“Why the hell did they turn the lights on?”
“Silk,” Moon said from the back seat. “We’ve got company.”
Silk had just triple-checked the Hummer and her RCC when Moon spoke. He kept his voice low, and didn’t use the AR window. That alarmed her. She looked at his pale reflection in the rearview mirror. “Company?”
“Yeah.” His eyes were closed. “Actually they do, too.”
She half turned in her seat. “Moon, you best be explaining what you mean.”
His eyes opened. “There’s a van parked down on the right. It’s just inside the lower garage of that office building. Someone just got out of it and left that building and headed to the house. The van’s actually hard to see, but I can sense the onboard computer.”
“Magic?”
“My guess. There are two augmented individuals near the house with Kazuma and Netcat. There is also something…” He tilted his head and frowned. “Someone’s trying to hack the house host.”
“Moon…what is it?”
He shivered. “Shadow…dark. Silk, it’s dark and—” He suddenly yelled as he lurched forward in the seat.
Silk pressed the release on her five-point harness and scrambled into the back. Grabbing Moon’s shoulders, she lightly slapped his face. “Moon! What the hell are you talking about?”
His eyes refocused on her for a few seconds before he reached out and touched her. “Silk, whatever’s trying to break into that host is dissonant. It’s dark and twisted, and it’s trying to hack in by poisoning the host’s core programing. If it does, everything in that house is going to —”
The rhythmic beat of a helicopter’s blades broke the night’s quiet. Silk let go of Moon and looked up through the Hummer’s passenger side window. Her AR tagged the Shinobi with nothing more than a blank RFID. It was either another team, or undercover law enforcement.
She crawled between the seats to the front. “Moon, let Netcat and Kazuma know we have to leave now!”
“But—”
“No buts. Whether he’s got the package or not, we’ve got to go!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Risen Residence
The literal bird’s-eye view gave Kazuma a bit of warning as he saw two figures converge on the house through the backyard. Then a third, smaller one came from a different direction, stopping at the front of the house.
He reached out and moved Netcat behind him as the back door opened and the hobgoblin came through, the Colt Manhunter in his hand aimed at the two of them. If this was Clockwork, he was even uglier in person.
While the drone was busy projecting, he reached out to the wind chime’s tiny host and, finding no security, shut it off. The thing crept to the side and then squatted back down. Within seconds it looked like it had earlier—just a simple wind chime.
He felt her trembling against him, and knew it wasn’t because of the gun. His own trembling, however, was more so. This wasn’t the first time he’d faced a gun—the last instance had been at the hands of hackers inside that coffee shop. That time, he’d only been worried about himself and Montgomery. Now—there was Netcat. And he felt an even stronger need to protect her. She wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if she hadn’t helped him.
Another person came in through the back door. This guy was taller, a human, but with the telltale head-chrome of some serious wetware. He stopped right in front of them, just a few inches ahead of Clockwork. “You Kazuma Tetsu?”
Kaz frowned, but didn’t acknowledge either way. He also didn’t see the blow coming to the side to this head. The impact jarred every connection he had to any peripheral hosts as his knees crumpled beneath him, and he caught himself on his elbows. He continued seeing stars as he tried to reconnect to the datasphere. Apparently this guy had quite a few enhancements, including increased physical speed as well as strength. Netcat was at his side as he blinked the stars away and looked up to see Cole standing over him, a large pistol in his hand.
“Damn it, Cole!” Clockwork half-yelled. “I gotta have them alive! And not brain damaged. Do that again, and I’ll be selling you!”
“Like hell you will. That bastard cost me my rep.”
Kaz laughed. “Like you actually had one in the first place.” He tasted blood, and spit it out onto Blackwater’s boot.
He saw Blackwater raise his arm this time, but Clockwork intercepted him, shoving him away. “I said stop!”
“You heard what he said to me?”
“So what? We get him, the girl, and the data, and your rep is safe.” He turned back to face them as Netcat put her arms around Kazuma. “And you, technomancer.” The hobgoblin curled his upper lip, spitting the word out with venom. “I’d shut up if I were you. We can break your legs and arms—don’t need those. But I’d prefer you walk out of here on your own, save me and Blackwater breaking a sweat getting you and Netcat here in the van.”
Kazuma wiped his nose and mouth with his sleeve. A bright red smear decorated the white cotton. Damn...did he break my nose? It sure hurts like hell.
“This is going to be so much fun, Netcat,” Clockwork said. “I wonder why your boyfriend didn’t tell me you were here?”
Netcat put her hand on Kazuma’s arm. “What? Did you goad Slamm-0! on JackPoint?”
“Oh no. Apparently you two are still out there running. So…who’s watching the kid? Has he shown any irregularities yet? ’Cause you know these corps, they love to get the young technomancers.”
