by Mel Odom
“Drinking that ain’t gonna slake your thirst any, cher.” Remy Bordelon leaned on his walking stick as he stood guard a short distance away. He’d stuck beside her and defended her from the stalking horrors stalking her every step. She doubted she would have survived without him. “That water ain’t real.”
“So you keep saying.” Rachel couldn’t help voicing her frustration, even though she struggled to keep it within her. She was afraid he’d leave, and she didn’t want to be alone. But anger helped keep her awake, and there was no way she could participate in a conversation anywhere near normal. “You keep telling me that none of this is real, but I can’t get out of here.”
“Oh, this is real, cher.” Bordelon gazed around the jungle. Drying mud smears left powdery gray residue on his clothes. Fatigue burned in his golden eyes, making them seem more deeply set than they had earlier.
His shoulders were bowed with weariness now. Scrapes showed on his knuckles and bare arms. Dried blood clung to cuts on his face and arms as well. His clothing had been torn again and again, but each time it had stubbornly re-knitted itself. She assumed the clothing was a representation of the protective spells he wore. The monsters they’d faced each time had gotten stronger, quicker, and more clever.
“You make a blunder here, you’ll end up dead,” he told her. “Make no mistake about that. But this here’s the astral. It ain’t the real world you know, but it’s real enough.”
He kept mentioning that too: the Astral. Rachel knew about the astral plane from some of her intro classes in college. Not everyone knew they had magic, and some who thought they had magic didn’t have it at all, so the courses were designed to weed those out.
She’d never shown any innate magical ability, so she didn’t know much about the subject, but she knew enough to argue the point. “This isn’t the astral. It can’t be. The astral is supposed to be our world, just rendered in mana form.” Mana was a form of energy, and all things—organic and inorganic—had energy that was being used or stored. “I don’t know where you come from, but this isn’t my world. This looks nothing like my world.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. This looks like Guatemala, maybe from a long time ago. Could be this vision of the world is as much the artifact’s as it is yours.”
“You think the artifact is alive?” The possibility wasn’t new to Rachel, but she didn’t want that to be the answer.
“I don’t know. Could be it’s only a conduit to another place.” He looked around. “This place.”
“None of this makes any sense. This place is . . . is ancient. It can’t exist.”
“No, but the memory of it does.” Bordelon faced her and smiled gently. Despite his attempt, the skull face painted over his features robbed him of any true sympathy. “I come from New Orleans, cher, a place of magic and the past. In that sprawl, you can see many forms of the city. It spreads out over her like layers of an onion. History clings to that sprawl, tainting it with bygone eras even now, if you know where to look. If you’re gifted enough, and tied to the history somehow, you can sometimes see some of what has gone before. I have walked along the streets when the Spanish and the French ruled the city centuries ago.”
Not wanting to hear any more, Rachel drank the water from her cupped hands. She experienced a chill, wet sensation in her mouth and throat, but her thirst remained as strong as ever. The same thing had happened when she’d sampled some of the berries she’d passed. Cupping her hands again, she scooped up more water and drank, only to feel just as parched.
In frustration, she slapped her hands into the creek. Startled, the fish darted away and water soaked her, plastering the rags she wore to her body. How could she be drenched by water that never reached her stomach? It didn’t make sense. It was just so . . . so . . . weird.
Before she knew what was happening, she started laughing uncontrollably and couldn’t stop. She looked up at Bordelon, who gazed at her with concern.
“You realize how insane this is, don’t you?” she demanded. “I’m an archeology student. Not a mage. Not someone people are supposed to shoot at or steal away. I’m just, just . . . no one. I’m no one!” She dragged in a ragged breath. “I don’t deserve this.”
She wanted nothing more than to go back to being no one. At least that person had a future ahead of her. As suddenly as the laughter started, it departed and the tears came, rolling down her face. She touched her tongue to one, tasted the salt, felt the actual wetness, and realized her own tears were more real than the water.
