2xs

by Nigel Findley

  I didn't like the game any better than Argent, but at least I understood enough about Keith's situation to feel a little more confident. Scott Keith was out on a very slender limb, bringing a full five-person squad of DED troopers along. If things did get hosed, and the Yamatetsu guards took even one trooper-dead or alive-Keith would be up for the chop, big time. Even the best-trained DED hitters couldn't be confident of taking down the Wrecking Crew without losses and without a whole drek-load of noise, so the chances of this whole thing being a setup were very slim. It had to be that Keith was convinced that the night's expedition would supply him with enough dirt to bring down Mariane Corbeau and take her job, because that-apart from an in-and-out that didn't trigger any alerts-was the only outcome that wouldn't slot up his Lone Star career but good.

  So that's how we ended up crouching outside the perimeter, the six members of my group, plus Scott Keith and his black-armored troopers with their H&K MP5s. Argent had called in a somewhat-belated point two, and Peg had begun to slot with the electronic security. After a few minutes, the metal-armed samurai nodded, and we started the penetration.

  I'd been wondering how Argent intended to go over the fence. It was heavy chain-link, about four meters high and topped with three strands of cutwire. The whole thing was mounted on its supporting pillars with ceramic resistors, so I knew it was carrying juice. And considerable juice, judging from the size of the resistors. I couldn't think of any easy ways over that didn't involve either equipment we lacked or magic.

  As it turned out, null perspiration. Argent murmured something into his wrist phone, then announced in a whisper, "Fence is down."

  Toshi leaped forward, a pair of bolt-cutters in his hands. The samurai's enhanced strength and speed made short work of the fence as he cut a slightly larger-than-man-sized "gate" into the chain links. He tossed the cutters to Hawk, then dived through the hole he'd made. He came up in a combat crouch, his SMG scanning the area for targets.

  "Move," Argent snapped. "One minute."

  One by one we passed through the hole in the fence. Me and my shadow team first, followed by Keith and his troopers. As soon as the last black-armored figure was through, Toshi closed the gap in the fence, using what looked to me like metal twist-ties to hold the wire in place. The instant he was done, Argent whispered into his phone, "Okay, Peg." The twist-ties, or whatever they were, sparked blue for an instant, and I knew the electric fence was live again.

  We moved across the landscape grounds toward building E. Toshi and Argent, probably chipped to the max, advanced in flickering dashes, broken by moments of total immobility as they scanned around them.

  Although they seemed to be paying no attention to one another, I noticed their "dash-and-cover" moves were perfectly synchronized to let them leap-frog across the terrain, always covering each other. Hawk moved behind them, cautiously searching the area with senses both mundane and arcane. Then it was me, Jocasta, and Rodney. We all had our weapons out, and those two looked almost as tense as I felt. Fanning out behind us were Keith and his troopers. They were pros, too, moving in a slower version of Argent and Toshi's advance, keeping a 360-degree watch.

  Hawk and Rodney spotted the incoming trouble almost simultaneously-the elf shouting, "Uh-oh!" while the big Amerindian barked a more communicative "Contact!" The things leaped at us out of the dark, suddenly appearing in my goggles' field of vision. Big dogs, the color of the night itself, standing almost a meter at the shoulder. Gaping jaws displayed oversized teeth. Their speed was terrifying. As one lunged toward Toshi, it made a harsh, grunting noise, its mouth loosing a tongue of flame that went a good meter. If the chipped samurai hadn't hurled himself backward, the flame would have washed over him. Even while dodging the flame, Toshi still managed to trigger a short burst from his silenced SMG. My goggles let me see that every round hit, but the hound seemed undaunted.

  That was when Hawk stepped forward. Right into the jaws of the attacking hell hounds, it looked like.

