05 - Changeling

by Chris Kubasik - (ebook by Undead)

  “Fine. What’s your name, Profezzur?”

  “Clarris. Peter Clarris.”

  Zoze raised his left eyebrow, delighted with the complexities of the operation that had wandered into his establishment. Peter knew that Zoze’s joy came from the fact that he was in control of the situation, safe on the outside.

  “All right,” said Zoze when he finished typing Peter’s information into the table. “And now, Miss Amij? I’ll warn you now, you have the option of going to the authorities, confessing your crimes and taking the heat for them. Corporate law, as you know, is very harsh these days on the illegal transfer of intellectual property.”

  “But I have enough clout to pull out of it.”

  Zoze shrugged shoulders. “True. I won’t use the scare tactics. Given drat one of your own board members has ties with the gang and put out a contract for you, I’d say you could wangle some deal. You’d probably keep control of Cell Works, if from a new position behind the scenes. I could toggle the proper switches to help make your slide back into society easier. It might cost more than the new ID, but in the long run your life would be much easier. Because of your family ties with Cell Works, I suspect you’d remain Kathryn Amij.”

  Peter looked at Kathryn as she thought the situation over. He found himself desperately wanting her to choose the new ID. She would be a fugitive along with him. She might stay with him simply because she needed somebody with her. But why should she when she could fight to get her company back?

  “New name,” she said. “New identity.”

  Peter exhaled sharply.

  “I may not have explained the conditions of the re-tag fully. Once you say yes, I will send instructions to a very talented woman who will, over the course of this night, track down and delete every trace of your existence in all electronic records. Is this what you want?”

  Kathryn held her breath for a moment, then said, “Yes,” her voice firm but quiet.

  Zoze rubbed his hands, delighted beyond belief. “Wonderful, wonderful. Things are very odd now. Wonderful.” His fingers flew over the keyboard.

  It was late now, one in the morning, but only Zoze seemed to be getting sleepy. Fear of being found by the past and apprehension of the future gripped Kathryn and Peter.

  When Zoze hit the return key one final time, Peter said, “Now what?”

  “You tell me. People are working on trying to keep you two safe from Itami. What else do you want?”

  “To find Dr. Clarris,” said Kathryn.

  “I already told you, my people haven’t found him yet.”

  “Well, give us whatever information they’ve got,” said Peter. “We’ll track him down.”

  “All they know is that Clarris is still in Chicago. We don’t know anything about the corp involved. You cut a deal without getting enough facts, Miss Amij.”

  “Yes.” She looked down, her expression a mixture of annoyance and shame.

  “Well,” said Peter, “we’re not going to get anywhere without one more bit of information.”

  Kathryn’s face become emotionless. “I… Peter, I told you your father was working on the same research you are—the means to transform a complex organism genetically. To remove the metahuman genes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Years ago he persuaded my father that it was viable. But this year the board said there was no way to justify the cost in the face of the small return.”

  “Small return?” said Zoze. “Wouldn’t people be desperate for that technology? How many metahumans want to be metahuman?”

  “I don’t know. But that wasn’t the problem. The project was cut because it would be too expensive, a ‘cure for the rich.’ It would become a class issue, and the negative PR would have hurt us. Besides, no one is even sure if it’s possible.”

  “I know,” said Peter.

  She smiled at him. “Yes. You know. You figured it out. But have you figured out the cost of doing it your way?”

  He hadn’t, and the question threw him. “I…I’ve just figured out the means… I didn’t think about manufacturing it.”

  “No, of course you didn’t.” It wasn’t a criticism, just a statement. Even an encouragement. “You’re a theorist. I could see that in the pages I read. Just like your father. But my job, and my board’s job, is getting the theories applied. And if the price point is so high that only the ultra-rich can afford it, then it becomes a dubious research project for which no one is going to want to front money.”

