Shadowrun: Shadowplay Part 12

Modal would drop him in his tracks, she knew, just to be sure. It was the only logical thing to do, and his violet pills would guarantee that no confusing emotions got in the way.

But I'm not Modal, Sly thought.

"Hands behind your head!" she shouted, her decision made. "Move it!"

The kid laced his fingers behind his head. There was a plea in his eyes, but he kept silent.

"Turn around," she told him. He obeyed instantly. "Look back and you're dead. Move your hands and you're dead. Now move."

The kid started forward along the lane between the stacked containers. She saw that he was limping slightly, favoring his left leg. She rose from her combat crouch, her own left knee feeling like it was on fire. Great, two cripples. Club Gimp. She kept her pistol trained on him, her laser dot on the back of his neck. She started after him, keeping a good three meters back. Too far for him to be able to jump her before she could put a couple of rounds into him. When she reached the dropped AK, she crouched and scooped it up with her left hand, without letting her eyes or her laser sight waver from her prisoner. Quickly, before the kid could react, she shoved her Warhawk into her pocket, settled the AK against her hip. It had a laser sight, too. The a.s.sault rifle's targeting spot replaced her pistol's on the young Amerindian's back. With the weight of the AK in her hands, she felt confidence flooding back into her. Her knee hurt like drek, and the wound she'd taken in her left forearm from the sniper burned and dripped blood. But with the additional firepower she thought she had a better chance of getting out of this intact.

"Keep walking," she ordered.

They reached an intersection. "Stop!" The kid froze in his tracks, didn't look back, didn't shift his hands a millimeter. She hesitated for a moment, getting her bearings. Fortunately the crane made a good landmark. "Turn left," she instructed, "and move faster."

The kid picked up his pace down the new lane. From his limp, she new that the faster gait must be hurting him severely, but he didn't make a sound. She followed, keeping the three-meter separation constant.

Multiple firefights were still going on around her. She could hear the sporadic chattering of autofire from at least four directions, but nothing sounded near enough to worry about. Not for the moment. From the sound, she figured all the firing was coming from SMGs or maybe light carbines. Her armor jacket would stop SMG rounds at any reasonable range, but what about that monster weapon, whatever it was-the thing that had gutted the Amerindian razorguy? What the frag was it? And how portable was it? Could the gunner be stalking her right now? She felt the muscles of her back and belly tighten.

"Faster," she commanded. The kid obeyed without a word, speeding up to a shambling run. The AK's sighting dot bounced around as she matched his pace, but it never left his back.

Another intersection. If she remembered correctly, the rendezvous spot she'd arranged with Modal should be to the left. Will Modal be there? she wondered. Or is he already down? Am I alone? One way or another, worrying about it wasn't going to help. You made a plan and stuck to it, changing it only when you knew it was hosed.

"Turn left," she snapped.

This new lane was narrower, the shadows deeper. She was moving away from the carbon arc lamps that illuminated the wharf area. The containers that made up the lane walls weren't jammed together nose-to-tail like they were closer to the cranes. That meant there were gaps between them, gaps easily big enough for a gunman to hide in. She scanned from side to side, but it was useless. The shadows were impenetrable. The first clue she'd get that a shooter was there was when the first rounds. .h.i.t. "Faster," she shouted.

Where the frag was Modal?

A laser dazzled her left eye. She spun, trying to bring the AK around, knowing she'd never make it. She tensed for the hammering impact as the first bullet shattered her skull.

No impact. She continued her turn, about to clamp down on the a.s.sault rifle's trigger.

"It's Modal." The elf's voice sounded from the gap to her left. The laser painting her face died.

She released the trigger, lowered the AK's barrel to point at the ground.

Modal stepped out of the darkness. He had his Ares Predator in his left hand; a silenced Ingram SMG filled his right. "What's this?" He gestured at the Amerindian kid with the heavy pistol.

"Prisoner," she told him.

He scowled at that. She could tell what he thought of the idea.

"We take him with us," Sly said forcefully, her voice brooking no argument. "Maybe he can tell us what's gone down."

