by Kai O'Connal
Elijah sent the entire reply without breaking eye contact with the bowl.
Elijah ignored the preening hacker. A crease gathered between his eyes. “There’s something wrong. There’s mana here, but it’s … wrong.”
Kyrie kept scanning the room, particularly the door. “Wrong?”
“Mayan religious ceremonies of the period often involved human sacrifice. Supposedly, certain priests used blood magic rites to imbue these bowls with power, making them the objects of intense research interest. That gave it something, but not anything near what it’s supposed to have. But I’ll take another look, to be sure.”
Keeping his arms outstretched, Elijah fell silent as he concentrated. Inside the case, the bowl slowly rose into the air, as if held by unseen hands. It rotated in a slow circle, first horizontally, then inverting it so the bowl’s bottom was visible.
He tsk-tsked under his breath. “Just as I thought—a well-made fake. Perhaps two centuries old, but nowhere near the Late Classic period.”
Kyrie was already edging toward the door as Elijah righted the bowl again and floated it back down. “How can you tell?”
“The clay’s composition is wrong—not enough igneous base, which means it was probably made in northern Mexico, away from the volcanoes in Central America. Hayakawa has spent far too much money on an excellent fake. I knew he was a poseur.”
“Great, now that your academic feathers have been unruffled, let’s get out of here and rejoin the party, ‘kay?” Kyrie was already at the door when an urgent message appeared in her AR.
The door slid open, revealing a slender man pointing a sleek, matte-black pistol at Kyrie’s face.
CHAPTER TWO
Slycer took this moment to enjoy the surroundings of 16th-century Japan.
If he was going to do this right, he needed to stop dicking around with assorted devices and go on a deep dive into the mansion’s host. So he did, plunging into virtual reality and the opulent Japanese estate it used for iconography. A multi-story castle rose into the air in the distance. He thought there would be landscaped gardens and koi ponds, but instead a simple, bare field stretched out in front of him, covered with small, crushed stones that had been smoothed to a uniform layer.
Glancing down, he found the host had given him a kimono, belt, and wooden sandals. A straw hat was tilted back on his head, and the shaft of a wooden rake rested on his shoulder. It wasn’t sexy or even remotely attractive—he could override it in a heartbeat if he wanted, but it fit with his “hide in plain sight” philosophy.
Stepping onto the graveled field, he felt his shoulders tense—the deeper he went into the host, the more likely it was that he’d run into some mean intrusion countermeasures. And if he ran into IC, his evening would get bad really fast.
The only thing moving in the entire place was a small child sitting cross-legged on the castle steps. He appeared to be playing with a small, flat box of sand, sculpting various piles, then allowing some of them to collapse several seconds later.
Slycer figured that when it seems there is only one way to go, you just gotta move. He walked onto the field, cautiously approaching the boy. He remained engrossed in his task, drawing piles up into cubes or rows, letting some remain, letting others disintegrate after seconds or minutes. The box looked vaguely familiar to Slycer, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His words sounded unnaturally loud in the silence.
“I create and destroy as requested by my master.” The boy looked up, his fathomless gaze seeming to stare right through Slycer, who tried not to pull back in surprise. The avatar didn’t have the rote, scripted mannerisms of a standard program, but it also didn’t have the individuality of someone online either.
What the hell? This isn’t any standard agent or sec program I know. He squinted, his virtual eyes and his lifetime of experience trying to figure out what this kid was. Couldn’t be an AI. They wouldn’t use one of those just to do housekeeping. Would they?
As he watched, he started to understand what the kid was doing in the sand. The sandbox matched the general dimensions of the room where the party was being held. As Slycer watched, the boy created seats, tables, and shelves where they were needed. Slycer even saw his own seat in the corner and shivered again, knowing his meat and bones were sitting out there, all too vulnerable.
“Can you—leave this place?”
The boy had turned back to his work, and spoke more softly. “They would never allow it.” His hand pointed behind Slycer, who turned to see what the child was referring to.
A small, pug-faced dog, looking like it was made entirely of gleaming metal, sat on the other side of the field, facing him. Its tongue lolled out as it waited—and watched.
Of course he’s slaved the biodrone into the house security. Slycer thought about running silent but nulled the idea, figuring the biodrone’s avatar might investigate anything odd—like an icon suddenly disappearing.
Instead of hiding, Slycer cautiously made his way to the drone, then slipped one of his marks—a small, sharp knife slicing through an eyeball—onto the drone. He was smooth enough that the drone didn’t seem to care.
With the mark in place, he had some access to the drone’s functions, such as seeing what it saw. He pulled up a window in front of him to see what the biodrone was watching.
Hayakawa was there, ushering everyone into another room. As Slycer scanned the biodrone’s line of vision, he saw that the oldster and the buff chica were still inside. What the fuck?—they should have been done and gone by now.
Slycer opened a channel to the woman, asking what was taking them so long. The old man said to follow the party, but to disarm the pressure plate in the main display first—which Slycer had done before they’d even set foot in there. Dividing his attention between the departing party guests and the VR boy, he noticed one of the servants heading toward the hall that led to the display room. Jumping to the security cameras, he watched as the man climbed the stairs and stalked down the corridor, reaching inside his jacket and drawing a small pistol. Pulling a silencer from his other pocket, he screwed it onto the end of the barrel.