  I was sure he was meat. But the two dogs slammed on the brakes, virtually froze in their tracks. I could see their eyes, blood red against their black pelts, fixed on him. They stood stiff-legged, and their hackles bristled wildly. One whimpered softly. Then Hawk pistoned his arms up and out, threw back his head as if screaming to the sky even though he made no sound. As one, those two doggies tucked their tails between their legs, turned and bolted, disappearing almost instantly into the darkness. Only when they were well and truly gone did Hawk break his pose, returning to a combat crouch. We moved forward again, the shaman near the front. Though he was keeping up, his movements seemed tired. I mused on that as we advanced.

  Basically, my only knowledge of high-powered magic came from trideo dramas, in which mages can toss killer spells all day and still have the energy to jam their love interest all night. I was starting to learn that reality was somewhat different.

  I also noticed something else important about this encounter. Not one of the DED troopers or any of the Crew had capped off any rounds at the hell hounds. Only Toshi had fired, which was understandable because one of the dogs had him labeled as a midnight snack. That reassured me that the level of discipline was high. Other than the fear of taking a round in the back from Keith and friends, my fear about having the five troopers along was that they would immediately open up with all the ordnance they had at the slightest provocation, blowing everything to hell. I still had enough to worry about, but one less thing was definitely a blessing.

  We reached building E with no further incident. Like all the other buildings on the ISP site, it had neither windows nor lights. It also showed the "concrete blockhouse" style of architecture of all the structures we'd seen during our guided tour. The ferroconcrete-composite walls were angled at almost forty-five degrees, and the corners were slightly rounded to offer no salients. It was almost as if the architects had designed with defense in mind. I was sure those walls could withstand a couple of shots from a panzer's main gun.

  The door followed the same mindset: reinforced metal, with flanges all the way around to reinforce it.

  The keypad for the maglock was protected by a screen of translucent black macroplast, with a smaller keypad mounted above. A lock protecting the lock: just fragging great.

  Argent whispered into his wrist phone, "Point three, Peg. Can you get the lock?" He paused for a moment, then the macroplast screen hissed back. "No," he told the decker in response to some question, "you've freed the main lock, but the door's still secured." Another second of silence, then he frowned and said, "Local, got you." He beckoned Toshi forward. "Do it, omae," he instructed.

  Toshi brushed his hair back from his forehead, and for the first time I saw the datajack in his temple.

  Samurai and decker? My respect for the irritable elf went up a couple of notches. He pulled a length of optical fiber from a belt pouch, snugged a jack into the socket in his head, and attached a couple of adhesive leads to the keypad enclosure. His eyes rolled back in his head as he started his work.

  "Come on, come on," a whispered voice sounded in my ears. It took a moment to realize the voice was my own.

  The lock keypad issued a soft beep. Toshi pulled the jack out of his head, rolled up the fibers and stuffed them back into his belt pouch. He glanced questioningly at Argent, received a nod in reply, then punched a single key on the pad. The door hissed back, and light washed out.

  Show time. There were three sec-guards in the entry-way, armed and armored. They turned toward us as the door opened, weapons coming up and mouths gaping open, and there was no time for subtlety.

  Argent dropped two with head-shots from his silenced Ingrams, Toshi blew the third's throat out with his H&K. The loudest sound in the entire exchange was the clatter as the armor-clad bodies hit the floor. If I hadn't figured it before, I knew now that I was in way out of my depth. We all crowded into the entryway, and Toshi hit the key to close the door behind us. Jocasta and I slipped off our night goggles, while Keith and his troopers flipped up
the active visors of their helmets.

  The only door out of the place was right ahead of us. While waiting back at Rodney's apartment, Jocasta had sketched for us how she thought a P3 +- style containment would have to be laid out.

  According to that schematic, the door ahead would lead us into the administrative area. From there we could move into the changing rooms, where people put on the protective suits they needed to wear in the lab proper. Beyond that would be the lab itself, isolated from the outside environment by, at the very least, a double-doored airlock arrangement, but more likely by a kind of autoclave that sterilized everything passing in or out. There'd also be the physical plant that handled support matters such as oxygen supply for the sealed lab.

