Shadowrun: Streets of Blood Part 4

They were into Cambridge when the herbal high began to hit them. Even Aqib's brown cybereyes, a real status symbol among them, seemed to shine a little brighter now.

"I've got cotton mouth," Imran complained as he ground his teeth. "We got anything? I'd even take green tea."

It was a problem Rani had antic.i.p.ated. She opened the seal on a guava drink, an expensive luxury which had set her back plenty because it boasted real fruit and not the usual array of artificial flavorings. Perhaps it did, too, she thought with surprise as she gulped down some of the warm but welcome fluid. The men were complaining for their turns, so she pa.s.sed the bottle over her shoulder to Sachin. Then she resumed her tight grip on what claimed to be a Bond and Carrington pistol in her lap. It was probably as genuine as a tridjock's smile, but the barrel was clean and smooth and the trigger mechanism had seemed fluent when she'd practiced with it. Now, though, it was armed with live ammunition and with that she had not practiced.

This sure better work out, she thought grimly. It seemed a lot of dosh just to throw a scare into somebody by taking a few potshots at him, then legging it back home in a hurry.

She was starting to have a very bad feeling about all this.

Geraint had called Serrin from the rail station, arranging to meet at a pub on the north side of town. Serrin arrived just at half past seven but didn't immediately spot Geraint. The n.o.bleman looked very different dressed in nondescript baggy clothing instead of a designer suit, but he wasn't conspicuous, especially the way he sat quaffing a pint of ale like any local.

"How do you know about a place like this?" the mage asked.

Geraint iooked mildly offended. "I spent three years as a student in Cambridge, old friend, and I did manage to mis-spend some of my youth in moderately disreputable places. It's a pity the old laserball machine's gone, though. I fancied dumping a few quid into it for old times' sake."

Geraint laughed softly and his expression changed to one Serrin could not quite identify. "I had my one and only experience as a boy toy here," the n.o.bleman said. "I was twenty, she was thirty-one, and I used to take her home from the fish and chip shop over the road. That's gone, too, of course. Take a guess-it's a burger joint now. I suppose that's because the few fish left in the North Sea are so polluted with chemicals and sewage sludge that the price of decent cod is something wicked these days."

Serrin looked quizzically at Geraint. "I can't imagine you with someone from a fish and chip shop."

"She used to call in here after work on the weekends. There was a serial rapist around at the time and most of us were on escort duty. One time she decided to stay in my rooms, which were just down the road. She was engaged to some fellow in the air force, but really just for the sake of the kids from her first marriage. Security for her declining years, I suppose. He was posted out all over the place, but one day he flew in and they got married there and then. I sometimes wonder what became of her. You know how it goes."

Geraint sat remembering, hands clasped together under his chin. Serrin allowed him a few moments, then turned the talk back to more pressing matters. "What did you get?" He'd seen the battered cloth carryall, which did the job of keeping its contents shapeless most effectively.

"Let's go for a ride. I don't imagine the walls have ears, but best not to take any chances."

They drained their gla.s.ses and signaled to pay the ork barmaid, who didn't look at Serrin any too kindly. The mage guessed that elves of more exalted lineage than his might be none too popular, with their airs and graces, in a pub like this. In her eyes he would probably be tarred with the same brush. Revealing himself as an American could easily make matters worse, so he only nodded when Geraint said, "Thank you." Reaching the door, Serrin and Geraint carefully gave way to a bunch of local fenland orks shouldering their way into the bar.

They skirted away from the side road well before coming to the old farms area, careful to give it a wide berth. The land here was too polluted from the outflow of the Stinkfens to be officially considered habitable, but squatters would surely be about. Serrin detoured south and east before circling back to the highway; the sound of a bike engine might well draw some of the squatters out for a look. A road bike was worth a lot of barter to people that poor. It wasn't likely they had much in the way of weapons, perhaps only knives and stones, but an old shotgun was also a possibility. Serrin switched the headlight off, and let the bike coast over the sodden, barren fields. He got as close to the edge of the fens as he dared, then began to loop back westward. After crossing the road, he parked the bike beside a dead tree stump, laying it flat to the ground.

"We'll head for that rise," the mage said, pointing to a gentle curve in the distance.

"Get the armor vest on. You got your Ingram? I managed to pick up some armor-piercing for it." Geraint handed Serrin the clip and a small vial.