"I can tell you that," the elf grunted. "It's totally fugazi, that's what it is. There were four orks on the perimeter. I took one, borrowed his radio. Now they're fighting with somebody else. One group, maybe even two. They act corp." In his eyes were questions he obviously didn't want to voice just yet.

Sly knew she wanted answers to the same questions. "Maybe he can tell us," she suggested, inclining her head toward the kid. He was standing as still as if he'd been petrified, every muscle in his body rigid as they argued his fate behind his back.

Modal considered that for a moment, then nodded. "It's your call."

"Where's Mongoose and Snake?"

"I saw Snake go down. He's dead. Mongoose?" He shrugged.

"Then just get us the frag out of here," she told him. "I think the meet's adjourned."

Sly peeled back the protective cover of the slap patch, applied it to the bullet wound in her left forearm. The patch stung for an instant, the way it always did. Then the sting faded, taking with it the sharp, throbbing pain. Thank G.o.d for slap patches, she thought, pressing on it to make sure the adhesive held. Already she could taste the familiar flavor of olives as the DMSO-dimethyl sulfoxide-in the patch absorbed into her bloodstream, bringing with it the painkillers, energizers, and antibacterial agents that would start the healing process. She hated the taste in her mouth-always had-but she'd certainly gotten used to it over the years.

They were in the shadows of the Alaskan Way viaduct, about level with University Street. The Renraku Arcology separated them from Pier 42 and the fragged-up meet. Sly knew that it shouldn't make her feel any safer, because Renraku was after her too, but it did.

She glanced at her watch. It was oh-four-twenty-only twenty minutes after the meet was supposed to have started. Busy morning, she told herself with a wry grin.

Modal was crouching in the shadows next to her. The kid-now wearing a set of plastic restraints, courtesy of the elf-huddled against a concrete pillar a couple of meters away. Modal was examining the Fichetti Security 500 he'd taken from the kid's pocket.

"Good piece for a gutterpunk," the elf remarked to Sly. slipping the gun into his own pocket.

She knew that Modal was actually saying the boy wasn't as innocent as he looked, but decided to ignore him. For the first time since they got to the viaduct, she spoke to the kid, not about him. "What's your name?"

"Dennis Falk," the kid answered. "Falcon."

She looked at his leather jacket. No gang colors, but something about him told her he had to be a ganger. "Who do you run with?"

"First Nation," he mumbled.

That made sense. The First Nation was a low-level Amerind gang that claimed the dock area near the Kingdome. Was that how he'd come to be at Pier 42? Out on gang biz and he stumbled into the meet from h.e.l.l? "What were you doing at the pier tonight?" she asked. "And where did you get this?" She patted the a.s.sault rifle that rested across her knees.

He looked up into her face, his dark eyes steady. The terror was gone, replaced now by intelligence. He was trying to figure out just what, and how much, to tell her.

"Don't lie to me," she said quietly. "Remember, you don't know how much I know. And if you do lie, I might decide that Modal here is right about what to do with prisoners." Playing along with the game, Modal bared his teeth at the kid in a feral smile.

Good cop, bad cop. It always worked. She saw the potential resistance vanish from Falcon's eyes. "What were you doing there?" she repeated.

"I came with them," he muttered. "The Amerindian runners."

Modal shot her a sharp look. So he is an enemy after all, Sly thought. She saw Modal slip his finger onto the trigger of the kid's own Fichetti.

The kid was still talking. "I found out it was a setup. It was never a meet, it was always an ambush. But I couldn't do anything about it, they'd have geeked me."

"Hold the phone," Sly said, more to Modal than the kid. Looking a little disappointed, the elf lowered the Fichetti. "Get your story straight here. What-exactly- is your connection with the Amerinds who set me up?"

Falcon launched into a weird, scattered story about meeting a wounded Amerindian shadowrunner, helping him get to a rendezvous with his chummers after a hosed run. When the runner croaked, the kid had thrown in his lot with the others to make sure that the dead runner's last wishes were carried out. Or something.

Modal caught her eye, shook his head. The story didn't sound credible. People didn't get involved in major shadowruns just because some stranger flatlined in their arms.