Kazuma felt her tense to move, and managed to half-turn in time to grab her shoulders. He stopped her from charging this asshole, which is what she would have done. The way this rigger talked, he didn’t want them dead. He wanted them alive. But he could hurt them, and Kazuma wouldn’t allow that.
He’d already alerted MoonShine to their situation, and told him to tell Silk to get the van cranked and ready.
“Get up, or I break your knees,” Blackwater commanded.
Kazuma pushed himself off the floor and stood. The room didn’t spin, and he wasn’t dizzy. This was a good sign. What he did do was take in the possible weapons in the room, things he’d set up years ago, when Grannie was still alive. Decorative rocks along the side table, and the old, classic, but still serviceable revolver in the glass case by the sliding glass door.
And the set of katanas over the fireplace.
Kazuma leaned his head to the right, keeping his gaze focused on Blackwater as he directed his next question to the AR window ever present in his peripheral vision.
Blackwater stepped up nose-to-nose, which was easier for him to do than Clockwork, since the hobgoblin barely came to Kazuma’s shoulders. The hacker pressed his gun against the technomancer’s neck. “Now, you going to tell me where the data is—the packet you stole from me. You give me the data, and I don’t shoot off your kneecaps. Or—” he turned away from Kaz and pointed his gun at Netcat’s face. “I shoot her.”
“Like hell you will!” Clockwork said as he came from behind Blackwater. The rigger held his own weapon trained on Netcat and grabbed her upper arm, pulling her away from Kazuma. She was closer to the hobgoblin’s height, but Net was still a few centimeters taller.
Kazuma gritted his teeth, refraining from saying anything smart. You must always practice patience, Silk said during their training. You must watch, listen to, and learn about your opponent. Seek out the weakness.
And this man’s weakness?
Himself.
Netcat’s texting stopped and he tensed, sensing something else had happened.
“We’re not alone,” she said. “I can sense others—outside.”
“Eh?” Clockwork narrowed his eyes and glanced at Blackwater. “You hire anyone else? Wer
e we followed?”
“She’s lying.” Blackwater moved closer to Kazuma and banged the end of the gun barrel against his temple, though he never stopped looking at Netcat. “Don’t go pulling that shit on me. I don’t take it very well. Just ask your boyfriend here how I treat people who get in my way.”
Kazuma thought of the dead girl and the two security guards, and hoped Netcat didn’t make any sudden moves just yet. He wove himself into the house’s security array and tapped into the outside cameras, like he had done so many times before.
The bird’s window spun as it took off and gave him the aerial view of a Shinobi.
Silk’s window popped up in his AR.
“Eh? I see you looking at this gun, leaf-eater. You recognize it, don’t you? It’s the one that killed that magic piece of ass—and capped you too, if I recall.”
Kazuma’s attention refocused on the physical world. He glared at Blackwater, his mind flashing back to the woman staring up at him in the Annex, and the bullet hole in her forehead, then the pain where Blackwater’s bullet had found his side. He licked his swollen lip. “If she says she senses someone else here—she’s serious.”
Abruptly, Kazuma’s backbone tingled, and he was overcome with the feeling of being watched. He felt the first brush against the house host’s web across his skin. Just a whisper at first, but it quickly became a pounding against his senses.
Kazuma focused on the gun at her throat.
“Where’s that data?!” Blackwater moved before Kazuma could react, his cybernetic arm blurring as his fist slammed into the side of the technomancer’s head. The quick, sharp impact made stars explode in his vision, and turned his legs to rubber as he crumpled to his knees again.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Horizon Offices
Artus Wagner’s former office
Early Saturday Morning
Delaney Charis, known to her co-workers at Horizon as Charis Monogue, stood at the window of Wagner’s office, the place of her previous assignment. The CSI crews had already come and gone, the room still smelling of strong disinfectants and cleansers. The Medical Examiner had declared the death a homicide, but she could have told them that the moment she’d seen the body.
She hadn’t liked Wagner. Not even a little. As soon as she could, she’d looked through his files, including the commlink he kept in a spare drawer he hadn’t thought she knew about. The bastard’s hosts were wiped. Even the parceled areas on the office host were corrupted.
Delaney knew Powell had done it. He and that crazy wolf that she knew wasn’t really a wolf. They did this. They came in and killed him—took the evidence. Only I don’t have the proof I need to nail them.
Seven months getting into Horizon in the first place, and then five more doing everything that bastard wanted, listening to him go on and on about himself, letting him touch her, and then answering his damn whiny calls at all hours of the night. All wasted.
She heard the door open, but didn’t turn around. The smell of Renault’s aftershave was enough of an introduction. “Sergeant,” he said in his familiar yet comforting baritone.
“What?” she said, her voice echoing off the empty walls.
“They finally identified the remains in that school incinerator. Apparently your first guess was right.”
