"But sometimes, don't you want to know why a Johnson wants something done?"
Liada shook her head. "Not as long as it doesn't put my hoop on the line. Most of the time you're way better off not knowing. The employer is paying for discretion, and that's what he gets."
"The trick is to know when you need to know, if you know what I mean," G-Dogg said with a laugh. "And to know when and what you don't need to know and not know it."
"I definitely need another drink," Max said. "G-Dogg is starting to make sense." The dwarf pushed away from the table. "It's my round, what do you all want?" Max signaled for a waitress by waving his credstick above his head.
"I still don't see why we needed Orion on the run," Kellan persisted. G-Dogg shrugged, hooking the miniature umbrella on his tusk as he tipped up the coconut. Liada made a face.
"I don't either," she said, "but he was on the Johnson's tab and he did his job, so I don't care. I'm just glad he's gone. Fraggin' Ancients," she muttered, tossing back the last of her drink.
"What about them?" Kellan asked.
"They're an embarrassment," Liada said. "They put on airs about how they're so much better than norms, than everyone else really, like they're the exiled nobility of Tir Tairngire, or something." The name of the elven homeland rolled off her tongue with an almost musical lilt and an accent Kellan couldn't place. "But they're really just ganger punks, no better than any other gang."
"He definitely had a problem with Mr. Johnson," Kellan said, recalling the obviously hostile conversation between Orion and their employer.
"That's his business," G-Dogg replied.
"I think the Street Deacon knew him, too. The Johnson, I mean."
The ork shrugged. "Coulda been. The Deacon probably worked for him before."
"It seemed like more than that to me," Kellan began. G-Dogg interrupted by banging his cup down on the table and letting out a thunderous belch.
"You're thinkin' about it too much, kid," he said. "It's over and done with. The Johnson got what he wanted and we made out with more cred than we planned. It was a milk run. Orion has a stick shoved sideways up his hoop like most of the Ancients and the Deacon is a fraggin' weirdo, always has been. End of story."
He pushed away from the table and stood up, offering Kellan his hand. "C'mon. I'm up for some dancing. I'll show you some of my moves," he offered her a tusky grin.
Liada stood as well. "Now this I gotta see," she said. Kellan glanced at Max, but the dwarf just shook his head.
"Not me," he said, "these legs weren't built for dancin'. I'm just fine where I am." He punctuated the gesture by plucking his new mug of ale off the tray the waitress brought over. "I'll stay and guard the drinks."
"Ha!" G-Dogg snorted. "We expect them to still be here when we get back, halfer."
"Then you better not be gone too long, goblin boy," Max retorted, a smile splitting his bearded face.
Kellan laughed and decided to follow G-Dogg's lead. She put her concerns away, took the ork's hand and headed out onto the dance floor. He was right. Why worry? Now was the time to have some fun.
The celebration lasted well into the night. Kellan didn't remember how she got back to the coffin hotel, though she vaguely recalled something about refusing a ride from G-Dogg or Max to make her own way there. In hindsight, it was a marvel she hadn't been jumped between the street corner and the sealed and locked coffin module. Probably, it was late enough (or early enough) that the nocturnal urban predators were holing up for the coming of dawn. Kellan made no effort to get undressed before collapsing onto the temperform padding and falling deeply asleep.
In her dreams, she relived parts of their run, disjointed images passing through her mind: Orion's catlike moves and the flash of his blade in the darkness, Jackie Ozone's voice speaking in her ear, like the omniscient voice of a spirit guide, the thunder and crackling lightning of the storm spirit. She saw the shocked look on the face of the Ares shaman over and over again as she shot her in slow motion, seeing the shaman lying facedown on the deck of the truck, blood seeping out from underneath her as it hadn't in reality, until Kellan was standing in a puddle of crimson.
She relived their escape and arrival at the abandoned garage, then peeking into the crates to discover they contained only cheap electronics.
"What the frag do you think you're doing?" Orion said from the back of the truck.
