Crossroads

by Stephen Kenson

  “Knight Errant authorities are still investigating a series of brutal murders in the Boston area. Another victim of the ‘Boston Slasher,’ Ms. Elaine Dumont of Cambridge, was found near a red-line T-station early yesterday morning. The victim died from a single stab-wound, according to a representative of Knight Errant Security Services. Although the investigation is ongoing, authorities will say only that they are pursuing several leads.” Hypertext links lit up the bottom of the screen saying “To download previous reports on this story, touch here.” and “To report information on this crime to Knight Errant Security Services, touch here.”

  The news report went on to compare the murders to a series of killings years ago. I vaguely recalled hearing about them when I was in my first year at MIT&T. A representative of the pagan community of Salem was interviewed, denying any connection between the murders and any kind of “pagan rites.” followed by a few other talking heads to explain the psychology of serial-killers and how copycats often sprang up, following the patterns of killers from years, even generations, before.

  “All set.” Trouble said, and I turned back to her as she slung the cyberdeck carrying case back over her shoulder. The clerk was already talking with another passenger, reciting the same bored speech. Obviously the “customized” (and illegal) modifications on Trouble’s deck passed muster without notice.

  “Just one more thing.” I said, and Trouble led the way through the terminal and down to the customs area.

  The customs clerk, a young woman whose features looked like they were sculpted from pink plastic, gave me a raised eyebrow as she slid a carefully wrapped package across the counter to me. I slipped the fake ID back into my pocket with silent thanks to Jane for coming through again and tore open the padded plastic wrapping to make sure the airport goons hadn’t done any damage. I hated to leave it up to them, but there was no other reasonable way to get my prized possession through security in the kind of time frame I had in mind. The ID was sufficient to check it through airport customs, but not to carry it onto the plane.

  Grasping the chain-wrapped hilt, I drew Talonclaw partway out of its black leather sheath. Everything looked fine, from the rune-carved blade to the polished fire opal that served as the pommel stone. The magic of the enchanted dagger tingled against my palm, alive and waiting to be called upon. I slid the blade home with a click that seemed to startle the young woman behind the counter out of her trance-like fixation on the gleaming dagger. “Is everything in order, Mr. Nolan?”

  “No problems, but I can’t be too careful with the tools of my trade, you understand.”

  She smiled and nodded, despite the fact that I was sure she had no more clue about mageblades than what the tridshows portrayed on Magus, P. I. and To Kill The Dead. Sliding the sheath into my belt, I let my jacket fall back in place to conceal it, hefted my bag, and headed over to where Trouble waited.

  As we made our way out of the terminal into Logan's protected parking area, Trouble took the lead. She slotted her credstick into the terminal at the entrance gate of the garage. It beeped, and a computerized voice spoke from the tiny grille. “Welcome back to Boston, Ms. Spenser.”

  Three floors up was Trouble’s car, a dark green Honda ZX Turbo, a sleek, aerodynamic machine with silvery-tinted windows. It looked fast even while standing still. The car alarm chirped twice as we approached, and I made my way around to the passenger side.

  I gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Nice ride.” I said.

  Trouble flashed me a smile of pleasure at the compliment. “Thanks, I’m rather proud of it. I sank some nuyen into it after a big job a while back. Hasn’t let me down yet.”

  She slid easily into the driver’s side, stowing the bag with her cyberdeck in the back seat, as did I. She took a slim optical cord from a pocket in the dash and snapped it into the jack behind her ear, synching with the car’s autopilot computer and entering the ignition code. A second later the engine roared to life and the lighted panels on the dash illuminated.

  “So, where to?” she asked.

  “Landsdown Street. There’s an old friend I want to look up.”

  Trouble navigated through the streets of downtown Boston like a pro. I’d forgotten just how harrowing Boston traffic could be. The common joke said all the streets in the Hub were paved-over cowpaths. They weren't. Boston was originally based on the layout of European cities like London, whose streets were paved-over cowpaths. The big quake brought about a lot of urban renovations, but the complex maze of one-way streets and multi-level roads remained as confusing and congested as ever.

