Shadowrun

by Dylan Birtolo

  Zipfile went to work. Once the drone had found what should be the handle they were looking for, she programmed an ARO to paint it in Frostburn’s field of vision, so that her AR glasses painted a line over where the handle should be. The success of the spell depended on its accuracy.

  She reached out. Normally this would just mean reaching out with mana, but Frostburn unconsciously reached out with her hand, too, as if it could stretch 120 meters to the garage. The spell she had learned was sort of like levitate, but with a downward pull instead of an upward lift.

  She couldn’t be sure if it worked. She couldn’t even be sure if she had actually cast it. If she had done it, the only effect was a small bit of movement and a click, which she couldn’t hear at this distance. There would be only one way to know.

  This time it was a straightforward levitate spell, but slow. She let the mana ooze forward, almost crawling toward the bottom of the garage. It slowly reduced gravity’s pull on the door, allowing it to creep up its rolling track.

  Except it didn’t. She had let out enough mana to make the whole thing go up—more than enough, by her estimation—and the door did not move.

  The first spell hadn’t worked.

  She panted. She’d accomplished practically nothing, and she felt an edge of weariness. She really, really wanted to blow something up now.

  She took a breath. Back to square one. Focus on the ARO. Picture where the handle would be. Imagine its reality. Feel its reality.

  Her hand was out again. Her fingers opened and closed, then clenched. Then moved down.

  Again, no sign of anything. So she let mana flow into the bottom of the garage door.

  Slowly, it raised.

  She did not cry out in triumph, but she allowed herself a little dance. Dancing while invisible was the easiest way to dance like no one was watching.

  She let it get most of the way up, then paused it. If she let it get all the way up, she’d have to contrive a way to get it back down. This way, she’d just be able to let it go when she was done with it—gently, of course.

  That meant she’d be sustaining two spells for the rest of the job. Not optimal.

  At least targeting would be easier. The car had been backed in so that the charging port was easily accessible, and she could easily see the familiar green glow of the port reflected on the cable. This shot would be a piece of cake.

  Except for the two spells she was already sustaining.

  The spear she was going to make had to be small but sharp. It couldn’t make much noise when it hit.

  And it had to hit a target less than a centimeter wide.

  But she could do this. She hadn’t been ice darts champion three years running at the Sewer View Tavern for nothing.

  She put her left hand on her hip, then pointed with her right in a quick flicking motion. A sharp, gleaming dart shot out of her index finger and traveled straight for the garage.

  The reflected light of the charging port went out. Perfect shot. Triple-20.

  Almost there. One more spell. A long one.

  Or maybe several consecutive spells. Depended on how you counted. Either way, it would be exhausting. And her legs were already wobbly.

  It was another ice spear, or series of spears. She made the ice loose and chunky, so it broke apart as it flew. By the time it arrived at the car, it hit the windshield with a splat—hopefully not too loud of a splat—and what was now slushy ice slid down toward the hood. Then another. And another. And another.

  She kept it up as long as she could. Probably too long. Her legs buckled as she threw another one, her vision swam, and before she knew what was going on, she was looking down and the ground was moving toward her.

  She dropped. Her head was past the edge of the roof, as were her shoulders. The rest of her, though, was held up. The roof was tilted, but not so much that she was in danger of falling.

  She lay there, the roofing rough through her clothes. She probably wasn’t invisible anymore. The garage door was probably down. She didn’t know if there were any lights on in the house. She couldn’t move her head to look. She also didn’t want to move any body parts to compose and send a message. So she just spoke.

  “Any sign Dennis is awake?”

  Zipfile heard her over the comm. “No. No neighbors, either. Wealthy people and their white noise machines are a great blessing in our line of work. And since you unlatched the garage from the inside, no automated systems thought you were breaking in.”

  “Next week, everyone on the block will have their alarms looking out for unauthorized ice.”

  “Yeah, but that’ll be next week.”

  Frostburn didn’t reply.

  “So, you coming back down?”

  Blood was flowing to Frostburn’s head, since it was lower than her feet. It wasn’t comfortable, but it also wasn’t enough to make her want to move.

  “In a minute,” she said. “I’m just gonna lie here. For a sec.”

  It was approaching two in the morning. It felt like she had done her part here. There was more to do before sunrise, though. Zipfile, below, was hacking away. She’d ask how it was going when she felt like talking.

  The answer, silent in her head, was she hoped it was going okay.

  Rude

  The whole world wants to get out of the way of a determined troll.

  That was a central fact of Rude’s life, and he was more than willing to lean into it. Gaze straight ahead. Raise the shoulders and lean forward a little. Then stomp. And watch how crowds of people part.

  It didn’t work everywhere, of course. Some of your more sophisticated audiences recognized the tactic for what it was, and all it did was made them more alert.

  All the more reason to use it while he could.

  He stomped through Glow City. Nothing in this place felt all that stable to begin with, and more than one person looked fearfully at the concrete walls as Rude passed by, ready to see cracks appearing and spreading. He watched them out of the corner of his eye, because he loved to see their panic.

