“What? I’m hoping we don’t have to kill any!”
“Then you’d better hope they haven’t worked that out,” said Lankin grimly. “I know this may be difficult for many of you, but you’ll have to try thinking like a corp. Do you know what our lives are worth to a corp? Nothing. They don’t enter into the equation at all. Same with the common law that says this place is ours because we’ve been here more than four years. Any corp knows we can’t win a court battle, any more than we can beat those meres without taking a lot of casualties.
“But do you know what the meres’ lives are worth to that same corp? Probably between two and five thousand nuyen each. That’s the main difference between a live mercenary and a dead one to them—a few thousand in funeral expenses and hush money. They expect meres and shad-owrunners to have their own medical and life insurance. The good ones do, and they figure the rest are disposable. Now, if they do an assessment and decide that we can kill, say, five meres, that’s ten or twenty thousand nuyen extra expense. If we say that we’ll evacuate peacefully in exchange for, oh, two hundred each, that’s a saving of a few thousand for them . . . but only if they believe we can and will kill those five meres. And I think getting the kids out of the way is a good way to show them that we’re ready for a real fight.”
“He’s right,” said Ratatosk, to Lankin’s astonishment. “At least, he’s right about thinking like a corp. I traced the license of the Nomad that picked up the barghests from the airport. It belongs to Aztechnology, and it’s not listed as stolen. The drone also looks like it came from Aztechnology; it has Aztlan military-issue radar and infrared. I don’t know how often they do a stock take of their drones at the pyramid, but I’m pretty sure that if one of their trucks went missing for more than twenty-four hours and was picked up by the scanners at Sea-Tac, it would’ve sounded some alarms and someone would’ve called Lone Star to cover their butts. They haven’t, and that means that someone with authorization checked the car out of the pyramid. The only people who could do that are Aztechnology employees.”
“Or a team of runners with a first-rate decker,” countered Lankin.
Ratatosk shrugged. “Maybe. But it seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a couple of trucks and a few drones. 8-ball, is there a decker in that squad?”
“I don’t know. The only ones I know are Wallace, Griffin, King, Lewis and Carpenter. Quinn 1 know only by reputation. Of those, Griffin is the closest they had to a tech wiz, and his specialty is hardware, not programming. They could’ve hired someone . . . but I think Ratatosk’s probably right. There are cheaper and easier ways to get the stuff.” “Unless it’s an attempt to make it look like Aztechnology’s behind this,” said Sumatra.
“Behind what?” asked Boanerges. “Whatever it is they want this place for, they’re not going to be able to say it’s part of Aztechnology if it isn’t—not for long, anyway.” “They might be planning a massacre,” said Sumatra darkly. “If that got out, it’d be really bad PR.”
8-ball shook his head. “If that’s what they wanted, they picked the wrong team of meres. I’ve known plenty who wouldn’t have hesitated before they came storming in to wipe us all out.”
“And the massacre of a few dozen squatters wouldn’t even make the major newsnets,” said Lankin. “Not enough people would care. If there was any blowback at all, which 1 doubt, the CEO would just pin the blame on the mercenaries and maybe sacrifice someone in middle management who was supposed to be in charge. The guys higher up I he pyramid wouldn't even lose their annual bonuses. No, whoever’s paying for this, whether it’s Aztechnology or not . . . they really want something that’s here.”
“Or somebody,” said Sumatra slowly. “Maybe it's not the land at all. Maybe it’s one of us.”
9
The Hatter checked his pocket secretary for messages as soon as he managed to escape from his nine a.m. meeting, and read the report from Wallace as he walked back to his office. He hit the Reply button before the door had finished sliding shut behind him. “What’s this about a toxic spirit attacking your mage?” he demanded.
