Shadowrun: Fire & Frost
Page 25
Sergeant Danvers looked at Leung. “Why don’t the two of you get started on that? It wouldn’t hurt to have the program ready, just in case it’s a go. We’d like to start digging as soon as the Airdox are in position and ready. Now, a word of warning. They are loud. We’re issuing protective head gear for everyone. You’ll be able to communicate through the gear. If the machine’s running, do not take those suckers off if you want to keep your hearing.”
Pineapple watched Leung and Eyetooth as they headed to a small sitting area by one of the large heaters nearby. He still didn’t know what to make of Eyetooth. Their little dive had been dangerous, but at least it seemed like it changed their relationship—at least they weren’t sniping at each other any more.
His attention drifted back to the conversation with Danvers, but he wasn’t really listening. Danvers was a stiff, and breaking ice wasn’t his kind of fun. So, his attention moved on.
He focused on Kyrie, standing beside Elijah. The physical adept was paying attention, but she was also looking at her AR. He could tell from the way her eyes moved.
She was so smooth. Didn’t even flinch while standing there.
He waited a few beats to see if she had a response. When it looked like she didn’t, he sent another message.
This time she did glance over at him before answering.
That got her. She smiled and looked away.
It was Pineapple’s’ turn to try to not look flummoxed.
The troll thought of a few good words, but decided not to burn Kyrie’s ears with them.
Pineapple grinned.
“Mr. Pineapple?” Danvers pinned him with a look from across the table. “Do you have something to add?”
“No, I’m good. I’m damn good.”
Everyone smiled or snickered before Danvers continued.
Six hours later, the okay came through. Leung helped Eyetooth get her sprite in place, everyone donned their gear, and Gauntlet gave the all clear as he started up the machine.
Pineapple winced. That thing was loud. He could still hear it through his gear, and stepped as far back as he could. They were all little dots of color in the white snow and ice. Once Gauntlet gave the clear signal, everyone filed back into the shelter. Except Cao. She stood to the side and watched the drill work.
She turned as Pineapple came up behind her. “You look like a big, walking teddy bear.”
He laughed. “Don’t tell that to Leung. I think he’s over stuffed animals for a while.” Pineapple nudged her back. “You okay? You look a little down.”
“I really wanted to run the Airdox.” Cao’s tone had just a hint of whine in it.
“I thought you were going to help Gauntlet do the watch on them?”
“I am. But my shift doesn’t start for another three hours.”
He could have sworn he saw her gray bottom lip stick out from under her large, fur-lined hood. He wanted to talk to her, but not through the gear. He wanted to talk to her one on one. “Is there a time when either of the machines aren’t running?”
Cao lifted her hand to move windows around in her AR. “Yeah, in about eight hours. There’s a two-hour period as they exchange machines—take one off, put the other on. Niko wants to help with that since I’ll be coming off my shift.”
“Meet me behind the shelter then.”
She looked up at him, braver now, and showed no fear or embarrassment when her hood fell back just a little to reveal her eyes. “Why?”
“Got something I need to talk to you about. Won’t take a minute, but I think it’s something you should know.”
Cao frowned but she nodded. “Hopefully not too long. They’re going to do a meal then and talk about the progress.”
“Just meet me. I’ll be there.” Pineapple stepped away and saw Leung leaving the shelter. The hacker was on his way back to his tent when he stopped. Leung froze in place a few seconds before he raised his arms and began tapping and moving AR images visible only to him. He looked back at the shelter, spotted Pineapple and waved. Pineapple waved back.
“You okay, Leung? Any more giant bears?” he asked.
“No. Just you.” The young man looked worried. “Is Cao online?”
“Not really. She’s got her AR up while she watches Gauntlet.” He guessed they were at a safe enough distance from the drill, and removed his ear protection before switching to text.
That set the hacker back. He removed his own gear and took a step back and pointed.
Leung scrunched his face in the shadow of his parka hood, his dark hair blending with the black fur trim.
Leung looked less than enthused.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Leung needed air—even if it was freezing cold.
Nearly smothered in a parka, gloves, goggles, boots, and thermal pants, he stepped out from the shelter and walked as far away from the roaring Airdox as he could. Over a day of drilling, and they were already more than two hundred meters down. Danvers reported they were making good progress, and Elijah’s and Tango’s excitement was reaching a fevered pitch.
Pineapple’s suggestion that he catch one of the traitor’s missives and hack into it kept rolling around in his mind. He was sure if he did that, he’d know the source. Part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to, and the other half just wanted to go home. He didn’t like it here, and he couldn’t care less about the tower. He wanted to be paid, warm, and safe. In that order, more or less.