  It was still quite early, so traffic was light. It wouldn’t get really bad for another hour or so. After we passed through the Williams/O’Neil Tunnel to get to the downtown area, I spotted several posters advertising the upcoming Samhain celebration on the Common. It was less than a week away.

  “Samhain.” I mused out loud.

  “What’s that?” Trouble asked as she dodged left around a slow-moving truck.

  “Samhain. The Celtic New Year. Halloween. It’s coming up soon. I’d forgotten all about it. It’s a big pagan holiday. The biggest, for some pagans. I used to celebrate it with Jase. In fact, it was the first holiday we celebrated together.”

  “Are you pagan?” Trouble asked.

  “I suppose so. Kind of lapsed. I haven’t really celebrated any of the holidays for a long time, or called on the gods for anything except magical work. Just. . . didn’t seem important, you know?”

  Trouble nodded. The weather was unusually warm for the end of October, so she rolled down her window a bit. Her long, dark hair blew in the wind as she slipped on a pair of tinted glasses against the bright sunlight spilling over the buildings.

  “I hear you.” she said. “I was raised Catholic myself, Irish Catholic. My Dad was pretty devout and insisted on going to church every Sunday. I think it was his connection to the Old Country. He got forced out by the Danaan Families when they came to power. I don’t know what they thought was so damn revolutionary about a university history professor.”

  I made a noise of agreement and shrugged. Who knew with elves? When the elves of Ireland claimed to be the legendary Sidhe, returned to claim their ancestral homeland, they backed up their claim with powerful magic. So many Irish folk, after facing years of struggle to gain independence from Britain, followed by years of political scandal and abuse, were completely taken in by the Sidhe’s promises of a magical, revitalized Ireland. It wasn’t even Ireland any more, it was Tír na nÓg, “the Land of the Ever Young.” a bright new land of promise.

  Only some of the Irish nationalists who’d fought so hard for independence from British rule didn’t take too well to a bunch of elves coming in and taking over. Most of them were bought out, blackmailed, or forced out of the country as “subversive elements.” People were too taken with the glorious image of the Danaan Families to worry much about anyone trampling on the rights of a few dissidents. A lot of the refugees ended up in the Boston area, which already had a big Irish population. South Boston was full of first-and second-generation Irish immigrants, not unlike what I’d read about the early twentieth century.

  “I was raised Catholic, too.” I said. “St. Brendan’s, a mission in the Rox, took me in when I was just a kid and took care of me until I was fourteen. Then I hit the streets on my own. They did their best by me, but I got tired of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit every morning with breakfast and every night before bed, to say nothing of sharing the place with about a hundred other kids the nuns took in. Wasn’t too long after that I discovered my Talent. Good thing I got out when I did, or I probably would have ended up a priest-mage or something like that.”

  Trouble glanced at me over the top of her shades and broke out laughing.

  “No way can I picture you as a priest, Talon. That really would be a sin.”

  “Yeah, I’m way too fond of having my Sundays off.” Trouble laughed again and took the corner with enough speed to make me grab for the han
dhold above the door.

  “My family never bought into the whole ‘new age of promise’ drek dished out by the elves and all their political allies.” she said. “Ireland had a lot of political trouble, but we were unified for the first time in a long time and a lot of people fought and died to make it a single country again. The elves promised unity, hope, and prosperity in the midst of troubled times, and most everyone was willing to go along with anything they said. They didn’t even object when the elves changed the name of the country. It was all like something out of a fairy tale, or a legend.

