Shadows Down Under: Shadowrun, #8

by Jean Rabe

  The knocking persisted.

  “The door, you want me to get that, Ninn? Doesn’t sound like he’s going away.”

  She frowned at Talon, who should have left hours ago. “Just one night,” she’d told him repeatedly.

  “Just tonight, Ninn, I understand,” he’d said.

  Her clothes sullied, she needed to change. Rather than reaching for her clean laundry, she grabbed up the second outfit she’d bought yesterday—faster than sorting through the clothes bags.

  “Yeah. Get the door for me, will you, Tal? It might be the landlord.” She was a month behind, and she’d be able to settle with him using the nuyen left from Cadi’s payment. She retreated into the bathroom to clean up again. Frag, but she was stiff from sitting in one place for so long.

  Ninn heard Talon open the door and exchange pleasantries: “Nininiru Tossinn Detective Agency. You lost it, we’ll find it.”

  Ninn groaned and switched on the smartlink as the water splashed in the sink. Mordred softly hummed.

  “The Awful Awakening,” Mordred said. “2020, Su Weng as Jarrod Wey.”

  “Come in. Come right in. I’m Talon Kassar, Ninn’s assistant, and you’re one of the original people, right mate? A real Abo. Lost something we can find for you?”

  “We Happy Few,” Mordred said. “2025, most recent film in my database. It was about failed relationships.”

  We. Ninn ground her teeth. “Don’t lecture me,” she whispered to the gun.

  “Lost someone we can find?” Talon continued.

  “I am Barega Kogung.”

  “That’s an interesting name. Does it mean anything, either the Barega or Kogung?”

  “My name means ‘the wind.’ I wish to see Nininiru Tossinn, please.”

  “She’s, uh—”

  Kogung, Ninn considered the name as she shimmied into burnt orange leggings and threw the beige kangaroo print slouch top over it—a little too long, it settled past her hips. A glance in the mirror to straighten her hair and wipe the drool smudge off her mouth. She had to stop the slips and booze. “Kogung,” she whispered. “That rings a bell.”

  Mordred supplied it: “Last name of Cadigal’s dead singer. Victim five according to AISE. Six according to you. Ella Gance/Adoni Kogung. With Six You Get—”

  “—Eggroll,” she finished. Was that her head pounding? Or was someone pummeling the ceiling? Had to be her head.

  “Is Nininiru Tossinn available? I have an important matter—”

  Talon was talking again. “Ninn. Well, Ninn’s…she’s…uh—”

  “Right here, Talon.” Cleaned up, fresh towel draped over her arm, she slid out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her. “You were leaving, weren’t you, Tal? Had someplace you needed to—”

  “Nope. No place I need to be. I’ll stay.” He returned to the couch. “Maybe I can help. Assistants help, you know.”

  “Nice piece of sticky refuse you got with that one.” Mordred’s snide comment bounced around in her aching head.

  Why the hell hadn’t Talon left? Because he had a roof here. Was she going to have to physically toss him out of her office? A glance at the shelf confirmed that he’d eaten all her snacks.

  “Good to meet you, Nininiru Tossinn.” Barega bowed politely.

  Ninn guessed the Aborigine was in his mid- to late seventies. He was barefoot and wore dark green pants that came to his knees, a loose shirt with a black and ochre design, maybe something tribal. He was thin, hovering near gaunt. Her encephalon brought up an image and superimposed it over his face. She’d seen him before, standing with the crowd the night she’d answered Cadi’s summons. In the sea of white bodies, he’d stood out. Wearing the same clothes as he had then.

  “Yes? Can I help you, Mr. Kogung?” If she hadn’t heard the “Kogung” part, she’d have thought the old man had the wrong office, was looking for the Area Aging Group at the far end of the hall.

  “Please, Nininiru Tossinn. You can very much help me.” He shuffled past her and into the office proper, aimed straight to the client chair at her desk. “I desire to learn who killed my brother Adoni, and my meditations and dreaming indicate that you can assist. We can help each other.” He settled in the chair, reached to his pocket and pulled out a cloth bag. “In fact, all of my dreams point to you.”

