Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption

by Jason M Hardy (epub)

  Jackie resisted the urge to tickle the nurse’s chin as she walked by him, remembering that he might be cute, but he was still IC with a temper.

  Strangehooves was waiting for her in one of his lab rooms. The place held nothing more than two chairs— Strangehooves would call in equipment as needed. He stood on all fours, a few strands of hay dangling from his mouth as he chewed, his goat’s beard wagging slowly back and forth. He was a fine specimen, clear-eyed with a healthy, smooth gray coat. His stethoscope hung just in front of his chest.

  When he saw her, he easily rose to stand on his hind legs and walked smoothly toward her. “Ms. Ozone,” he said in his goatish bray. “What can I do for you?”

  “Chem job. I’ve got all the stats on something, but I don't know what it is. I hoped you could help me out.” “Mmmm. Do we know anything about the nature of this ‘something’?”

  “The mob’s interested in it.”

  “Wonderful. I always enjoying treading the same ground they stomp. What do you have for me?”

  “Data. Pure data. You have a safe place for it?”

  “Of course,” Strangehooves said. A brown side table with a small black plastic box appeared next to him. “Just send it right here.”

  Jackie executed the necessary commands to put the data into the box. She added two tags to it—one would prevent the data from being copied, the other would destroy it in an hour. She liked Strangehooves, but that didn’t mean she trusted him.

  He clip-clopped over to the box, and put one of his forehooves on it. He stood stock-still for a good two minutes.

  He frowned, an oddly natural expression for a goat. “It doesn’t match anything in my database, and my database is considerably large. Where did you happen upon this?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Jackie said delicately.

  “Of course not.” Strangehooves stood motionless again. Jackie hoped he wasn’t leaving this icon empty while he was zipping around somewhere else and having fun.

  Apparently he wasn’t—when he moved again, he had made some progress. “This is quite interesting,” he said. “1 don’t have an exact match, but I’ve managed to find some chemicals with a few similarities. Are you familiar with Zeta-Imp Chem’s recent neurochemical research?” “Of course! Who isn’t?”

  He paused. “Are you lying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right. Well, without bothering you with detail, they’ve been looking into chemical mental enhancements—pills that lead to better memory and the like.”

  “Haven’t they ever heard of skillsofts?”

  “They believe there’s a market for people who want to improve their minds without having chips inserted in their brains.”

  Jackie tilted her head to one side. “They may be on to something.”

  “There are some interesting similarities, but . . .” He stroked his beard with a hoof. “Would you allow me a few moments away?”

  “If you think you’ll find something, knock yourself out.”

  “Thank you. I should return shortly. In the meantime, please entertain yourself.”

  And the room was full. A trideo player sat next to a full cabinet of flicks. Stacks of books and magazines lined the walls. Four men in red-and-white checked blazers appeared in the middle of the room, each holding an instrument and standing unnaturally still.

  She turned to the band. “How about ‘Black Barrel Baby’?” she asked. The men didn’t move. “The Trina and the Toxic Trio version.”

  The men came to life. The lead singer sang in a high, aggressive female voice, while the others stood calmly, but still managed to thrash away at their instruments. All in all, a fine and somewhat surreal jukebox.

  She ran through five more tunes before the doctor reappeared, his hooves over his ears. “Stop that racket, please,” he said, and the band immediately obeyed. Then, in a blink, all the entertainment was gone. “I apologize for the extra time I took,” he said, “but I needed to confirm a thing or two. I’m afraid I don’t have anything conclusive, but I managed to make some interesting comparisons to some ZIC prototypes.”

  “You got data on ZIC prototypes?” Jackie asked, then whistled in amazement. “Can I have it?”

  “No. The chemical you possess bears certain similarities, along with some key differences. I think I can say with near certainty that this chemical would work upon the memory section of the brain, most likely upon shortterm memory. What it would do. I cannot tell—the makeup is too foreign.”