"Here's something useful from the chemistry set. Crush the vial if you have to start firing. Inhale the stuff. But don't do it if you've got a troll less than ten feet away because it'll blow your brain out your ears and you won't be able to see a thing for a few seconds. Do it while he's two hundred yards away. With this stuff your hands won't tremble if you do have to start shooting. And if you have to run, it'll get you moving faster than a cheetah with a red chili enema. Even with that leg of yours. And when I tell you to run, you d.a.m.n well better. Don't shoot unless we're getting out. Use whatever magic you've got to defend us just before I start shooting. I'll tell you when.

"Got all that?"

Serrin was impressed by the authority in Geraint's voice. This was a very different man from the boy who'd panicked on the streets of San Francisco. The elf slipped the vial into his pocket, deciding this wasn't the moment to challenge Geraint on his use of drugs.

"Good." The Welshman wasn't waiting for a reply. "Next item. Take this." He handed Serrin a lacquered canister topped with a ring-pull. "Use this when we move out. Three seconds after you pull the ring, you'll get smoke cover, which will scrag IR into the bargain. Just dump the thing on the ground behind us." Geraint was adding the folding stock to a customized sniper rifle as he spoke. Serrin thought it looked like the MA 2100, but the thing was glinting with add-ons. He'd been on runs with a lot more firepower than this, but this Welshman was beginning to look like the real thing.

Geraint glanced up at him in the moonlight as he completed his work. "You do realize this is b.l.o.o.d.y madness, don't you? Two people out here against scores of them in there. I must be insane doing this. You'll have to cover us d.a.m.n well with your magic. Hope you've got something that'll keep the corp mages from spotting us too quickly or else we're sitting ducks. If it's a two-minute walk to that hill, it's fifteen seconds running with the drug, twenty if we don't move fast enough. That's too long if we're out in the open. What's your plan?"

Serrin was busy himself, locking together a series of bizarre stone plaques around a leather strap, jiggling them into place, and finally tightening it around his shoulder and hip. "I thought I'd better put a priority on protection and disguise. I've got to make it as hard for them to see us as possible, and that means everything-magical detection, IR scans, ultrasonics-though I don't think chip-hounds will be a problem. We should be well away before they can get them out of the compound. This little bunch," he added, gripping the belt around his body, "adds some power along the line. I won't bore you with the details. Key thing is a chaotic shift. How much do you know about spellcraft?"

"I thought a chaotic world spell messed up the sensing of the magician who got hit by it."

"Same principle, different way of going about it. I spent a year researching a version that centers the effect on the casting magician. Screws up most forms of detection in a constantly shifting area centered on me instead of a target. I don't think they're going to have time to run a computing of average transients to figure out the algorithm for the shifting. Besides, it's keyed to magnetic field fluctuations. I always knew that funny little deposit of magnetically sensitive ferric bone above my sinuses was good for something. They won't work that one out. Nice big area, too. The barriers I'm erecting are a bit more limited in scale, but we shouldn't have to worry about anything less than a cascade of automatics or a firework display of multiple grenade launchers."

Geraint slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't know much about these things, but it sounds good to me."

"When you're alone out there, it's a good idea to design something that doesn't force you to depend on anyone else. But it works just as well when you're working with another person, too. Only problem is, the drain is pretty heavy. I'll be a bit groggy for a little while. Make sure you shoot straight."

They set off for the hill, their boots sloshing in the fouled waters of the field until they reached the incline. They crawled to the top on their bellies, and looked down over the Fuchi site three hundred yards to the west. The headlights of the first convoy began to crawl along the road toward the front gates after a frozen half-hour.

Geraint slipped off the woolen gloves, breathing on his hands to keep them warm. He edged the rifle forward and squinted with his left eye as he lined up the IR sight, ignoring the cars and aiming just inside the gate. As the cars got closer, he drew back and looked away from the glare of their lights.

Serrin was scanning the scene with binox, shifting to IR and low-light. Casting his spell as silently as he could, he made the briefest of checks as the cars spilled their human contents out onto the tarmac inside the gates.

"Geraint, I don't think it's him." Despite the elf's low whisper, his voice was urgent, stressed. "Hold your fire."

"Checked the plates?"

"Yes, it's the right limo, but that's not him. It's a d.a.m.n good double, but not good enough. Something feels weird here. I'm sensing that they're not paying much attention to this side of the place. They're looking south."

Geraint was still peering down the sight, but with the slightest of movements he could see that the security guards were all looking that way. "Of course they are. It's where the gates open."

"No, it's more than that. I don't dare probe, it'll give us away. But I-wait a minute. North, look!" he hissed.

