Who Hunts the Hunter

by Nyx Smith

Enoshi wonders what to make of this."Was this entity of a type that a mage might ordinarily call on to aid in a magical conflict?”

  “It was possibly a form of entity I have never encountered,” Kajitori replies."However, I do not believe that any mage would call on such a malignant entity unless forced to it in some way, or unless the mage was of a similarly malevolent nature.”

  “Are you suggesting that Dr. Liron Phalen was of a malevolent nature?”

  “It is of course possible that the entity had control of Phalen from the start. That he was influenced or possessed.” A most remarkable, wholly unsubstantiated theory. Enoshi will withhold judgment until more facts have been assembled. He directs Usami and Kajitori to continue their search for such facts, and for Amy Berman, who has many things to attempt to explain. Enoshi then goes down the hallway to his bedroom and to the small sitting room adjacent. One of his guards stands watch at the door.

  Inside, on the intricately carved furniture provided by the Waldorf Park East Hotel, sits his mistress, Frederique, and a man named Harman Franck-Natali. They are having tea. Franck-Natali is smiling like a man under some form of enchantment.

  As Enoshi enters, Frederique excuses herself and glides out of the room. Enoshi marvels that he would consent to letting his mistress become so involved with corporate affairs as to let her speak with this man. He cannot help marveling over the result. Frederique has learned more from Harman Franck-Natali with a smile and a few softly spoken words than Usami’s operatives managed to glean with all their sophisticated techniques. Furthermore, Frederique believes she has persuaded Franck-Natali that his abduction and interrogation was at least partly the result of over-zealous security agents, and an event Enoshi sincerely regrets.

  “Utterly charming,” Franck-Natali says, once Frederique has departed. He sips at his tea. Enoshi sits down opposite, considering how to take up from where they last left off.

  They have been discussing the local units of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. In speaking with Frederique, Franck-Natali has revealed great dissatisfaction with MCT and appears willing, perhaps even eager, to change corporate affiliations. Enoshi wonders whether to accept this as genuine. It is certainly possible that Harman Franck-Natali has accepted none of Frederique’s explanations, that he is merely biding his time.

  Possibly, there is some very specific objective underlying Franck-Natali’s cooperative manner and all that he says— some ulterior motive—just as there is a very definite objective underlying Enoshi’s handling of this matter.

  Kono-Furata-Ko International plans to continue diversifying in order to meet the challenges of the future. Those plans include the possible acquisition of certain MCT subsidiaries. Enoshi is keenly aware that Harman Franck-Natali may have valuable knowledge about these subsidiaries.

  “I believe you indicated,” Enoshi says, “that Amy Berman has been pressuring you to join Hurley-Cooper Laboratories.”

  “Well,” Franck-Natali replies, “in recent weeks, we have been turning to discussions concerning the future. Amy knows how I feel about the situation at Mitsuhama. Primarily, she’s concerned that I get out. She hasn’t mentioned any corp specifically, but I imagine she would be pleased if I decided to approach Hurley-Cooper.”

  “This would add to her status within the corporation."

  "Likely, that’s so, but I think Amy would be pleased due to the expectation that I would be happier at Hurley-Cooper, and that I could do a lot for Hurley-Cooper in sales, perhaps even in a marketing venue.”

  “Do you feel that Amy Berman is a loyal corporate executive?”

  “Oh, certainly.” Franck-Natali pauses to smile. He does this often. The habit gives Enoshi the impression that the man considers his every word very carefully."She’s unquestionably a loyal executive.”

  “Please explain.”

  “Well, you would have to know Amy to really understand.”

  “I would like very much to know her,” Enoshi says, “so that I might better understand her motives. KFK International places a very high value on understanding. I would like to feel that I know Amy Berman in a personal manner. As a friend and colleague.”

  “Well,” Franck-Natali says, smiling."Where shall I begin?”

  86

  Inside the small shack fashioned of panels from macroplast crates, Old Man sits facing the fire. Dark Rain Hunter and Pug sit beside him. On the near side of the fire lies Amy, eyes closed, deeply asleep, her body slack.

  Getting Amy all the way here to Brooklyn from the Bronx wasn’t easy. Just sneaking her off the property of the Metascience building took a few more grams of magical energy than Bandit thought he had to spend, and that was not all he had to do. He’s tired, tired enough to collapse, but his ordeal is near its end. Abruptly, he sits, then pulls on his ankles to bend his knees and sit cross-legged.

  “The darkness is in her,” Old Man says."It will kill her mind. Eagle and Dog will help her because that is their nature. They are generous, but Raven is greedy. What will you give me to save her?”

  Bandit drags the great book from his knapsack, the book with the mystic symbols, rescued from the shattered, smoldering ruins of Phalen’s house. Surrendering this book is difficult, for though it is the work of a mage and inexpressibly evil, it contains great power and many secrets. Its value is beyond estimation. It tugs at the Raccoon nature, and Bandit’s curiosity. He could probably not give it away if his own sister’s life were not at stake. Even if he could never learn the book’s secrets, he would like to keep it, hoard it.

  “I will give you this.”

  “I accept it,” Old Man says. But it is Dark Rain Hunter who reaches out for the book, and Dark Rain Hunter who slips it into the fire. After a while, Old Man says, “The knowledge in this book should go out of the world. Men are not wise enough to control it.”

  Bandit nods agreement, and catches himself nodding off, falling asleep. He’s tired enough now to agree with almost anything. When this is over, he might just sleep for a month.

  “Now we will help your sister,” Old Man says."Pay attention to the song we sing. You might learn something.” Bandit nods.