No, that wasn't necessarily true. Kids might. Kids whose only ideas about shadowrunning came from the trid or from simsense. She looked into Falcon's eyes again. She thought he was telling the truth.

The kid still hadn't finished. "The meet was an ambush from the start," he repeated. "Then the drek hit the fan, and the runner 'bodyguarding' me thought I'd sold them out. He was going to geek me. So I shot him and took his AK. Then I just wanted to bug out. I was heading for the fence when I met you."

That hung together too, Sly thought. When she'd first seen the kid, he didn't seem comfortable or familiar with the a.s.sault rifle, as though he'd just picked it up a few seconds before.

"So just what happened when the meet crashed?" she asked.

Falcon shrugged."First thing I knew, something blew the drek out of Benbo." (That had to be the heavily armored samurai guarding the leader.) "Slick thought it was something you'd set up, but I saw your face when Benbo keeled. You were as surprised as anyone." He hesitated, then asked,"What the frag was that? Magic?"

"I think I got it figured," Modal answered."It took me a while. Sly, you ever hear of a Barret?"

She thought for a moment, shook her head.

"It's old," the elf continued,"maybe nineteen-eighties or nineties. But it's the ultimate sniper rifle.

"It's a big thing. Bolt action, single-shot. But it's chambered for fifty-caliber rounds. b.l.o.o.d.y fifty-cal machine gun rounds, mate. It'll take any standard MG ammunition-military ball, tracer, explosive, SLAP, APDS, white phosphorous-and it's accurate at a klick and a half. A good sniper can squeeze off three shots before the first hits."

She remembered seeing the gaping hole blasted right through the Amerindian samurai. She shuddered."Fifty-cal explosive rounds ..."

"I don't think those were explosives," Modal corrected."More like APDS tipped with depleted uranium. The ultimate anti-armor round. The slug hits anything solid-like armor-and the kinetic energy pushes the uranium over the activation threshold. It catches fire, and it burns at more than two thousand degrees Celsius." He grinned nastily."Enough to b.l.o.o.d.y well ruin the day of any street sammy, if you ask me."

In her imagination, Sly could still see the fireball burning in the Amerindian's chest before it burst out of his back. "That's serious drek," she murmured. With an effort she turned her attention back to Falcon. "So who was it took out your chummers?"

"They're not my chummers," he corrected her quietly. Then he shook his head. "I don't know."

"Corp teams," Modal put in. "Like I said."

"Let's get back to the Amerindians," Sly suggested. "I don't suppose they told you why they were after me."

"Sure," Falcon said, nodding his head vigorously. "Nightwalker told me. Lost tech, from the crash."

Sly and Modal exchanged glances. She hesitated, afraid to ask the next question-the key question. "Did he say what lost tech?" she inquired slowly.

"Sure," the kid repeated. "Fiber optics."

The kid continued to explain for several minutes. When he was finished. Sly found herself just staring at him. Shocked. Tox, she thought. No wonder the corps are going to war. The ability to tap into a compet.i.tor's supposedly secure communications. More than that, to change the flow of data. She knew how prevalent was fiber-optic communication. Everything used it. The LTG system, the Matrix. Dedicated corporate and government datalines, too, because light lines were supposed to be immune to tapping. Even military channels, for frag's sake, because fiber optics would be unaffected by the electromagnetic pulse if anyone set off a nuke in the upper atmosphere.

How many trillions of nuyen had been invested in this "ultra-secure" technology? There was no way that the megacorps, the governments, could switch everything to another medium of communication, not immediately. And during the transition phase, whoever had the technology Falcon described could quite literally control every facet of a compet.i.tor's communications. To gain that kind of advantage-or to avoid that kind of disadvantage-the corps would do anything. Even go to war.

She looked over at Modal. He understood the enormity of it, too. She could see it in his eyes. "Jesus," he breathed. "Sharon Louise ..."

"I know." She stared at Falcon for a few more moments. The kid met her gaze steadily.

"I want to work with you," he said at last. He was obviously trying to keep the fear and tension out of his voice, but wasn't doing a very good job.

