Shadowrun: Fire & Frost

by Kai O'Connal

  “Home?” Kyrie asked.

  “Hell no,” Cao said. She grinned up at the adept. Kyrie felt her cheeks cool, tried to fight it—I don’t want her to think—but it was too late. Cao must have seen her face pale, because she drew her cowl back up and walked toward the rear of the truck. “We need to gas up, and the spooks are in the cab planning our next move.”

  A small, recessed release slid open to reveal a concealed, armored cargo hatch. Cao opened it and dragged a thirty-liter fuel can out and toward the rear of the truck. The truck lurched and then popped a few centimeters in the air as Pineapple jumped down.

  “Here, let me.” He reached for the can.

  Cao held it away. “It’d have been easier while you were in there, lardass. Now it’s higher.” She grunted and jerked the can onto her knee, leaning against the truck while she removed the fuel cap. “My ride, my rules, got it?”

  Pineapple held up his hands. “Just trying to help, little one.”

  Cao’s hood jerked toward him. “Don’t call me that!”

  “Honey,” Pineapple said, far more gently than Kyrie would have imagined, “everyone is little to me. Don’t get your mesh in a twist, all right?” He put his hands over his head and stretched himself.

  Kyrie triggered her mesh.

  Leung’s reply was instantaneous.

  Kyrie slid over the side of the truck and landed lightly on her feet. She let herself fall into a crouch, relishing the stretching sensation in her thighs and calves. When she straightened, she adjusted the holster of her Manhunter and the Ingram at her back. The walls were close, all sheet-steel and extruded plastics. The windows were all boarded up, but she knew there were people just on the other side.

  That was what bothered her the most: there were always people around. Always. No matter where they went, they were surrounded by the truly unimaginable mass of metahumanity squatting nearby. The cloying closeness was just as oppressive here as it had been in the jungle.

  Leung had opened the passenger-side door, letting the already-humid air move through the cab. With Cao outside, he’d slid over behind the steering column. He looked at her when she stepped into the shadow of the open door, but didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. His face showed the quiet luxuriance of space after so many hours in the cab. He’d never once climbed in the back.

  Kyrie stepped onto the running board. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Leung held a finger to his lips. “Shh. The Great One is communing.” The finger at his lips pointed to Elijah. The mage was sitting, head back on the headrest, eyes closed. His muscles were relaxed, like he was sleeping.

  “Oh.” Kyrie looked around. “Did he say anything before he went walkabout?”

  “He said he was sending some spirits to sniff out the map.” Leung aped Elijah’s posture—head back, muscles slack—and closed his eyes, too. “I’ve already sent some agents through what passes for the Matrix around her.” He blinked his eyes open and glared at Kyrie. “I swear to whatever gods you want, there’s a guy not three hundred meters from here using an honest-to-god cyberdeck. And not a new one—one with the keyboard strapped on his arm!”

  Kyrie smiled. She leaned back to look forward past the door, then back the way they’d come. They hadn’t gotten far enough away from the last ambush for her taste, but she still heard the sounds of the predator that was the Rocinha claiming their leftovers.

  People may run from gunmen when they start shooting, but as soon as they stop shooting, a gunman’s just a man with some valuable hardware. An assault rifle would sell for a pretty peso. Penny. Whatever they used for currency. And if the ork holding it had to be helped along with a little judicious knifery, so what? Whoever said life was fair?

  “I don’t know how he expects to locate the Alephs in all this,” Leung said a moment later. “Me, I think we should move toward the port. Catch them on the way out, when we know where they’re going.”

  “You know where they’re going?”

  Eyes still closed, the faceman shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They’re not going out through the jungle. No reason to drive out if you went to the trouble to fly in. Absolutely no reason to come to this barrio if you’re not hiding out until something—a ship, maybe?—is ready. Where else are they going?”

  “If they’re still here at all.” Kyrie regarded Elijah’s slack face. “If they’re here, he’ll find them. It’s what he does.”