Delaney sighed. “Doesn’t matter. Any evidence we might have collected from her burned away.” She turned from the afternoon sun and looked at Renault.
He was a troll of valiant proportions. Broad shoulders, medium tusks, and one hell of an epic forehead. His hair—bleached white—he wore long and braided down his back. His horns were polished and sharpened at their tips—no faddish tattoos for him. He wore a suit like nobody else, filling it out in the most natural way.
She’d known him for three years—partnered with him for two of those years. He was smart, insightful, and the best damn investigator she knew. “No sign of Kazuma Tetsu?”
“No.” He stepped toward her. “Are you sure a shadowrunner team would be a reliable asset to help prove Contagion is somehow behind all this? I mean…a game?”
She nodded slowly. “I’m sure. We have a BOLO out on Tetsu as a kidnapping victim. Which, given the circumstances here—” She glanced at where Wagner’s body had been found and shook her head. “—I’m giving up hope we’ll find him alive, and that he didn’t walk out of Knight Errant into the wrong hands.”
“Ma’am.” Renault made a face. “He’s just a technomancer—why do you care?”
Delaney nailed him with one of her infamous glares, and he took an involuntary step back. She placed her hands on her hips. “Yes, Renault. He’s only a technomancer. I don’t care what the states think, or how the laws of protection of rights come down. I protect and serve. Everyone. What if when recommending you for this job, I thought, ‘oh, he’s just a troll?’”
The troll opened his mouth, then closed it. “That was pretty asinine of me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was. And I’m not going to ignore it, Renault. If you don’t think you can support on this, I’ll get someone who can. Understand?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Then, “So, why are you so concerned?”
“Because it’s my job to be concerned,” she said. “It’s technomancers today. But just a decade ago it was goblins, hobgoblins, trolls—whatever the general population is afraid of at the moment. We can’t keep blaming others for our insecurities. I’m not saying I trust technomancers any more than I trust the average hacker—but no matter where the prejudice is coming from—groups, corporations, law enforcement—nobody can be allowed to deal in human or metahuman trafficking. And that’s what this sort of parlaying means.”
She took a step back from him. He was smiling at her. And a smile on his visage could mean anything—she wasn’t sure what at the moment.
“You’re so passionate,” he said. “How can you stand yourself sometimes?”
That wasn’t the reaction she was looking for, and her eyes widened. Then she caught the subtle twinkle in his own gaze, and narrowed hers at him again. “What is it? You found something. Or something’s happened?”
“Both, actually.” He lowered the monocle of his ear commlink and began making movements in the air, his muscular fingers adorned with cybernetic rings. “Encrypted files on Wagner’s personal host. On a commlink the murderers didn’t find, hidden in his house.”
She stepped forward, feeling a smile pull at her lips. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I like to surprise you. Pull up your AR—you’ll wanna connect for this.”
Delaney turned to her purse and slipped on her own shades and rings, easily accessing her PAN. A screen opened of just Renault’s face, no persona. A folder appeared on the desktop. “What is this?”
Renault answered with text, not voice, not wanting the bugs in the office to pick up what he was saying.
“You’re kidding. Where did he send it? What did it say?”
Delaney was
ted no time connecting. Wagner’s email was third from the top of her stack. The encoding wasn’t something she’d seen before, but she was pretty good at cryptology. It’d been her specialty before being recruited.
Finally, the message opened and she sat down on the edge of Wagner’s now spotlessly clean desk to read it.
Miss Charis,
Let me start by expressing my extreme thanks over these past few months. Your service has been impeccable. Remind me to send a message to your Captain on your exemplary ability to act as a personal assistant and elf poser.
She blinked and put her hand to her chest. That last sentence had caught her completely off guard. He’d known. That little bastard had known all along she was an officer and not really an elf?
Now on to business. Rest assured that in the event of my untimely death, I have made preparations for revenge. I’m not going to delude myself into thinking I’ll survive this. I knew my days were numbered the moment I saw Powell, and somehow they found out that I had what they wanted, what they’d been searching for.
Powell works for something neither you nor I want to see resurrected. My research into his background produced only sketchy results, but I think I know you well enough to realize you’ll only believe what you can find for yourself. I know he once worked for Renraku, so I advise you to start there. I’m sure your access to such files is considerably better than my own.
During my tenure at Horizon, I made a lot of decisions where people died, and where others were removed from their lives, and I’m sure many of them are now suffering an existence worse than death. But I kept up with every bit of information I came across. I made copies. Of everything. Vids, images, texts, memos, all authentic. As well as something that was supposed to be destroyed—and wasn’t.
I used the Annex host for safekeeping. I never considered a hacker, much less a technomancer, would be interested in my little kill file. I’m sure the name Caliban is what tipped him off when he happened to be assigned to archive and destroy it. I am positive that is why he is involved.
Shadowrun: Dark Resonance Page 16