Oh, shit! Slycer thought, cutting back to inside the museum room, where the woman was just about to open the door.
CHAPTER THREE
Kyrie drew up immediately, staring past the stubby silencer affixed to the pistol’s barrel to the man holding it and standing a few feet from her. He was dressed in a crisp, white, collarless shirt and short, black suit jacket with matching pants, and looked vaguely familiar. Kyrie’s eye twitched as she tried to reply to Slycer, but the man extended his pistol an inch closer, making her focus on him again. He was good, staying just out of range of her hands and feet.
“Do not speak to your man in the other room—I’ll know, and will stop you, permanently if necessary. Do not take your eyes off me again, or I will shoot one out. With one hand, remove the glasses—slowly—and hold them at your side. Twitch wrong, and your brains will be the latest display in this room. Tell your partner not to try anything stupid either, or he’ll die right after you.”
While he spoke, Kyrie thought about trying to take him out, but dismissed the idea. Despite appearances, things hadn’t progressed to that point yet. He hadn’t shot her, which meant he wanted her alive, at least for the time being. Besides, even as good as she was, there was the small chance that he might get a shot off if she went for him, which would no doubt set off all kinds of security. She decided to go along with his demands—for now.
It would help, though, if she could remember who this guy was. Kyrie racked her brain, trying to figure out where she’d seen him before. His face wasn’t that memorable; a hint o
f Central American in his wide nose, dark brown eyes, and swarthy skin. And why was he on the edge of her memory, as if she had seen him—or someone like him—recently? As she took the glasses off, she was careful enough to hold them so the front of the lenses were aimed at the gunman, hoping Slycer was already reacting to this new threat.
She caught a strange odor on him—shrimp, and some kind of spicy sauce overlaying it. That’s it! “You’re a runner posing as service, aren’t you?”
He sniffed. “Took you that long to figure it out? Surprised you even made it this far.”
Kyrie didn’t bother to retort, but just let him continue to think he had the upper hand. “What do you want?”
“You and your friend are going to finish my job for me—you’re going to steal that Mayan ceremonial bowl, and I’m going to take it out of here.”
Kyrie shrugged and nodded at the pedestal behind her. “You want it, you get it.”
The pistol’s muzzle never wavered, although his voice did, just a bit. “Don’t—push—me. I won’t hesitate to kneecap you if you don’t do as I say.”
Kyrie regarded him for a long moment, then turned her head just far enough to talk to Elijah while still keeping her captor in sight. “He wants us to give him the bowl.”
Elijah nodded. “If he insists, I’ll be happy to fetch it for him.”
The man tensed as Elijah turned to retrieve the object in question. “Ah, ah! First, have your hacker disable the alarm on the case—just it, and nothing else.”
Speaking of that shithead, where the hell is he? He should’ve had the living room extend a pole up this guy’s ass by now, Kyrie thought. She raised the glasses to her mouth. “Slycer, disable the alarms on the bowl case. Flash for confirmation only.”
The runner divided his attention between both of them. “Watch for his signal. Only then will the old man get the bowl.”
“If you don’t mind, I gotta know—how’d you get the gun past security?” Kyrie asked
“They never scan the help as well as they should.” He motioned at Kyrie to step back with his pistol. “Now shut up and get inside—I want to keep an eye on both of you.”
Her eyes never leaving the gunman, Kyrie stepped back from the doorway far enough to let him come inside just as her glasses flashed green. “Aren’t you worried about showing up on camera?”
“I’d worry about yourselves instead. All right old man, open the case, set it down, then pick up the bowl—carefully. One wrong move, and your friend here gets a third eye.”
Elijah did as ordered, his eyes staying on the gunman. “No need for threats now—you have us right where you want us.”
His tone alerted Kyrie that he was thinking about trying something to free them. She got his attention as he approached and shook her head minutely, trying to warn him not to do anything that might get either of them killed. Elijah, though, didn’t react. He walked to the runner and held out the bowl. “Here you go.”
“Neither of you move.” Keeping the pistol trained on Kyrie, the man reached for the bowl with his free hand. Elijah let him take it, then stepped back, keeping his hands in sight the entire time. “You two stay in here. Tell the police I said ‘hi.’”
Pistol still up, he backed to the door, pausing while it soundlessly slid open. He had just stepped into the hallway and was about to turn around when he was struck by a large, brown-black blur that knocked him back into the room. The pistol and bowl both flew from his hands as he was slammed to the floor.
Kyrie dashed ahead, grabbing the gun out of the air. In her peripheral vision, she saw Elijah moving, but her attention was focused on the man, who screamed in pain as the Razorhound lived up to its name.
Without a sound, its titanium claws raked his legs and chest as it lunged, its open mouth filled with gleaming teeth. Before the runner could move, the biodrone’s jaws clamped onto his throat and ripped it open with one savage tear. Blood spurted over the floor, his thrashing limbs slowing to spasmodic jerks as he died, a mute appeal for help frozen on his face.