  She smiled. Strangehooves might not know what she had, but she did. Knowing where the bottle came from, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was in it. She’d actually suspected it for a while. Too bad she hadn’t wanted to tip off Kross, or she would have made a bet a while ago and won the pool.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, and Strangehooves beamed. He loved it when people called him by the title he didn’t actually possess. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t go through the formalities of checking out.”

  “Not at all,” the goat said.

  Jackie’s icon vanished as she jacked out.

  The bottle held a dissolved sample of the drug called Laes, which completely erased about twelve hours of memories from anyone who took it. It all made sense now. Once Bailey obtained the bottle, Jackie was sure he’d ship it off to the best labs willing to work for the mob to analyze the structure of the drug and see if there was any way they could manufacture it. If they could . . . was there any criminal alive who couldn’t think of a million uses for a drug that erases twelves hours of memories? And it wasn’t just criminals. Cheating husbands, employees who wanted to slip away from the boss for a day, children looking for a little free time away from their parents—there was no limit to the market for this product. No wonder Martel seemed so generous on the payments for the mission. If you took his eventual profits into account, he was actually getting a tremendous bargain.

  Well, that bargain wouldn’t last. She was more convinced than ever that they had a hot potato on their hands, and the two mob families would enter a healthy bidding war to get the bottle into their possession and away from their opponents. The team was going to clean up. Now all she had to do was let Bannickburn know what she had learned without alerting Kross.

  “What’s this?” Spindle said. Jackie jumped slightly at the sound of her voice—the elf almost never spoke when jacked in to her vehicle.

  “Something’s coming,” she said.

  Bannickburn blinked sleepily, clearly fighting against the extreme weight of his eyelids. “What?” was the only word he managed to say.

  “Six vehicles. Southbound. Tightly packed.” Bannickburn opened his mouth a couple of times, but nothing more than a grunt emerged. Jackie spoke up instead. “Just some convoy or another. Not something we have to worry about.”

  “They’re in the northbound lanes. Heading south, right toward us. Nothing between them and us.”

  That was enough to give Bannickburn a little extra energy. “Go off-road, get around them, then keep going north. We’ll outrun them.”

  “Van’s not going to outrun anything,” Spindle said. “Not them. They’re faster.”

  “Just get on the other side of them!” Bannickburn repeated grumpily. “We’ll go from there.”

  Jackie assumed that Spindle’s silence meant she’d do her best. Jackie looked out the front window and saw the sunlight reflecting off the southbound cars heading toward them. With each second, it looked less and less like they were there by mistake.

  Spindle waited as long as she could, then swerved. The back wheels of the van skidded as she shot off the road onto a grassy shoulder. Six vehicles—two motorcycles, four coupes—turned to give chase, carefully avoiding each other as they swerved around. Spindle made it back on the road before they turned around, and she gunned the van ahead.

  There were no rear windows in the van. Now only Spindle knew how the pursuers were doing. Only she knew how soon they’d catch up.

  25

/>   "Get off the highway,” Bannickburn said. “We’ve got no chance here, no way to keep ahead of them. Take the next exit.”

  He had no idea where the next exit was—the presence of regular, reliable road signs was not one of the Salish-Shidhe Council’s strong suits. All he could hope was that it would come soon enough.

  The van’s engine sounded a sustained roar as Spindle kept it at full throttle. The noise enveloped Bannickburn’s throbbing head, seeming ready to crush it. He tried to shake the feeling off, knowing he needed to concentrate, but narc aftereffects were never easy to get rid of.

  Five loud clangs came from the back of the van, one after the other. Five metal slugs had embedded themselves in the rear doors.

  “I don’t have much in the way of rear guns,” Spindle said, “so I reinforced the back doors. They can hold up to a lot more than that.”

  Bannickburn would have found that reassuring, except that he was sure the pursuers would be firing many more rounds in the next few minutes.

  Sure enough, four more slugs hit the back. Still no exit ramp ahead. No more grassy shoulder, either, just concrete barriers on either side of the highway.