  Ninn hurried to the other side of the desk, giving Talon a thumb toward the door to indicate he should leave. He stayed put and drank more coffee.

  “For payment. You will require payment, correct?” The Aborigine poured the contents of the bag onto her desk…a good-sized handful of rough opals. “Will this do? A deposit for your services?”

  She laid the towel on her chair, sat on it, and hunched forward so her face was even with his. God, but her head pounded. Did she overdo it last night because of Talon? Depressed at seeing him…what he’d become…did that make her take the second slip? Or had it been three? And the booze chaser? God, she’d drained the bottle.

  She rubbed her temples and studied her potential client. Seventeen hours she’d lost. Her stomach rumbled again.

  His wrinkled skin resembled tree bark, and the hair that protruded from an odd, box-like cap was wispy like cobwebs, a hint of whiskers along his jaw line. Perhaps he was older than she first thought; her encephalon yielded nothing on Barega Kogung…maybe Ella Gance’s grandfather, maybe someone from the tribe. Ella/Adoni had no known relatives, according to the AISE record and the reports from Cadi’s girls. However, Ninn recalled reading that large sections of an Aboriginal tribe could share the same last name.

  The old man’s eyes shifted from pale blue to gray with silver flecks. Maybe she still had a hint of the drugs and alcohol floating in her system, and couldn’t focus on him properly. Those eyes didn’t blink…not once had she seen the old man blink. And the longer she stared into those eyes, the weaker she felt.

  Ninn glanced down to her desktop, seeing dried drool where her head must have laid for those seventeen fragging hours. Was she that far gone in her addictions? Unsalvageable? Irredeemable? Had she sunk so deep she could only find work here in Sydney’s armpit, following unfaithful husbands, retrieving stolen designer dogs, paid by a troll tawdry house owner, and now perhaps by an old man who looked like he stumbled in from the Outback?

  “Will this down payment do?” he repeated.

  She focused on the little hat on his head, easy to do because he was short. “I would like to take your gems, Mr. Kogung, but I’m already working this case. I am already being paid to find Adoni’s killer.” She suspected the opals were worth far more than the nuyen Cadi had forked over.

  “Good for you, Keebs, you have morals. But that won’t get you enough nuyen for Chicago.” Mordred hummed softly and made a tsk-tsking sound. “Those opals…that should be The Sweet Smell of Success as far as you’re concerned. 1957. Burt Lancaster, Tony—”

  Ninn made a move to turn off the smartlink, and Mordred shut up.

  “I am aware that you work the case, Nininiru Tossinn. You look for the—” His reedy voice trailed off, as if he was searching for the correct words. “—the one called the Cross Slayer.”

  “Yeah. That’s what the people who live around here are sticking on him. The Cross Slayer. It’s possible an organization called the RighteousRight is involved. I’m working that angle and—”

  Talon waggled his fingers. “Hey, Ninn…about the Right? While you were…um, out…I called a decker I know. Had him dip into the Matrix, focus on the Cross and the Double-Rs. He owed me a major major major favor, and I figured I owed you for the spring rolls and the couch. He dropped a chip off a couple of hours ago. Said its chock full of Double-R stuff. It’s on your desk. Said he ruffled tons of feathers getting that, probably made some enemies. Find someplace to download and—”

  “Thanks, Tal.” Why the hell did he have to go and do something potentially useful? She looked at the chip, labeled ЯɌ in blue ink, and then turned her attention back to Barega. “I’m looking at the Cross Slayer as a member of
the Right.”

  “We will look together. My payment is for your assistance. I need to find out what happened to Adoni, and my dreaming alone will not be enough, my totem the galah reveals. My totem—”

  “Like I said, he was killed by the Cross—”

  The old man nodded. “I need to know what happened to Adoni to ease my soul, Nininiru. Beyond the killing, which I might be able to see through his now-dead eyes. I need the why of it. What happened to Adoni, and why it happened, things his now-dead eyes cannot tell me in full measure. They cannot tell me where this killer is. Perhaps you will be doubly rewarded for your time if we are successful.”