Kellan turned to face the angry elf ganger just as someone shot Orion in the back: Blam! Blam! Blam! Three quick shots. Orion jerked forward, exit wounds blossoming crimson on the front of his T-shirt, a look of complete shock on his face that transformed his arrogant sneer into almost childlike surprise as he tried to comprehend what had happened. He pitched forward and Kellan ran to the edge of the truck bed to see what was happening.
Mr. Johnson stood there in his nondescript black clothes, dark shades covering his eyes, smoking pistol in his hand. He turned calmly to where Lothan stood nearby and put three shots into the troll mage, who pitched forward like a felled tree. A pool of dark blood spread out on the concrete floor around him. Turning to his left, Mr. Johnson just as calmly shot the Street Deacon before he could draw his guns. The Deacon's dark shades and hat were knocked off as he fell, and he looked surprisingly old and ordinary to Kellan without them, his artificial eyes staring blindly upward in death.
It was like everything was moving in slow motion. The dark-clad man picked off the shadowrunners one by one, leaving them lying dead on the cold concrete floor of the abandoned garage: G-Dogg, Liada and Silver Max, until only Kellan was left. She should have reached for her own gun, or her stun baton, or tried to run and hide, but she couldn't move, couldn't even cry out. She just watched, paralyzed with fear like she'd never known, as Mr. Johnson walked toward her. She heard the electronic whisper of Jackie Ozone in her ear.
"I could have told you this would happen," she said sadly. Then Mr. Johnson raised his gun toward Kellan.
"Nice and tidy," he said, and pulled the trigger.
The bang and flash of the muzzle was the last thing Kellan saw as she jerked awake.
"NO!" she yelled, followed by "Ow!" as her head connected with the low ceiling of the coffin module. She flopped back down, rubbing her head and trying to slow her rapid breathing. Someone in the next module yelled, "Shaddup!" and pounded on the side.
A dream, she thought, breathing deeply, hungrily inhaling the stale, rank air inside the coffin. Just a dream.
Or was it? she asked herself, shifting to a sitting position-tough to manage in the confined space. After all, Kellan thought, she was supposed to be a magician. Could magicians see the future in their dreams? Liada and G-Dogg had acted like the mage's reading fortunes for people with tarot cards was some kind of scam, but maybe some magicians really could foresee things. And Liada had said that her dreams might have meaning now that her Talent was awakened.
Her fingers rubbed the cool jade of the amulet. What about her artifact? Even Lothan didn't know exactly what the amulet was except for the fact that it was magical in some way. Maybe it had influenced her dreams.
Or maybe it was just a fraggin' dream, Kellan thought with a sigh. A dream brought on by worrying too much and celebrating with a few too many drinks. It could be as simple as that-nothing more than her subconscious working overtime after her first shadowrun with new partners in a new city. Maybe it was nothing more than that.
"But I can't take that chance," Kellan muttered quietly. If there was even a possibility that there was something important surfacing in her dream, she had to check it out. Despite G-Dogg's advice to just forget about it, she couldn't put her questions aside so easily. She realized now that she had never even considered that the runs in KC might have been more complex than what she'd seen on the surface. She'd been naive; or maybe her team never graduated from the small stuff.
She settled back onto the padding with a sigh. I've got to get the frag out of this place. But her first priority was going to be a little digging about the man Orion
called Brickman. She wanted to find out why he was willing to pay to have something hijacked that he didn't want. And she wanted to know why the elf ganger had been along for the ride.
So resolved, Kellan managed to fall back to sleep. Her dreams, if any, troubled her no more that night.
