Stranger Souls

by Jak Koke

  "Let's go," Slaver said, then muttered silently, "Imbecile."

  Slaver must have thought that Burnout couldn't hear his fragmented whisper. Or maybe he didn't care. But Burnout cared; he was no imbecile. He was merely distracted. It was a condition that went along with the fragging territory. If Slaver couldn yt handle it, then Slaver could . . .

  Burnout let the thought trail off as a rush of warmth filled him as an injection of his happy drug hit him. The chemical substance that kept him in line. Hatred was a good thing. The docs said it helped keep him alive, helped to keep his willpower up. But they didn't want him to overdo it. Thus they put the drug on an automatic injector. Measured his adrenaline or some such drek, and if he wasn't in a combat situation, it kept him from going off and massacring innocents.

  Took some of the fun out of being such an awesome killing machine, but the rush was pretty nice.

  Burnout moved to join Slaver and La Sangre as they walked outside to stand on the shore of the lake. The excavation was in full swing. Burnout could see that they'd almost completely unearthed the huge black stone.

  Burnout knew the rock was magical, and the arcane glow of it was like a beacon to him, drawing him in like a cybernetic moth to a blow torch. He couldn't move; he must have it. Frag everything else. The rock held his future. It could restore his magic with its power.

  The hypnotic rippling of the black surface drew him in, until he realized that he'd left the other two standing on the shore. He was chest-deep in water, walking further in.

  A memory came to him then. They always came when he lost control. They wanted him to stay anchored in his new body, this horrid amalgamation of wires and fibers and metal. He thought of his mother, her face bright, smiling as she patted his head. He was eight years old, or maybe nine. She turned to him and said, "I'm so proud of you. Highest score again. You're always the best at whatever you do . . ."

  The warm rush he felt in his memory was barely discernible from the drug in his system. Getting high on praise.

  "Get back here, you idiot!" Slaver yelled. "We've got to go."

  And by the time Burnout had come back to the present, there was a magic barrier of some kind between him and the stone. The allure of it was lessened by the barrier, but the stone's power was immense and the barrier couldn't completely mask it. Still, Burnout tried to focus, tried to ignore it and join the others.

  A half-hour later, when they were in the helicopter, flying north toward Canadian American States territory, Burnout asked what they were going to do.

  "You'll like this mission," Slaver told him. "We get to kill someone. Someone named Ryan Mercury."

  14 August 2057

  23

  It was mid-morning when Ryan climbed into the Lear-Cessna Platinum III jet with Nadja, her aide Gordon Wu, Carta Brooks, and some security. They were headed to Washington.

  The ride was smooth and relatively quiet, so Ryan decided to try to get some sleep during the flight since Nadja was dictating instructions to Gordon Wu. Busy working. This was a working trip for everyone on board except perhaps Ryan. Since Dunkelzahn's death, their work load had increased exponentially.

  Ryan reclined his chair as the jet took off, noting that the wide leather seats were much more comfortable than the hard plastic of the T-bird's seats. It seemed so long ago that he'd been asleep in the clinic bed, a prisoner without knowing it. And now . . .

  Now he was another kind of prisoner—a prisoner to Dunkelzahn's mission. Something wouldn't let him give it up completely even though that is what he most wanted. If I get things moving, he thought, I'll at least have tried.

  Ryan activated his wristphone, placing a secure call to the LTG that Nadja had given him for Jane-in-the-box. It took a few moments until encryption and decryption protocols synched, then he was looking at Jane's persona on the screen.

  She looked like a blonde corporate bimbo in red leather. Very stylized and unrealistic, but attractive in an absurd cartoony way. "Quicksilver," she said. "I trust you're well?"

  Ryan smiled. "Thanks to you," he said. "I'm alive at least. Though my problems seem to have just begun."

  Jane nodded, shifting to biz mode as she realized that this wasn't intended to be a social call. "So, what can I do for you?"

  "Do you know of the item called the Dragon Heart, which was taken from the lair yesterday?"

  "I have followed the report of its theft," Jane said. "That's all I know."

