by Mel Odom
Then the box they hung from unfurled wings that shot out between breaths, locking into place with definite clicks. The black membrane stretched tautly over the hang glider’s frame and filled with air, slowing the headlong rush.
“Pilot,” Luppas yelled, “get on them! Bring them down!”
“Son of a slitch,” Octavius said, pulling his assault rifle to his shoulder and firing at the hang glider.
The helicopter dipped over the side of the building and streaked like a shark in pursuit between the buildings. The traffic in the street came to a halt, horns blaring.
“Control,” Luppas said, bringing his rifle up to aim at the cable draped over the edge of the building, “can you get a sat-lock on those people?”
“Done. As long as they remain on street level, I’ve got them.”
Luppas took up the trigger slack, concentrating on his shot in spite of the headache throbbing at his temples. His first round made the cable jump slightly, but didn’t cut through it. He put his sights over the cable again, letting out his breath and squeezing the trigger.
* * *
The hang glider’s wings deployed with a crackling ruffle of fabric and slowed the rate of descent immediately. Skater let out a tense breath and kept his fists around the glider’s push bar. With Wheeler and himself hanging onto it, there was no real way to control the lift, but it acted like a parachute, bringing them down to a speed that would enable them to survive when they hit the street.
And the street was coming up fragging fast. The corpse twirled beneath their feet at the end of the harness strap. Tracers cut through the air, burning orange and purple blurs within centimeters of them. A few hit and penetrated the hang glider’s wing membrane, leaving glowing embers around the holed material.
It was difficult to look out from under the hang glider back up to the rooftop, but Skater managed. He noticed the Airstar plunging after them just before the cannon mounted under its belly fired the first round.
The shot sizzled past them less than two meters behind. When it impacted against the street, it punched out a crater at least a meter across and as deep, leaving it engulfed in flames.
Three more rounds pounded into the street on auto-fire, getting closer to the hang glider. The fourth took out a parked car beside the building from which Skater had reconned earlier that night, tossing the vehicle high into the air and scattering a wreath of flaming debris that fell over both the shadowrunners.
Something hot and sharp slapped across Skater’s face, gone just as rapidly as it had come.
“That scroff's going to get the range in a minute!” Wheeler yelled over the whizzing of cable passing through the special eyelets of the hang glider and the hammer of cannonfire.
“Trey,” Skater called over the commlink.
“I’m there, omae,” Trey answered from his position in the shadows along South Twenty-first Street.
Even acquainted with magic as he was and expecting the spell, Skater only saw a vague shimmering in the air. Over the years, he’d heard rumors from sparse and different sources that Cullen Trey had been trained in mage arts by a dragon, but there’d never been proof of it. What Skater did know was that Trey stood head and shoulders above any number of mages.
An instant later, an explosion rocked the inside of the helicopter, followed a second later by a chain of explosions that ripped the aircraft to shreds. The whirling fireball slammed into the building to Skater’s left. A trail of flaming pieces spread down the side of the structure, crashing to the tree-lined sidewalk below. Pieces of debris shattered windows in offices and shops, setting off a couple dozen screamers that added to the dirge of destruction.
“Hellblast spell,” Cullen Trey said in a voice weakened by the effort he’d expanded. “Don’t leave home without it, omae.”
Without warning the grapple cable went slack, throwing the hang glider out of control.
“Oh frag, this is gonna hurt,” Wheeler said.
Skater shot a hand up behind him, hanging on with the other. The hang glider was tilted just enough to allow him to grab the metal spine of the frame. He slid his hand along it toward the back, then yanked as hard as he could.
The wing membrane suddenly locked full-on into the wind, slowing them with a jolt, but they were still moving fast.
Ahead of them, the cable dipped down to the street, less than thirty meters away.
“Jump!” Skater said. “We don’t want to get tangled up in the glider!”
