Never Deal with a Dragon

by Robert N. Charrette

  The signal from the motion sensor she’d left near the elevator chimed in her ear receiver. If it was Addison, he was early. When the second sensor chimed, she was sure it was him. The corridor leading to the station would have no other traffic at this hour. The warning signals were close together; he was hurrying, moving at a quick walk.

  Probably more nervous than usual.

  It was his nervous tendencies that had tipped her off. She had seen his eyes when he accosted Verner at Tanaka’s funeral, and she had smelled his fear when she visited his cubicle in the computer facility a week later. It was her security badge that did it, and such fear of security meant a guilty conscience. That pleased her, for Crenshaw knew she could manipulate him once she learned his secret. Addison was a slug; it hadn’t taken much to find out what he was hiding.

  One of Addison’s cronies, a Lisa Miggs, had made unauthorized use of Jiro Tanaka’s cyberdeck to take a run at the Wall. Like most deckers at Renraku, Addison and friends had no idea what lay behind the Wall. They knew any attempt to find out was a breach of security, but they tried anyway. Typical hare-brained decker stunts. Always meddling where they shouldn’t. The episode hadn’t resulted in anything more than a test of the AI project’s defenses, but Addison didn’t know that. He only knew that he and Miggs had broken rules that could get them canned. It was the man’s terror of that that put him in Crenshaw’s pocket.

  He had become useful even though he hadn’t fulfilled her hopes of linking Verner to something underhanded. At the moment, he was employed in helping her find out what the AI project team was hiding. It was a sweet irony that what he was doing for her was exactly what he feared she would expose him of doing before. But she wasn’t so stupid as to send him directly up against the IC that shrouded the project and those working on it. She wanted a lever to find out what kind of breakthrough the team had made. Something that would force one of them to tell her what she wanted to know. To get that lever, she had set Addison to snooping around the Matrix for dirt. He had called her this afternoon to set up this meeting. He must have found something she could use.

  The door slid open and Addison darted in, head craning to check the corridor behind him. He palmed the panel shut, then saw that the room was still dark. “Drek, she’s not here.”

  “Wishing won’t make it so, jackhead.”

  Addison jumped at her voice. “Drek. Don’t do that, Crenshaw!”

  She stepped up to him and ran her fingers under his chin. The alloy blades she wore for fingernails creased the skin but brought no blood. “You don’t give orders. I do.”

  “Sure,” he stammered. “Whatever you say.”

  She tapped the switch that brought the lights up. “See that you remember it. What have you got for me?”

  “I’m not real sure. Let me slot it and you can decide for yourself.”

  He popped a chip into the console and stared expectantly at the screen, waiting for it to light up. She didn’t want to wait. “Cliber?”

  “Naw. The old biddy’s clean as a one-room schoolmarm. She’s a real ice maiden. Lives for her machines.”

  “Frag it. I was hoping you’d turn up something on her. It would be a pleasure to lean on the bitch.”

  “Better her than me,” Addison muttered.

  Crenshaw heard him perfectly well but decided not to let it show. “Which one then, Hutten or Huang?”

  Addison flashed a brief smile, trying to hide his tension. “Maybe both. They’re both hanging onto the meat. I copped a list of the use records for the playrooms on Six. Both H’s are on it, and old Huang a married man, too. Wanna bet his wife don’t know?” He finally got the data he wanted on the screen and stepped aside with a magician’s flourish.

  Ignoring his theatrics, Crenshaw stared as the data scrolled by. She frowned. “That’s not much. And it’s a pretty standard pattern for a sarariman. What are the details?”

  “Details?” Addison echoed. “Well, um, you can see that Huang’s got a regular routine.”

  “A mistress, then. That might give me a hook if she’s pliable. Anything else?”

  “Well, maybe. But I’m not sure.” Addison wilted under her glare, his voice becoming unsteady. “I think I spotted an erasure in the records.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “It was one of Huang’s regular nights and there ain’t no record of him paying a visit that night.”