  "I must track down who took it and where it is. It's urgent, and I don't know who else to ask."

  Jane's persona smiled. "I'm flattered," she said, then gave a little giggle.

  Ryan winced. He didn't remember ever meeting Jane, though Axler said that he was one of the few people who had actually met the decker. He had the feeling that in the real world, she wasn't at all like this image. She was very intelligent, very savvy and smart. Cunning. This persona must be a front, an image designed to trick people into underestimating her.

  Ryan's assessment of Jane was based on his conversations with Axler and later with Nadja. The decker seemed to be an invisible entity in the Matrix. Even though she was extremely accomplished, few in the Matrix knew who she was because she never posted as herself. Nadja had told Ryan that Jane had been doing Dunkelzahn's decking for many years, and she had acted as sort of an über-fixer. She had done a good deal of the management of the dragon's shadow ops, tracking the activities of other fixers, who never realized that they were working for Dunkelzahn.

  Ryan liked her instinctively. "I wasn't intending to flatter," he said, "though I will if it'll help." He laughed. "This is important, Jane. Please, just do what you can."

  A cartoon smile drew itself across Jane's icon. "I'm on it, Quicksilver."

  "Thanks." The line went dead.

  The jet landed about an hour later, coming into a Washington that had been nearly closed down by riots and martial law. Dunkelzahn's death had caused outbreaks of rioting across the UCAS. All the major cities had been affected. On one side, there were many taking out their frustration because they'd idolized the dragon. And on the other, those who hated him were celebrating his demise by destroying property, looting, and fighting his supporters.

  The new president, Kyle Haeffner, had declared martial law in the Federal District just a few hours earlier, calling in the Knight Errant and Ares Arms security forces to help the FedPols quash the rioters. So far, according to Nadja, they'd made little progress.

  National Airport was eerily quiet as Ryan made his way from the jet, across the tarmac to a private helo. It was mid-morning, the sun hot in the sweaty Washington sky. Too hot for comfort. Air traffic seemed extremely light, and while security personnel were abundant, the regular airport workers were sparse.

  Abruptly, automatic gunfire sputtered in the distance. Ryan spun to assess the situation, suddenly feeling exposed. Out in the open. But Brooks and her guards surrounded Ryan and Nadja. And the gunfire, he realized, had come from more than a kilometer away. He'd heard it distinctly, but his hearing was better than the others'.

  My abilities are slowly returning, he thought. Of course I don't even know what they were. I can't remember my training.

  Nadja was greeted by some corp suits, and she spoke with them for a few minutes before continuing on to the 'copter. Maybe they were from the government. Ryan couldn't tell. Nadja gave them some instructions about removing and handling the cargo on the jet. A few things of Dunkelzahn's were going to be given out the next day after the reading of the dragon's Last Will and Testament.

  The flight to the Watergate Hotel was short. Nadja normally stayed at Dunkelzahn's estate in Georgetown, but the reading of the will was scheduled to take place in the Watergate Grand Ballroom tomorrow. With the rioting, they figured it would be safer to avoid unnecessary traveling.

  Ryan convinced the pilot to fly past the front of the Watergate once before swinging around and landing on the roof. He wanted to see the blast site. He hoped it would spark something inside him, memories or
emotions, feelings about Dunkelzahn.

  The area was surrounded by a crowd of people—tourists, mourners, media hounds, and even worshippers who considered Dunkelzahn a martyred saint. The blast crater was larger than Ryan expected, a massive hole in the center of the boulevard, isolated by temporary construction fencing.

  Above the crater hovered a prismatic cloud that looked to be made of light and energy. It writhed and morphed, roiling like an undulating droplet of oil trapped inside an invisible sphere of water. It was obviously magical in nature, and Ryan could actually see its astral reflection when he concentrated.

  It looked exactly the same in astral space.

  That, he knew, was very strange. Even frightening. It was as though the fabric of physical space had been torn away just at this spot. As though the barrier to astral space had been eliminated here, so that this manastorm, as they called it, looked the same in both planes of reality. Why else would it give off light in the physical world?