Bordelon crossed and knelt beside her. Reaching into his sleeveless tuxedo jacket, he took out a handkerchief and tenderly blotted her face like she was a child.
“Shh, shh. Everything’s gonna be all right, cher.” He spoke softly, but the white skull undercut whatever comfort she might have felt. “You got people looking out for you.”
“You mean Hawke?” She shook her head. “I’m just a payday to him.”
“Maybe you was at first, cher, maybe you was. But that was in the beginning. Now you’re something different. Now you’re someone he wants to save. He’s out there right now, risking his life to get you out of this mess.”
Rachel made herself stop crying. She focused on his golden eyes and his words, letting his confident tone soak into her. “How can you know that?”
Reaching out to squeeze her shoulder with one of his big hands, Bordelon smiled. “Because I know my cousin, cher. Sometimes I know him better than he knows himself. He’s gonna find a way to save you.”
Taking comfort from the man’s touch, Rachel wished she could believe him.
“You can believe me,” Bordelon said as if he could read her mind. “I would not lie to you. My cousin can be a determined, inflexible man when he sets his mind to something, and he’s set his mind to save you.”
“Why would he do that?”
Bordelon shook his head. “I don’t think he knows. He spends much time avoiding his true self. He keeps himself isolated and cut off, thinking that an island cannot be harmed.” He paused. “But there’s something about you that has woken him from his self-imposed quarantine. Even an island is changed when ships pass by.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“No, and he doesn’t know you. However, there is something inside you that he feels he knows, or wants to know, and he wants to protect it. Be glad of that. And trust it as I do.”
Rachel wiped her face, feeling grime roll across her skin. She wanted a bath, but even if nothing lived in the water that would kill her, she doubted the creek would allow her to clean herself. If she couldn’t really drink the water, she wouldn’t be able to wash either. All she could be was uncomfortable in drenched clothing. Wherever she was, the land seemed determined to reject her. Or maybe it simply wanted to punish her.
“Do you look like this in the physical world?”
Bordelon laughed in his deep basso voice and pulled her to her feet. “I do, for the most part. My face and my body, sure. My clothing and paint—” He trailed his hand over his face and down to his chest where the bones stood out in bright relief. “—these things are part of me here. I have two selves, as many people on the Matrix do. I’m sure you have an avatar you play in the simsense games. Here, I am free to show myself as who I want to be.”
Rachel looked at her reflection in the creek, seeing how bedraggled she’d gotten. In the end, though, she was herself. “I don’t look any different.”
“Many people don’t look different, cher. The spirits I work with have marked me in their own fashion. I have accepted their gifts. I glory in them, and am thankful.”
“Is the voice I hear a spirit?” She had told him about the voice, but he’d never heard it.
“Not to my knowledge.” Bordelon’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever that voice belongs to is like nothing I have ever seen before.”
“Why did the artifact bring me here?”
“We don’t know that it did.” Bordelon frowned. “We only suspect it did, because y
ou surely didn’t do this to yourself. To come here, you would have had to know this place existed.”
“What if I can’t get out of here?”
“You must, cher. You have no choice.” From the way he hesitated, she knew there was something he was leaving unsaid.
“What are you not telling me?”
Bordelon nodded. “You must leave this place, because if you don’t, you will die.”
Rachel wrapped her arms around herself as a large winged shadow passed by above the tree tops. “I know. I can’t escape them forever.”
“It’s not just them, cher. You’re dying. Slowly, but you are wasting away during every moment you spend here. If you stay in here too long, your mortal body will eventually fail.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
A frigid wind blew through Minneapolis, making Hawke pull his long coat tighter around him. Neon lights from Stuffer Shacks, dives, diners, and adult entertainment venues washed over him, and somehow made the night feel colder. The few pedestrians braving the weather looked at him and got out of his way.
