“Is it safe to talk?”
The man nodded. “Of course. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t have gotten through. What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve finally taken care of D’imato, but now I’ve got other problems and they’re interfering with my work.”
The man’s expression turned thoughtful. “Of course, we can’t have that. What’s the problem, and what is it you need?”
Wake smiled wearily. “Things are getting… warm here. An old friend of yours has come to call-Martin de Vries. We’ve already had one attack on the compound due to your man D’imato’s incompetence and thick-headedness. From what I know of the people who hit us, I’m sure they’ll be back again to finish the job. They’ve got access to plenty of firepower, and next time they’ll come with enough to level this whole place and destroy all of my work.”
The look of distaste on the man’s face was evident. “De Vries? By the gods, when will that fool learn to leave well enough alone? Still, when you say you’ve taken care of my man”-the distaste turned to disgust-“I assume you mean that it became necessary to make your solution permanent?”
Wake shook his head. “I wanted to consult with you first, but he has been gently removed from his position, and no one will really notice the change for another month or so.”
The man smiled. “Excellent. That will give us time to plan for his replacement. So what is it that we can do for you?”
“This locale has become difficult. I need immediate relocation. Code Azure.”
The man turned away from the telecom, and seemed to be conferring with others who Wake couldn’t see. When he turned back, he had a satisfied look on his face. “I don’t think that will be a problem. It might cost a bit, but we all agree that the expenditure is worth the service you’re providing. Besides, it wouldn’t do for de Vries to get his hands on your current research data. We’ve put too much effort into making him look as crazy as he is. This would be a bad time for him to actually acquire proof of his accusations.”
Wake nodded. He’d had no doubt that the men of Ordo Maximus would see it that way. After all, they’d already invested too much nuyen to back out now, especially when they believed they were so close.
He kept the smile from his face as he imagined those British fops, with their ridiculous vampire cabal, sitting in their posh offices looking at each other with gaping mouths once they learned that they’d funded the one thing that could make their plan obsolete.
The man continued. “I’ll make all the arrangements from this end, and we’ll have a new lab set up for you through your Zulu BioGen front.”
Wake smiled. “Thank you. I’m sorry things haven’t gone more smoothly here, but hopefully there won’t he any more little complications to detract from the work.”
The man shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I apologize to you for saddling you with D’imato. He should have been the perfect subject, but apparently he is too unpredictable to be of any use. If you’ve found a way to remove him from the picture, we are doubly in your debt.”
Wake nodded, and hit the Disconnect without further chatter.
He sat back, grateful to realize that some of the tension in his shoulders had eased. That was the right decision, he thought. I probably should have done this a couple of months ago, but this location seemed ideal. He selected another icon from the display and touched it.
“Attention, initiate Code Azure. This is not a drill. I want all equipment not in use at this time marked red, then disconnected and moved to the loading docks for transport to the helipad. All equipment marked yellow is to be packed securely and prepared for transport on the trucks. All green equipment is to be taken to disposal. I repeat, initiate Code Azure.”
32
The only good vampire is a dead one-and I should know I’ve killed eight of them, including two nosferatu. It was no simple task, primarily because the majority of these monsters are magically active. Their ‘natural’ powers give them a huge advantage over even the best equipped, most magical powerfully (meta)humans, and their regenerative powers make it extremely difficult to inflict them with permanent, deadly damage.
–Posted to Shadowland BBS by “Deathblow,” vampire hunter, 14 January 2057
Sweat dripped off Rachel’s forehead as she spun to block one of Sinuou’s kicks. It had been two days since the run on the compound. and she’d healed up fast enough that she was back to training again. The salty liquid drenched her shoulders, forming a vee-shaped stain on her exercise bra and the elastic band of her shorts.
She brought her arm down a second too late, and Sinunu’s kick landed hard against Rachel’s hip.
Rachel bit back against the pain that flared. “Sorry, Rach,” Sinunu said.
Rachel clenched her teeth. She felt more anger than pain. “I’m too slow.”
Sinunu smiled. “Let’s call it a day,” she said. “You’re beating yourself up more than I ever could. And it’s because you’re tired, girl. You’ve improved more in two days than runners who’ve trolled the shadows for six or eight months. I’m impressed.”
Rachel picked up a towel from the floor of the workout room. Fratellanza, Inc. had several of them in this facility in the Renton District.
“Anyone hungry?”
Rachel looked up to see Julius enter the room, followed by several soldiers carrying trays of hot food.
“Starved,” Sinunu said. “Rachel?”
“Yeah, me too.”
Julius had his men set up the food in the corner, then he brought a plate over to Rachel, who was sitting on the floor while she stretched.
“I thought you could use something. It’s sundown and you’ve barely eaten since this morning.” Julius set down the steaming tray of meat, hot rolls, and real coffee.
“You keeping track of my diet?”
Julius just smiled.
The smell of the hot food suddenly hit Rachel’s nose, and her stomach grumbled. “If the sun is down, Martin should be back,” she said. Then she picked up a hot roll and a sausage link and wolfed them down.