  Why had it happened, the killing? Because the RighteousRight hated anyone “different,” and Adoni fit within their parameters. Ninn let out a deep breath. The opals certainly had value, and with no record of the transaction she wouldn’t have to report them as earnings. She always needed nuyen, went through it like some people went through hand soap. While more nuyen would get her the nose filter, more upgrades, it could also fuel her unsavory addictions, the alcohol and slips…

  Dear God, she had to stop the spiral.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m already working the case. Taking payment from two sources just isn’t—”

  “Ethical?” Mordred hushed. “Now that’s a word I haven’t heard you use.”

  “—ethical,” she finished.

  “Chicago,” Mordred countered.

  Chicago, she thought. In the quiet that settled between them, Ninn listened to Talon snore. He’d fallen asleep within a handful of heartbeats. His head back, coffee mug cradled in his lap and threatening to spill. Was she going to end up like him? Was she really that far removed from reality at this moment? He woke with a start and smiled at her, raised the mug in a toast and drained it.

  “Why me? Why pick me, Mr. Kogung? There are other investigators in the Cross, and—”

  “Nininiru Tossinn, I said the galah and my dreaming led me to you.”

  “Electric Dreams,” Mordred said. “Science fiction, 1984, Virginia Madsen. Not worth a repeat viewing. The Dreaming, 1988, low-budget horror, Arthur Dignam.”

  “Dreaming?” Ninn rubbed her temples harder.

  “My dreaming and the galah. The galah is my totem. There is one in the window of this building, and I took it as a sign.”

  “The galah is a sign.” Mordred snorted. “An antique fluorescent one.”

  “And I do not mind that you also work for someone else at the same time, Nininiru Tossinn.”

  The first floor of Ninn’s building was a dancehall—Pella’s Rosy Parrot—that had, Mordred was correct, an antique fluorescent sign of a galah hanging in its window. Maybe the old Aborigine was tripping on slips too if he considered that an omen.

  Maybe she ought to play along though, as the opals could probably pay a year’s office rent—at least. She stretched out a finger, stirred them, reached over and touched the ЯɌ chip Talon’s decker friend had dropped off.

  “All right, Mr. Kogung. I will work for you, too.” A pause: “But I can’t guarantee success.”

  Talon softly applauded, and Ninn glared at him and gave him one more thumb gesture. He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee.

  “I will accompany you on this investigation,” the old man continued. “When we are concluded, I will give you twice more that amount of opals. All that I have, as I am an old, old man, and do not need such things weighing me down any longer. The more one knows, the less one needs, yes. The treasure is worth the attempt on your part, isn’t it?”

  Ninn was going to protest, not the opals, but the “accompany you” part. She worked alone, didn’t want anyone crowding her life; Mordred had just enough upside to be allowed. Talon, she wouldn’t go down that road again. She didn’t want to drag an old man—

  Mordred whistled in her mind. “My appraisal program tells me the quality of those opals are—”

  “No guarantees,” Ninn repeated. But her eyes on the RighteousRight, this investigation shouldn’t last more than a handful of days…if it was solvable. It had to be solvable, didn’t it? The promise of more opals for success was making her mouth water. She’d asked enough questions about the Right yesterday, poked her nose where the fanatics certainly didn’t think it belonged. The bartender had threatened her, a clean signal she was onto something, right? So something might surface soon. There might be something telling on the ЯɌ chip. She could put up with the old man’s company for a few days.

  “Let’s start with Adoni—Ella Gance—who was she to you?”

  “I told you. Adoni was my brother, Nininiru Tossinn. My older brother.”

  The sentence hit her like a punch. Not possible, Ninn thought. Adoni—Ella Gance—was young, and though medicine in Australia was advanced, it could not freeze or reverse the clock. The old man must be mad.

  “My brother…the coroner will not let me see him until tomorrow, she says the police have not released his body yet. Tomorrow, you and I can go there. Even in death, Adoni will help.”

  Four shades of nutso, Ninn decided. But those opals were valuable. She could play along, ethics be fragged. Ninn could well pretend that this old man wanted to find his “brother’s” killer. She was investigating all of this anyway. Those opals…they just might be her ticket out from under the storm.

  “All right, Barega. Cadi has an early show tonight. We’ve got enough time to get something to eat and get over there when the curtain rises. I want to take a look around.”