The sprawl was much chillier than Detroit. Some said residual Native American magic from the terrorist bomb that had destroyed the Aztechnology arcology in Calgary in 2061 had prolonged the winters here. Other people just said the cold this year was part of a weather pattern. There were other rumors, too. There always were.
Hawke didn’t care why it was so cold, because it helped keep him vigilant. He was running on fumes, and he knew it. He wasn’t at his best, and he needed to be. His team depended on him.
Lifting his gaze, he stared up at the Ngola Building. Thirty-seven stories tall, the building was dwarfed by several others around it. LED lights tracked up the side of the building, spelling out the corporate name: NGOLA BIOWARE.
“Ngola Bioware is the latest owner of the building,” Dolphin informed him over his PAN. “They develop bioware replacement organs for patients whose organs were destroyed by diseases that wrack struggling African nations. They’re located here because warlords in those countries try to control the local organ biz, and take lethal efforts to shut down homegrown solutions. Several of Ngola’s development labs and production plants have been blown up by drones in the last few years. As a result, they set up shop here. Of course, this is only one of several sites, because their enemies have pursued them here as well.”
“Security’s gonna be tight.”
“You knew that going in. But they’ll be trying to keep their research and prototype designs safe, as well as their people. We’re not here to steal anything, and we’re not going to hurt anybody. We just want access to the central computer nodes for a few minutes. We’re not taking anything. We’re just borrowing.”
“We still have to break into the building.”
“I’m going to help make that easier. Have faith.”
“I’m struggling with that at the moment. Faith’s in short supply.”
“You have faith in me,” Dolphin chided. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have contacted me. By the way, I’ve patched Javier in.”
Another voice broke in. Hawke recognized the gravelly tone of Javier Paredes Verdugo, and instantly felt a little better about the night’s possible outcome. Paredes was the best combat mage he knew. They’d only worked together once, but the run had been against the Draco Foundation on a seek-and-find mission for a client interested in a series of murders in Peru. There had been a lot of magical barriers and some serious muscle onsite. Hawke had gotten the intel and passed it on, but he’d never heard anything about the murders or that Mr. Johnson again. Paredes had been vital in the effort to escape after they’d gotten caught inside.
“I’m late to the party,” Paredes said in his smooth, confident voice, “so I want to know why we’re breaking into Ngola. How does it connect with any Aztechnology or NeoNET chasing after you guys?”
Dolphin looped the video feed into Hawke’s PAN so that he saw an overlay of Paredes leaning on a balcony railing overlooking the Minneapolis sprawl. Hawke didn’t recognize the view, but he knew where Paredes was because that was where he was supposed to be.
Small and dapper, Paredes looked like a trust fund baby. His longish dark hair, parted in the middle, covered his ears and the back of his neck. Almond-shaped, hazel eyes always twinkled, as if he were constantly amused by something only he knew. A thin mustache covered his upper lip, and a narrow French tickler smudged his chin. He wore an Armante suit, even in his hotel room. Rings glinted on all of his fingers, and all of them held deadly surprises. Paredes was a guy who was always prepared. He held a glass of wine in one hand.
“Hello, omae,” Hawke greeted him.
Paredes smiled. “It is good to see you again, hermano. It has been much too long.” His Spanish accent hadn’t disappeared since he’d been gone from his home country.
“You know I like my distance.”
With a shrug, Paredes dismissed that. “I know. Your rules.” He shook his head. “They get in the way of things sometimes.”
“Rules have kept me alive.”
“I know, but what use is a life lived without friends? As I have told you before, there is strength in numbers.”
Hawke didn’t enter into the old argument. He liked Paredes. They’d had a good time when they had worked together. Paredes had a yacht out in San Diego, and had invited Hawke there.
“Tell Javier why we’re interested in Ngola, Dolphin.” Hawke paused at a street corner only a few blocks from the target building.