  “And our president is certainly skilled enough in the Matrix to arrange his own erasures. Was Hutten there that night?”

  “Naw. His visits started about a week later. Every three or four days after that, but no regular night.”

  “You’ve checked the visual records?”

  “Frag it, Crenshaw. There’s tight ice on those files.”

  “You’re supposed to be an expert,” she sneered. Crenshaw knew it was too much to expect from his own initiative; he didn’t have the guts.

  “Even I can only do so much. I don’t like this stuff, Crenshaw. You’re messing with important people. Any one of them could get me fired. And, drek, messing with Huang. He’s the fragging president.”

  She stared at him, letting him squirm. “Addison, you have a lot more to worry about from me. They’re too busy to notice a third-rate electron jockey like you. So just do what I tell you and you won’t have any trouble.”

  Addison backed away. “Sure, Crenshaw. Whatever you say.” When he bumped into the console, he seemed to remember the program he had running. Terminating it, he popped the chip. His every motion was hesitant.

  “I can see you’ve got something else on your mind. Spit it out.” She was tired of the slug’s spinelessness.

  “It’s that Werner guy.”

  “Verner.”

  “Yeah, him. He was terminated, wasn’t he?” “Dismissed. Two weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. Well, I was checking on some of the strange stuff in the Matrix. You know, the stuff that we think is AI. There was a log of his icon in one of the nodes where the fuzz had been real strong. Just that one node, though. Real weird.”

  “You didn’t report it?”

  “Drek, no! I wasn’t supposed to be there, either.”

  “Good.”

  So, Verner had sneaked back into the Renraku architecture and was sniffing around the AI project. What a fragging snake! She had known that little drekhead was trouble the minute he’d thrown in with Tsung’s gang during the hijacking. But nobody would listen to her. Marushige said Verner was a nothing. Sato said that he wasn’t important enough to waste resources on. Well, Verner may have fooled them, but she had the punk’s passcode. From what Addison said, it was obvious he hadn’t been able to take whatever he wanted when he bolted the arcology. If that slime was stupid enough to come back, she’d have his balls. To think that she’d almost started to believe he was harmless.

  “I want you to forget the playroom records for now. Check out the system around that node where you found Verner’s icon logged in. I want to know of anything unusual. Anything. You just report it to me; don’t try to interpret it. Got that?”

  Addison’s eyes were wide and he swallowed convulsively a couple of times before nodding. The slime mold was as afraid of her as ever. But his fear was good; it meant he’d do her work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Never been up close to one before?”

  Sam jumped. He hadn’t heard the man approach, but even at idle, the noise of the hulking panzer drowned out anything less then a shout.

  The speaker was an Amerindian, but his clothing was pure Anglo. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with the skin on his bare chest so brown from the sun that his muscles seemed carved from teak. The grime under his fingernails was at odds with the shiny rigger sockets in his palms and wrists and the jacks on his temple.

  “You Twist?”

  Sam nodded.

  The man smiled and stuck out his hand. His grip was firm and the induction pad in his palm rasped Sam’s palm as they shook. “Cog said you were
green. Name’s Josh Begay, late of the Dineh.”

  “You’re Navaho? You’re a long way from home.”

  Begay’s eyes hooded and the smile faded into a hard expanse of wrinkles. “Smart boy. Stay smart and stick to polite conversation.”

  From the snap in the Navaho’s voice, he was obviously sensitive about his origins. If Sam was going to be spending several days in company with the rigger, he’d best stay on the man’s good side. The panzer should be a safe topic; most riggers were more interested in the machines they controlled than they were in people. “I’ve only seen tanks like this on the trid,” Sam said appreciatively.

  Begay relaxed a fraction, and Sam knew he had taken the right tack.

  “This one’s a little different from the beasts they run in the corp wars. They want flash and intimidation; it’s better for the ratings. I got more need for stealth. The Thunderbird’s engines are baffled and she’s got a lot of extra ECM. The baffling cuts the speed some, but I’ll take the quiet at the cost of a little kay-pee-aich. T-bird’s as quiet as they come.”