  “Sneaks around the astral?”

  “Finds things.”

  “Ah.”

  The clang of the fuel hatch closing made Leung flinch. He opened his eyes and looked at the steering wheel. Then he looked over at the hump that had been his seat for far longer than his backside had agreed too. His nice clothes from the airport were probably ruined—covered in sweat stains and grease from rubbing against parts of the old truck. As if reading her mind, Leung picked at his shirt.

  “Is a shower so much to ask?” he mumbled.

  “Scootch,” Cao said, appearing at the driver-side door. “You’re in my seat.”

  “I do know how to drive,” Leung protested.

  “Uh-huh.” Cao reached up and drew her hood back. “Move.”

  Leung scooted.

  Cao climbed in and closed her door. Then she slid her cowl back up and glanced at Kyrie. “What’s the word?”

  Kyrie gestured. “Waiting on the man,” she said.

  “We need to get moving,” Pineapple called from the truck bed. The sounds of weapons being reloaded click-clacked from his area. “They’ll be coming for us.”

  “We need to know how they’re tracking us,” Leung said.

  “The truck.” Kyrie met Cao’s angry stare.

  “Bullshit,” Cao said. “I’ve been over it. So has Leung. There’s no trackers, nothing transmitting. They’re not watching my ride.”

  “It doesn’t have to be transmitting,” Kyrie said. “It’s a tank moving through crowded territory. They could be hacking traffic-cams. They could be shadowing us on bikes. Hell, they could just be texting people to ask if they’ve seen us.” She reached out and slapped the slab-sided truck. The thick metal barely made a sound when she rapped it.

  “That’s a point,” Leung said.

  “It’s also correct,” Elijah said. He drew in a deep breath and blinked several times rapidly. Then he sat up. His eyes took in the cab and Kyrie standing outside, then flicked out the windscreen. “We’re being tracked. The Alephs have people nearby, and they’ve been sending the locals after us.”

  “Shit.” Cao squeezed the steering wheel. “Do we need new wheels?”

  “No.” Elijah reached past Kyrie to grasp the door handle. “We need to move. We’re out of time.”

  “Care to share?” Kyrie put her hand on the door, keeping it open.

  “The map is here. The Alephs are on the other side of the Rocinha, getting ready to move toward the port. There are sixteen of them, and a convoy of four vehicles to move them.”

  “Some download,” Leung said. “How’d I miss it?”

  “Spirits have good eyes.” Elijah raised his eyebrows at Kyrie. “We. Need. To. Go.”

  Kyrie stepped back. “Pineapple,” she called, raising an arm. “Fill me in on the way.” The troll grabbed her hand and lifted her into the bed with one of his. The other was full of shotgun.

  Elijah sent.

 

 

  Pineapple’s laughter was like gravel shifting.

  Fifty meters back, four motorcycles rode their wake through traffic, swerving and leaning to close the distance. Each rider wore brown leathers, with reflective-faced helmets that covered their entire heads. The telltale butts of Ingram-style smartguns protruded from sidesaddle holsters on the bikes.

  Kyrie glanced back. They were coming to a curve, where the road twisted to the left and climbed upward. From the way the buildings rose around them
, the entire hillside must rise there.

  “Take them,” she said.

  Pineapple knelt to set down his shotgun. For an instant, Kyrie thought he’d come back up with that damn Panther, but instead he picked an Ares-made assault rifle from the pile of guns at his feet. The trigger guard had been cut away to allow his thick finger to fit.

  The truck shuddered as Cao downshifted. Behind them, traffic tried to reorganize itself after the whale of the truck had passed. Electric tricycles pulled back off the sidewalks where they’d fled to avoid being crushed. Braver drivers shook fists or middle fingers at the truck’s rear end. Pedicabs started moving again.

  The four motorcycles, engines screaming, closed the distance, shoving other vehicles off the road not with mass, as Cao’s truck had, but by the shock of their passage. The lead rider dropped his hand to the holstered gun.

