Shadows Down Under: Shadowrun, #8

by Jean Rabe

  They took the ferry to the zoo. It was an antique operation, a big colorful wood boat that had to be at least a hundred years old—many of the harbor ferries were from before the Awakening—and it was a tourist attraction Ninn had often embraced. Sometimes she’d buy bags of soychips and hold them over the rail one at a time for the seagulls to come down and swipe. There were several tourists doing that now. The rain had stopped, the weather accommodating for a change, and she relished the feel of the sun sneaking down on her face.

  Ninn didn’t want to leave Sydney, despite the ever-present massive cloud and oddball magical weather, and despite her often making homesick comments about Chicago. She’d come to love this city, the Cross especially. She fit in here, better than she had with Lone Star in the Windy City. Now if only she could get to the bottom of this Siland and Renaixement business, find a way to clear her name for the arson, and set up shop again…oh, and get clean. Maybe do something about Draye, too. Ninn was a little jittery; she’d been way the hell too many hours without a slip. The sweet spot in her soul was starting to beg. Maybe she could score some graypuppy if there were any go go gos at the zoo, or deepweed, which was more likely around this part of the city. She didn’t like deepweed, the taste that glued itself to her tongue, but the effect…she’d settle for it if she had to.

  “Nininiru, are you listening?” Barega nodded toward a couple sitting nearby. The man had a palm-sized comm, and was watching a news vid.

  Ninn focused on her audial receptors to boost the sound and record it. She scowled. The news wasn’t at all good.

  “Sydney AISE Major Crime Division is searching for one of their own, an ex-cop-turned fugitive named Nininiru Tossinn.” Ninn assumed they displayed a picture of her; she couldn’t get a good enough angle to see the small screen. “Tossinn, an American elf who once worked for Lone Star in the UCAS, has caused millions of nuyen in damage. From burning a historical building in the heart of Kings Cross, to setting explosive charges at the aquarium and destroying the famous under harbor Shark Walk, Tossinn is also sought for the deaths of four people in the building fire, a beloved Darlinghurst street doc Elizabeth Tarr, and attempted murder on AISE officers last night. A substantial reward is being offered by Hudson Siland, aquarium owner and Sydney philanthropist. Tossinn has been placed on the terrorist watch list and is considered extremely dangerous. She might be in the company of an unidentified elderly black man, whom AISE believes she has kidnapped. Anyone seeing her should contact the AISE hotline immediately. Do not approach, as she is armed and very dangerous.”

  “Wonderful,” Ninn said. AISE geeked Tarr. Why? Caught them on surveillance maybe at the morgue, matched Ninn’s joygirl appearance there with security footage from the aquarium maybe. Questioned Tarr or killed her to eliminate a loose end. What the hell had Ninn stumbled into that was worth killing so many people over? At least the news report hadn’t mentioned that Barega was an Aborigine; that designation would make the two of them easier to spot. And they hadn’t mentioned the dog, which when it wasn’t hiding, stuck out like a proverbial sore thumb.

  She raised the hood so it cocooned her face and hid her elvish features. “We’re more than at the top of most wanted list. We’re the entire list.”

  Fortunately, no one on the ferry paid her any heed. Most of the tourists were interested in the view and the seagulls.

  “So they know we did not die in the water tunnel.” Barega’s voice was so soft Ninn had to lean close to hear him. “Otherwise there would be no such news bulletin.”

  “Well, there’d be some mention of the aquarium tunnel. Gotta explain to the tourists why it’s closed. But, yeah, the bakebrains knew we got out. I’m sure someone was watching the Shark Walk, monitors everywhere in the aquarium. I saw plenty, probably plenty I didn’t notice. Someone was making sure Eli ripped us apart, wanted to watch the bloody spectacle. Someone had let him in there with us and sealed the doors.”

  “And that someone must be very unhappy. I am not bright in the ways of nuyen, Ninn, but I am certain Eli was expensive to engineer.”

  She nodded. “And I pray they only engineered one of them.”

  It was a twelve-minute ride, the ferry letting out on the wharf at Bradleys Head Road. Through overgrown brush, Ninn spotted an old wooden sign, the paint faded from age and weather. She could faintly read: Taronga Zoo, its former name. And under it: Concealed Carry Only.