He turned to see Kyrie approaching. Her parka was easy to spot, since she’d chosen red. Her reasoning was she didn’t want anyone failing to spot her if she fell into a crevice. They spoke through comm systems built into the suits to avoid exposing mouth and ears to the elements.
“You skipping off?” she asked
“Just needed some air. Wanna walk? It won’t be far—gotta stay in wireless range …”
“Sure.”
They continued for a few meters before the question came. He’d been wa
iting for it. “You find anything else new on whoever’s sending the information?”
“No.” He liked Kyrie, and he knew Elijah trusted her as much as he trusted him. “They’re still sending them. I suggested to Elijah that we tell Danvers and let them see about tracing them or shutting them down completely—”
“No!”
He stopped and looked at Kyrie. “Why?”
“Leung, what if someone in Danvers’ crew is doing it?”
“An Aztech crew working for Amazonia? Not likely. Besides …” His voice trailed off as an ARO flashed in his vision. He extended the image out and reached out to touch the icon.
“What?” Kyrie watched him moving his gloved hand, but she couldn’t see his AR.
“Whoever it is just sent another one. But I’m not letting this one go.” He made a copy of the file without delaying it in the least, snagging a duplicate smooth and clean. He couldn’t help grinning in satisfaction.
“What did you just do?”
He pushed his AR away and focused on Kyrie. “What?”
“Leung, you’re grinning like a Cheshire cat. What did you do?” Her eyes lit up. “Did you catch them?”
“No. But I think by the time I analyze what I’ve got I’ll be able to give Elijah a clearer picture.” He held up a hand. “Don’t worry. Soon as he knows, I’m sure he’ll fill you in.”
“But you won’t.”
“No. If I’m wrong, I don’t want you guys falsely accusing someone.” He started to head back to the shelter when another ARO popped up on his AR. He stopped and examined the information it was relaying. He stared, then stared some more.
It was a new host. With no ID. In the middle of nowhere.
“Leung?”
Quickly tracking the signal’s location, he started trotting toward it.
“Leung … what’s wrong? What’re you doing?”
“Something just popped up out of nowhere. A host. It shouldn’t be here.”
“Maybe something someone just turned on?”
“Maybe.” But he didn’t think so. No one was around to turn something on. Whatever this something might be, it was sitting out in the middle of the ice.
After trudging through the thick snow and nearly slipping and falling on his ass over a patch of ice, he and Kyrie found the transmitting device under a glacial overhang that looked like a wave off the coast, frozen in time. Standing beneath it, Kyrie pointed up at a hole in the ice. The host, unlike most, seemed to be held in a single device, and that device was directly beneath it, half-buried in the small pile of shards that had broken free with it.
“You think it was frozen in there and fell out?” Kyrie stood over it, but she didn’t touch it.
“Maybe … Danvers said the drill was causing a bit of seismic activity. A few crevices have caved in nearby. This thing might be heavier than the ice, and the vibrations kicked it loose.” He knelt beside it, his AR kicking back all sorts of readings on the thing. Not one of them useful.
“So, maybe that’s why it just showed up.” She looked up at the hole in the wave of ice over them, then down at the device. “It came loose, and the fall turned it on.”
Leung pursed his lips as he reached for it. It looked like a thin black box. Six inches long, two inches thick, and four inches wide. A green light flickered on one end—some sort of power indicator. Beside the light were two plugs. He didn’t recognize the type, but on the opposite side he did.
“It looks old, but the signal it’s sending works with the current Matrix protocols. The latest, just-barely-revised Matrix protocols. Weirdest damn thing.”
He stepped closer. “Signal’s dying. But check it—I can jack in.”
“But you won’t.”
“I won’t?”
“You’re just going to jack into a strange device? After what happened in the last host?”
Leung smiled his million-nuyen smile. “This is what I do. Elijah has his tower, I have completely bizarre Matrix devices.”
He chipped at the small pile carefully and dug out the device, along with a good chunk of surrounding ice. “But I’m not totally without caution. Let’s get this baby inside.”
Elijah was more than interested in the device. With the three of them crowded in his tent, the mage did a series of complex tests on it and declared it clean. No astral signature. Though while he did this, the light went to red and then the machine shut off. When it did, it disappeared from Leung’s AR.
“I think you just sucked the power out,” Leung said.
“Think this could have something to do with the messages going to Amazonia?” Elijah asked.
“No. I haven’t seen it pop up before. And it was buried in the ice, so it’s been there a while. Or someone worked hard to bury it and ice it over.”