“Of course,” the technomancer replied. “We’re here because the Ngola building wasn’t always the Ngola building. Until 2061, it was a UCAS-based subsidiary of Transys Neuronet.”
“I know of Transys,” Paredes mused. “They specialized in bioware and cyberware. Supposed to be working on cyber that could be used by the dragons, if you believe the shadow whispers.”
“They are,” Dolphin said. “Very wiz tech. I’ve seen some of it.”
“Really? Fascinating. I’d love to hear more about this.”
Hawke started across the street with the light. “Guys. Focus.”
“Sorry.” Dolphin sounded contrite. “More later, Javier. Transys was one of the companies that plotzed after the Crash in ’61. They got snapped up by Celedyr, then merged under one umbrella with Erika and Novatech, all of which was rebranded into NeoNET. A few months after the merger, NeoNET built a new building here. The old building changed ownership a few times before finally ending up with Ngola Corp.”
Translucent images moved across Hawke’s vision, showing the building as it had been in 2060. Transys Neuronet crawled up the side of the structure. Not a lot had changed in the exterior.
“Ngola didn’t have a lot of money to put into redesigning the space or upgrading equipment,” Dolphin went on. “They’ve done what they can, but they don’t have a bottom line that allows them to keep on top of cutting-edge tech.”
“Ngola is funded by grants and foundations from other corps wanting a tax write-off.” Paredes was a quick study and caught up in short order. In Hawke’s image, he studied a translucent screen floating before him. “The corp basically provides free health care to African nations needing help. I can see this for myself, but I still do not see why we are here tonight.”
“Because NeoNET is one of those corps donating credits and services to Ngola,” Dolphin replied. “To be precise, they’re providing cyber security. And that’s going to give us a backdoor into NeoNET’s systems.”
“You propose to hack into NeoNET from Ngola?” Paredes asked.
“Yes.”
“How is this any easier than hacking into NeoNET from the outside?”
“Because I’ve written some shiny sleaze programs that will allow me to mask myself as part of Ngola’s protocol. Once I get in—”
“You’re very confident.” Paredes smiled.
“I’m very good,” Dolphin replied. “Once I get in, I’ve got sniffers and snoopers ready to unleash. If there’s any intel there concerning Rachel Gor
don, Professor Fredericks, or that Guatemala site, I’ll find it.”
At the corner of the two streets that fronted the Ngola building, Hawke took in the sec men in the armored box at the entrance. He’d walked the perimeter, looking for outlying security and planting wireless cameras Dolphin had instructed him to get so she could watch over the neighborhood with her programs, but he hadn’t seen anything suspicious.
They were clear to go.
Only a few windows in the buildings had lights, letting him know where some people were burning the midnight oil. That was to be expected with the seven-hour difference between much of Africa and Minneapolis.
The streets were desolate and empty except for occasional traffic. Loose trash swirled in the wind. The garage across the street flashed AVAILABLE PARKING.
“Okay,” Hawke said as he stepped off the curb and headed for the garage, “since everybody’s up to speed, let’s do this.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
On the parking garage’s twelfth floor, right below the roof, Hawke joined Twitch and Rolla. Both wore variants of the chameleon armor he’d used in Guatemala. Standing in the shadows as they were, he didn’t see them ’til he was almost on top of them.
Twitch was gunned up, and Rolla was heavily armed as well, carrying a pair of Remington Roomsweepers at his hips and a bulky Krime Cannon slung over his shoulder. He also had a double-bladed combat axe with a telescoping haft for easier carrying. Seeing the weapon, Hawke felt instant respect. There was a reason he carried his katars. The way he and Rolla worked, things got up close and personal quick.
“Where’s Dani?” Hawke asked when he realized the fourth member of their party wasn’t present.
“Up top,” Twitch replied. “Says she’s preparing the way. Whatever that means.”
“Means she’s up where a Lone Star flyby can spot her and start wondering what somebody’s doing hanging out on a parking garage rooftop,” Rolla growled.