  “Quiet?” Sam shouted. The concept seemed absurd. The panzer’s engine noise was deafening as it echoed off the walls of the warehouse. Even in the open, someone would hear it coming a klick away.

  “It’s all relative. No machine with muscle is ever gonna be sneaky silent. Still, ain’t no need to run an advertisement for the next valley over. Time any dust-eater hears T-bird and figures out where and what she is, we’ve long flown past.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  The Navaho said nothing, just stared at him. The pressure of the deep brown eyes began to make Sam nervous. “You come highly recommended.”

  Still no response.

  “Cog says you’re one of the best running the northwest routes. He says I’m lucky you were available.”

  Begay hacked and spat on the ground. “Cog’s a good fixer, but he’s got a White tongue.” When Sam looked blank, the Navaho wiggled two fingers in front of his mouth. “Forked, you know.”

  Sam gave the joke a nervous laugh and was relieved to see the ghost of the former smile return to Begay’s face.

  “Chummer, you’re lucky that I’m going where you want to go. Lucky that I got room for a second hand. Lucky there ain’t nobody in town who knows how to ride shotgun and who I’m willing to ride with. Lucky I ain’t got time to wait around till I do find somebody.” He spat again. “I like that kind of luck. It’s contagious.

  “‘Course luck had nothing to do with it. My being available is pure money. From what I heard, you couldn’t afford it. But you got friends who can, and that’s lucky, too.”

  “What do you mean? I thought I was working for my passage.”

  “Oh, you will. Cog says somebody likes you enough to boost the Tir border patrol roster and post a couple of incentives for some old friends of mine to be elsewhere when we slide the border.”

  “We’re going through the Tir? Wouldn’t it be easier to cut around it through the Ute Council?”

  “Don’t run Ute territory,” Begay said shortly. “Don’t worry, though. We’ll do most of the Tir by day, and with the fix in, it’s gonna be a smooth scorch. Then we blast through the Rockies where the Salish-Shidhe Council dips down and cuts the edge of Sioux territory. Then on through the Algonkian-Manitou Council till we slide into Quebec.

  “Got a resupply stop up by the Dworshak Reservoir before we cross the divide. Stop again in Portage-La-Prairie after we cross the old Canadian border. Last lay-over is Hearst, just before we try the Quebec border. Once we slide the line, I dump you and you’re on your own.”

  “You said you were already hired so you must have a cargo, too. What are we carrying?”

  Begay spat. “Cog said you was a curious one. It’s bad luck to ask too many questions.”

  “Got it.” Sam smiled in what he hoped was a disarming manner. “Wouldn’t want to spoil my luck.”

  “Cog also told me you was smart.”

  Sam didn’t say anything to that, apparently winning Begay’s approval. After a moment or two of silent evaluation, the Navaho clapped him on the shoulder. “You smart enough to learn a few things about riding shotgun on a panzer run?”

  “Try me.”

  Begay swung up the side of the vehicle, scrambling like a rock ape across molded grips and convenient protrusions. Sam followed more slowly, the weight of his pack shifting his center of balance enough that he was cautious of some of the handholds Begay used. By the time he reached the top deck, Begay was vanishing down the hatch into the panzer. Sam tossed his pack through and followed, snagging his holster on the hatch coaming. He had to pull himself back up to free it. The holster and the Narcoject Lethe pistol it held were a parting gift from Dodger. The Elf had wanted him to take something more lethal, but Sam resisted. Having a gun at his hip was strange enough. That the weapon was his own was even stranger. Inside the panzer, Begay showed him how to strap into the gunner’s couch and started a simulation program that would let Sam get the feel of the controls. Shooting the computer targets was easy. Just like a game.