  A loud engine roar, even louder than the van’s— probably a motorcycle—sounded along the passenger side. Bannickburn wished the van had side windows so he could see what the frag was going on. Then four thuds hit the side of the van, one of them leaving a dent visible from the inside, and Bannickburn swiftly reconsidered his desire for windows.

  “Hold on,” Spindle said, then jerked the van viciously to the right. The top of the vehicle leaned dangerously, and the two tires still on the ground squealed. The noise from the motorcycle abruptly decreased, then fell behind them.

  “Didn’t get him,” Spindle grunted. “Scared him, though.” She gave the vehicle gas again, and the van did its best to respond.

  Behind Bannickburn, Kross had two handguns on his lap. One of them looked like it could stop a charging elephant in its tracks. The other one was bigger. The ork looked up.

  “Rope,” he said.

  “Got it,” X-Prime said, reaching into the back of the van. He pulled out a sturdy nylon rope.

  “I need a loop around my waist, then the other end tied to the seat. You know knots?” Kross asked.

  “Sure! When I was a boy, I was a—” X-Prime stopped short, seeing that Cayman was preparing some severe mockery for what he was about to reveal. “Never mind what I was,” he said. “I just learned a lot of knots is all.”

  He quickly had Kross secured. The ork looked at Cayman. “You and the kid need to man the door. Think you can pull it closed at this speed?”

  “Do you think you could eat an entire infant at one sitting?” Cayman shot back.

  Kross scowled. “Hardly any orks do that, you know.” Cayman only grinned in response, while X-Prime looked relieved that his mentor had found a new target.

  Kross looked at Spindle. “Let me know when someone’s coming up on the right again. And please don’t swerve while I’m leaning out the door.”

  Spindle nodded curtly.

  More gunfire peppered the back of the car as they sped along, but Spindle’s armor held up. Bannickburn tried to come up with a useful activity for himself, but watching for an exit seemed like the only thing he could do at the moment.

  “Someone coming on the right,” Spindle said. “Cycle.”

  Kross smiled. “I hear him.” He gave his rope a quick test yank, then readied a gun in each hand.

  Now Bannickburn could hear it, too. Quieter than the first cycle, closing quickly.

  “Now,” Kross said.

  Cayman pulled down the latch and the door slid open. Wind swirled around the gap, and Kross leaned forward into the gale. He leveled his guns at the cycle rider. Bannickburn could see the rider’s eyes widen behind his wraparound shades. Their pursuer had a gun of his own, but he’d been aiming at the tires. He couldn’t swing it around in time.

  Kross fired both guns. One bullet caught the rider in the shoulder. A moist splotch appeared on his thick black jersey, making him drop his gun. The second shattered his sunglasses and buried itself in his face.

  The front wheel of the cycle bucked and the back end flipped in the air. The lifeless rider was catapulted forward, flying at least fifteen meters before skidding on the pavement. His motorcycle followed him, sending up a shower of sparks as it dragged along the ground, eventually hitting its former rider and rolling over him before both came to a stop.

  “Close it,” Kross said. Cayman and Alex heaved forward, pushing the door closed. Kross wore a satisfied smirk. “One down. They’ll be a little more careful about sneaking up on that side.”

  Bannickburn pointed. “Exit ahead!”

  Spindle nodded, but didn’t change her speed or make any motion toward the ramp. Bannickburn thought about pointing out the exit again, but then saw her clenched, sweating brow, and decided she had enough to concentrate on.

  “Everyone sit down and buckle up,” she said through gritted teeth. The back of the van was rattled by as many as ten more shots. Dents in the rear doors appeared on the inside.

  The van sped ahead and the ramp drew closer, half a kilometer away, then a quarter. Still Spindle streaked down the middle of the highway.

  They were almost even with the ramp when she made her move. She slammed on the brakes as hard as she could. Every passenger hurtled forward, safety straps digging into their bodies. Four cars and a motorcycle whizzed by, not able to react in time to Spindle’s maneuver.

  She veered to the right, nearly rolling the van, then gunned the throttle again and they sped toward the exit ramp.

  They only had a few moments before their pursuers got turned around. They needed to make use of the time, and avoid any interference from local traffic.