  Pineapple’s rifle barked three times. All three rounds took the lead rider in the chest. Both his hands came up and the bike, freed of its control, immediately slashed to the left and went down. Each of the three riders behind swerved out of the way in a masterful display of control. The dead man became a tangle of body and motorcycle before the bike slammed itself—and him—through a wall.

  The other three brought their pistols up and fired. Bullets slapped against the truck’s rear and the cases around Kyrie as Pineapple fired again, taking another motorcycle down. Kyrie tapped her two firearms together absently, watching.

  Pineapple fired again, but the biker swerved to the side, nearly laying the bike down. Return fire tore into the crates next to Pineapple’s head. He ducked, swearing and brushing at polymer splinters that had scratched his cheek.

  Kyrie leaned past him and extended her right hand. The Ingram bucked against the strong muscles of her wrist, but most of the burst hit the front end of the bike and, hopefully, the rider as well. In either case, it jerked to the side and shot down an alley.

  The other biker cut in the opposite direction and disappeared.

  Hearn tossed away two AROs with a quick swipe of his hand. The camera feeds were not showing him what he wanted to see. He didn’t want to have to call up the reserves on this one, mainly because one of the reserves was him. But it was a better alternative than letting them go.

  He turned to the ork. “All right, Bizet. We’d better saddle up. Things aren’t proceeding as smoothly as I’d like.”

  Bizet sighed as she stood and walked toward her SUV. “Do you think the others at least slowed them down a little? I don’t think I want to face that group at full speed.”

  “What kind of attitude is that?”

  Ahead of them, a new explosion billowed smoke into the air while a dozen people ran away from the path of their target, their screams heard faintly over the engine noises and gunfire.

  “Rational,” Bizet said.

  “Maybe,” Hearn said. “But the cavalry will be going in with us.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Pineapple grinned. “Well, that was easy—”

  An explosion smashed both of them to the floor. Kyrie felt the truck lurch as Cao dodged whatever had exploded, but the air was thick with cloying dust and smoke. The shock of the truck slamming into something immovable shoved Kyrie across the bed and into the bulkhead. Pineapple crashed to the floor, half on top of her. His bulk crushed the air out of her.

  She shoved him off, wheezing. It was all she could do to text. Her lungs burned, and a serious coughing fit was coming.

  The answer came from Leung.

 

  Kyrie rolled to her knees. Her pistols were gone. Fingers searched and found her Ingram and her Manhunter still in their holsters. The Ares rifle Pineapple had been using was lying near her knees. She grabbed it.

 

  Kyrie sighed.

 

 

 

  “Amateurs,” Pineapple wheezed. Gripping one of the fallen crates, he pushed himself upright. He looked behind them, then forward, but if he saw anything besides the dust and smoke that filled Kyrie’s view, he didn’t say. “We need to move, girl.”

  Kyrie finally sucked in a breath that stuck. “I know.” She ejected the rifle’s magazine, checked it, and slammed it home. Then she stood and looked at the crates. They needed what was in them, but they needed to be away from here more. “Let’s go.”

  Elijah had climbed out of the truck by the time they got down. He was squatting, his back against the front massive wheel. His eyes were closed. Leung leaned out of the door, holding his forehead. “What’s this about close and far?”

  “There’s two kinds of ambushes,” Kyrie said. “Close and far.”

  “And that means….”

  “If it’s close—meaning they’re right there, shooting at you, you charge.”

  “What—toward the people shooting at you?”

  “It doesn’t pay to stand around or run away. They don’t expect you to come at them—not unless they’re pros, in which case you’re dead anyway.” Kyrie looked past the hacker. “Cao. We need to go.”

  “I can’t get it started—”

  “On foot.”

  “No! I can get her moving again—”

  Pineapple racked the slide of his shotgun. “Come on, little one.”

