Shadowrun 01 - Never Deal With A Dragon (7 page)

"This is a tap shaft to the heat-exchanger pipes that run under the arcology. We should be able to move along it and into the arcology through an uncompleted maintenance station."

"You'd better be right, chummer. Dat don't look like a comfy squirm."

Sam hoped he was right, too. His plan to enter this way was based on a three-week-old construction schedule. That document had called for the station to be completed and secured by now. He was counting on the fact that just about everything at the arcology project was behind schedule. If the workers had been uncharacteristically efficient, they would be denied access.

The crawl proved every bit as "squirmy" as the Ork had feared. Twice the bulky metahuman got wedged trying to cross junctions without divesting himself of his equipment first.

Two sweaty hours later, they had worked their way through the steamy tunnel to the station. Faint worklights gleamed from a barrier-free opening.

Sam wiped his brow with a grimy hand. At least now he didn't have to worry about what the runners would do to him if the way had been blocked. Per plan, they located the station's terminal. Without jacking in, Sam turned it on and entered the code that would tell Dodger they had gotten inside the arcology's boundaries.

Almost instantly, the Elf responded through the terminal's speaker.

"You are late."

Sally's headshake forestalled any assorted retorts. "Are we all set for the next phase?"

"Assuredly, my lady. The bravoes manning the check points along your route have been instructed to expect a repair party. There are temporary access cards waiting for you at the main desk on alpha level, but you will need your special talents to pick them up. Unfortunately, I don't have the necessary codes to activate them and haven't had time to make counterfeits. It really is quite a remarkable system they have here. Very sophisticated."

"Save the admiration for later, Elf," Ghost snapped. "What are we going to do about those codes?"

"No need to get testy, Sir Razorguy. I think there may be a solution. If the noble Sir Corp will enter his own code, I can copy it onto all the cards. I believe I can hide the multiple entries in the guise of a system hiccup."

The runners looked expectantly at Sam. His mouth was dry. If Renraku had deactivated his access code when he disappeared, the plan was destined for failure. At worse, it would set off alarms. Either way, he would be compromising his confidentiality agreement with the corporation. As if he hadn't already done that by leading these people here.

"Dodger?"

"Aye, Sir Corp."

"If I put in my code, can you read it, or are you blind-copying it?"

"Have you so little faith? Am I not The Dodger, wizard of the Matrix? Once it is data, it is mine to do with as I please."

No, Sam thought, I am demonstrating a remarkable amount of faith. Your feathers only seem to get ruffled when you're bluffing about how good you are. "You'll not keep a copy to use on another run?"

"Sir Corp, you wound me. Of course not. Expediency is the goad that forced me to this pass. A decker of my skill opens what he will, at will."

"Glad to hear it, Dodger," Sam answered. That probably means you
can't
do it. "I'll put it in."

While Sam entered his code into the datastation, Kham pulled Sally aside. They returned with four pairs of Renraku work coveralls and matching hardhats from the locker room. As the runners started to put them on, Sam just stood there, holding the set Sally had handed him.

"This isn't going to work, you know," he told them. "Sally and I might pass, but you two are obviously not Renraku."

"S'matter, Raku not an equal opportunity employer?" the Ork rumbled.

"Not if they can avoid it."

"Just put the stuff on, paleface. Sally'll take care of it."

With little other choice, Sam complied. "What do you mean, Sally will take care of it?" he asked, sealing the white suit over the black one they had given him.

"An illusion spell," she said. The guards will see what they expect to see."

"If you can do that, why bother with the coveralls?"

"It's easier this way. The less I have to twist to make them see what I want them to see, the easier it is to make them see it."

"If you could do this, why didn't we just walk in the front door?"

"Trid," she said. "Now be quiet for a minute and let me concentrate."

She closed her eyes and put her left hand on the hilt of her magesword where it poked through the slit pocket. Her right hand contorted through a series of gestures as she moved it slowly back and forth in front of her. Sam saw, or thought he saw, a vague glow shimmer briefly into existence, trailing the path of her mystic passes.