12
After getting a steaming soykaf latte and a doughnut from the Stuffer Shack on the corner, Kellan settled herself in her sleep coffin, sitting cross-legged on the temperfoam padding, her hair brushing against the ceiling. She took her well-used Fuchi dataBook out of her bag. The computer had outlasted the company that made it by a few years, and though it was nowhere close to top-of-the-line, it would do until Kellan had a chance to get something better. She'd cut her teeth on the dataBook and the shape of its keyboard was familiar to her fingers. She plugged the small computer into the power and data ports in the coffin, slotting her credstick to start the flow of energy and information. The flatscreen on the wall showed the credit slowly ticking off. Rolling out the dataBook's flatscreen, she booted the computer and settled down to surf the Matrix. The trouble with having access to a tremendous amount information was that there was a tremendous amount of information, most of it completely useless. The Matrix was like an ocean of data, wider and deeper than any physical sea. It took a measure of skill, time and patience to sift through the waves of data to find exactly what you were looking for.
Like every other kid who went to school, Kellan had learned about the Internet, the precursor to the Matrix. It had consisted of a mismatched network of slow computers linked by antiquated voice communication systems. The computers required special adaptors just to send data over copper wiring never intended for such use. It was crude, slow and, from the sound of things, not all that useful.
The Crash changed all that. In 2029, a computer virus of unprecedented virulence struck the Internet, wiping out information, corrupting backup systems and even burning out hardware. It spread like wildfire around the world, carried by the interconnectivity of the communications systems, and it devastated the network wherever it went. The virus mutated and adapted to successfully attack new systems as it encountered them. It thwarted every attempt to purge it, infecting every computer with which it came into contact. The world telecommunications system practically collapsed.
Then the United States government activated a top-secret team of cyberspecialists named Echo Mirage. Using cutting-edge neural interface technology, they were able to directly engage and destroy the virus. Though it cost the lives of most of the cybercommandos, the threat was ended.
From the ashes of the Internet arose a new telecommunications grid, designed to take full advantage of digital technology and new optical computing tech. It took years to build it but, by the time Kellan was born, the Matrix had been part of everyday life for almost a generation. She could hardly imagine a world without immediate access to vast amounts of data. All you needed was a computer or a terminal and a place to jack in.
The Matrix created a new breed of computer hackers, called deckers. Just as the hackers in their time embraced the newest tech and used it to advance their own goals, the deckers were those who immediately understood the potential of the Matrix as a treasure trove of information. By plugging themselves directly into the information flow, deckers could move faster, dig deeper and generally circumvent any security system. Shadow deckers made their living surfing through the data waves of the Matrix, like pearl divers going deep to find those few precious gems they could sell to the right buyer.
Kellan wasn't going anywhere near that deep; she just needed to search for some basic information about their mysterious Mr. Johnson.
She entered the name "Brickman," but the results didn't get her much. There were a number of Brick-mans in the Seattle Metroplex Telecom Directory, and none of the listings gave Kellan any clues as to which of them, if any, was the man she was looking for. That was assuming he had a number listed in the directory to begin with. She didn't have a photo for image matching, and the directory wasn't configured to search by physical description.
Kellan thought for a minute. The only other significant piece of information she had about Brickman was his interest in Ares Macrotechnology, and a possible connection with the Ancients. After all, it had been a Ares shipment he'd hired them to take, and he must have cut his deal with Orion-whatever it was-before he'd met with Lothan to finalize the run to acquire the shipment. Also, he obviously had a source for the Ares shipping routes.
She fed the new parameters into the browser and set it to work while she sipped her latte and ate, mulling things over. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd do with the data, if anything turned up. It depended on what Brickman was up to. If she'd learned anything about life in the shadows, it was that trusting your instincts was what kept you alive, and one step ahead of the other guy. And her instincts told her that she needed to figure out what she was staying ahead of.
Bingo. The browser signaled that it had found something. Kellan scrolled through the information on the screen, and her eyebrows rose in surprise.
He works for Ares. She reread the section of the corporate host that showed one Simon Brickman was a midlevel manager for Knight Errant Security Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ares Macrotechnology, Inc. There was even a tiny photo that matched the man Kellan had seen at both meets. Brickman worked for a subsidiary of the company he'd hired them to steal from! But why?