  Peter hadn’t given any thought to the “price point” of his idea, either. Frag, it had to be astronomical. “It would involve nanotechnology,” he said, thinking aloud, “a technology that has yet to pop off the drawing board. And magic—to get the body into a kind of suspended animation.”

  Kathryn nodded. “It’s not impossible, though. There are economic theorists—people who sit around and figure out how to make research and product economically viable. You didn’t think of how to do it. That’s all right. It’s not your job.”

  “But your board scrapped the research. They couldn’t see a way to do it.”

  “And one of those board members put out a contract to get me killed. You’ll forgive me if I think their decision-making leaves a bit to be desired.”

  Peter returned to her. “You said you helped my father jump contract because Cell Works wouldn’t conduct the research…”

  “Right,” she said with an impish grin. “But someone else wanted to do the work. And they wanted your father to help them.”

  “Who?”

  The smile melted from her face. “I don’t know. I took a chance. I took lots of chances. And I lost. They took him, and they were supposed to keep me updated. But that was two months ago. Haven’t heard a thing.”

  “But,” said Peter, becoming excited, “we know we’re looking for a corp with access to practical nanotech. Maybe just prototypes, but workable nanotech.” He turned to Zoze. “Anything?”

  “Don’t look at me. That stuff is so new it’s still in diapers. Anyone who’d know about it would have to be on the inside. And they wouldn’t talk.”

  “Dr. Landsgate,” Peter said aloud.

  “What?” said Zoze.

  “Dr. Richard Landsgate. He was in the same league as my father, and I know him.”

  Kathryn was looking at him strangely. “Peter,” she said slowly, “how well did you know him?”

  Her tone chilled him. “What are you telling me?”

  “He… transformed last year.”

  “What? That’s impossible!” Peter’s mind reeled at the odds of both of them goblinizing. He remembered only too well the doctor telling him how rare goblinization had become. In 2053, most metahumans were born that way.

  “He became a ghoul. No one knows why, but last year there was a sudden surge of transformations into ghouls. Maybe another cycle, like the birth cycles in 2011 and the transformations in 2021. I don’t know.” She touched his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Peter’s thoughts reeled. No one was left, all his moorings cut. Now he had only Kathryn, who he did not want to trust because of his attraction to her. “What happened to him?”

  “He was teaching at Northwestern at the time. The University kept it quiet, the PR…. Then Landsgate ran off. Maybe he wanted to spare his family when he realized he was changing into a ghoul… or maybe he only craved his own kind by then…”

  “The bounty,” Zoze said sagely.

  “It’s rumored he’s down in the Shattergraves,” said Kathryn. “The ghouls have practically owned the place since the IBM Tower went down.”

  “Hang on,” said Zoze, and he typed out the name Landsgate while he mouthed it to himself.

  “Nothing,” said Zoze.

  “Nothing?” Peter was incredulous. “Nothing? The man was at the top of his field.”

  “See for yourself.” Peter got up and crossed around the table. “He’s listed,” Zoze said as Peter studied the screen, “but they deleted his files. He’s listed simply as a ghoul. The
y dropped him.”

  Peter looked down at the screen. The letters floated in the glass. “Landsgate, Richard,” he read aloud. “Goblinized, ghoul, 02-06-51.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. Ghouls. No one wants them around. And not just because of their nasty habits. They remind people too much of how dark a place the world is now. They’d rather cut and forget them.”

  Peter looked over at Kathryn. “The Shatter-graves?”

  “It was just a rumor.”

  “Best we’ve got though, right?”

  “Um,” said Zoze, with a hungry grin, “I haven’t got anyone who’ll go in there with you.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Zoze raised his fleshy hand and placed it on Peter’s arm. “Let me repeat that. I don’t know anyone who would go into the Shattergraves with you. Don’t be a fool. If no one else will go, you shouldn’t either.”

  “I’m going.”

  Zoze looked to Kathryn.

  “Peter, there are other ways,” she said.