  “That is an Aboriginal word, Taronga,” Barega said. “It means ‘beautiful view.’”

  Ninn hadn’t known that, figured it was the last name of one of the zoo’s original founders. It had been changed to Sydney Zoo before she’d moved to Australia. She thought Taronga sounded better, but maybe with the ruined bridge and the shanties stretched across the harbor the view wasn’t so beautiful anymore.

  “What does your name—”

  “My name means ‘the wind,’ Nininiru. And yours?”

  “Not even the slightest hairy idea.”

  The zoo stretched out over a high hill, and visitors were encouraged to start at the top and walk down. They could take either a tracked bus…the Mosman suburb’s gridlink did not extend here…or an antique gondola lift, which she and Barega opted for, listening to the historical loop on the ride up.

  “Opened in October 1916, during World War I, and originally operated under the auspices of the Taronga Conservation Society, the zoo covers more than two dozen hectares and is home to more than one thousand animals of four hundred and twenty species, some of them extinct in the wild.” The voice was androgynous and even, and in the background birds twittered. “Considered Australia’s finest zoo, attracting visitors from throughout the world, it was Syndey’s second. The first opened in 1884 in Billy Goat Swamp in Moore Park, which later became the site of the city’s high schools. An exhibit in the information center has photographs from that first zoo and a VR immersion theater where you can relive the glorious black and white time. While you are here, visit the zoo shop for commemorative apparel, dine in our café where we feature a vegetarian buffet and Aboriginal cuisine, and walk across the restored Rustic Bridge. Enjoy your stay today at the Sydney Zoo.”

  Ninn remembered looking at the photos of the first zoo. Lots of patrons in the shots, all of them human. But that was a long time before the Awakening. The RighteousRight would have been happy ducks.

  “We could have walked up, Nininiru.” Barega stared out the window, eyes fixed on a thin spot in the cloud. “It is my arm, not my legs that are broken.”

  “Would’ve drawn attention,” Ninn whispered. “Summer like this, they don’t want people walking up the mountain, heat strokes and heart attacks. We’ll walk down.” She noticed it wasn’t the cloud after all that the Aborigine stared at. A pink and gray bird circled nearby, floating on a lazy updraft; Barega watched it. Before the ride to the top was finished, a second galah joined it. Ninn involuntarily shivered.

  She’d been to the zoo a few times, when she’d first moved to Sydney and wanted to soak up the local attractions. Still, she consulted a map where the gondola let out. Ah…Administration…that’s what she wanted. First they’d wander among the animal exhibits to not draw attention, and then she’d find her way into the small cluster of office buildings and go through some records, get to the bottom of Renaixement. If Talon were still alive, it would be so easy, wouldn’t even need to be here. He could connect to the Matrix and dig, breaking through walls and slipping around passwords and retinal scans. She should’ve kept someone like him in her orbit, but in the past few years her PI jobs had been too simple, and she’d certainly never considered that Cadi’s job would have turned into this.

  The Platypus House and Nocturnal Exhibit were close to the administration building and veterinary quarantine center. They’d have to walk through the Rainforest Aviary on their way there. Bet there were galahs inside.

  The weather as close to ideal as it got in Sydney, the crowd was considerable. Humans, metahumans, tourists, rakkies, all ages, all manner of dress, s
ome poser-gang members, an obvious go go go. Only a few of them paid attention to Benzo. Ninn briefly thought about approaching the go go go, her skin itching for want of just one slip. But in the press of people she saw someone that changed her mind and made her go in the other direction—Draye.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  At his side was the dwarf from the aquarium. From the bulges in the dwarf’s jacket, she guessed he was carrying at least three guns.

  “Great Guns, Laurel and Hardy, 1941,” Mordred said, noting the bulges also. “There’s even some resemblance with that pair.”

  Ninn neither understood nor cared about the film reference. Draye had a handheld sniffer unit and was turning it one way and then the other. Clearly with the pair was a near-skeletal ork in a long tribal loincloth, feathers and beads hanging from his purposefully matted hair. He was heavily tatted, had a port in his chest with wires connected, hard to see just how many wires amid the tats. What was his game?