The dwarf released his hold when they were nine or ten meters from the street. Skater did the same, flailing his arms to try to control his fall. He landed hard, smashing into two of the street repair sawhorses and losing his breath at once. The sawhorses went to pieces, but his body armor kept him from being seriously injured. His chest ached as he forced himself to his feet. The helicopter was gone, but the gunners on the rooftop were in full swing. Bullets danced along the street, searching for him.
A car had come to a stop almost even with them. A ragged line of bulletholes chased themselves over the hood and convinced the driver to put his vehicle in reverse and buzz turbo. Rubber shrilled and smoked.
Wheeler ran to the manhole cover and yanked it out of the way.
“Go!” Skater said. He hooked his fingers into the dead man’s blood-smeared clothing and dragged him toward the manhole. Two heavy-caliber bullets slammed across the shoulders of his Kevlar body armor, almost knocking him from his feet.
Wheeler dropped through the manhole.
Skater followed him, having some difficulty managing it while dragging the corpse, but aided by the surge of adrenaline pushing his body’s capacity to max performance. He held onto the lip of the manhole long enough to get his feet onto the rungs of the ladder built into the side of the sewer wall.
Once he had the corpse lined up, it came through in a rush. Unable to stop it, he had no choice but to let it splash into the malodorous water in the sewer channel.
“Ah drek,” Wheeler groaned. “We’re gonna have to ride with that thing for maybe hours, Jack.”
Skater scrambled down the ladder and ignored the complaint. “We’ve been through worse.”
“Maybe so, but it’s been awhile.” Wheeler slid in behind the maintenance drone he’d put into position hours ago. Archangel had sleazed the public utilities systems and masked the presence of the captured drone.
The drone was shaped like a small tank, a bubble top protecting the onboard dog-brain and software. Constructed of composite metal and ceramic, it was designed to go through the worst drek the sprawl had to throw out—literally. Tracked wheels drove it along, and the single arm thrust before it held a number of fittings that could be selected to cut and dig and record.
Elvis had sat the drone on its side earlier after the rigger had moved it into position. It took Skater and Wheeler both to shove it over. The heavy drone slammed into position, the tracked tires fitting neatly on the lips on either side of the slow-moving channel.
“Drek,” Wheeler said, “for a minute there I thought we were going to need that big trog to help us.” He climbed aboard and fed the cable from the drone into the jack in his temple. They’d captured the drone days ago, and Wheeler had installed the datajack so he could override the vehicle’s onboard dog-brain. The drone shivered to life, powered by battery cels.
During the time they’d needed to push the drone onto the channel edges, Coleman January/Norris Caber’s body chose to start floating away with the other sprawl refuse. Skater snagged it and pulled it onto the drone, trying not to smell the sour water that drained from the corpse’s clothing.
While Wheeler started the drone surging forward, Skater began making adjustments to the dead man, readying the Duraflex harness for one last move. It was hard to work on his breathing to calm himself and keep his body oxygenated enough with the stench around him, but he forced himself using the techniques his shaman grandfather had taught him.
Only one possible snag remained in the run.
13
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“Elvis?” Skater called over the commlink as he and Wheeler clung to the drone as it rushed through the sewer.
“Go, chummer.”
Skater peered through the dark sewer, seeing the water flow snake around a bend. Beneath him the drone vibrated like a huge sea turtle having a palsy. “Are you in position?”
“Ready and waiting.”
Duran cut in. “A ground team has already been scrambled from the Mariah Building. Evidently they’re tracking the drone through the sewers.”
That didn’t surprise Skater. They’d counted on someone tapping into the public utility databanks. “You’re sure?”
“Judging from what I see on the trid, yeah. The biz at the Mariah Building has made KONG, KSAF, KSTS, and KKRU. All of those channels are showing live footage on-site. I think I also identified one of the main guys chasing us before the snoop with the portacam got knocked on his hoop for getting too close to the action.”
“Who?”
“A merc named Gunther Octavius.”
Skater shifted on the drone as it vibrated under him. The wet corpse beside him jitterbugged on its back.