  “But some people didn’t think so, including my parents. They were political dissidents. Not dangerous, just people with ideas and opinions who were willing to express them. I guess in the eyes of the Sidhe that made them the most dangerous of all. At first, the new government was willing to ‘tolerate’ other ideas, but when they got more control they started cracking down on all ‘threats to public safety,’ which included pretty much anyone who didn’t approve of the government or their plans for the future. They started putting pressure on people to keep quiet. My parents lost their university jobs because of it. When that didn’t shut people up, the government started arresting people, rounding them up in the middle of the night. People just disappeared and were never heard from again.

  “I was only a little girl when the soldiers came for my parents. They’d gotten a warning from some friends and we ran. I was terrified, and my mother kept trying to keep me quiet so nobody would hear us when we slipped out of our house and into the night. My father was very angry, I remember.”

  Her voice took on a faraway tone as she recalled those times. “We managed to get out of the country and come to the UCAS. My father had friends in Boston, and we ended up in Southie. It wasn’t a very nice neighborhood, and my parents had to take menial jobs to support us. Both of them were educated professionals, teachers back home, but my father drove a delivery truck and my mother waited tables for years because there were no other jobs.

  “I was a wild kid. I grew up with the trid and the telecom for friends and baby-sitters. The good thing about it was I was playing in the Matrix from the time I was old enough to reach a keyboard. We didn’t have a back yard or a playground, but in virtual reality, there was all the space you could ever want to play in. My dad thought it was good for me to know about the Matrix, and he worked extra hard to make sure we’d have at least some basic Matrix-access at home, so I could learn things. I suspect some of the things I learned my dad wouldn’t exactly approve of.” She smiled wickedly.

  “A few years after we got to Boston, the troubles started here, too. Do you remember the Bloody Tuesday riots?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I was nine and living at St. Brendan’s. Southie was like hell for days, with all the fires, the rioting and the looting. It was one of the few times I was glad to be near the church, although I heard even some of the churches were damaged.”

  Trouble nodded, resting her arm against the door and looking out the window. “I remember them, too. My mother was killed in one of the riots, trampled to death. My dad was never the same after that. He started drinking all the time and he pretty much left running the house up to me. Eventually, he lost his job and I started working the Matrix to get money to support us. Just small-time jobs at first, but I pulled in enough nuyen to help keep us going.”

  I looked at Trouble, imagining the burden placed on a young girl trying to support what was left of her family and risking death in the Matrix to do it.

  “Eventually I got political myself.” she ned on the Sidhe and their damned went on. “I blamed everything that happe fascist fantasy land. Alfheim, alflieim uber alles. They were the ones who forced my family out of Ireland, forced us to live in Southie, forced my parents into the jobs they worked. If it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t have been a Bloody Tuesday, and my mother wouldn’t have died. I was just a kid.

  “To me, people like the Knights of the Red Branch were freedom fighters, trying to free our homeland from the evil elven overlords who took it from us. Even though they were the ones who touched off the riots. You believe stupid drek like that when you’re a kid and you’re looking for something, anything, to hold on to.

  “So along with running the shadows, I started getting involved with the anti-Tír movement in the plex. At first, it was just an expression of my anger for what the fragging elves did to me and my family. I wore my anger on my sleeve and I hated elves as much as any policlubber you could find. There were a lot of gangs operating in Southie then around racial lines, mostly norms against metas, especially elves. Even the metas were split up, with the orks and trolls against everyone else.

  “I did some work for a few gangs, but I didn’t join up. I tried to keep myself above all the little conflicts going on in the neighborhood. It was pure survival instinct. I figured as long as I kept neutral and provided what people wanted, they would leave me and my dad alone. And it worked pretty well, for a while. Then I met Ian.

  “He was younger then, of course, but still had a good fifteen years on me. To a teenaged girl who ran the shadows from the Matrix, he was like a fairy-tale knight. A downtrodden hero exiled from his homeland and fighting for its freedom.”

  I glanced over and smiled, and Trouble gave a sheepish grin, ducking her head and letting her dark hair hide her face for a moment. “I know, it sounds stupid, but like I said, I was just a kid. To me, Ian was perfect.