  “I told you—”

  “Now!” Kyrie didn’t stamp her foot or do anything so immature, but she was out of patience. The smoke was starting to settle, but the space opened was being filled by the screams of the injured. If the bad guys were coming, they’d be coming now.

  “What about him?” Pineapple dipped the shotgun’s butt toward Elijah.

  “He’ll be right back.” Kyrie tucked the butt of her rifle into her shoulder and tried to listen through the smoke. “Or else.”

  Elijah jerked to the side and fell. Kyrie turned back, watching him. He pointed into the smoke. “She’s here—the Aleph.” Kyrie looked where he was pointing, but didn’t see. “Stall them.”

  “Them?”

  “Shooters coming,” he said. “I need time to summon.”

  Kyrie nodded. “Pineapple—with me. Cao and Leung, stay here and watch Elijah. Anyone comes around, you shoot them.” Just then a single pistol shot barked at her. She dropped to one knee, listening. No footsteps. No nothing, except the sound of debris settling and people moaning and crying.

  Pineapple grinned. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder—the sling was long enough to be Cao’s jump rope—and drew a long-bladed knife in each hand. “We won’t want to make too much noise, will we?”

  Kyrie grinned back. “Not quite yet.” She looked down at Elijah. “When you’re ready, blip me and get rid of the smoke.” He nodded.

  She stepped away from them. Four steps later she was alone.

 

  Not quite alone.

  Juan and his brother Rico crept forward along the crumpled sidewalk. Juan was twenty, Rico nineteen. Both were experienced gunmen by the standards of the Rocinha—which meant they owned their own guns, and sometimes hit what they shot at. Rico was tying a bandana across his nose and mouth. Juan already felt like he was chewing sand, there was so much dust in the air.

  “Let’s go,” he prodded. Rico flipped him the bird. Then he picked up his decrepit Chinese Ares knock-off and beckoned his brother forward. They stepped carefully over the debris—shattered brick and mortar, crushed and exploded furniture. And bodies.

  “Dios,” Juan muttered, as his foot slipped in the puddle of blood next to half of a woman’s body.

  A deep voice answered him. “Not god, buddy,” a giant said. There was a flicker of movement, and suddenly Juan’s mouth felt wet. He blinked—dust in my eyes—as the giant shadow moved toward Rico. Juan reached up and touched his lips. They were wet. There was a gurgle from Rico.

  “Two down,” the giant murmured. Jua
n looked at his fingers. Blood?

  He fell down, his own blood mixing with the innocent woman’s. He thought he heard Rico whimper. He tried to get up, to help his brother, but his arms were so heavy …

  “Whatever you’re doing, old man, speed it up.” Cao dug behind the passenger seat. There was a recessed cargo compartment there, and there might be something useful inside it. A gun. A knife. A ticket back to the World.

  Leung crouched next to Elijah’s still body. The hacker held a pistol negligently in his left hand, as if he were only holding it because one was expected to hold a gun at times like these. He was glancing back and forth between Elijah and the street.

  Cao stopped picking at the lock and looked down at him. “You got nothing?”

  Leung shook his head. “Too many nodes, and none of them useful.” He looked down at the pistol. “What do you think you’re supposed to do if the ambush is far?”

  “Huh?”

  “Kyrie said if it’s a close ambush, you charge. But Pineapple said this was a far ambush. She didn’t say what to do then.”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “I dunno. You’re from here. I figured you knew things.”

  “Listen—”

  Elijah stirred. He sat up, blinking. His face was coated with the dust that permeated everything. It cracked like a thin plaster around his eyes. “Get ready,” he said.

  “For what?” Leung stood.

  “It’s time to get past this. We need to get moving. The Alephs have already left their compound. “ Elijah stood. He brushed his sleeves off, then his chest. Then he looked at his hands and shrugged. “At the other end of the street is a man and woman. The woman is an Aleph—she has a black moon tattoo on her forearm. I felt its power on the astral.”