  In other words, we'd probably encounter a certain amount of office-building style hallways and offices behind the door, making the tactical situation very tricky. Any turn of the corridor could conceal armed guards, while someone in a room could theoretically burn a clip of ammo into us, aiming by sound alone, right through the construction-plastic walls or doors. Not a pleasant prospect.

  Hawk closed his eyes again, stilled his breathing. After a few seconds, he re-emerged from his trance-like state, a frown on his face. "Well?" Argent whispered. "Another barrier, very powerful," the shaman said, his voice troubled. "I don't know if I can break it."

  Argent's lips formed a thin line. "Don't try." He turned his cold eyes on me. "I don't like this," he said.

  Well, hell, neither did I. But according to the late, unlamented Dr. Dempsey, my sister was somewhere in here. Then I remembered what Skyhill had said about "added magical precautions," and I relaxed an iota.

  "It's part of the containment lab," I told him.

  From their expressions, I didn't think that either Argent or Hawk really bought that. But pro is pro, and I could see them both decide to live with it. In response to Argent's hand signal, Toshi moved forward and checked the door. He nodded, and rapidly swung open the door, which was decorated with disgusting sprays of blood and tissue.

  Something was very wrong. I'd expected office-style hallways, industrial-gray carpeted floors, construction-plastic walls. I didn't see any of those. We were looking into what seemed to be a big stairwell, with a spiral staircase leading down. No, not a stairwell, it was a helical rampway, more than two meters wide, that led downward. Walls, floor, and ramp looked to be made from a kind of ferroconcrete, but colored a kind of faint beige rather than the conventional gray. And the surface wasn't smooth, but slightly rippled. The light level was low, about that of dusk but redder than sunlight. The air that rolled out through that door was warm, redolent with a strange odor. The scent triggered memories of breweries, but it wasn't quite like that. Ruby-red aiming dots drifted over the far walls as tense fingers touched triggers. Then, after a second or two, they vanished, telling me the weapon-owners had controlled their reactions.

  Argent looked over my way, raised his eyebrows questioningly. I shrugged in reply, pointed forward with my empty left hand. He shook his head, a grim half-smile on his face, and politely gestured, "After you."

  Great. Wordless though it had been, our conversation had been direct and to the point. I tightened my grip on my Roomsweeper, and cautiously moved forward through the doorway. The moment I stepped onto the gray surface, I knew at once it wasn't ferroconcrete. The floor was slightly soft, giving a minuscule amount under my boots. On impulse, I crouched down to touch it. It felt warm, slightly less than body temperature, like the cooling flesh of a corpse. Hastily I snatched my hand back. I didn't like this at all.

  I glanced back at Argent, but his expression hadn't changed. I shifted my gaze to Jocasta, and could see her fear, her concern. That reinforced my flagging will. I stepped onto the spiral ramp.

  The ramp was bounded by a guardrail, but it was unnaturally high, reaching to about shoulder-level rather than to the waist. It would still be at least partially effective at keeping me from pitching off the ramp, but it simply didn't match the way most people would have designed it. I leaned over that too-high rail, and looked down. The spiral ramp descended two and a half turns- about twenty meters-into the red-tinged darkness. There was no movement, nothing at all untoward. But that strange, vaguely biological smell kept catching in the back of my throat, triggering all sorts of mental warnings.

  I beckoned to the others, and they joined me. I looked questioningly at Argent and pointed downward.

  After a moment's thought he nodded. He and Toshi took the lead. It was almost as if I'd made it through some rite of passage, and the pros were now willing to walk point again. Jocasta was beside me as I started down, the pressure of her shoulder comforting. We exchanged grins-patently fake-and moved on.

  The ramp disgorged us into a large, square chamber about fifteen meters on a side. Floors, walls, and five-meter-high ceiling were the same slightly resilient beige-colored material as the ramp. The light was even more reddish, coming from translucent hemispheres, about thirty centimeters in diameter, set into the walls at about knee level. They reminded me disgustingly of glowing blood-blisters, and the low-angled light cast our shadows-elongated, warped, and horrible-up onto the walls and ceilings. The biological smell-yeast, that's what it reminded me of-was even stronger now.