“You’re almost two hundred meters from Elvis’s position,” Duran said. “At your present speed, that’s just under a minute away.”
“Gunther Octavius doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Not for you. I knew him in the Desert Wars. He ran as number two for an elf named Kylar Luppas. Handled really nasty special ops wetwork, never any grunt labor.”
“I don’t know that one either,” Skater said.
“Luppas is a name I know,” Cullen Trey cut in. “He floats through mage circles on occasion. Very exotic in the nature of things he shows an interest in.”
“Luppas might be interested in mage stuff,” Duran growled, “but he’s a fragging merc through and through.”
“It could be the vocation he chooses to work at to support his interest in magic,” Trey said. “Educating one’s self in the Arts is never without enormous cost, both financial and personal.”
“Forty-three seconds, kid,” Duran said. “And, Cullen, don’t try to gull anyone: with you, financial and personal are the same thing.”
“I’ll be at your car in less time than that,” Trey said, “to take umbrage with that petty piece of slander, Duran. So be looking for me.”
“Come ahead,” the ork replied. “What I was telling you about, kid, was the kind of trouble we’ve bought into. Last I heard on Luppas, he’s working free-lance for IntSec, pulling down a hefty annual consultation fee. Which means he catches for all the heavy wetwork. And IntSec being on the scene means one thing.”
“Fuchi Industrial Electronics,” Skater said.
“Or, at the least,” Duran corrected, “Richard Villiers. IntSec is his baby.”
Either meant death. The megacorp had three different divisions, with Villiers heading up one of them. All of them dealt harshly with shadowrunners.
Skater looked at the body beside him and briefly considered letting it ride out the trip on the drone. If Luppas had a tag on the drone, he’d find the body. Maybe the Fuchi hit-mage would leave it at that.
The problem was, he didn’t think that was true.
“Twenty seconds, kid,” Duran reported.
Skater glanced up at the tunnel, getting everything he could from the infrared circuitry. He pushed himself to his feet as soon as he saw the T-bar hanging down through an open manhole. It was lit up by infrared-sensitive strips. “Elvis, we’re here.”
“Ready, chummers. Just grab hold and let me do the donkey work.”
Then there was no time to try to figure out what he should do with the body. Skater grabbed for the T-bar with both hands. His right seized a firm hold while the left secured the clip to the Duraflex harness securing the dead man. Wheeler grabbed a hold on the other side.
The pain wasn’t as bad as Skater had thought it would be when he came to a stop. He peered up through the manhole and saw Elvis standing in the middle of Ainsworth Street ten blocks down from the Mariah Building at the intersection of South Sixth Street with the other end of the T-bar gripped in both massive hands, a support halter around his neck. The troll’s muscles stood out in chiseled relief, veins close to bursting with the effort. His shirt had given up the fight and shredded along his arms. Even the zippers holding the body armor burst. His natural strength would probably have been enough to handle their weight, but the cyber-augmentation in his body added even more.
The drone continued its run without them. In the next block, with the way the streets divided, it was already running down to North Sixth Street, following the North Eleventh Street fork off the three-way division of streets there.
“Slot,” Elvis groaned, “this is a temporary gig, okay? I don’t intend to hang around long enough for the fragging pigeons to find me. Move.”
A Mitsubishi Runabout came perilously close to the troll, blaring its horn.
Wheeler made the climb out of the manhole first, followed by Skater. Lifting the dead man clear was accomplished with ease.
When they had him out, Elvis draped the stinking corpse over his shoulder with a grimace of disgust. Skater shoved the heavy cover back over the manhole and ran toward the shadowed alley where the van waited.
Archangel opened the side door as Elvis neared. The troll dropped his prize into the middle of the floor, then clambered in after it. Wheeler slid behind the steering column while Skater hauled himself into the shotgun seat. He reloaded the Predator II and stared through the windshield, breathing hard. The cold knot of anxiety had curdled inside his stomach.