“It didn’t attack her,” said Wallace—quietly, because Lori was sleeping in the cargo compartment behind him. She’d cast a stabilizing spell on Carpenter as soon as Crabbe had brought him back, but she was sufficiently worried about his condition that she’d insisted on riding in the back of the Nomad with him. King, though still groggy from the aftereffects of the stunbolt, had managed to drive them to Good Samaritan in good time without any mishap. Once Carpenter had been checked into the ER. Lori had staggered back to the Nomad and lay down on the stretcher, and was fast asleep by the time they returned. Wallace and King had carried her, still on the stretcher, back to the Step-Van and laid her beside the still-unconscious Kat and Dutch. “She attacked it. That’s not what’s knocked her out. It’s all the healing spells.”
“The shaman in the Crypt didn’t summon it?”
“She doesn’t think so; it was attacking one of them, and she says it nearly killed him. I think she’d know if any of the shamans there are toxics.”
“Nearly killed him,” the Hatter murmured thoughtfully. “And you have three men in the hospital now?”
“Yes. Carpenter’s still on the critical list; the other two are stable and won’t need any transplants or prosthetics— well, no new ones.”
The Hatter glanced at the digital clock on the screen and nodded. “Understood. Keep me posted.” He broke the connection and stared at the computer monitor on his desk with obvious distaste. His morning’s work was to doublecheck the resumes of applicants for jobs that required a computer security clearance, and it was tedious work. He knew that any decker good enough to be worth hiring would probably have hacked into the records of his school and any previous employers to give himself a more respectable history, and all he was expected to do was to weed out the less successful forgeries. He also knew the job wasn’t entirely a punishment; it was a necessary precaution, and he had the right abilities and mind-set to do it well, but it was much less exciting or rewarding than the work he’d done before that humiliating incident with Morales. “Nearly killed him,” he repeated thoughtfully, then punched in an address he hadn’t used since his days as a Mr. Johnson.
“One of us?” repeated Boanerges. “Why would Aztech-nology be interested in any of us?”
No one spoke for several seconds; then 8-ball sighed. “Okay. Who else here has been on a run against the Pyramid that they might want to kill us for?”
Sumatra, Zurich, Ratatosk and Crane slowly raised their hands, and Pierce hesitantly followed suit. “I was only guardin’ the meat,” he said. “I don’t think they coutda known I was involved. ’Sides, we didn’t actually manage to steal anything—the team was lucky to get out alive.” “How recently do you mean?” asked Lankin uneasily. “How long can a corp bear a grudge?” Ratatosk replied. “It was six months ago, and they couldn’t have known I’d be here! I’ve never been here before . . . and if they wanted to kill me, I'm not that difficult to find.”
The decker silently conceded that that was true. Lankin, a former Fuchi company man, was well over two meters tall and a flashy dresser. He lived a life of luxury in a custom-built apartment in the Elven District, drove a Merlot-colored convertible Saab Dynamit and ate regularly at the exclusive elf-biased restaurant Icarus Descending. Even his creditors and ex-girlfriends had no trouble locating him. Ratatosk turned to Yoko and raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“Not in more than a year,” she replied. “I’ve done three runs for them since then, all of them successful. I don’t think this is personal.”
“Unless someone’s been betting against you,” Pierce suggested.
Yoko shook her head. “I haven’t had to defend my title in more than a year. I’m flattered by the suggestion, but sending a team of meres after me—after any one of us— seems like rather serious overkill. There must be some other explanation.”
“Maybe,” said Lankin neutrally. “Maybe it’s n
ot Aztech-nology. I heard somebody stole a shipment meant for Mit-suhama last week—close to a million nuyen worth of magical gear, which you can be sure they want back. And there was a Seoulpa courier they found dead behind the Downfall a few nights ago, minus the case cuffed to his wrist ...”
“And the wrist,” said 8-ball. “His whole arm and both his eyes. At least, that’s what my fixer told me. She might have been exaggerating.”
“Whatever the explanation is,” said Lankin, “I still think it’s imperative that we evacuate as many of the children as practical. They’ll be much safer in another squat, and I think it’ll improve our negotiating position . . . and in a best-case scenario, if we do manage to keep this .. . place,” he said before Boanerges could object, “they can come back when the shooting has stopped and the mercenaries have gone.”