  Ryan was just speculating. It was an unknown phenomenon, and even Nadja's best sources had yet to determine its true nature. He was disappointed that seeing it did not help him remember. All it did was leave him with a sense of awe and wonder at the power of something that could destroy a great dragon like Dunkelzahn.

  The helo took them to the rooftop, and from there hotel security escorted them to a suite. The space was elegant and simple, large with a living room and office, plus two bedrooms. After Nadja had dispatched all the suits and corporate types, she asked security to step outside to give her and Ryan some privacy. Then she sat on the couch and took off her shoes. "I hate these fragging things," she said.

  Ryan smiled. It was the first time he'd heard her speak with anything less than perfectly proper language, and he found it endearing. She was letting her façade slide away for him, a gesture of intimacy. He sat down next to her. "Do you want me to massage your feet?"

  She smiled. "Don't start something you're not prepared to finish."

  Ryan picked up one of her feet and set it in his lap. Her skin was cool under the calluses of his palms. He rubbed them, putting pressure on the muscles, focusing, trying to force them to loosen. To relax. He found he could make his hands grow hot if he tried, and he suspected that this ability was based in magic.

  Nadja sank back into the cushions. "What happened to you in Aztlan?" she asked.

  "I don't remember much. Some sort of personality transfer. Thomas Roxborough wanted to use my body for his mind."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Does it bother you?"

  Nadja thought for a minute. "I don't know if you're Ryan or not."

  "Tell me about Ryan . . . about myself."

  Nadja smiled. "We're connected, you and I," she said. "There's something fundamental that bonds us to each other, something that will never change. I don't know what it is, really, but even Dunkelzahn assured me it was true. It often manifests as luck, sometimes as premonitions, dreams, and such." Nadja shook her head. "Am I making any sense at all?"

  Ryan didn't answer. He was overcome with the sensations of her—the tenor of her voice, the animal essence in her smell. The slight disarray of her hair, stray ebony strands floating over her face. The delicate freckling on the bridge of her nose could only be seen up close, and it was this accumulation of tiny flaws—the endearing defects in her perfection—that reached into the base of his brain and kindled a desperate lust for her.

  He breathed deeply, drinking in the smell of her as his skin tightened. As he felt pressure in his groin and the faint tingle of anticipated pleasure.

  She touched his arm with her fingertips. "How much do you remember?" she asked.

  "About us?"

  Nadja nodded.

  "I don't remember that much," Ryan said. "But I sense a great deal."

  "What do you sense?"

  "That we care for each other, that we're intimate, probably lovers. That we have a deep relationship besides that."

  Ryan was barely finished with the sentence when she pulled him down against her, moving her face close to his. "Right in one," she whispered, shifting her hips to take the weight of his. He came into her embrace, his broad chest against hers, crushing her into the cushions of the couch.

  She looked up into his eyes, ran her delicate hands through his hair. She blinked in slow motion, so close he saw his own irises reflected on the surface of her pupils. Her hands reached up under his shirt and dug into the broad muscles on his back as he placed gentle nibbling kisses against her throat, up along the back of her delicate jaw, to her pointed ear.

  He raised himself up to look at her, and she stared into his eyes, brushed her lips lightly against his. He focused on the curve of her upper lip as he kissed her, as she parted her mouth and sought out his tongue with hers. The taste of her sparked recognition in Ryan, so familiar. So exquisite.

  She pulled away slightly, teasing him. But Ryan caught her mouth with his, kissing her hard. A brutal loss of restraint, before backing off into a softer, deeper kiss. He was desperate for her. "I must have you now," he said.

  She responded by tearing his shirttail from his pants, up and over his head. Then she was running her hands over the broad flanks of his back, pushing down below his waist, ducking under the edge of his pants to touch his bare skin.