Rachel realized that her mindset had shifted. The change in her was so dramatic that sometimes she didn’t even recognize herself. She’d been hard before, streetwise and scared in her spike heels and see-through skirts. Now, dressed in exercise cottons, her long hair freshly shorn close to her skull to better accommodate the com gear, her hardness had changed. In the last few days, she’d transformed from being a mans plaything into a warrior. She liked the change, but it scared her as well.
Now, she felt an inner confidence that seemed to chase away that streetwise fear lurking under her brash exterior.
Julius was studying her face, scrutinizing the fresh bruises under her right cheek. “I see Sin is still getting the best of you.” He glanced over at Sinunu. sitting by herself and shoveling food into her mouth. “How’s she holding up?”
Rachel felt a wave of pity swelling inside. “I’m not sure. When we’re working, she seems okay, but I think part of her has gone dead.”
Julius continued to stare at the albino woman. “Truxa.”
Rachel nodded. “Of course.”
Julius turned his gaze back to Rachel. “And somehow you still feel responsible?”
Rachel nodded, without saying anything.
Julius was silent. Then, as if to change the subject, he said, “I’ve been working with Short Eyes on a project.”
“Short Eyes has conveyed her appreciation of your cunning, Mister D’imato.” The voice Came from the doorway.
Rachel turned to see de Vries standing there in his dark duster, a small smile on his thin blue lips. “Martin,” she said, and she knew that she’d let too much emotion into her voice. But she was very happy to see him.
“Hello, Rachel. What have you done to your hair?” He smiled and she grinned back.
“Sin got a little overzealous with the shears.”
De Vries looked over at Julius. “We need to talk.”
“Go ahead,” Julius said, lea
ning forward.
De Vries stepped up close, and though Rachel knew it was only her imagination, it seemed as if the temperature suddenly dropped a few degrees. “They’re on the move. I took a quick detour on my way over here, and they are definitely vacating. At the rate they’re going, the place will be empty by tomorrow night.”
Julius nodded. “That matches the Intel my decker and Sandman have come up with. The compound is being systematically shut down.” He sighed. “I’d have liked another week to finish preparations, but I guess it’s now or never.”
De Vries locked eyes with Julius. “You know that there’s only a slim possibility that Warren is still human?”
Julius nodded slowly. “I’m still hanging on to the hope that, with everything going on there, they might have shut down on all major procedures. But, yes, I do understand that every moment we’re still here is another moment for Warren to be lost.”
De Vries frowned. “And if things don’t turn out as you hope?”
Rachel watched as Julius’ jaw muscles tightened. She’d seen the same look on Warren’s face when someone pushed him too hard. “I know what I have to do, vampire, and I won’t hesitate. For now, we’re wasting precious time. Let’s get back to business.”
De Vries smiled, cold and hard. “Fine. And here’s some business we’d better keep solidly in our minds. When we take the compound, every infected creature has to be destroyed. Every single one. Otherwise, we could see a plague of HMHVV on the scale of the first VITAS epidemic.”
Julius nodded. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Rachel shuddered. Her parents had both died from VITAS, or at least that’s what she’d been told by the people at the orphanage. VITAS killed slowly and painfully, but it didn’t turn people into monsters.
She turned and left Julius and de Vries to hash over the assault, and headed for the showers. As she cleaned up, she thought about what she was going to do tonight, and why. She imagined all of her fear being washed away by the water and slipping down the drain. As she stepped from the shower, she thought about all the people who had been hurt, and how she wanted to set that to rights. She changed into loose camouflage fatigues, and by the time Julius had prepped the troops, Rachel’s heart was as cold and hard as dry ice.
She knew this was about more than getting Warren back now. What she did tonight could affect people halfway around the world. She wasn’t going to fail.
33
The Ordo is concerned about using the Zulu BioGen front. If things do not go exactly as planned, you could easily be compromised by the paper trail. Be warned. If that happens, we will cut you off and deny any knowledge of you or your aclivities.
–Matrix transmission from London, England to LTG # NA-UCAS-SEA-4897, 09 August 2060
Two hours before dawn, the convoy rolled through Hell’s Kitchen. The residents who were awake at that hour and saw the line of truck after truck rumble down the streets immediately bolted for whatever safe place they could find. It only took an hour for the rumor to spread. The UCAS army was invading Hell’s Kitchen, and they were packing armor and weapons like nothing any of the folks there had ever seen before.
All the trucks bristled with wooden stakes, from every angle, like huge, monstrous porcupines.
Within the hour, every street in Hell’s Kitchen was deserted. Even the go-gangers had gone off to hide. No matter how tough they were, they were no match for the army, who packed milspec caliber weapons.
In the newly revamped Mobmaster, Julius rubbed his eyes. The smell of sweat in the vehicle was nearly overpowering as the men surrounding him finished the last check of their weapons.
Julius looked around one last time, and tried not to think of how he might have better prepared the men for what was to come. Sandman, de Vries, and Killian had given him every bit of information they had, but Julius had been the one to make all the final decisions.