  Bullet to the head, indeed. Should’ve shot Draye right between his beady eyes when I had the chance, Ninn thought. Grabbing Barega’s good arm, she pulled him toward the Lemur Forest Adventure, Benzo following, but walking through the tall grass. They’d take a different route to the administration building.

  “On the Run,” Mordred said. “1999, directed by Bruno de Almeida, a comedy—”

  “—of errors,” Ninn finished.

  Twenty-Four

  Of a Feather

  Ninn noticed other lumpers along the path—zoo security mostly, another couple of AISE officers, one of them talking on a comm. Had there been this many on her previous forays and she just hadn’t noticed? She’d been in tourist mode then, an employee of AISE, and more interested in the animals. Maybe she was just being paranoid. But now there were people actually out to get her—people with guns and badges, no less.

  “How did he follow us, Ninn?” Barega tugged his arm free, and Ninn slowed her pace to accommodate him. “That officer? How could he know we are here?” The Aborigine tapped her arm and she looked over her shoulder, at Draye and his sniffer. The elf wasn’t looking up, so engrossed in the screen in his hand, panning it right and left.

  “Yeah, he is. But how? Just how the blue blazes is he following us?” The connection between the two was painfully obvious; Siland owned the aquarium…Draye had been at the aquarium. Siland was a shareholder in the zoo…Draye was now at the zoo. Siland apparently was the puppet master behind the Cross Slayer…Draye “investigated” the Cross slayings. Or perhaps Draye was orchestrating the investigation so the real killer wasn’t found and no fingers were pointed in Siland’s direction. He was likely just as much a puppet as the Slayer had been, just easier on the eyes.

  As she thought it through, she realized there could be any number of reasons why the AISE officer was here—and the majority of them involved making sure Ninn and Barega’s investigation didn’t go any further.

  Fortunately the zoo was crowded, with such nice weather and a discount admission day. Ninn stepped off the path, waited a beat, and then looked for Benzo, who edged out of the grass and stopped at her feet. Maybe thinking about him made him appear. Maybe she’d have to ask Barega to teach her more about this spirit booga booga. “Benzo,” she whispered.

  “Good dog, good good dog.” Benzo wiggled his tail, a screw flying off into the foliage.

  “See that thing in the big elf’s hand?” Draye was closing the distance, glancing up now, between the screen and the people on the path. “The elf with the white hair. See it? In his hand?”

  “Good good dog.”

  “Can you fetch that? The thing in his hand? Go get it, boy!”

  “Fetch fetch fetch fetchfetchfetch.” Benzo yipped and raced away, weaving through the legs of a group of schoolchildren. Approaching the cop, he vaulted, fabric tongue lolled out and wrapping around the sniffer, tugging it free and running back toward her.

  Draye reacted immediately, drawing his Colt Agent Special. The people on the path scattered. Ninn suspected not many visitors to the zoo came armed, though she’d not seen a policy that prevented it.

  Everything happened at once.

  Benzo leaped into the bushes, dropping the sniffer into Ninn’s left hand. She dropped it in her pocket and drew Mordred. She wanted a look at the sniffer, but being armed was a higher priority.

  Amid the cacophony of people hollering, and the general animal sounds filling the air, she heard a shrill cry. A galah. Then a burst of static and pounding feet: zoo security on the way, likely. Someone blew a whistle.

  “Urlu!” Draye shouted. “Bring Urlu!”

  “Hope that’s not a relative of Eli,” Mordred quipped.

  Sucks major swampwater to have a broken wrist, she thought. Ninn was working one-handed, and she was not left-handed. Probably shouldn’t have had the spirit dog grab the sniffer and set all of this off. Sometimes she was her own worst enemy.

  Barega chanted something in a language she couldn’t understand, and with his good arm looked to be knitting a pattern in the space in front of him. She hoped it was that air barrier thing he’d used against the Slayer in the tunnel.

  A pair of tourists returned on the trail, Turkish orks, taking photographs of Draye, who was still talking on his comm.

  “Bam?” Mordred asked. “C’mon, Keebs, let’s get him. Not the orks, the elf.”