  There were two doors on opposite sides of the chamber, leading north and south. Argent, his modified optics picking up the red tinge of the light until they looked like the eyes of the attacking hell hounds, glanced at Hawk. The shaman spoke up immediately, "I don't like this. Astral barriers on both doors."

  "Which is the stronger?" the samurai asked. Without hesitation, Hawk pointed to the north door.

  Argent turned his lurid eyes on me. "Well, Mr. Johnson," he asked, "any bright ideas?"

  I knew what was going through his mind. He and his crew had been hired for a standard lift-out, which this no longer resembled even faintly. His first inclination was to bail, to bug out and take his team with him, leaving me and the rest to rot. The only thing holding him back was his professionalism. He had accepted my contract-verbally only, of course, because shadow agreements never make it to paper-but that was binding enough. (If he didn't believe that this was as much a surprise to me as to him, he'd have geeked me on the spot.) So now he was offering me a graceful way of releasing him and his people from the contract, with no ill will or loss of face on either side. All I had to do was say we were hosed, and he'd lead us back out of there, doing everything in his power to make sure we all made it safely to the outside world.

  But that wasn't what I was after. I was here for a reason, and no matter how much it freaked me, I was going ahead. I looked him squarely in the eye. "Head north," I said. "People go to more trouble to protect the important stuff."

  Argent's eyes were cold and steady, and I could see that he was weighing my decision-and perhaps my life. As he held my gaze for several seconds, I heard the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears, sweat pricking my brow. But then he nodded curtly. "We head north," he whispered.

  Toshi did the door again, swung it back even faster this time. Argent took a quick look through the doorway, then hurtled across it in a diving roll. I heard the muffled drumming of his silenced Ingrams.

  Before I could even react, Hawk and Toshi were through the door-the former breaking left, the latter right-and all I could do was follow.

  The room beyond was even darker than the ramp chamber, the floor softer, the joints between walls and floor or ceiling more rounded. I noticed those features with only part of my mind. My major attention was on the moving figures. Two massive, bipedal things were near the center of the room. I recognized them immediately: they were the same monsters that had attacked us in Capitol Hill. One was staggering under the concentrated fire of the Wrecking Crew. Even as I charged into the room, I saw the ugly thing collapse, its head a shattered ruin. I swung my Roomsweeper around to target the second creature, which was advancing toward Argent, but held off the trigger at the last moment. It was very probable that our penetrat
ion of the lab had been undetected to this point, so why add to our problems by blazing away with an unsilenced shotgun?

  It didn't seem to be necessary anyway. The three shadowrunners had switched their aim to the new threat, and the sheer impact of the hail of lead was driving the horror back. Silenced spits sounded from beside me. I turned to see Rodney crouching, squeezing off short, precisely targeted bursts from his Uzi.

  The elf's face was like stone, and I could literally feel the tension in his body. (Of course, I thought after a moment, it was these things that killed Amanda.) The creature, gouting black ooze from a dozen massive wounds, gave a bubbling cry and crashed to the ground.

  Another figure was beside me: Scott Keith, his normally florid face pale in contrast to his black armor.

  "What the frag was that?" he asked in a hushed voice.

  I felt my lips draw back from my teeth in a savage grin. "Welcome to Yamatetsu, chummer," I hissed.

  I looked around the room. It was large, maybe thirty meters long by half that wide, but the dim reddish light made it hard to judge dimensions. I guessed the ceiling height at considerably more than twice my own height. There were shapes lying against the walls, I counted an even dozen of them. Human-sized shapes, reclining as though asleep. The nearest was five or six meters away. I started to walk slowly toward it. An iron-hard hand fell on my shoulder-Toshi's hand-but I shook it off. The samurai shrugged.

  From the corner of my eye I saw the movement, down at the other end of the long room. A human-scale figure, not another hulking monstrosity. Instinctively I turned toward it, my gun coming up, but too late. I saw the muzzle plume of a large-bore weapon, the report seemed diminished, as if the walls were anechoic.