  Peter looked down at Zoze. “How many of them practical?”

  “Well, honestly, at this point, given the circumstances, a randomization is usually called for. I’d generally have someone other than the client go in for the action, however.”

  Peter thought for a moment. It occurred to him that he didn’t have to be the client. “How about this? My identity just got erased. I’m good with a gun. I’ve already got a handle. Take the other people off the case. I’m Kathryn’s shadowrunner now. She’ll pay me through you. You’re my fixer, I have access to your network.”

  “You want him?” Zoze asked Kathryn.

  She looked at Peter, annoyed. Did she think he was just trying to get money from her? “He’s done a pretty good job so far.”

  “Done.”

  “The money I earn from her is applied against anything she’s shelled out for me so far.” He turned to her. “All right.”

  She eyed him, curious. Then she nodded. “So you’re a shadowrunner now?”

  “That’s right. I’m Profezzur. By the way,” he said, turning to Zoze, “most people don’t think I’m very bright. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Hell, chummer, you’re going into the Shattergraves. You could have fooled me.”

  18

  Peter walked just over a dozen blocks to reach the Shattergraves, heading south on State to Jackson and then turning west. Getting closer, he saw the red glow of rats the size of dogs scuttling around in the snow searching for food. Fires built by bums burned in the upper floors of abandoned office buildings. Sometimes he saw warm-red forms looking down at him.

  He knew he was almost there when he stumbled over a big hunk of ice-rimed stone. Picking it up, Peter saw that it was a jagged piece of black rock larger than his fist. A fragment of the former IBM Tower. Just ahead was a four-square block area of ruined buildings where the IBM subtowers had fallen, crushing other buildings and setting off gas-line explosions that tore up the downtown area.

  Continuing down the snowy streets, Peter passed among huge stones, the remains of huge steel girders, and the skeletal walls of destroyed buildings. The monumental debris created a chaotic garden of unmoving shadows that extended far beyond his vision.

  It was time to pull out his Predator.

  Walking on another hundred meters, he came to two giant stone blocks, each ten meters high, standing on either side of Jackson Street like columns heralding the entrance to some ancient kingdom.

  He entered the Shattergraves.

  Working his way carefully through the rubble, Peter tried to head due west, thinking it would help him find his way out again. But streets had no meaning within the Shattergraves. Huge slabs blocked his path, and in the darkness the snow-covered concrete melded with the snow-covered asphalt, until everything looked like the ruins of walls.

  When he looked back, Peter couldn’t make out which way he’d just come, but his footprints still burned hot in the cold snow. Perhaps if he found Landsgate quickly enough, he could follow his own prints out before the snow filled them. He moved forward slowly, gun in hand, moving it from side to side.

  What was that? He halted suddenly, looking sharply to the left.

  From behind him came a soft scraping noise. He was just turning to see when the ghoul crashed down on him, knocking Peter to the ground and flooding his nostrils with the stench of rotted flesh. The ghoul gasped for air with loud breaths, its cold, torn hands flailing at Peter’s face.

  Peter was so stunned that for a moment he could only take the blows.

  Between blows he saw red blurs moving not far away. The words did not form in his mind, but he knew big trouble had arrived. Pulling his arm back, he snapped a tremendous punch into the chest of the ghoul in front of him. The ghoul immediately popped off Peter and landed in the snow a few steps away.

  Peter leaped to his feet, but not before a dozen more ghouls had him surrounded. Some wore torn business suits; others ragged punker outfits. Not a single face was intact. The ghoul in the biker outfit had only one eye; the right half of the face of the woman in the torn evening gown showed muscle. Burns blackened their cool flesh.

  They encircled Peter, crouched and ready to pounce if he made a move to escape. Their smiles were taut and maniacal—skulls enjoying a joke.

  Peter still held his gun, but knew he couldn’t take them all out at this range.