Of the sixty men he’d called in for the assault, only a few of them carried standard projectile weaponry. They had learned, mostly from de Vries, what worked and what didn’t.
Most of the men carried flamethrowers or lasers. The flame-throwers were the most effective, but tended to be fickle. That was why they’d divided each squad into groups of eight, with three men armed with flame throwers, three armed with lasers, and two walking flank with automatic weapons. The men toting lasers were responsible for keeping the vampires from reaching the men with the flame throwers, and the men with projectile weapons were to keep any goblins from wading in and killing the men with lasers.
The plan he, Flak, de Vries, and Biggs had come up with called for a three-pronged attack. The frontal attack would act as a diversion to give the rear attack time to get into position. Truck five would carry Flak’s team, backed by some of the best reserve men Fratellanza had to offer. They were the third prong. If everything went according to plan, while the Fratellanza forces were crushing the vampires between them, the runners would be doing a covert snatch on Warren, provided they could find him.
There were four advance teams, and three long-range teams. The long-range teams were armed with high-explosive and white phosphorous rocket launchers. Their job was to pound the enemy’s rear from a safe distance, while the advance teams cut down the front flank.
Julius sighed as he pulled his helmet down over his face and strapped it in place. When he activated the thermal display, the truck’s interior turned a bloody red, highlighted in yellows where each man sat.
Julius knew that thermal vision would be useless once battle was joined, because the flamethrowers would create blinding tracers on the helmet’s viewer. That, in turn, would limit the men’s vision during the fighting, but it was a risk they had to take. Considering the advantages even the weakest vampire had over humans, there was no way Julius was going to send his men in there with nothing more than a wooden stake and a prayer.
He grinned as he thought of the one exception to this rule. Short Eyes would carry the weapon he’d helped her construct. She had declined anything else. It was a crossbow, but it was fashioned into the shape of a real cross, and there was no crank. Instead, each of the wooden bolts was powered by a jet of CO2. allowing her to belt-feed the crossbow from a pack slung over her shoulder.
Surprisingly accurate, Short Eyes could fire wooden bolts as fast as she could pull the trigger.
Over his headset came the voice of Biggs, who was once again standing up front by the rigger. “Three minutes to show time.”
Julius spoke into the integrated tacticom mic in his helmet. “Trucks five through eight, make the split at the next turn. Good hunting.”
The runners, having successfully navigated the rear entrance once before, were to lead the Fratellanza troops in. The corp soldiers would hit the building itself, which would force the enemy to split its forces and to fight on two flanks. It was a good plan. Julius hoped it would work.
“This is it, everybody,” he said into his mic. “Let’s get in there and clean this fragging place up.”
There was a huge concussion as the Mobmaster hit the first of the mines the enemy had placed across the roadway.
34
One cannot consider a discussion on vampires complete without mentioning their counterparts, namely wendigos, banshees, goblins, and the rest of their kind. While each have distinct needs and feeding habits, it should be mentioned that only the banshee have no actual need for blood. They, instead, take nourishment from the emotion of fear their victims feel just before death. That is not to say that all banshee do not drink blood; some do. However, it would seem that rather than needing it, they simply enjoy she taste.
–Martin de Vries, Shadows at Noon, posted to Shadowland BBS, 24 May 2057
While the other teams stormed the compound from the front and rear, exploding land mines as they went, the Citymaster carrying Sinunu and the others plowed toward the loading dock at the rear of the compound. Explosions filled the air as the Citymaster came within view of the dock.
Sinunu le
aped from the truck, crossbow in hand. For just a moment, there was dead silence in the no man’s land surrounding the compound. She stared across the ten meters to the nearest vampire, a short, stubby man whose pale skin was covered in swastika tattoos. Even on his bare scalp.
A second before, there had been nothing but empty air where the vampires now stood. Too late, she realized the vampires must have someone with magical talents working with them.
The tableau held for just a second, then was shattered by a tremendous roaring cry from Sinunu’s left.
“Truxa!” screamed Flak like a battle cry, and let loose with his Vindicator.
The tattooed man jumped forward, covering most of the ten meters separating him from Sinunu with one bound. His movements were fast and jerky, and Sinunu didn’t have much time to wonder how a move-by-wire reflex system might frag with a vampire.
He was on her like a flood, hands grabbing, broken teeth gnashing for her throat.
Pivoting on her left foot, she puled a small wooden stake from the arsenal at her waist, and kicked upward with her right heel.
The vampire, despite his jacked reflexes, moved much too slowly, and Sinunu felt her heavy boot smash through his windpipe. As he teetered backward, she continued her turning movement, which brought her face to face with the vampire to her left.
This one was a tall woman, probably a former street Sam, considering all the flashy mods, but she seemed to have difficulty focusing on her movements.
Stabbing upward with the stake, Sinunu drove it into the woman’s throat and up into whatever she had for a brain.
The female vampire fell, the stake still imbedded in her throat, jerking violently as all her cyber kicked in and then shut off.
“You want to try it again?”
The voice was from behind Sinunu, and she instinctively knew it belonged to the tattooed man.
She turned and smiled. “You think you get another chance?”
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