  The exit ramp ended at a road running east and west. Spindle ignored the stop sign and blasted onto the street, turning west, heading under the highway. Bannickburn didn’t see any other vehicles around. The terrain here was fairly barren—no trees, a few spots of brown grass, an ample supply of weeds, and plenty of dirt.

  “Where the hell are we?” he asked.

  “Longview,” Jackie said. “Cross had a factory near here once. They put so much heavy metal in the water that toxic spirits from miles around came by. This was a playground for them. Drove all the residents away. The Salish have gotten the toxics out, but the place is still a dump. Might be a few decades before it becomes habitable.”

  Bannickburn looked at her quizzically. “How do you know this?”

  She pointed to the datajack still in her head. “Old friends at Cross. I’ve taken the liberty of having them keep any Salish cops away from here for a while.”

  “I love a team member who shows initiative,” Bannickburn said. “Call up some overhead photos. See if there’s anything nearby that can give us cover.” “Already done,” she said. “Most everything near here’s been razed, but there’s a subdivision a bit to the northwest—Summerdale Glen. No one’s gotten around to tearing those houses down yet. There’re a few streets running through there that could help us out.”

  “Get the directions to Spindle,” he said.

  Electrons flowed this way and that around the van, then Spindle nodded. “Got it. Let’s run around first, though. Keep ’em guessing.”

  “Go ahead,” Bannickburn said.

  A dirt road headed to the south, wandering through some tall weeds. Spindle shot into it, as if hoping the weeds might provide some concealment, but Bannickburn could see they weren’t tall enough. Still, he didn’t know how close the pursuers had gotten since they left the highway. Maybe this would shake them.

  Gunfire sounded, and again the back was hammered by bullets. Apparently they hadn’t shaken anyone.

  “What’s back there?” Kross demanded. “Cycle or car?”

  “Car,” Spindle said.

  “Good,” Kross said. “Bigger target. I’m going out.” He hurled the door open and leaned out as far as he coul
d, his legs shaking under him. He fired his guns, three rounds from each, yelling above the wind as the bullets sped off.

  Then the car behind them fired. Bullets whizzed by the ork, one skimming off the side of the van in a shower of sparks. Kross ducked.

  Just then, Spindle hit a bump in the dirt road. The impact sent an already unbalanced Kross off his feet. He fell toward the ground.

  Cayman reached out, catching Kross around the waist, then gave a heave, and pulled the ork back into the van. Cayman fell back, Kross landing on top of him.

  Kross stood quickly. Blood ran in a thin rivulet through the canyons of his face—the bullet that had skimmed the van must have taken a piece of him, too. He was snarling, but he didn’t forget his manners.

  “Thanks,” he said to Cayman as he stood, leaned out the door again, and unleashed a torrent of shots.

  He screamed. Bannickburn whirled around, convinced the ork had been hit. But Kross remained on his feet, looking strong, raising his arms over his head.

  “Take that, you bastard!” Kross yelled, then pulled himself back into the van. Cayman slid the door closed.

  “That’ll hold ’em for a while,” he said. “They were single file, and I took out the lead one. They’ll have to get around him, and if one of them gets close again. I’ll take him out, too. We’ll be okay as long as we can keep them strung out behind us.”

  Right then, the dirt road ended. Suddenly they were on broad pavement, a street four lanes wide. There still were no other vehicles in sight besides their pursuers. “Find a narrower road!” Bannickburn yelled.

  “I can’t! This must’ve been a downtown,” Spindle said. “All the roads are wide. Here they come!”

  Kross swore and stood again. Cayman had the door open immediately, and the ork leaned out once more, leveling his handguns. But he didn’t fire.

  “What’s going on?” Bannickburn called.

  “They’re staying on the other side!” Kross yelled back. “I can’t get a shot off.”

  “Get back in!” Spindle said. “I’ve gotta swerve.” Kross obeyed, jumping back to his seat. Spindle took the van to the left, banging into one of their pursuers with a jolt. Tires screeched outside.