Born to run (s-4)

by Stephen Kenson

  They stepped out of the room containing the personnel files and zoomed through the corridors. Kellan had no idea how Jackie knew where she was going. She certainly seemed familiar with the layout and defenses.

  "Have you been here before?" she asked.

  "Let's just say I know my way around the Ares system," Jackie replied, and Kellan left it at that.

  They stopped just inside the entrance to a gigantic room. The ceiling was shrouded in darkness high above them, and on the floor below was laid out a collection of trucks, train cars, planes and even boats, all moving in complex patterns along a network of lines. Figures wearing plain coveralls marked with the helmeted Greek warrior of the Ares logo moved here and there, carrying boxes and crates, some of them impossibly large.

  "Let's see what the shipping department has to tell us," Jackie said.

  They approached one of the uniformed figures. Kellan saw that his badge indicated he was the foreman. He was ticking off items on a clipboard as other workers moved past him.

  "I need information on a shipping route," Jackie requested, and the foreman didn't even look up from his work.

  "Authorization?" he asked.

  Jackie's persona reached into the folds of her gown, then opened her hand and blew a puff of glittering faerie dust over the foreman. It sparkled in the air for a moment and the foreman looked up from his clipboard, eyes wide, a silly smile fixed on his face.

  "Works every time," Jackie said to Kellan.

  "What did you do?"

  "Used a spoof program that has the system convinced that we have executive access, for the time being." Then she withdrew a small, white business card and passed it to the foreman as her cyberdeck uploaded the search request to the host system. The foreman flipped through pages on his clipboard, then withdrew a similar card and passed it back to Jackie, who took it, downloading information to her deck.

  The card in her hand expanded to become a floating window in the air in front of them. A map of the Seattle area appeared on it, with routes traced out in different colors. Jackie and Kellan studied them for a moment.

  "That shipping route Brickman gave us wasn't the original route for the shipment we nailed," Kellan stated. "It was changed."

  "By Brickman, I imagine," Jackie replied, scrolling through the information on the various shipments.

  "Look at this," the decker said. "There's an upcoming shipment that uses the same route." She traced the red line on the map with a virtual finger.

  "In another couple of days," Kellan said. "What's in it?"

  "Let's find out, shall we?" Jackie passed another information request to the foreman and he obediently complied, shuffling through his papers before passing a data card back to Jackie.

  "Guns," Jackie and Kellan said simultaneously, after glancing at the cargo manifest.

  "A lot of guns," Kellan added.

  "It's a shipment for Knight Errant," Jackie said, "along with more run-of-the-mill stuff for Weapon World outlets in the plex. Now this would be something worth jacking."

  "Hey," Kellan said, "G-Dogg said something about the Spikes having new weapons they obviously got from somewhere. Do you think there could be a connection?"

  "Like?"

  "Like maybe Brickman is setting up gangs in the plex with stolen Ares guns."

  "Interesting thought," Jackie replied. "I'll do one more search, and then we should get going. I don't want to hang out any longer than we have to." She passed another data card to the foreman and Kellan felt an almost electric tension from Jackie's concern. Though the decker remained cool and calm, her desire to not linger in the Ares system made Kellan realize the potential danger.

  The foreman shook his head. "Further authorization required," he said flatly.

  "Damn," Jackie said. "The information is restricted."

  "Can you get it?"

  "Of course I can get it," Jackie replied, a bit peevishly. "It's just going to take a little longer." Suddenly, a glowing cloud of symbols appeared in the air between the outstretched hands of Jackie's persona, who began manipulating the symbols as if she were assembling a virtual jigsaw puzzle.

  Kellan kept silent as the decker worked. She could imagine Jackie's fingers playing the keys of the cyber-deck like a musical instrument. The collection of symbols began to coalesce into a complex, multidimensional sigil. The sigil collapsed into the shape of a tiny data card, which Jackie passed to the foreman.

  He glanced at it, nodded, and began looking through the papers on his clipboard.

  A sound from the shadows high above the shipping area caught Kellan's attention. Jackie heard it, too. She glanced up, and Kellan could see a dark, winged shape come flying out of the shadows directly toward them.