It was too strange. He turned away in time to catch an expression of nervousness on Ghost's face. Was something going wrong? He turned to the Ork and found Kham staring in fascination at Sally. His ugly face showed a mixture of awe and lust. The Ork's elbow gouged Sam in the chest.

"I love it when she does that," he whispered.

Sally's eyes snapped open and the spell was done. She directed them to gather tool boxes to hide their weapons. That accomplished, they boarded a shuttle cart and rode to the elevators.

The guard at alpha level received them incuriously. Handing over the passcards, he barely looked at the little group. Sam thought it just as well because Kham stuck his thumb up one nostril and waggled his fingers at the guard as he stuck out his paw to receive the card supposed to be his. Unbelievably, the guard failed to react.

As soon as they were safely inside another elevator car for the ride to higher levels, Sam leaned over and whispered in Sally's ear.

"Kham's antics were hardly the expected behavior of a workman. Why didn't the guard react?"

She chuckled softly. "I'm used to Kham. I just work extra hard on his part of the spell."

When the car sighed to a halt, they exited onto a promenade. It was mostly empty. The few late-night strollers ignored them, just as they would a legitimate work crew. The same way, Sam realized, that he had always ignored work crews. He wondered if Sally's spell was even necessary here. They soon came to another guard station, and Sam was glad of the spell's effectiveness as Kham stuck out a deep purple tongue in the direction of the woman behind the counter. She only wished them good luck in an uninterested way before returning her attention back to the trid set squawking softly from below eye level.

Three more elevators and two guard stations later, they reached the Computer Systems Research office. They passed the guard there with no more trouble than before. Once inside, a quick check with the Elf got an all-quiet signal.

"It's been too smooth," Ghost declared. He pulled his Ingrams out of the toolbox, slipping one into his belt and keeping the other ready in his hand. Kham and Sally grabbed their own guns. They seemed to trust the samurai's intuition more readily than the Elf's report on the security conditions.

"Safety first, paleface," the Amerindian said when Sam made no move to reclaim the weapon they had given him. "You won't have time to come back for it if we get hosed."

Reluctantly, Sam picked up the slivergun.

"Let's be quick," Sally said, passing out the containers of counteragent that Castillano's biotech had supplied. "Spread it around. We don't know how much and exactly where the stuff's been used. I'll clean whatever's left of Seretech's dirty toys out of the closet."

They split up.

Sam was starting to spray his third room, a large work area for the system developers, when Sally joined them.

"Got them all," she said before starting to spray the far side of the room with counteragent.

A minute later, a red-clad guard appeared. The man might have been making an unscheduled patrol, or he might have been on his way to the head. He didn't appear to be in a hurry, and that encouraged Sam. After so many successes, he was almost comfortable with the completeness of Sally's spell. He felt almost safe. With Sally in the room with him, little could go wrong. Her spell would keep them from discovery.

As the guard passed him, Sam raised the hand holding the gun and waved. The man waved back and continued on his way. The guard was halfway through the door when he stopped and turned around, his eyes going wide.

"Watch yourself, lady," the guard shouted at Sally as he reached for his weapon. "Armed infiltrator!"

"N . . . No," Sam stuttered, raising the slivergun.

The guard ignored him, clearing his holster and dropping into firing stance.

Sam's finger tightened on the trigger of the slivergun. The weapon bucked as it unleashed a steady stream of plastic flechettes. Closely grouped needles traveling at slightly subsonic speed stitched a crimson line across the guard's chest and right shoulder. He tumbled backward, bright blood spraying from his mouth, landing sprawled and still. His gun struck the floor, its metal ringing with a clear note that seemed obscenely pure in the sudden gory disarray.

Sam's own gun dropped to the floor with a harsh clatter.

The sound of Sam's shot brought Ghost and Kham running.

"Aw, drek! What happened?" the Ork barked.

"Guard must have caught a flaw in the spell," Sally answered.

Sam was dazed, seeing the last few moments over and over again. He watched the guard turn, a puzzled expression on his face. No fear. No concern. Just puzzlement. Then the brown eyes had widened, focused on the slivergun.