Kellan did some additional searches, but wasn't able to turn up much more about Brickman other than the fact that he'd attended Knight Errant's training academy in Seattle, but had moved into management fairly quickly from fieldwork and was apparently up-and-coming at the company. Why would a guy like that want to hire shadowrunners to steal from his own parent company, and then not even take possession of the swag? Kellan's search turned up more questions than answers. She tossed back the last of her drink and closed up the small computer.
She glanced at the time readout inside the coffin and saw that most of the afternoon was gone. If she gave him what she'd learned so far, maybe Lothan would be able to fill in some of the blanks about what Brickman was up to. She stuffed her gear into her bag and headed out to catch a cab to Lothan's place.
When she got to the house on Capitol Hill, Kellan knocked, but there was no answer. She hadn't even considered that Lothan might be out. Not sure what she hoped to achieve, Kellan turned the doorknob. To her surprise, the door opened, and so she stepped inside, closing it behind her.
She hesitated in the hallway, not sure which room to try first. She heard low voices conversing in Lothan's study, one obviously Lothan's deep bass, and one other she couldn't make out. Kellan took a deep breath and knocked on the closed door. The conversation instantly stopped, and there was a long moment of silence that made Kellan cringe, glancing around the hall for any signs of attack, or a quick escape route, if she needed one. Then the door opened and Lothan stood framed in the doorway, peering down at Kellan with a thunderous expression on his craggy face.
"We are not scheduled for a lesson today, Kellan," the troll growled.
"Um: you're right," Kellan stammered, "but I wanted to ask you something. I didn't think about calling before I came. I can ask you later."
"It's all right, Lothan," said a voice in the room.
The troll's expression smoothed out, then he stepped back and gestured to Kellan to enter.
Kellan didn't recognize the woman sitting in one of the chairs by Lothan's desk. She didn't look much older than Kellan, though she had a quiet confidence about her. Kellan immediately noticed that her close-cropped blond hair highlighted the silvery gleam of a datajack at her temple. She wore a close-fitting, sleeveless black T-shirt and black jeans with athletic shoes. A tailored synthleather jacket was draped over the back of the chair.
"Hoi, Kellan," she said in a familiar voice, "nice to see you."
Kellan paused for a moment, trying to place the voice. She was sure that she'd never seen the woman before but she sounded like
:
"Jackie?" she asked, and the woman smiled, flashing perfect white teeth in the dimness of the room.
"The one and only," she said.
"Consider yourself honored," Lothan said from behind Kellan as he closed the study door. "Only a select few meet the infamous Jackie Ozone in the flesh." There was a playful, mocking familiarity in his tone.
"Infamous?" Jackie said with a smile. "Why, Lothan, you silver-tongued devil.:"
"So, what is it you wanted to ask?" Lothan cleared his throat and deftly changed the subject. Kellan fished in her bag for the dataBook, opening it up and tapping the controls before holding it so Lothan could see the roll-out screen.
"Brickman," she said simply. "Our Mr. Johnson. Apparently he works for Ares, or at least for Knight Errant. I'm trying to figure out why he hired us to steal from his own company."
"How did you get this?" Lothan asked, nodding toward the screen and ignoring her unspoken question.
"I came up with a couple of keywords, then did a Matrix search with a good browser," Kellan said.
"That's good basic technique," Jackie complimented her, coming around to look at the screen. She cast a critical eye at the dataBook.
"Apparently we're to have a lesson today, after all," Lothan said with a sigh. "Kellan, I assumed you were experienced enough to know better than to dig around in the background of an employer and then sharing that information indiscriminately."
"Hardly indiscriminately," Jackie interjected. "After all she does know us."
Lothan shot the decker a look that clearly said, "stay out of this." "Be that as it may," he continued. "It doesn't change the fact that our employers pay for and expect a certain measure of discretion, as well as professional behavior. If you want to be successful in this business, Kellan, I suggest you keep that in mind."
"Oh, come off it, Lothan!" Jackie scoffed. "It's not like you didn't check out Brickman and learn the same info before you took the job." The troll glared at the decker.
Born to run (s-4) Page 11