Modal snorted. Sly ignored the elf. "Why?" she asked.

"Nightwalker wanted to do the right thing with the information when he got it," the kid explained. "He wanted to destroy it so n.o.body could use it. He wanted to rat the corp that was doing it to the Corporate Court in Zurich-Orbital.

"I think Knife-Edge had other ideas," Falcon went on. "I think he wanted to keep it for himself. Use it himself, maybe, or sell it to the highest bidder." He shook his head. "Nightwalker didn't want that.

"You've got the information," he said quietly. "What are you planning to do with it?"

And that was the big question, wasn't it? Sly thought. Destroying the encrypted file and all the information it contained-that was obviously the best choice on the global scale. But on the personal level it was no answer at all. She'd know she'd destroyed the file, but how would the corps know? I could tell them, and of course they'd believe me, yeah, right. No, with a prize this important, even the slightest chance-no matter how remote-that she hadn't destroyed the file, that she'd kept a copy, and the corps would stay on her trail. Eventually they'd grab her and torture her to death to confirm to their own satisfaction she was telling the truth. And even if they did believe she'd destroyed it, they'd still keep after her for much the same reason. When suitably "motivated," maybe she could remember some details from the file that might let them steal a march on their compet.i.tors.

No, destroying the file wasn't the obvious solution it seemed.

"What are you going to do?" Falcon asked again.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I haven't found the answer yet."

"I want to help you find it."

Modal snorted again. Again Sly ignored him. "Why? It's not your fight."

Watching the kid's face, she could see the real answer that was ringing in his head. Because his friend Nightwalker would have wanted it this way. Fuzzy-headed, sentimental, over-emotional drek!

At least the kid didn't say it out loud. He shrugged. "Because it's important," he said slowly. "And because you'll need all the help you can get."

A laser painted the side of Falcon's face. Modal had the Fichetti raised, ready to blow the kid's head off.

"No, Modal," she snapped, forcing the whip-crack of command into her voice.

He didn't lower the gun, but neither did he pull the trigger. "He's a liability, Sly," the elf said emotionlessly.

"No. I'm an a.s.set." The kid jumped on the last word like it had some real significance to him.

And Sly had to agree with him. "Leave him," she said quietly to Modal. "Until I say otherwise, he's with us."

"You're making a mistake."

"It's mine to make."

"Not if it gets me scragged, too," Modal said. But he lowered the pistol, slipped it into his pocket.

That was one advantage of the pills, Sly had to admit. No bulldrek male ego, no worry about saving face. "I want to get out of here," she said."We need wheels. Modal, can you boost us a car?"

Driving the stolen Westwind back to the Sheraton, Modal groused about leaving his bike behind, but Sly knew he was just blowing off steam. He understood as well as she did that going back to pick up the bikes would be too much of a risk. She'd wondered idly whether Mongoose had ever made it out of the killing zone. She'd have to call Argent when she got a chance to update him on what went down. And to tell him that at least one of his boys wasn't coming home.

The kid who called himself Falcon had ridden in the back with her. Grudgingly, Modal had followed Sly's instructions and cut off the restraints, but only after subjecting the Amerindian to something only one step away from a strip search.

Now the car was abandoned in the underground parkade of the Washington Athletic Club, across the street from the Sheraton, with the AK-97 in the trunk. Modal had b.i.t.c.hed about that, too, but hadn't had an answer when Sly asked him how he expected to smuggle the a.s.sault rifle into the hotel. He knew as well as she did that the Sheraton's weapons detectors would pick up their handguns, Modal's Ingram. As in most better-cla.s.s hotels, the security personnel would simply have recorded that the guests in rooms 1203 and 1205 were carrying "personal defense devices." But the matter wouldn't be so routine if the electronics suite were to pick up the AK concealed under somebody's coat.

The clock on the bedside table of room 1205 read oh-four-fifty-one. Only two hours since they'd left the hotel for the meet. It felt more like days.

The kid, Falcon, flopped down in an armchair. In the brighter light, he looked younger than she'd originally thought, no older than fifteen. And he looked tired, like he hadn't slept in days. His face was pinched, his olive complexion pale.