  Abruptly, Pug shakes a rattle. Dark Rain Hunter begins tapping a small drum. Old Man is the first to sing and his softly chanted song drones on for a while, speaking of changes and the world and the ways in which people grow. Dark Rain Hunter sings of nature and the necessity of purifying nature of evil. Pug sings of loyalty and love and the importance of the ties between people and especially people related by blood. The three songs together speak of life and the nature of living and of things that must be done. They tell Bandit that wily Raccoon must sometimes crawl out of the shadows of his favorite pastimes and face the harsher realities visible beneath the all-important light of the sun.

  The auras of the three shamans join. The magic gathers slowly, filling the medicine lodge. As it ends, Amy stirs, and sighs.

  A darkness flutters across the astral, and vanishes.

  Bandit kneels next to Amy and smooths her hair back from her brow. Her eyes open lazily, as if heavy from sleep. The fiery cast is gone. Her eyes are brown now, just brown, like Bandit’s own."Scottie ... ?” she murmurs."What happened . . . ? I . . .”

  Bandit says, “You’re fine now.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Bandit nods."Everything is.”

  87

  The guide meets her about ten kilometers outside of Boulder on an old logging road halfway up the side of a mountain. He is called Ed Flashing Deer.

  Contacts brought him here, very carefully selected contacts. There will be no mistakes this time, and no betrayals. Tikki has made sure that all interested parties understand how great her displeasure will be if anyone causes her trouble again.

  “Let’s see the eyes,” Flashing Deer says.

  Tikki slips off her black mirrorshades and glances toward the late afternoon sun. Flashing Deer watches her face. He should see her eyes glint with the light of the late afternoon sun. He was told t
o look for reflective eyes. He probably assumes that means she’s got cybereyes. That suits her purposes.

  What happens now is simple. They walk deeper into the mountains and Tikki finds a den for her and the cub. After that? Hard to say. Tikki’s got some odd ideas.

  Her mother taught her that prey is prey. Two-leg or four makes no difference. Only now she’s noticed some differences. That two-leg ork who moaned incessantly about the son killed in Philadelphia; that slag in the white coat who didn’t want her to escape, but couldn’t quite bring himself to shoot her; and, that magician who neutralized a pair of guards and then told her where to find her cub. All that is making it hard for her to go on believing that all two-legs are the vicious betrayers she’s always assumed them to be. The magician especially.

  Why did he help her? He gained nothing by it. That’s the thing that’s really got her thinking. No ordinary animal would have done that, or anything like it. Ordinary animals don’t act like that.

  Maybe, like the ork, the magician felt something that made him do what he did. Maybe it’s all about feelings. Maybe she’s got more in common with two-legs than she ever imagined.

  It’s time Striper retired. She doesn’t want to take two-legs as prey any more. She doesn’t want to take money for killing them. She doesn’t like the thought of what that kind of killing might mean to somebody somewhere, somebody like that ork. She knows what losing her cub meant to her, and now she can almost imagine what it might feel like to lose a cub to some killer in an alley in Philadelphia.

  It’s not good. Not right.

  She’ll raise the cub and then forge a new life for herself. New life, new career. Surely, someone with her skills and contacts ought to be able to find something to do. Something interesting. Satisfying. Something that’ll suit the hunter inside her, keep instinct content, without forcing her to kill, kill, kill ... Kill others’ cubs ...

  Abruptly, Ed Flashing Deer crouches down, extending a hand toward her cub. Tikki shifts her weight, preparing to strike, but then stops, noticing the man’s wry smile, the innocuous character of his scent.

  As the offending hand draws near, the cub snarls and snaps.

  “Whoa!” Flashing Deer says, swaying back. He straightens up, smiling like he’s amused, checking the hand as if to make sure nothing’s missing."Nice kid,” he says."Got a name?”

  Tikki nods, and slips her shades on over her eyes.

  The man takes the hint.

  About the author

  Nathan Yale Xavier (“Nyx”) Smith began his writing career by revising the 23rd Psalm to excoriate Richard Nixon about Watergate, only to be called down to the principal’s office, and has been getting into trouble ever since. His early experiences as an altar boy (passing out from the summer heat) perhaps inspired his late-adolescent abhorrence of anything resembling a suit and tie, as well as a lingering aversion to ever becoming a “suit” himself. He has not seen a barber (or other tonsorial artist) in ten years. He has worked as a dishwasher, custodian, landscaper, shipping manager, bookkeeper, and computer operator while making no money for lots of writing. He drives an old car that’s very nondescript. He originally thought a cyber-esque world with magic and elves a pretty strange idea, but then Striper came along and asserted it makes perfect sense.

  The author strives always to avoid arguing with characters of as menacing a stripe as Striper, and recommends this practice to all those with a hankering toward longevousness.

  Nyx Smith continues to live in a basement on Long Island (New York’s most notable sandbar) along with a salmagundi of doloris noctumum, but has traded his Selectrics for a 486/33 that occasionally shows signs of paranatural infestation. He invites readers of SR 11 Striper Assassin, SR 13 Fade To Black, and this book, SR 16 Who Hunts The Hunter, to send him comments, critiques, or complaints about his writing, characters, plots, and so on, in care of the FASA Corporation, 1100 W. Cermak, B305, Chicago, IL, 60608.

  COPYRIGHT

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

  First Printing, May, 1995 10 987654321

  Copyright © FASA Corporation, 1995 All rights reserved

  Series Editor: Donna Ippolito Cover: Romas Croallus

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  SHADOWRUN, FASA, and the distinctive SHADOWRUN and FASA logos are registered trademarks of the FASA Corporation, 1100 W. Cermak, Suite B305, Chicago IL 60608.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN BOOKS USA INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10014.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”