  “I first met him when I helped score a shipping schedule for a local gang. Turns out they worked for Ian and he met with me personally to get the goods. Said he was impressed with my work and had more work for someone like me. I didn’t know he was involved with the Knights then, but he had such an imposing presence . . .”

  She trailed off for a moment, lost in the memory. “Anyway, I started doing a lot of work for Ian and the Knights. At first, it was strictly a business relationship—I needed the money and they were willing to pay. After a while, though, it became more than that. I really needed somebody at that point in my life, and Ian was there for me. He listened to my troubles and paid attention while I poured my heart out about my mom, my dad, and everything else that happened. I think I was really looking for a surrogate father or a big brother back then, a substitute for my real dad. I fell in love with Ian because he was a protector and a friend. I suspect I reminded him of someone back home, too, someone he’d lost. It was no way to build a relationship, but it was all either of us had.

  “So I threw myself into the cause and worked with the Knights of the Red Branch for a few years, working to free Eire from the elven overlords and running the shadows to pull in the money and the contacts we needed. It was an impossible fight. We were an ocean away from home with no support, few contacts, and very little hope, but we didn’t give up. Some of the people in the KRB had never even been to Ireland, but they had family or friends who lived there or who had died in the riots. Some just wanted to dream of reclaiming some kind of land to call home. I guess when it comes right down to it, that’s what the Sidhe wanted, too.

  “Frag.” Trouble said, glancing over at me. “Tell me to shut up any time. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “I have such a saintly face.” I said, eliciting a smile. “So what made you leave the Knights?” I already suspected the answer.

  “I grew up.” she said. “When I first started out, everything was black and white, us versus them. The more things I saw and the more things I did, the more gray everything got. Some of the things we did were no better than the things the Sidhe did to us. I started to think about things like Bloody Tuesday. The Knights set the bomb that touched it off. Was all the violence really worth it?

  “I started to have doubts, and that led to a lot of fights with Ian. He never wavered from the cause, never thought that what we were doing wasn’t the right thing. Eventually, I walked away from it all and became a shadowrunner. In the shadows, you know where things stand or, at least, you used to. It was alway
s strictly business for me ... up until now, that is.”

  I nodded. “Right. Now it’s personal.”

  7

  Landsdown Street, near the financial district of the city, held some of the biggest clubs in Boston, including the Avalon. The club dated back to before the 2005 quake, but it was smaller then. Before the quake, most of the major clubs in Boston were owned and operated by a single company. After the damage done to the city, the company decided to rebuild Landsdown Street bigger and better than ever. Most of the clubs were built up higher and grander than before, with all the latest tech and equipment to make them attractions. The new club space pumped up the city’s underground music scene, and plenty of small studios and record labels operated out of Boston. Although the big recording action was still in Los Angeles, the Boston club scene rivaled that of Seattle, and plenty of hot, new acts came out of the Hub on a regular basis.

  The evening’s fun was long since over and most of the club-goers were off somewhere having an early-morning breakfast at one of the nearby restaurants. The clubs were being cleaned up and readied for another go-round tonight.

  Trouble pulled into a space directly in front of the Avalon and killed the engine. “You friend is here?” she asked.

  I nodded and smiled. “He owns the place.”

  “You mean your friend is Pembrenton? The fixer?”

  I laughed a bit at the mention of Boom’s real name. I got out of the car and Trouble followed.

  “That’s right. Of course, he wasn’t always fixing. He used to be in a band called the Nuclear Elves back in Seattle, and before that he sometimes ran the shadows for a little nuyen on the side. There was a while when we worked some runs together and hung out together afterward. I haven’t seen him in, gods, it must be almost five years now. Definitely not since he inherited all of this.” I gestured to take in the whole front of the club. “Dunkelzahn left it to him in his will. I heard something about Boom hooking up with some high-class talent. I guess this is what it meant.”