  He made a dash for the edge of the circle. His feet slipped on the snow, but he managed to keep his balance and went crashing through the ghouls. Rotted hands to either side of him grabbed at his arms. Their touch made him want to cry out, but he ran on past them into the shadows.

  He ran wildly, careening around every corner he encountered. Moments earlier a straight and narrow path had seemed the best course, now nothing made more sense than to throw himself headlong into the maze.

  He slipped and fell twice, the stones under the snow scraping his skin, the snow chilling the wounds.

  Deeper into the Shattergraves he ran and ran, until he could run no more. Panting wildly, he stopped and leaned against a steel girder to catch his breath.

  As his respiration became more normal, Peter also became aware of a soft light shining near him.

  He turned his head, too exhausted to snap into action, and saw only a fuzzy oval of white light, about two meters long, floating off the ground just ahead of him.

  “Peter?” said the light.

  Peter stood up straight. He recognized the voice, but could not place it.

  The light floated toward him.

  Within the oval Peter saw a long, bright shape that writhed slowly. The oval seemed, in fact, to be a halo emanating from the inner, glowing object.

  “You’ve changed,” said the light.

  “Thomas?” Peter said, suddenly recognizing the voice.

  At the moment he spoke the name, Thomas’ face seemed to take form from out of the spiralling illumination at the center of the oval. Although the source of the light had something serpentine about it, the shape remained indefinite.

  Thomas smiled at Peter. His face glowed from within, his expression as boyish and innocent as when Peter had last seen him. The image, frightening at first, settled into something miraculous, even beautiful.

  “It is you, Peter. How are you?”

  “Thomas? What happened to you?”

  The head smiled bashfully. “I told you that Snake demands a lot in return for her secrets. Do you remember?”

  Peter remembered something about that, talking with Thomas in his bedroom years ago, in his father’s house. “Yes.”

  “Well, she wanted a lot from me. I wanted a lot from her. But what has happened to you? The last time I saw you, you did not have the blood of many lives on you.”

  Peter felt naked, as if all his secrets and shame were being laid bare before this glowing form.

  “I… Things have been hard. Strange.”

  “I can well imagine. I can’t think of any
reason why someone with your kind nature would resort to murder.”

  How much did Thomas know? “What happened to you, Thomas? You left and never came back.”

  “I died here, Peter. I died the day I left you. I was trying to help those I could, and as I worked, I kept wondering what could make people do such a terrible thing. How could any person or group of people take it upon themselves to kill so many innocents, to cause so much grief for their survivors?”

  Though Peter did not think Thomas’ words referred to him, they worked their way into his chest. They lodged there and made him uncomfortable.

  “The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was what I wanted to heal. I wanted to find the disease of hatred and cure it. As I pulled the dying from the rubble, curing those I could and easing the deaths of those I could not, I thought. ‘But first I must understand the disease.’ The hours passed and I found myself drawing more and more upon Snake to keep up my strength. Eventually I became so weary I didn’t notice when a huge wall near me gave way. I have been here ever since.” Thomas looked left, then right, men, in a low whisper, said, “I can’t really say coming here was the wisest decision I ever made.” And then he laughed.

  “So you’re a ghost?”

  “Yes. Mostly. But, being me, it’s hard to fully grasp the implications of what I am. That’s annoying, let me tell you. You think that when you die things will become clearer. I changed into this,” he said and looked down at the coiling body of light, “and now all I know about myself is that I’m this.”

  “Did you learn what you wanted to learn?”

  A dark sadness passed over the face of Thomas. “More than I would have wanted to. The ghouls of the Shattergraves have given me… ample behavior for study.”

  “It’s a ghoul I’m looking for.”

  Thomas looked weary. “Why, Peter?”

  “He was a friend of mine. I need to find him. He might be able to help me with what I want.”

  “To become human?”

  “Yes.”

  Thomas closed his eyes and said, “Don’t go to the ghouls, Peter. Leave this quest behind and go back to the living.”