__
Boanerges looked around the room, stopping when his gaze fell on Yoko. “If we can arrange some kind of transportation, I think we should give them the choice,” the adept said. “I don’t want them hurt, and I don’t want anyone to say we’ve been using kids and noncombatants as human shields. I want everyone who stays to be willing and able to either fight or work in the clinic.” She turned to ('zarnecki. “You’ve been here nearly as long as any of us, I )oc. What do you think?”
The ork was silent for a moment. “I’m not a fighter. One of the first things they teach us is ‘First do no harm,’ and I’ve been trying to obey that one for a long time now. I don’t want to have to kill anyone. I don’t even want to carry a gun. But if you’re going to fight, you’ll need a medic. And where else are you going to find one if I leave? Where is anyone in this area going to find one?” He looked at Boanerges. “I’ll stay. I can find work for a couple of stretcher bearers, and someone to keep things clean, but I agree the kids should go. And I’ll want to know everyone’s blood type; if they don’t know it, they come to the clinic now and get tested.” He turned to Lankin. “If and when I have to leave, I want a vehicle that I can use as an ambulance. Can you do that?”
i’ll add that to our list of demands,” Lankin assured him.
Boanerges glanced at Magnusson. The magician grimaced. “Why are you asking me?” he said. “This isn’t my home, and it never was—nor my school, nor my hospital, nor even a place of refuge.” He looked around the medicine lodge, at the murals laboriously created from colored sands and powdered crystals and other pigments, chosen not just for their magical properties but also for their brilliant hues both in the visible spectrum and in infrared, and all of them scavenged from the wasteland south of the Crypt. “I have a good apartment, I teach in a fine school, I have DocWagon, I have no need to hide from anyone— except my ex-wives’ lawyers, of course, and even they haven’t bothered me recently. This place is a dump, a hole, a pit; everything you do here, you could do somewhere else . . . except maybe finding raw materials for talismong-ers. I’ll grant you that it’s a good location for that. That aside, though, there must be a hundred other squats in the metroplex where you could do the same sort of good work. 1 don’t feel any particularly strong tie to the place .. . .” “Do you, to any place?” asked Boanerges.
“Not enough to risk dying for it, but let me finish, please. I swore an oath of fraternity when you allowed me to join the coven, and here, you’re the professor. The dean, even. If you say stay, I will stay. I will heal those who need healing, and if you say fight, I will fight.”
“Snake told me to stay,” said the shaman. “She didn’t say why, or that anyone else had to . . . but thanks. Lankin, 8-ball—I’m going to go up in astral and ask if the ceasefire still holds. If it does, I’d like the two of you to negotiate safe passage for everyone who wants to leave; and Lankin, anything extra you could persuade them to give us would be welcome, of course. Ratatosk, in case it is the land they’re after, see what you can find out about the history of this place.”
Wallace marched back to the Step-Van—still limping slightly, but doing his best to hide it from 8-ball and Lankin. He sat down heavily on the bench seat and hit the Redial button on his phone. “Mr. Fedorov?”
The Hatter was examining a particularly opaque resume and was only too pleased to be interrupted, though he managed to hide this. “What is it now?”
“Some of the squatters—kids, mostly—want to leave while it’s still light, but there’s no safe place within walking distance, especially not if they’re carrying all their dr—uh, belongings. There’s also one of their number who may be too badly injured to leave under her own power. They want a van, one they can use as an ambulance. I said I’d ask my employer.”
“A van. I’m sorry, but do I look like a charity? Do I sound like a charity?”
“I don’t think they’re expecting an executive transport. Any old junker would do, as long as it can run for a couple of days, and it might help move them out of here faster,” said Wallace, trying to keep the exasperation out of his tone. “I don’t think they trust us to drive them anywhere, hut if they can choose where to go, it’ll stop them coming hack . . . most of ’em, anyway. It could save you nuyen in I lie long term.”
“I’ll look into it. Are they asking for anything else? Rooms at the Hilton and dinner at the Edge, maybe?” “No,” said the ork, deciding not to mention some of I ankin’s other ambitious requests.
The Hatter thought for a moment. “I have a meeting in lew minutes. I’ll call you when it’s over. I may be able lo arrange something.”