Elijah sat back in his chair. “So, someone else was here. And left this.”
“It didn’t just grow there,” the hacker said.
“How long has it been there?”
Leung shrugged. “I don’t know, just looking at it. I could jack in and see, maybe even find a serial number so we can tell who made it.”
“No.”
Kyrie stepped forward. “Elijah, we need to know what this is.”
“Leung is not going to jack into anything we can’t identify. I’m not risking him.”
“Then why not let me take a crack at it, sugah?”
Everyone turned to see Eyetooth at the door of the tent.
“How the hell—” Kyrie was instantly in front of Leung and Elijah, her knife ready.
“Whoa …!” Eyetooth put up a hand. “Don’t get your panties all wound up, darlin’. I saw that little machine the instant it turned on. Martin was all over it, and told me Leung had it.”
Leung moved closer to her. “When this thing was powered up, did you notice anything significant about it?”
“I noticed I didn’t have access to it. Neither did Martin. It showed up as a device carrying a host, but it looked like just the shell of one. Not filled in. And I couldn’t get past that.” She touched Leung’s upper arm as she moved further in and looked at it sitting on the desk beside Elijah. “I can tell you it’s wrong. Very wrong.”
“What do you mean by that?” Elijah asked.
She looked at him. “When it was active, Martin sensed dissonance. It’s not from a good place. I think you need to put it back where you found it and don’t touch it again.”
Leung, Kyrie, and Elijah looked at each other, but it was Elijah that spoke. “I’m afraid we can’t do that. I think we should alert Danvers and Lucas that we found it, and that it might belong to another group we don’t know about.”
“What if it’s part of Hualpa’s group?” Leung asked.
“It’s probably not the Aleph Society.” Kyrie said. “Mystery tech doesn’t seem to be their thing.”
“A third party?” Leung ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, that’s unnerving.”
“Which is why I think we should let him know.” Elijah stood and picked the device up. “Let them worry about it.”
Leung stood in front of him. “If you give that to him, we can pretty much kiss it goodbye. We won’t see it again. Aren’t you the least bit curious as to what it’s for?”
“Leung, you’re not using it.”
“I’m the only one here qualified to.” He pointed at Eyetooth. “She can’t jack into it, and it obviously needs a physical connection in its present state. I say we take a quick look before we hand it over.” He searched the mage’s face and knew he nearly had him hooked.
“I vote we don’t tell anyone else about it all.” Kyrie looked at Eyetooth. “Tango included.”
The technomancer shrugged. “Keeping Tango in the dark is a bad idea. She’s a runner first. We don’t belong to Aztech any more than y’all do.”
“I agree.” Elijah nodded to Eyetooth. “Bring Tango here, and we’ll discuss this.”
Tango had no desire to give anything up to the Azzies, and sided with Leung.
Elijah hadn’t said anything after that, just looked thoughtful for a minute. Leung didn’t say another word; he just waited. Finally, the arcano-archaeologist nodded. “All right, a quick peek, nothing more.”
Leung had a mysterious host to explore behind the backs of his corporate employers. He was thrilled.
He got set up in his tent. Elijah insisted on hooking him up to some health monitors and making sure two people were watching him. Eyetooth insisted on being one of them.
Leung plugged in. For a moment he saw nothing. Then his vision started to focus, and he saw the host around him start to materialize as thin white lines. He concentrated, and it began to resolve itself. To become solid, to turn into something instead of nothing.
Martin, Eyetooth’s Sprite, appeared in front of him thanks to Eyetooth’s wireless connection to his deck. He threw a handful of sparkling hearts all over his desktop. A message in large script appeared. BE CAREFUL!
I’ll do my best, he thought as he glanced at Elijah one last time through his AR. “When I come back, I’ll buy you a dozen mysterious towers.”
Elijah’s expression didn’t change. “Just come back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Eyetooth was a bit surprised at the elaborate measures taken to ensure Leung’s safety. The fact that others thought they were necessary made her worry. She stood by Tango, who draped an arm around her shoulders as her eyes traced the connections sticking out of Leung’s jacks. The cables ran down the couch, under it, and then along the floor to the opposite side and out the door. Eyetooth wasn’t sure how that was supposed to protect anyone, since Leung was going to be putting himself into the device.
She watched Elijah’s face, studying his expression. She’d gathered from Leung that he and the professor were friends. Probably closer than anyone else on this dig. The prof’s concern was definitely visible on his face. Next to him was that tough chick, the one that stuck close to the professor. Kyrie. Eyetooth wasn’t sure what she thought of her yet. She was always guarded and on guard. She reminded her of Cake … only not as nice.