Geraint lifted his eyes away from the rifle sight and gazed out toward the far gate. Two shadowy vehicles were headed that way, gliding silently across the fields. They were going straight for the smaller northern gate, on the far side of the complex from the security compound. "We were right. The dummy's coming in from the south. Here's the real thing." He shifted position, drawing the gun around gently to face the far gate, settling to his aim again. "Two cars, say ten men. I can down four of them before they know what hit them. Let's pray one of them is who we're looking for."

Geraint never made that shot.

Whatever the noise was, it made them both suddenly duck their heads, utterly bewildered. Then they heard the drone of a helicopter, coming in low from the west. It had to be one of the IWS-licensed super-stealths; the thing was almost over the far wall before they heard it. Serrin began his spellcasting as Geraint desperately tried to revise his plan of action, waiting for the chopper to land, certain that this must be their man. The sudden flare took him completely by surprise, ruining his aim.

Then the gunfire began.

Aqib's improvised launcher worked pretty well the first time. The flareshot landed whack in the middle of the compound, illuminating a large group of black-visored orks and trolls waving down the chopper. The gates were already opening when Sachin's Ceska started chattering. He and Wasim were almost whooping as their guns spat, and Imran had his beloved Predator readied for some carefully aimed fire.

Rani was the first to realize something was very, very wrong. "Look out! They know!"

The security men were already storming out of the gates, and a couple of real grenade launchers were coughing missiles at them from the security tower. d.a.m.n Chenka's powders, Rani screamed to herself. The men's blood is too hot, they don't see.

It was swift and b.l.o.o.d.y. Aqib's launcher disintegrated as he let fly a second time, the young Sind samurai thrown backward, arms bathed in flame. To her left, another blast exploded Wasim's body into b.l.o.o.d.y shreds of gore. The others had no time to take in the horror of it as a great pillar of flame roared to life behind them, then began to streak across the brilliantly lit terrain at staggering speed.

In the distance, Serrin gasped, appalled. "Christ, a fragging fire elemental. Those guys are dead meat."

Geraint wasn't stopping. He'd already torn the top off his vial and was screaming at Serrin to do the same. As he turned, he dropped the rifle and dragged a Bond and Carrington pistol from his padded jacket, loping away across the mud and muck toward the stashed bike.

Serrin wasn't hanging around to argue. Whatever it was they'd strayed into, there wasn't a hope in h.e.l.l of finding Kuranita in this madness. He could only hope his spell would cover their exit, given that security was looking elsewhere.

His leg betrayed him. A deep rumble from the area of the compound set the ground to shaking underfoot, and the elf stumbled and fell. Mouth choked with mud and the sour taste of saline and acid, Serrin dragged himself to his feet, his pulse racing crazily. To his right, two figures were racing desperately across the road with the retina-searing elemental close behind. A detachment of security also was hot in pursuit, SMGs chattering.

Serrin didn't know why he did it; it was crazy and stupid. Dropping his sustained protections was absurd under the circ.u.mstances, but something told him that no one was after him, no one had seen him. He began to chant slowly. He got lucky. The elemental wasn't a tough one, its force fairly weak, and it took the elf mage no more than fifteen seconds to banish the spirit. The spell sapped the creature's power, and its flames flickered and died. All those other people had to do now was evade a posse of heavily armored and cyberware-toting hulks with automatic weapons.

Well, at least I've bought them a chance, Serrin thought grimly as he turned and ran. In his haste he didn't hear the car engine revving in the distance. He never knew that she'd seen his face in a chance flash of light. He was unaware of what she would remember all her life.

Now some of the troopers were searching around, well-trained enough to hunt the source of something that could dissipate an elemental. Serrin's leg throbbed viciously as he lurched toward where he thought they'd left the bike. The leg felt as if he'd been hamstrung with a meathook. Distantly he heard Geraint's desperate cry to him, but the drain was beginning to take its toll and he could do no more than half-run, half-limp onto a riverbank that shouldn't have been there. He just managed to crawl over it, hoping to find some cover where he could hide. A foul liquid bubbled up from his lungs, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He stumbled again and landed up to his neck in water and reeds.

The last thing Serrin saw before pa.s.sing out was the river serpent. The thing was probably ten yards long. Rearing over him, the beast opened its powerfully muscular jaws to reveal its dagger-sharp teeth set in a huge, gaping maw as black as the entrance to h.e.l.l.

10.

Geraint retained enough self-control not to exceed the speed limit as he headed through Bar Hill's dreary low-rise houses on the way back to Cambridge. His thoughts, however, raced furiously.

Serrin had vanished into the night. Geraint, meanwhile, had hordes of heavily armed Fuchi security guards rushing toward him, forcing him to take off on the elf's bike, praying no copters were after him, too. It was bad enough that Serrin had disappeared. Now he also had the unexpected arrival of another group of raiders at the lab to disturb and confuse him.