Yoko was waiting beside the painted pillar at the bottom of the ramp as Lankin returned underground, bowing his head to avoid bumping it on the ceiling. “How did it go?” Lankin shrugged. 8-ball, walking down the ramp behind him, looked glum. “Wallace said they’d ask for a van, but lie didn’t sound too hopeful,” said the dwarf. “As for the oilier stuff . . . I’m not sure I’d want to accept gifts from I he fragger who’s running this show. He sounds like the sort of scumbag who used to give the natives blankets infected with plague.”
“Smallpox,” Lankin corrected him. “You get plague from rat fleas. But I concur with your assessment of his character.”
“Thanks.”
Yoko nodded. “I need to talk to you,” she told Lankin. “In private. 8-ball, can you stand guard for a moment?” “Sure,” said the dwarf, drawing his smartgun and leaning against the pillar. He glanced over at Akira, who was standing rigidly beside the other, gripping an assault rifle so lightly that his knuckles were white. 8-ball found himself hoping that the gun was set to single shot, not full automatic fire, and was glad that Mish had summoned a hearth spirit and ordered it to guard the sentries against any accidents. “You ever used one of those before?” he asked, nodding at the rifle.
Akira glanced at the bokken—a wooden sword— propped up against the pillar within easy reach. “Guns are too noisy.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons Yoko gave it to you,”
8-ball replied. “If anyone does try to get in, you can alert everyone else even if you miss. Who’s your sensei? Kaneda?”
“Yes,” said the teenager, obviously proud of being one of the swordmaster’s students. “Who was yours?”
“Kaneda gave me my sword, and Yoko’s taught me some taijutsu, but I’m not an adept like them. I don’t have your reach either, and I prefer not to wait until the fraggers are close enough to step on me before I can hit ’em, so I carry this instead.” He patted the Ingram smartgun at his side. “It may not be as honorable as a sword, or as pretty, but it’s kept me alive this long despite some other people’s best efforts—and most of them couldn’t give a drek about honor, either.”
“Who taught you to shoot?”
“I did. Some Humanis drek tried to make me dance by shooting at my feet—”
Cleaning up Underworld 93 after a big concert was a dirty job, but the management didn’t worry about SINs if you were prepared to work for half the going rate, and sometimes there was stuff left lying around that was worth scavenging—if you could smuggle it past the security g
uards, who always demanded a cut. Some of the other cleaners boasted of having found BTL chips, drugs, weapons, even certified credsticks, and one had gathered a large collection of women’s underwear and T-shirts. 8-ball had never managed to keep anything more valuable than a disposable cell phone, but he’d managed to save up enough to buy an armor vest, a good pair of boots that actually fit, and an old Dodge Scoot—all on the black market, of course. He’d also picked up a good amount of gossip about shadowruns, and when all else failed, there was the perennial game of Name that Stain.
It was a few minutes after three a.m., and 8-ball had just finished his shift. He’d gone into a Stuffer Shack to buy a Nukit meal and a couple of beers to take back to his doss at the Crypt and was paying for his purchases when he heard a slurred voice behind him say, “You sell that drek to kids now?”
Joey, the clerk, looked down at 8-ball, then up at the lace of the man standing halfway down the aisle, a baseball cap pulled down to shade his eyes. “No, mister. He’s not a kid. He’s a dwarf.”
8-ball knew he should just walk away, but Joey had plugged his credstick into the reader and was waiting for I he transaction to finish—often a slow process because of Puyallup’s tenuous connection to the Matrix. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed the Humanis Policlub symbol tattooed on the man’s bulging bicep. The man smiled and drew a short-barreled revolver from the back of h is waistband. With the smooth motion of someone doing something for the thousandth time, he shot out both the Shack’s security cameras, then aimed at the clerk’s face, I he orange dot of the laser sight flicking across his eye before stopping on his forehead amid the constellation of pimples. Joey gulped and froze, too scared to reach for the pistol under the counter. The man looked at the back of 8-ball’s T-shirt, and laughed. “Underworld 93, huh? You a musician. Dopey?”
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