  Hart unfurled the hood from the collar of her black windbreaker and snugged it down with the drawstring. She hated what it would do to her hair, but the hood was a better alternative than an invisibility spell at the moment. She didn’t want the distraction of maintaining the mana flow to power the spell. It was going to be two against her one, and she would need her wits about her. Verner might be a corporate softie, but the other was an experienced runner of unknown combat capabilities. Like her whole life, this would be a calculated risk. San Francisco wasn’t one of her towns, and so she’d had no time to check out quality backup. Her quarry was about to leave town, and that meant she had to be quick and fast. Good thing she’d completed the transaction for her working equipment before she’d gotten the word of their location.

  She made her selections from the satchel and placed them on the rooftop before caching the bag under a rusted-out air conditioning unit. Returning to her new toys, she tucked the sheathed stiletto into her belt, under one of the supposedly decorative ornaments that were actually her custom-styled throwing stars. Then she slipped the band of the thermal goggles over the hood and glanced around the rooftop once to confirm their quality. Satisfied, she pushed the lenses up onto her forehead, where she could pull them down in a hurry. Running gloved fingers over the Beretta Model 70, she confirmed that the serial numbers had been seared out with a laser, as specified. She initiated the self-test and nodded once in satisfaction as the LEDs signaled the laser sight in full true, the sound suppressor at 97 percent efficiency, the magazine full, and the trigger pressure set at a hundredth of a pound less than she had requested. The fixer who supplied this gear was reliable; she wanted to remember him in case she had future business in the city by the bay. Having checked the Beretta, she slung it over her right shoulder. The weapon would enable her to finish the business quickly and without a trace. Once she was gone, it would be just another crime of random street violence.

  She sat down cross-legged on the roof and composed her mind. From that calm pool, she called out. The summons took the form of an odoriferous scent wafting on the breeze. It was not long before the first rat showed up. It snuffed the air as though slightly confused, then scampered closer. It was no bolder than many city rats she had seen, but no less bold either. It circled her once, then stopped in front of her and stood on its hind legs. The tiny forepaws patted at the air as its whiskers quivered to the motion of its overactive nose.

  Her hand darted out and pinned the beast to the roof. Her grip behind its head held it helpless despite its violent squirmings. She touched the back of its skull with the index finger of her free hand and intoned the spell of preparation.

  Aleph!

  Affirmation of attention entered her mind.

  Take this one as a body. I want you to spy below.

  Acknowledgement touched her mind, then the rat stopped twisting in her grip. She released it and it sat back
on its haunches to stare at her with suddenly intelligent eyes.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  The rat squeaked once and dashed away.

  Hart closed her eyes in order to better comprehend the inflow of data from the rat’s senses. Her Ally Spirit Aleph had taken control of the animal, which would let her see and hear what the rat saw and heard through her link with the Spirit. In this part of town, a rat made a very inconspicuous spy.

  It took Aleph only a few minutes to guide the rat through the byways of its kind and down onto the floor of the building. The reek of oil was almost overwhelming and the dark-adapted eyes of the beast showed her what she didn’t want to see. The warehouse was empty. She had arrived too late.

  “Frag it!”

  The panzer, with Verner in it, was gone.

  Release it, Aleph. We’ve got to hit the road.

  Acknowledgement from below and she was alone on the rooftop, all dressed up for a party that was already over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  As Begay had promised, the run through the Tir was easy. Except for the border crossings, they had traveled by day, which gave Sam a chance to see some of the magically restored forest. Beautiful as the land was in its natural state and vigor, the thought that powerful magics had made it so disturbed him. It was still more evidence he could not deny. As lush and cool as was the forest, Sam seemed to notice only the pools of shadow and the dark spaces under the trees, as though some danger or precarious instability hid within the leafy canopy. Or was it only his doubts?

  Begay assured him that travel by day was a practical matter rather than for sightseeing purposes. Less local wildlife was active with the sun high in the sky, he said, making Sam almost afraid to ponder what kind of animal could threaten a panzer. All Begay would tell Sam was to watch the target screens, which he did, though his datajack connection to the sensors brought on the usual headache. Strain, he told himself. Magic had nothing to do with it.