  "Jackie!" she said.

  "I see it, I see it," the decker replied. She gestured, and suddenly her persona was covered in articulated metallic armor of chrome and ivory, from fine gauntlets to a helmet that Kellan could feel around her head, its wide visor allowing almost full normal vision. A slender silver sword appeared just as suddenly in the persona's hand.

  The thing swooping down from above was a hideous mix of human and bat, with black, leathery wings stretched between narrow fingerlike bones, a black-furred body, whiplike tail, and a face that looked vaguely human but distorted with rage and hatred. Kellan had seen pictures of creatures like this: it was a harpy, or at least a virtual representation of one.

  Jackie dodged to the side, narrowly evading the harpy's slashing claws as a hideous shriek filled the air. She slashed with her sword, but just missed the creature as it flew past, banking around for another pass at them. Jackie glanced at the foreman, who stood calmly shuffling his papers, as if nothing unusual was going on, then focused her attention on the harpy as it closed in for another attack.

  "Ha!" she cried, slashing at the black monstrosity, but her battle cry turned into a yelp of pain as the harpy's claws raked across her left arm.

  "Ow!" Kellan said as Jackie cursed. She felt that! It was as if a real harpy had cut her arm. Burning pain throbbed along Kellan's upper arm and shoulder. She tried to turn her head to see how bad it was, but it wasn't her head, and she couldn't move it. Jackie was in control of the persona and she was keeping track of the harpy.

  "All right, you want to play it that way," Jackie muttered. She grabbed the edge of the white cloak she now wore along with her armor, sweeping it up in front of her with a flourish. The harpy banked sharply as it swooped in for its next attack. Confused, it hesitated for a moment. Then Jackie dropped the cloak and lunged forward, stabbing the thing with her blade. It recoiled with a screech.

  Jackie spun and Kellan could see the foreman holding out a small data card. The decker lunged forward again and snatched the card from his hand, triggering a download to her cyberdeck.

  "Hang on, Kellan!" she said. "We're out of here!"

  They shot out of the room, and suddenly they were standing out in front of the building again. The Cerberus program got to its feet. The bones Jackie left it were nowhere to be seen. It bared its teeth and growled with all three heads, but Jackie just waved at it.

  "Sorry, Fido, maybe some other time," she said. Then everything went black.

  The light inside the sleep coffin was dim compared to the harsh silver and neon of the Matrix. Kellan blinked a few times and slowly moved her arms and legs, just getting used to the feeling of being able to move of her own volition again. She gingerly reached up and pulled off the trode net. On the other side of the cubical, Jackie sighed and opened her eyes. She reached up to pull the connector from her datajack, letting the inertial reel wind the cable back into the cyberdeck's housing.

  "What was that?" Kellan asked Jackie, dropping the trode net on the padding. She reached up and massaged her left arm, where she still felt a twinge of pain. She looked, but saw no sign of injury from the harpy's virtual claws.

  "I pushed things too far," the decker replied. "Put the system on internal alert and triggered an ice program. Nothing major, bu
t I didn't want to hang around there and wait for it to get reinforcements."

  Kellan shuddered. If that was what Jackie considered minor, she'd hate to see a serious threat in the Matrix.

  "Will Ares know:?" she began and Jackie shook her head.

  "Don't worry about it. It was just an internal alert. The host system initiated some error checking and security procedures, that's all. It happens a lot, especially with corporate systems, so it's nothing to be concerned about. The system didn't alert anyone on the outside, and I made sure to wipe out all traces of our session when we logged off. So unless somebody goes through the system with a fine-tooth comb, there's no chance Ares will even know we were there."

  "What did we get?" Kellan asked, recalling the data card Jackie grabbed right before they logged off.

  The decker rolled out the screen of the cyberdeck and tapped a few keys. She shifted to the other side of the coffin so Kellan could see, too.

  "Information on one other Ares weapons shipment that got hijacked a few weeks ago," she said. "The incident has been classified internally, but it looks like it was reported to Lone Star."