  He rolled her over, and they fell to the floor, her on top of him, her skirt up around her waist so that she could straddle his hips. Ryan focused on the swell of her breasts beneath her silk blouse, and he reached up to them, delicately brushing their outline. Nadja began to unbutton her blouse, but Ryan couldn't wait for her. He put his hands between the buttons and ripped the blouse from her body.

  He experienced the first vision as he tore her skirt away and pushed his own pants off. A memory from his Ryan past. He and Nadja in Maui, walking hand in hand along a private beach under a moonless sky. Stripping their clothes off and swimming in the dark, clear water. Playing in the surf. Making slow sweet love under the outdoor shower.

  Now, in the hotel suite, they were naked on the plush blue carpeting, rolling like desperate teenagers. She was below him now, desire on her face as she arched her back. Her naked legs open to him, her thighs slick and hot.

  He moved against her, involuntarily. All control gone.

  "Now," she whispered.

  He entered her.

  She moaned and bit down on his shoulder, her finger nails cutting into the skin of his buttocks. She wanted it rough, hard.

  He moved faster. Giving her exactly what she wanted.

  Something was happening in his brain. More visions, memories. They began to come as he climaxed. Flooding over him in waves.

  He saw the huge sinuous form of Dunkelzahn, a magnificent glowing worm in astral space. Then the image was gone, and he smelled cayenne pepper and baking bread—a goulash meal he'd shared with Sergeant Matthews during a Desert War training exercise.

  And the memories continued after, as Nadja bucked violently with her orgasm. Fragments of his life crashing through his brain.

  He heard a rumbling roar in his memory. He was very young. An image of Dunkelzahn descending like a fiery bird of prey flashing through his mind. Descending to rescue him. Then he heard a cry of pain, a different scene, much more recent—a few years ago at most. Axler crouched down to help the crying kid who'd caught a stray bullet. Scenes from his life coming back at random.

  Now, Ryan lifted Nadja in his arms and carried her to the bed. She drew him down to lie next to her, then rolled on top, straddling him. He put his hands on the rising swell of her breasts and pinched her large brown nipples as she guided him into her. They made love again.

  The memories came on. He experienced his love for Dunkelzahn. His training and his many missions; Ryan remembered everything in those hours. He remembered his mission to Aztlan, his discovery of the Locus, his report to Dunkelzahn right before the helicopter came, right before the cyberzombie took him out and drugged him. A shudder passed through Ryan as he lay next to Nadja tracing a deli
cate circle around the brown oval of her areola as she fell into asleep.

  Ryan remembered himself completely.

  24

  Lethe longed for Thayla's voice, pined for the touch of her song. He missed her—she who had named him. But his mission was far from complete, and he would not return to her without the Dragon Heart.

  Tracking the item had been harder than Lethe had expected. He had felt its power when it was in Dunkelzahn's lair, so its astral resonance was imprinted on him. Therefore, he should be able to find it anywhere in the manasphere.

  But its aura had been masked, disguised by the meta-humans who had taken it from the chamber in Dunkelzahn's lair. They had dulled its astral resonance. Weakened Lethe's ability to follow its trail through astral space. But his sense of the Dragon Heart was extremely keen. The tracking had been more time-consuming and difficult, but Lethe still smelled the tendrils of mana that the Dragon Heart left behind. The delicate eddies and currents it created in astral space.

  The elves who took it could mask the Heart itself, but not its effect on the astral landscape. Lethe had followed the trail with a growing awareness that this Dragon Heart was an extremely powerful object. Its very presence reshaped the astral background. The effect was slight, very subtle, but Lethe could see it, and he could follow it.

  They had taken the Dragon Heart to a place called Eugene, in an elven nation known as Tir Tairngire. In the physical world, the building that held the item looked old, but sturdy. Constructed of concrete and riebar, brick and steel beam. The inside was crawling with spirits and mages playing with enchanted items. There were more items, of various power and potency, at this one location than Lethe had known to exist.

  After watching carefully for a time, and trying to avoid detection, Lethe came to the conclusion that the mages and spirits where conducting research on these items. Testing their power and ability. Trying to elucidate the various histories by magically tracing the object's past. Who used it? What for? When?