"He seemed to see the gun."

Sally spat a string of syllables that sounded like a curse and stamped her foot.

"He should have seen it as a tool. The intent wasn't focused right. Since the slivergun wasn't something you were used to, the intent couldn't cover it as well."

"It's done now, Sally," Ghost said in a placatory tone as he moved to check the body.

"I shot him," Sam said. He felt numb.

"Don't worry, chummer," Kham said. "De corp will never know who did it."

"But he's dead," Sam protested.

"Nope," Ghost contradicted. "But he will be—without attention. If he gets that while we're here,
we'll
be dead."

"Let's finish and go." Sally's voice was brittle.

They went back to work, leaving Sam to stare at his victim.

The fallen guard looked young, not much older than Sam. A life cut short because a magic spell hadn't done what it was supposed to do and because a foolish, scared Sam had panicked. It didn't seem right.

This guard wasn't some thrill-seeker from the streets. He wasn't even one of the faceless Red Samurai, hardened to the harsh realities of life. This was just a kid, doing his job. He had even tried to protect Sally, assuming she belonged to the company and that only Sam was the intruder. What a foolish irony.

Why had Sam taken a gun from the runners? It had seemed unlikely he'd need it. Had he needed it? Whether or not, he had used it. The result lay at his feet.

How could good intentions have led him to this?

Some infinite time later, Sam became aware that Ghost was talking to him. He blinked, realizing that he was no longer in the Computer Systems Research Center. Somehow the runners had gotten him to the car pool on sub-level F. It was supposed to be their last stop inside the arcology. The Elf was to have arranged an assignment for a vehicle to take them away.

"Come on, paleface. Listen to me," Ghost was saying. "The Elf has put in an emergency call for the guard. They'll take care of him. Are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied?" Sam's voice seemed distant, as if someone else were speaking. "I need to know if he'll be all right."

"Not likely."

"You go on. I've got to go back and find out. You've done what you needed to do for your reps. You don't need me anymore. Go on. Leave me here."

"We ain't leaving you behind to raise de troops," Kham growled.

"I won't," Sam protested.

"You're right," the Ork said, aiming his HK227 directly at Sam's belly. "Cause you're sticking with us."

Sam looked to Sally and Ghost, but their eyes were cold. Ghost plucked away the slivergun that had somehow found its way back into Sam's holster. Sam hung his head and let himself be led along.

As the van they had liberated pulled onto Western Avenue, Sam heard the wailing of a siren in the sky above. He rocked his head back and caught a glimpse of a DocWagon sky ambulance banking around the arcology, bound for one of the landing pads. He wondered if it was in time to do any good.

Fragments of sensations and images touched him through the daze into which he had retreated. A dimly lit building and a grubby pile of white coveralls vanishing into a trash incinerator. Flashes of shadow and light. The Ork's stink. The howl of a siren. Wind lashing his face and the throb of a powerful engine beneath his seat.

Abruptly, he was aware that the wind and the hammering pulse of the engine had stopped. He was seated behind Kham, the Scorpion's roar muted now to an idle rumble. They were somewhere in the Barrens.

"Dis is where you get off, Verner."

Sam swung his leg over the hog to stand in the midst of the three mounted shadowrunners. He faced Sally.

"What about the others? Will you release them now?"

It was Ghost who answered. "They've been on their own for half an hour. Should be reaching the arcology about now if they weren't afraid to take the Third Avenue bus through Orktown."

"What about you, Verner?" Sally asked softly. "Going to follow them back to Renraku?"

"Of course," Sam responded automatically, "I work for the corporation."

Kham stifled a guffaw. Sally lashed him with a frown and turned her eyes on Sam. "That might be a foolish move."

"I don't think so. I am confident they'll understand."

"It's your funeral," the Ork bellowed, revving his hog and roaring away into the night.

"Good luck," Sally called as she gunned her Rapier and screamed in the same direction the Ork had taken.

"You are very loyal, paleface. I hope they deserve it." Ghost tossed Sam the slivergun. "You might need this to get home, but I suggest you find it a nice trash compactor before you meet any badges."