  "That's weird," Kellan said. "Why report it to the cops and then classify it internally? Besides, I thought that Ares didn't like Lone Star?"

  Jackie smiled. "Nobody likes Lone Star," she said, "but you've got a point. Ares usually handles this stuff internally. The megacorps have extraterritorial status, which means they're like countries unto themselves, and they take that status very seriously. They like to make noises as if they're cooperating with the local authorities; it makes for good PR, and this might just be more of the same. Except:"

  "Except what?"

  "The person who classified the earlier theft is none other than our own Simon Brickman."

  "Again, why tell outsiders and then classify it internally?"

  Jackie shrugged. "Maybe he needs to avoid an investigation from Ares higher-ups."

  "Which means he's involved in the disappearance of those weapons."

  "Good bet," the decker said.

  "And that arms shipment went missing right before G-Dogg said the Spikes started showing up with new weapons," Kellan said, the pieces of the puzzle converging in her mind. "Brickman supplied them from the stolen shipment."

  "Could be," Jackie replied. "I think it's interesting that Orion's gang, the Ancients, is currently at war with the Spikes."

  "Which means Brickman is playing both sides of the street," Kellan said. "What does he hope to gain?"

  "Apart from making a tidy profit from the sale of 'lost' weapons and getting two major gangs to wipe each other out?" Jackie asked. "Does he need another reason?"

  "But then why supply both sides?" Kellan asked, and the decker shrugged.

  "Double the profit, double the fun," she said. "Whatever his plan, it doesn't look like it affects us."

  "What about Orion?" Kellan asked.

  "What about him?"

  "I think he should know about this."

  "Do you really think he'll believe you, with no evidence to tie any of this together?" Jackie asked. "Do you think you owe him something?"

  "I just don't like the idea of somebody I worked with getting played like that," she said stubbornly, and the decker couldn't restrain a small smile.

  "Then you're in the wrong business, kid," she said.

  Kellan bit back a retort. Even though she'd only worked with Orion that one time, he'd saved her life. He watched her back on the run, and she felt like she owed him the same.

  "I need you to do one more thing for me, Jackie," she said and the decker raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

  "Find out where Orion is."

  14

  The elves called the neighborhood Tarislar, which meant "remembrance" in their language. According to Jackie Ozone, Tarislar gained its name after February 7, 2039, the Night of Rage, when violence against metahumans exploded across the metroplex. The survivors found shelter in the lawless parts of the Barrens. Many elves established themselves among the abandoned strip malls and decaying condoplexes of the southern Puyallup Barrens, vowing never to deal with such small-minded, hateful creatures as humans ever again. Even some twenty years later, they did their best to keep that promise. Tarislar meant the elves remembered, and humans weren't welcome on their turf.

  Jackie advised Kellan against going there, but when Kellan contacted Orion and told him she wanted to meet him, the elf insisted on the meet taking place on the outskirts of Ancients turf in the Barrens. So Kellan made her way to the place Orion described, an abandoned parking garage on the northern edge of Tarislar. It occurred to her for about the hundredth time as she walked up to the crumbling concrete structure that loomed over her head that she could be walking into a trap. She probably should have waited, tried to set up a meet in the daylight. As it was, there were few working streetlights in this part of the Barrens, and the darkening sky was overcast, reflecting some of the bright glow coming from the north. It was barely enough to see by, but Kellan made do.

  The inside of the building had long since been stripped of any useful materials, leaving only some stained and battered countertops, and a large, dark concrete-floored garage. There were old signs of fire damage in places, and Kellan briefly wondered if it was the riots, or even the eruption of Mount Rainier during the Ghost Dance that caused it. The lava flats were well to the south and east, but she'd heard the fires had raged through the southern parts of Seattle for weeks.

  There was no sign of anyone in the small booth at the entrance to the garage, so Kellan stepped into the dark, cavernous building.

  "Orion?" she called out softly. Then she felt the press of something cold and sharp along the side of her neck, and froze.

  "All right," the elf ganger's voice was menacing, and close enough that Kellan could feel the heat of his breath on her neck. "You called me. I'm here. What do you want?"