  Ten

  Victim Number Seven

  The big stranger crouched in the shadows. The park and the beautiful fountain—all awash in yellow-blue lights—was across the street and smelled remarkable. He loved the scent of water, and it hung heavy in the air, suggesting it would rain soon. The cloud overhead was especially dense today, the color of lead; it pressed down like a weighty blanket, smothering the city.

  He studied the milling people. There weren’t many nearby, as he could count them on his fingers. Some drinking, some laughing, four humans, three elves, an ork wading with her skirt pulled up around her waist, two dwarfs amorously engaged. He’d eaten a dwarf once, shortly after he went away from the complex the first time. He’d found it peeing in an alley, and it had put up no real fight. It was old and stringy, not especially tasty, and there were metal pieces in some of its bones that had proved bothersome. Since then, he’d discovered that food left outside restaurants in trash receptacles was much more appealing. And cats, when he could sneak up on them.

  He slipped into the alley when the dwarfs dropped their lip-lock and one of them glanced in his direction. He doubted anyone could see him, what with the clouds darkening and the night starting to deepen, but he didn’t want to take chances. He didn’t want to kill the dwarfs, as they weren’t on his list.

  The stranger had another target tonight, and work always came first. Isn’t that what he used to say: “Work first. Always, work comes first.”

  “You sure you want to do this—” Ninn barely stopped herself from calling him “old man,” “—Barega? There are better places to be than this alley. You sure you want to tag along with me?”

  “This is where the galah sent me, I told you.” He sat on a crate in the alley, directly across from the back door to Cadigal’s Corner. “To find you, and to assist in your search for the slayer of my brother.”

  “And how is it that your older brother looked at least fifty years younger than you?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps you will discover this for me, too. I had not seen him in a long while. We did not always get along.”

  “Then how did you know he was dead?”

  “The galah told me. The galah directed me to you, so I can help gain justice for my brother.”

  “And how will you do that?” Ninn hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “Help me?”

  “I am talmai.”

  Ninn didn’t find the reference in her encephalon.

  “Wirringan,” Mordred supplied.<
br />
  “What?”

  “Mekigar,” Barega tried again. “Koradji.” He looked perplexed that she didn’t understand.

  “A shaman.” This from Mordred. “A mystic. Booga booga booga and all that.”

  “I see things, Nininiru. I dive down into the sky and—”

  Yeah, well I hear voices, she thought.

  The old man continued explaining his spiritual gift, and Ninn pretended to be interested. She could, and often did, see plenty of weird things without an old Aboriginal spell. All it took was too much graypuppy and an alcohol chaser. She’d left her dozen remaining slips back in the office, inside her soykaf box, knowing Talon would leave it alone because she had a good supply of real coffee. That walking mass of scar tissue hadn’t left yet, and Ninn didn’t want to toss him out in front of Barega, especially after he’d been sort of helpful. She hadn’t gotten a chance to get the RighteousRight information on the chip downloaded into her encephalon yet; that was on the agenda for tomorrow, and it was safe in her desk drawer. She’d put the opals in her pocket—making sure Talon saw her so he wouldn’t go digging for them, and then left with the old man.

  “I don’t want you here when I come back,” she’d whispered while slipping him a little nuyen in exchange for the chip.

  “No worries,” he’d replied. “I’ll be gone.”

  Ninn suspected he was still there, stretched out on her couch. She’d give him the boot when she was done at the end of this evening. Couldn’t afford to have him around. Too many bad memories, too much temptation. And that’s what he’d be—temptation, not the poster child of Clean Yourself Up, Ninn. Besides, the couch had been her bed since she’d had to let her flat go. Every few seconds, her aching neck and back reminded her that the desk wasn’t a viable sleeping option. She dug her fingers into her palms, and noticed the old man had stopped talking.

  “Barega, we’ll stay out here a while, watch the back door. Then we’ll scoot inside, between shows. I want to—”

  “Nininiru, I will stay out here and watch the back door, all the back doors here that I can see. Divided, we can cover more ground. That is how I will help you.” Barega crossed his arms and leaned back against the bricks. “I will be all right here. Resting my feet and being useful. Old men lie if they tell you their feet do not hurt.”