The Wheeler backed them toward the other end of the alley as a phalanx of dark sedans raced down the street they’d just abandoned.
Archangel raised an eyebrow, her icy demeanor intact despite the tension of the last hours. “Well, that was interesting.” Skater made himself draw a deep breath, then push it all out. The pain from his leg and cheek and assorted muscles ate into his conscious mind. He had to force it all away. Accessing the commlink, he said, “Duran.”
“Here, chummer.”
“We’re away. What about Trey?”
“Here,” the mage said.
Wheeler flipped the lights on as he brought the van around and headed them south on North Twenty-seventh Street. None of the traffic gave them any special attention.
“Take it easy working your way out of the sprawl,” Skater said, knowing it didn’t really have to be said but feeling the need to say it all the same. “We’ll meet back at the rendezvous in two hours.”
“See you there, kid. You done good.”
Skater closed the commlink down, grateful to get the steady buzz of communication out of his throbbing head.
Elvis rolled the corpse into a troll-sized camou-colored duffel bag and zipped it up. The seal was air-tight, but the damage had already been done to the van’s carpet. “Can you crack those windows up there and give a chummer a break? This kludge is ripe.” He held his nose.
Skater rolled the window down as the stench from the sewer cloyed the air. It was one of the reasons they’d boosted a plumber’s truck. Anyone smelling it wouldn’t think twice.
“Fuchi,” Archangel said, letting the thought of the mega-corp hang in the air with the stench.
“I know,” Skater replied, feeling the weight. “Johnsons lie to you. That’s a fact of a shadowrunner’s regular biz. But this particular Johnson has got some real explaining to do. And I mean to see it done.” The trouble was, once a guy started trying to sort out all the lies, usually only more were offered. To start, he needed one solid truth. So far, the only thing he knew for sure was that the man in Elvis’s duffel—whatever his name actually turned out to be—was stone-cold dead. And someone had planned it that way.
* * *
Four minutes later, Luppas took the flash from the nearest man standing around the manhole at the intersection of North Eleventh and North Orchard Streets, and clambered through the opening. He didn’t have to go far. Cl
inging to the ladder built into the walls, the smell fogging his mind, but not really more than a bush-league effort after all the death he’d seen, he played the flash over the drone.
Fishbein had reported its location and they’d reached it in seconds.
The drone sat bridging the sewer channel, inert. Nothing was on it, and there was no sign of the two men or the body they’d taken from the Mariah Building.
He opened a channel on the tacticom. “Control, this is Speedball One. I’ve found the drone. Are you sure those people didn’t abandon it and slog off through the drek?”
“The sensors would have shown it,” Fishbein said.
“Get in there,” Luppas ordered one of his men standing beside the maintenance drone.
The guy didn’t hesitate, but he didn’t like it.
“I’ve got a reading now,” Fishbein said.
Luppas waved the man out of the water. “One of my men. Just testing your system’s reliability.” He played the flash over the drone again.
“They never got off,” Fishbein insisted.
“They’re not here now.” Luppas crawled up through the manhole opening. The ground teams surrounded the site, squeezed in between the tall buildings downtown only a few blocks from Commencement Bay, keeping even Lone Star back. He didn’t know what Fishbein had worked out with the Star, but it was definitely effective.
“You lost them,” Fishbein accused.
Despite the anger rattling around in him, Luppas had to chuckle. “Fishbein, you’d never have even gotten this close to them without me. I found Shastakovich’s, and I’ve seen two of them. If I hadn’t been here tonight, you’d have just been chasing shadows.”
She blanked out of the tacticom without another word, letting the sudden surge of static speak for her.
Luppas walked to one of the sedans and waved Octavius over. “Wrap things up here,” he told his second. “I want mages and forensics people covering the building, the funeral home, and that fragging drone. Get back to me with anything you have.” Octavius nodded and scratched his jaw. “Got to admit one thing. Whoever pulled this run off, they got a way with the biz. Should make it more interesting running them to ground.”
