch for a few cycles,” she told Ryan.

  “Copy.”

  The fixer was a free spirit called Cinnamon who worked out of Los Angeles, but handled contracts everywhere. She did most of the biz for the team Jane wanted to hire. Jane dove down through her Matrix gate and pulsed across the electronic skies and into Cinnamon’s LTG—Local Telecommunications Grid.

  Jane engaged her sophisticated relocate utility in case of trace ice and rang the telecom.

  The fixer picked up almost instantly. She appeared as a beautiful human woman with golden blonde hair that fell straight around her shoulders. Her blue eyes widened as they recognized Jane’s icon. “Hello, Jane-in-the-box,” Cinnamon said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need a team of runners for some security work,” Jane said. “Cluster’s group, if they’re back in the Marseilles area.”

  “You think they stayed in Washington after the assassination? Black Angel cleared them of blame, but Cluster didn’t want to hang around to take any fallout.”

  Jane kept her tone extremely serious. “I wouldn’t be contacting you if I didn’t trust them.”

  Cinnamon picked up on the tone. “I think I can arrange for their services. What are the details?”

  Jane smiled. “I think you’ll like this one,” she said. “Extremely urgent, but very, very lucrative.”

  Cinnamon’s face lit up. “Good.”

  “Your team will meet with my runners at Chateau d'If as soon as possible. I need someone within two hours so if it’s going to be longer, we’ll have to go with another team.”

  Cinnamon allowed a slight downward curve to touch the corners of her mouth. “That’s really tight,” she said. “But I think they can do it.”

  “They’ll be responsible for guarding the island for a few days at most. They should bring their own supplies and equipment, even though some minimal resources may be available to them. You’ll be paid one hundred thousand nuyen per runner per day for as long as they’re needed. You can skim whatever you want from that, of course.”

  “I’ll set it up,” Cinnamon said without hesitation.

  Jane laughed. “Excellent,” she said, and disconnected.

  13

  Ryan tried to put the upcoming ritual out of his mind as he and Talon found the stairs that would take them to meet Axler and Grind. The stairs led down from inside one of the small outlying buildings and had been cut into the rock itself.

  Harlequin had given Ryan a set of keys and free rein over the island. The elf was busy inside the chateau, preparing himself for the ritual.

  Excitement built inside Ryan, anticipation at the prospect that his mission might nearly be complete. He was amazed that Harlequin had agreed to help. With a little luck, it would soon be all over.

  They took the stairs down and Ryan felt the cool spray of the sea, heard the roar of the waves as they came to the bottom. The stairs opened into a cave of sorts—a massive chamber with hewn floor and walls. The floor dropped sharply halfway through the chamber, and the ocean lapped against a short sea wall.

  The far end of the chamber was open to the water, and the wooden dock extended from the stone floor out of the cave opening. A pair of Suzuki Watersports floated just inside the cave, tied to the dock. Through the opening Ryan could see the Harland and Wolff Classique yacht moored at the end of the dock.

  The rest of the chamber was filled with equipment lockers and scuba driving gear. Weapons and an array of what seemed to be magical talismana lay helter-skelter, with no seeming regard for their value or well-being.

  Axler and Grind poked their heads out of the water and climbed up a short ladder. Ryan helped them haul the three scuba sleds up onto the dock. As they removed their wet-suits and gear, he briefed them.

  “I want you two to help me deploy the new runners. Cluster is the name of their leader.”

  “I know him,” Grind said. “He’s a minotaur, a metahuman similar to a troll, but from the Middle East. He was an excellent merc back in the late forties.”

  “Good, let’s go. They’ll be here soon, and I want to have the whole island scoped out before that.”

  Soon, Ryan and Talon had explored the island. The sunset painted the sky in brilliant red streaks, the clouds floating like hot coals in a darkening blue sky. Axler and Grind were dry and geared up. Dhin was jacked into the helo’s console, remote-rigging the two drones that had come with the team. One was an Aerodesign Systems Condor II that floated in the air high above the island and gave Dhin an array of tools for surveillance. The other drone was a Commonwealth Aerospace Wandjina—one of the most effective combat drones made.

  Talon had been paying particular attention to patrolling the island’s astral space and studying the arcane defenses. “It’s going to take an army to get onto this island,” Talon said. “Besides the veil around the island, Harlequin’s got spirits patrolling everywhere. I don’t see anyone getting through.”

  “I wouldn’t be sur
prised if Aztechnology did send an army,” Ryan said.

  “Great.”

  “Bossman,” came Dhin’s voice over the tacticom, “we got company. Motorboat coming fast from the city.”

  “It’s Cluster and his team,” said Jane-in-the-box, also over the ’com.

  “We'll meet them at the dock.”

  The team consisted of six runners, and Ryan assensed them as they approached. The rigger—a black dwarf like Grind—nestled the GMC Riverine up against the dock opposite Harlequin’s yacht. There were two physical adepts like Ryan, a white elf in ninja silks and a Latino woman wearing light combat armor. There was also a mage and a heavily cybered street samurai.

  The team leader disembarked first—a huge troll-like individual with white skin and wearing a tuxedo over body armor. “Greetings,” he said. “I am called Cluster. We are here to secure the island.”

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Ryan had never seen a minotaur before. Cluster was about the same size as a typical troll, but his head was shaped more like a bull. He had a snout instead of a nose and his horns jutted from either side of his head and curved up to a sharp point. Despite his appearance, Cluster spoke in elegant, German-accented English.

  “I’m Quicksilver,” Ryan said.

  “It’s an honor to finally meet the infamous Quicksilver,” Cluster said.

  Ryan silently acknowledged the compliment. He gestured to his own team. “This is Axler, my lieutenant. And this is Talon. I believe you’ve already met Grind.”

  “Yes, Grind and I did a Desert War tour together.”

  The Latino physad stepped up next to Cluster, giving Ryan a challenging look. “Quicksilver, maybe you and I can go hand-to-hand sometime? Just to see who’s the—”

  Cluster cut her off. “Starfish, cut the drek!”

  Ryan laughed. “Perhaps so,” he said. “But now, we’re in a bit of rush. Your job is to guard the island perimeter. My rigger, Dhin, has two drones in the air. He and Grind will assist you. The others and I will be indisposed inside the chateau.”