  "I want to talk," Kellan said, forcing her voice to remain calm, and keeping her hands clearly visible to show that she wasn't holding a weapon.

  "I don't hang with your kind," Orion replied coldly.

  "Look," Kellan said evenly, "I didn't come here to fight. If you're going to use that sword, then do it. Otherwise, put it away and I'll talk." She knew that she was taking a dangerous chance. There was a long pause. Then she felt the edge of the blade lift from her neck and heard the hiss of it sliding into its sheath.

  "So talk," Orion said, and Kellan turned slowly to face him.

  "Thanks," she replied, fighting the urge to run her hand across her neck to feel for blood. She kept her hands at her sides, maintaining the short distance between her and Orion.

  "I didn't like the feel of the situation at the end of the run," she began cautiously. "So I've been doing some digging. I know about Brickman and Knight Errant."

  The elf's eyes narrowed, and Kellan hurried to continue.

  "I'm not trying to frag up your deal," she said, "but I think it's already fragged. Brickman is up to something."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Orion snapped, and he walked past Kellan to leave.

  "I think Brickman is setting you up!" Kellan called after him, but the elf didn't stop. "He's selling weapons to the Spikes, too!"

  That stopped Orion in his tracks. The elf warrior turned on his heel to look directly at Kellan.

  "What did you say?"

  "I said that Brickman is supplying weapons to the Spikes," she repeated. "He's playing both sides of the field and I think he's setting us all up."

  Orion took a couple steps closer. "And how do you know this?" He folded his arms across his chest and waited.

  "Like I said, I did some digging," she replied. "Brickman works for Knight Errant. He was able to get information on those Ares shipments because Knight Errant is an Ares subsidiary."

  "Of course Brickman works for Knight Errant," Orion interrupted. "That's how we knew his offer was for real."

  "His offer to set you up with weapons?" Kellan asked, looking for conf
irmation, but Orion just waited.

  "Look, I heard enough to know that the Ancients and Brickman had an agreement," she persisted.

  "He was supposed to supply us with weapons," the ganger said grudgingly. "I assumed that was the run he hired you for, but that shipment turned out to be something else."

  "That's why you were so surprised," Kellan said, "and why you were hacked off with Brickman."

  "He claimed it was just a test run, that he had information on the real shipment and he would set it up so we could take it ourselves and keep the entire haul."

  "Did that make sense to you?"

  The elf shrugged gracefully. "No, but who the frag knows why corporate Johnsons like Brickman do things? I figured as long as we got what we needed:" Then he paused. "So what's this about Brickman supplying weapons to the Spikes? Do you have any proof?"

  Kellan nodded and reached slowly into the pocket of her jacket to produce a data chip.

  "This has info on a previous Ares weapons shipment that got hijacked before Brickman hired us, and probably before he contacted you. Ares supposedly doesn't know what happened to it, and neither does Lone Star, but from everything I've heard, it fits right in with the time the Spikes suddenly got some new toys and started fragging with the Ancients. The report has been classified-by Brickman."

  She held the chip out to Orion, who took it from her, turning it over in his fingers, as if he was absorbing the data along with its implications.

  "Even if that's all true," he said slowly, "you can't prove that the weapons ended up with the Spikes."

  "I know," Kellan replied, "but it makes sense. The timing is right and those guns haven't shown up anywhere else. Doesn't seem like that kind of firepower would stay off the streets for very long."

  Orion closed his fist on the data chip and tapped it against his lips as he thought things through.

  "It makes sense," Kellan continued. "Ares 'loses' some weapons to a hijacking. They make sure to report it to Lone Star so it's officially recorded that the weapons are 'stolen.' Then Brickman puts the guns into the hands of one of the biggest gangs in the plex, knowing they'll use them as soon as they can. Then, when the Spikes cause trouble for you, Brickman makes you the same offer: he'll arrange for a shipment of guns to disappear, then hand them over to the Ancients so you can fight back against the Spikes. In the meantime, he hires some shadowrunners to do a test run and help establish a pattern of hijackings, maybe even set up someone else to take the blame when it all goes down."