Kyrie trained the small pistol at the dog’s head, which slowly raised to stare at her, blood dripping from its mouth, still not making a sound. “It’s past time to get out of here.”
Elijah slowly got to his feet, the bowl cradled in his hands. He quickly set it on the floor. “I agree, but we have to get by that first, and astral overwatch around here will be all over us if I summon anything. Any suggestions?”
“I’m assuming Slycer hacked the mutt and is controlling it right now, so we should be able to simply walk right past.”
“Then why are you still pointing a gun at it?”
“Just in case I’m wrong.” Kyrie brought her other hand up and put the glasses back on.
“Aw, hell—” Kyrie took a step backward, pistol still aimed at the animal’s head, as the Razorhound crouched on the shadowrunner’s bloody corpse. “If you got any fancy tricks up your sleeve, now would be a good time!”
“It’s more machine than animal,” Elijah said. “I’m having trouble controlling it.”
At that moment, the dog leaped off the corpse at Kyrie. Her adept’s reflexes kicked in, and Elijah and the rest of the world slowed around her—the dog, not so much—as she prepared to meet the airborne threat.
Focusing all of her power into her right foot, Kyrie leaped straight up. She whirled around in a full circle, her foot building up momentum before slamming into the side of the biodrone’s head in a ferocious blow that sent them both careening in different directions.
Kyrie felt like she had just kicked a block of vanadium steel. Even enhanced by her magical ability, her foot still throbbed, though she didn’t think she had broken anything. The dog skidded away to crash-land in a heap on the other side of the room, its head canted at an odd angle. Breathing hard, she brought the pistol back on line and waited to see if she had taken it out. “I think—”
The dog’s hind legs twitched.
“Goddamn it!”
Its head lolling on an obviously broken neck, the biodrone scrambled to its feet and fixed Kyrie with a lopsided stare. Crouching, it leaped again, claws gleaming with a combination of steel and fresh blood as it reached out to rake her chest.
Dropping the pistol, Kyrie crouched under the animal as it sailed over her. Grabbing its right foreleg with both hands, she rolled onto her back and kicked up into its midsection with all her strength, feeling reinforced ribs flex under the blow. Its leg trapped by her tight grip, the dog flipped over and crashed to the floor, a spray of blood and other dark fluid jetting onto the carpet. Kyrie did a kip-up to regain her feet and whirled to see the dog also rising, although it was now dragging one leg.
Snatching the pistol, Kyrie lined up the tritium sights and squeezed the trigger three times. At less than two meters away, she couldn’t miss. The bullets bounced off its head, one smashing an eye and making it go dark, the other two carving bright scratches of metal where they impacted on its armored skull. The rounds made the dog pause as somewhere inside, programs evaluated the damage and adjusted accordingly.
Kyrie realized the pistol was about as useful as a flyswatter against the armored blasphemy of nature. “Screw this.” Turning, she pulled the pistol’s trigger again, shooting not at the dog, but at the reinforced plasglass barrier in front of the focus dagger. The tough material starred under the impacts but didn’t break. Kyrie was already moving toward it, knowing she’d have to time her actions perfectly.
“Watttchhh—ooout—!” she heard Elijah’s slowed, drawn-out warning, and knew the biodrone was almost on top of her. Focusing her qi again, she drove her fist—the knuckles of her index and middle finger extended in a ram’s head punch—through the weakened plasglass, then uncurled her hand and grasped the hilt of
the Russian dagger. Drawing it from its silver-wrapped sheath, she spun on her heel in time to see the dog soaring through the air toward her again, its tilted head cocked to savage her.
Kyrie sidestepped and brought the dagger around, plunging the foot-long blade into the dog’s side, just behind its front leg. She felt the edge slice though skin and muscle, skitter off a rib, then penetrate the sub-muscular spider-silk armor weave and sink deep into the animal’s chest cavity.
It was like she had hit the biodrone’s off switch, turning it from 130 kilos of relentless attacker to instant dead meat. Its momentum carried it past her, almost tearing the knife from her grasp before the beast smashed into the wall and fell to the floor, a bloody mess of fur and metal.
Breathing hard, Kyrie wrenched the blade out and wiped it on the animal’s pelt. She rose, grabbed the sheath, shoving the dagger into it, and turned to Elijah. “Don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get the hell out of here.”
Elijah was right behind as she stepped to the door, but stopped as she held up her hand. “Slycer, give me a sitrep on the living room—Slycer!” There was no answer. “I think we’ve been cut off. Wait on the far side of the door.”
Once he was poised on the right side, Kyrie crept over to stand on the left, then waved her arm to activate the sensor. The door didn’t open. She tried again, with the same results. “House security seems to have trapped us in here as well.”
“Can you break through?”
Kyrie pushed experimentally at the barrier. “Hardwood, very solid, maybe with a steel core. I don’t think I could break through it easily. Let’s see…” She flicked through screens in her AR until a floor plan overlay appeared in her vision, every room now flashing bright red. “They haven’t cut off my guest view of the house yet. Since waltzing out the main entrance isn’t an option, we need to get to the back door—which is back down the hallway and to the left off the main room.” She glanced at Elijah. “Your call.”