Geraint turned everything over and over in his mind, trying to recall what he and Serrin had said and where they'd said it, wondering if their conversations had been bugged. No matter how many times he mentally replayed scenes, however, he couldn't make any sense of it.

Entering the main sprawl zone north of Cambridge, Geraint realized that he couldn't return to the hotel. He could hardly Stroll through the front lobby with his clothes torn to ribbons and caked with mud. Even his famous sang froid wouldn't let him get away with blithely leaving a muddy trail of wet clods on the carpet behind him. Hotel security was bound to make a discreet notification to the police, some of whom must certainly be special friends of Fuchi. Things could get supremely nasty. For the same reason, dumping the bike in the selfpark garage and heading straight for the elevator was a no-go. The attendant might see him, and there would be videoscans even there.

Rakk it all, he'd have to go back to London, which meant no motorway travel, not on a motorbike. Forty miles of back roads all the way to the outer orbital. Wonderful, he thought. I hope it hasn't changed much since my student days. I haven't driven along here in ten years.

Hitting the roads, Geraint had the impression they hadn't been repaired in a decade, either. South of Royston he had the sense to turn off the main road and take a detour around the decaying sprawl suburbs. He saw the barricade and the lurking wrecker gang just in time. Had he continued straight on, he'd have already been dead meat.

Cursing his bad luck, Geraint now found himself in a warren of back streets. He slowed the bike while he tried to figure out where he was and where he was going. The street lights had been shot out long ago, and all he had was the weak light of the moon and his own dipped headlight. Realizing that he'd completely lost track of his direction, and had no idea how to get out of here, the hair began to rise at the back of his neck. One thing was certain, though; he had to keep moving. At one point he decided to turn around again, and was making a slow U-turn, when suddenly he saw before him a ragged group edging out of the shadows and blocking his path.

"Nice bike, term," a rough voice called. "Make you an offer!"

There were sn.i.g.g.e.rs audible above the bike's revving engine. The punk at the front of the pack was hefting a hunk of wood that looked like a railway tie. Some of those hanging further back were carrying rocks, more likely chunks of plascrete.

Geraint began to sweat. How am I going to get out of this one? he wondered desperately. A single hit would wing me. Then I'm off the bike. Then I'm down. Then I'm dead. Got no choice, I guess.

As the punks fanned out around and in front of nim, he drew his pistol, hoping it was visible in the glare of his headlight. Their reactions said they saw it, but they were poor enough to have nothing to lose. They no doubt lost a member or two every week in a gang fight, so the prospect of losing a few more now probably didn't terrify them much. Not if they saw a motorcycle and a gun as the prize to be won.

"Spare me that glop, you w.a.n.kers!" Geraint made his voice tougher than he could possibly feel right there and then. "Bond and Carrington MC-40, armor-piercing rounds with high-reaction reload. Six of you die, maybe eight. I got a smartgun link, so you could even count to ten if you get unlucky."

The rabble was shifting uneasily now, but they held their ground. Impa.s.se. Then Geraint had a flash of inspiration.

"In about eight minutes the slint on my tail will come edging round the shadows here. Nice Toyota bike. A real banger. Why not wait for him instead? Set up a sweet little ambush. That way half of you don't get splashed.

"And since you'll be doing me a favor," he added, revving the bike's engine to make a dash for it,"I think a little remuneration would be in order."

He drew a wad of bills from his jacket. Thank the Bank of England for stubbornly refusing to accept that credsticks were the only way to do business these days. He flung the paper into the air, then watched as it fluttered down like a ticker tape parade of fifties and hundreds. The next instant he was scorching away from a dead stop as the snakeboys ran to grab what they could, some even dropping their improvised weapons in their urgency to stuff bank notes into their pockets.

Geraint crouched low over the handlebars and prayed to an obscure Welsh saint that n.o.body would throw a rock just for the h.e.l.l of it.

He got lucky. Before the hour was out, he was standing in the service elevator of his apartment house, hoping that no one would see him coming out at penthouse level. Stripping off the jacket and trousers, he bundled them into his carryall and emerged from the elevator feigning a drunken stagger. Muddied n.o.bles in armor jackets might worry security. Half-naked n.o.bles lurching home in a state of terminal intoxication certainly would not.

Breathing heavily, he got the magkey into the lock and half-fell into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

Time for a bath, coffee, and a good shot of GABA-interactive neuromodulator complex, Geraint promised himself, and it didn't matter much in what order.