  Glow City didn’t have any official protocol. People set up stalls and tried not to step on each other’s toes. Some of the few intact rooms were held, by common consent, by a few of the top sellers, people who had a knack for bringing valuables in each and every night. If you wanted electronics, from commlinks to trid players to even cyberdecks, you came here.

  The serious hardware—the stuff Rude was looking for—was harder to find. There was nothing official about this protocol; it was more like instinct. People knew certain classes of goods should be difficult to find. They should only be sold to the people willing to work to find them. These sellers never were in the more easily accessible areas, and they avoided setting up in the same place twice.

  The auxiliary building was a good place to start—it was out of the way and dark, so few people wandered into it by accident. Rude pulled open a flare as he walked in and held it over his head, announcing his presence. He wouldn’t have any trouble seeing in the dark, but the flare was to let him be seen.

  This wasn’t the right place today, though. The auxiliary building was mostly empty, and the few people there were selling pop-culture drek—vinyl albums and the like. Nothing Rude needed.

  Building 4 was another good option, as it had developed into a warren of warehouse shelves, but it, too, was a bust for the night (though there were some ammo dealers he would have liked to talk to if he could spare a minute). That left perhaps Rude’s least favorite option.

  The Sixth World had a particular affection for architecture that shouldn’t exist but did, due to a combination of magic and necessity being the mother of invention. The interior of the cooling tower of Glow City had a ramshackle staircase winding around the inside of it, giving access to a variety of pods and platforms constructed into the wall. There shouldn’t be a good way of holding some of these structures up, but most of them had some magical help in becoming what they were. The questions that were always on Rude’s mind, though, were one, d
id these spellcasters actually know anything about architecture, or were they just winging it; and two, did they ever plan on having trolls walk on their projects? The staircase and the places it led did not feel at all safe to him. But if that was where he was going to find what he needed, that’s where he needed to go.

  The first set of stairs were nice, solid stone that caused Rude no worries whatsoever, and the wooden stairs that followed them after the first stone platform were solidly built. Then you had to step over this weird pod that was only accessible through a trap door (that wasn’t troll-sized, so ghost help Rude if what he needed was in there), and from that point on the stairs got a little dicey. They were mostly wooden up past that platform, and some had clearly been built without the assistance of a spellcaster, or even a competent carpenter. Stairs that creaked when you stepped on them were one thing—stairs that noticeably sagged a few centimeters were another. And stairs that dangled by a single nail were an even larger warning that something here was wrong, and maybe someone troll-sized shouldn’t be taking this route.

  But someone troll-sized was.

  Rude almost danced up the stairs, each step carefully flowing to the next, sometimes with a hop or twist put in to help him hit the part of the steps that looked the safest. He stopped on platforms that looked promising, or sometimes on one that would give him a break and a chance to survey the next part of his climb. The first platform had a batch of home-brewed hurlg that he might have to check out later. The second platform made him feel like he was on the right track—they had a fine collection of street drugs on display, awaiting the pleasure of the user. None of the harder stuff (novacoke users would have to look elsewhere), but deep weed, psyche, and long haul were all available. That made Rude feel like he was getting closer to the right kind of criminals. He continued up past Awakened reagents and a grenade collection, which just increased the feeling he was getting closer.

  Then he arrived at another pod that was only accessible by trapdoor. He would have loved to pass by this one, but the vibe it was giving off made him stop. A couple bangers sat on top, perched casually, doing nothing to try to convince passers-by that they were dangerous. Which meant they weren’t to be taken lightly.

  Rude stopped dancing and assumed an unhurried walk for the few steps to the pod’s trapdoor. “Youse ain’t gonna make me go down there, are ya?”

  One of bangers, a male ork, shrugged. “You don’t gotta go nowhere you don’t wanna go.”

  “But ya got the stuff.”

  The ork shook his head. “Stop fishing, omae. You think you shouldn’t be here, just don’t be here. You want something, ask.”

  “Gotta blow somethin’ up,” Rude said.

  “Then get in the pod.”

  Rude pointed at the trapdoor. “In there? How?”

  The other banger, a female human, whipped the door open. A sharp wooden clap echoed in the cooling tower.

  “Drop your head in, tough guy.”

  Rude shook his head and grumbled, but he stepped forward, dropped to his knees, then stuck his head through the trapdoor.

  The pod was almost a cube, four by four by five. Two people sat inside, a female elf and a male human. The elf was carefully cleaning an assault rifle, while the human, who had cheekbones like polished marble, leaned back in his folding chair and looked pretty. Behind them were crates covered by canvas drop cloths.

  The elf did not glance up from her rifle as Rude’s head dropped in. “What?”

  “I wanna blow stuff up.”

  She snorted and still did not look up. “What are you, twelve?”

  “I need 100 kilos of 60-weight dynamite and ten blocks of Semtex.”

  That finally got the elf to look up. “Well, look who knows someone who knows something about explosives!”

  “Yeah, blood’s rushing t’my head here. Can we do this, or what?”

  “You’re not just walking out of here with a hundred kilos of dynamite, pal. Even if you could carry it.”