  Ninn hesitated, finger trembling on the trigger, and drew farther back in the foliage, Barega keeping to her side. She noted he was still weaving, his eyes fixed on something farther away than the zoo and Sydney.

  Draye fired, the shot spitting up mud near her. Near, but not close enough; he didn’t see her, but he knew she was in the area. He fired again and again, and she drew back farther, keeping herself in front of Barega to be his meatshield.

  The Turkish orks screamed.

  The next shot was way the frag too close. Draye must have seen her, or at least noticed the bushes move. He charged straight at her and fired again. A siren went off.

  “Bam, Keebs? C’mon!”

  The elf reached the foliage and tripped.

  “I did that,” Barega said, sounding oddly pleased.

  Ninn leaped forward and landed with a knee on Draye’s back as he was starting to rise. He flattened to the ground with an oof! The Turkish orks took pictures of the two of them, chattering animatedly the whole while.

  “Smile,” the smaller one said. “Tesekkür ederim. Tesekkür ederim.”

  “Thank you. Thank you,” Mordred translated.

  Ninn stuffed Mordred under her armpit, then ripped Draye’s comm loose and hurled it into the bushes. The smaller ork came closer, taking more pictures.

  A voice came from speakers placed high on poles: “Your attention, please. The Sydney Zoo is closing. The Sydney Zoo is closing. Please move to the nearest exit.” The message repeated.

  “Frag it,” she growled, retrieving Mordred and waving the gun at the orks, who fled. “Swampwater, this broken wrist.” She clocked Draye on the back of the head with Mordred, half-worried she might have hit him too hard. Didn’t want to kill him…not yet, anyway. She wanted some answers. She mentally corrected herself. She was going to get some answers.

  “We gotta move,” she told Barega. “They’re locking down the zoo. And company’s coming.” The pounding feet and whistle were coming closer. The siren persisted, it wasn’t a regular police or fire sound; must be a zoo alarm. She struggled to hoist Draye over her shoulder so she could drag him deeper into the greenery just as more security arrived on the path behind them. “Barega—”

  The Aborigine was knitting something in the air again; a cloud of sparkling mist, almost invisible, settled over them.

  “Your attention, please. The Sydney Zoo is closing. The Sydney Zoo is closing. Please move to the nearest exit,” the message repeated.

  “So we move,” he said. “Where?”

  “This way.” There were patches of foliage throughout the zoo, part of the atmosphere, and she was grateful
for it. The underbrush was thick and choking here, but also concealing, and she picked her way through it more quickly than she’d expected. The koradji had done something to make her faster. Her skin felt tingly, and her muscles quivered, the sensation similar to that initial hit of graypuppy with an alcohol chaser before the mixture took hold and relaxed and swirled the world.

  She felt hyper and took advantage of it, recalling the map she’d spotted near the entrance as she stepped over roots. The bird area was nearby, and beyond it the administration offices. She headed in that direction. Ninn tried to hear what was going on behind her, listening for more AISE or zoo security approaching, and picking up the cries of children dragged by parents, grumbling tourists being ushered out, the pounding of her heart, the chatter of birds and other animals, and the whistle.

  “Your attention, please. The Sydney Zoo is closing,” the announcement droned.

  The cry of a galah intruded.

  “Stop a minute,” she said. “Can you do something to make us invisible?”

  Barega shook his head.

  “Harder to find?”

  “Sorry, no. That is not how—”

  She waved his words away and leaned Draye up against the trunk of a tall red jarrah, a tree Ninn suspected was a couple hundred years old. Marri and wandoo trees were also in this small grove, probably a representation of an Australian rainforest. The bottlebrush was thick, and there were plenty of golden wattles and round-leaved pig face. They scented the air and kept the odors of people and the city at bay, everything so lush because of the frequent rains.

  “Don’t have a lot of time here. His comm is on the other side of the path, so maybe they’ll look there first. But they’ll find him. AISE officers are chipped; they can home in on him. Can’t you do…something magical?”

  “I can stop the sound around us by putting us in a bubble of quiet.”

  “So no one can hear us?” Ninn was encouraged.