  “I’ll bring this whole pod to the ground if it means ending this conversation.”

  The elf shook her head. “You’re why people hate working retail. Smile for the camera.”

  Before Rude could react to that, the human had pulled out his commlink and snapped a picture of Rude’s head. Then he turned the screen toward the elf. “His face is upside-down.”

  The elf guffawed.

  “Oh, youse’re hilarious,” Rude said. “We doing business or not?”

  “Be patient,” the elf said. “I know you have a few guns in that part of your body we haven’t seen yet. Do you loan them out to just anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause they’re mine.”

  “Sure, but if I promise to give ’em right back, why not let me hold one for a minute?”

  “You? ’Cause I think ya might just pop me in the head.”

  “There you go. You get it. We have to make sure you’re not just going to take our stuff and blow up something we care about.”

  “Tell me whatcha care about, and I’ll let ya know if I’m goin’ after it.”

  “Yeah, no. Nice try. Now shhh. Let the databases work.”

  Actually, Rude wouldn’t mind letting the databases work if they showed him something about his past that would fill in the gaps, but he didn’t think the elf was going to share her findings. Unless she saw something that made her order the bangers on the roof to put a bullet in the back of his skull.

  They wouldn’t. Probably. One reason he came all the way out to Glow City was he didn’t have any ongoing beefs with the people who operated here.

  But in case things went wrong, he’d applied a little extra armor to the back of his skull.

  A few minutes went by. The elf cleaned her gun. The human glowered prettily. Then she looked up.

  “Well, look at that! The system says we can do business! How nice for us. Just one more question—how do you plan on transporting the items you’ve requested.”

  Rude twitched his head toward his back. “Backpack.”

  Both elf and human stared humorlessly.

  “Fine. Car trunk lined with flame-retardant material, suspension inspection performed just today by a vehicular expert. But whaddaya care if I blow myself up?”

  The elf let a hint of a smile show. “What do I care indeed? All right, get your head out of here. My associates up top will tell you what to do.”

  Relieved, Rude pulled his head out of the trap door.

  “Here’s what you do—” the ork banger started.

  Rude held up his hand. “Wait’ll I hear something ’sides my own pulse.” Just because you’re a tough street samurai doesn’t mean your circulatory system likes prolonged inversion.

  He had to endure an entire drive of Emu on the comm saying, “Don’t hit a pothole don’t hit a pothole don’t hit a pothole” before he arrived at the designated parking garage.

  The trunk of the Hyundai Shin-HyungT (The last “T” is for “troll”) was not only wrapped in flame retardant material, but also a fabric to prevent chem sniffers from detecting anything, which helped Rude get as far as he had. Now, though, he’d gotten as far as he could on his own. Being a troll with attitude gets you a lot of places, but one place it won’t get you is inside a building in the middle of the night while carrying a case of dynamite. He’d need help on this, which was bad enough—what made it worse was where the help would come from.

  An Americar pulled in shortly after he did, and a familiar form dressed in casual black stepped out.

  “Alright, Elfy-pants, ready ta show me how ta blend inta the shadows?”

  Yu shook his head. “We can’t count on the shadows always being large enough. I brought help.” He jerked a thumb at the car’s backseat, where Frostburn was sprawled across the back seats, sleeping.

  “Oh yeah, she’ll definitely save the day.”

  “She’s had a long night, but she’ll be okay. It’ll be better than making you crawl through the wh
ole building, don’t you think?”

  Rude couldn’t help but agree. “How are we gonna wake her?”

  Yu smiled his smug smile, the one that made his face extra-punchable. “I learned a trick.” He walked over to the car, opened the door, stuck his head in, and said, in a conversational tone, “Emilia’s in trouble.”

  Frostburn’s head jerked up, and she looked around for two seconds, startled, before figuring out what was going on.

  “Drek-for-brains,” she said. “You keep abusing that, it’s going to stop working.”

  “Worked this time,” Yu said. “That’s all I needed.”

  Frostburn stretched as much as she could in the backseat, then sat up and got out. “Let’s go find a place to disappear.”

  While they looked for a place where they could conveniently disappear from view, an additional reason for the mage to be along came up.

  “They’ve got a spirit,” Frostburn told them as they circled the building. “Just a watcher, but it’ll see the invisibility spell easily, and it’ll raise an alarm.”

  “Which means?”

  “Watchers are pretty dumb. They’re usually set into a routine, I’ll learn the routine, and we’ll go from there.”

  Learning the routine took only about ten minutes, because spirits covered a lot of ground quickly, so in that time period it covered the entire building five times.

  “Two minutes,” Frostburn said. “That’s what you have between spirit passes.”

  “So whadawe do?” Rude said. “Not like we can just duck inna broom closet or something while it goes back. If we’re in the building, it’ll see us, right?”

  “We just have to be watching the clock at all times, and we have to use the stairs—down. It’s going from bottom to top, right?”

  Frostburn nodded.

  “So every time the spirit’s coming near, we go downstairs, let it pass, then get back to work.”

  Rude didn’t like it, but he also didn’t have an alternative. “That’s what we’ll do.”