Imran was still in a state of shock, sitting on the tattered sofa staring emptily into s.p.a.ce. When he and Rani returned home, they'd had to rouse a severely doped-up Sanjay to open the door. The place was a pigsty from Sanjay's rolling with a wretched street girl he'd probably lured back to the house with the promise of opiate oblivion. Rani chased the girl out, barely giving her time to cover her scrawny, eczema-riddled body. Sanjay met Rani's complaints of disgust with a mere shrug and a blank gaze from his heavily dilated pupils. But the mess gave her something on which to vent her anguish and frustration, and she felt a little calmer after making some tea and allowing herself a shot of the fierce, peppery spirit they kept for emergencies.

Imran was half-catatonic, and there was no one to talk to worth the effort, but still she tried.

"It was a set-up, Imran. They knew we were coming. They knew our exact location. Now you . . . you . . . you rakking sod . . . you're going to tell me every thing you know about who hired you for this job. Where you met them, what they looked like, who gave you the contact. Everything!"

A bead of sweat trickled down Imran's forehead. He wasn't listening. Instead he babbled a little about the families they'd have to phone, in whose sitting rooms the women would have to mourn and bewail the dead, who else would have to know. He recited a litany of cousins as uselessly as a nervous Catholic fumbling a string of rosary beads.

Rani slapped him hard, hoping to jolt him back to reality. He looked up at her with total incomprehension, then his face puckered with rage. Leaping angrily to his feet, Imran smashed her across the face with all his strength-not just a slap but a hard punch-sending her flying across the room. Then his anger evaporated just as instantly. He fell to his knees and began to cry.

Rani was horrified, but hurt also, her ears singing from the blow. Something broke between them there and then. She looked at Imran, and though it was only later that she realized it, Rani lost respect for her brother at that moment. She hugged and consoled him, but she was already thinking about what to do next. It wouldn't be her brother asking the questions on the streets now.

Geraint decided that it would be safe to cut and run at about five o'clock. He'd ended up falling asleep right after his bath, and the alarm almost didn't rouse him for an early train back to the hotel. It wouldn't seem unusual for a n.o.ble to have spent the night away from the place, he figured. Some of them would have used personal helicopters to get back overnight, so he wouldn't be specifically missed.

"Going to the ATT time-series seminar this morning?"

Geraint looked up from his coffee, all he could face this morning, at the puffed red face of the Marquis of Sc.u.n.thorpe. He tried to hide his dismay.

"Um, looks interesting, yes, yes, I thought I'd go. How's the lovely Tamsin?" It always pleased the rubicund, bloated Yorkshireman to have n.o.ble acquaintances praise his fiery and beautiful wife. You poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Geraint thought, as he always did. She only married you for the money and the t.i.tle and you don't even notice that half your male domestic servants walk around with permanent smirks on their faces.

"Jolly chipper, old feller, jolly chipper!" The Marquis parked his spreading pin-striped posterior on the armchair with a grunt, and preened his handlebar mustache. "Well, I thought I'd take a doze in the British Industrial thing. All that mathematical stuff is a bit heavy on the old gray cells. Have a natter with old Walter over lunch instead. D'you care to join us?"

Geraint couldn't contemplate a more awful lunch prospect than being closeted with the two Yorkshiremen.

Walter Crowther, head of British Industrial's infamous Foods Division, was renowned for his enthusiasm. All the while totally losing his appet.i.te, Geraint would have to listen to endless details of how factory animals could be stuffed full of synthetic hormones and growth enforcers. Crowther had a ghastly ambition, and talk of it was always prefaced by "Did I ever tell you . . . ?" This; was the signal for a set speech about how he was hoping to breed a rabbit the length of a telephone pole so it could be neatly chopped into Rabburger Bunny Chunks in an endless series of slices. "Length of a cricket pitch I'd settle for," he'd then say, the cue for him to begin reviewing England's cricket team for the last sixty years. Geraint just couldn't face it, but catching sight of a chambermaid hefting a trolleyful of fresh linen into an elevator gave him an idea.

"Tied up, old chap. But I'll tell you what, I'll stand you a brandy in the Marlborough Bar after lunch. Like to hear you and old Crowther's opinion on Sutcliffe batting at number six." The fat face opposite beamed with pleasure.

Got out of that one nicely, Geraint reflected as he reached the fifth floor. Now let's find that chambermaid. He checked his jacket's innermost pocket, the one with the fiberseal just below the Gieves tag. The notes rustled rea.s.suringly within it. Don't know why anyone ever uses credsticks, he mused. Cash certainly seems more useful with the lower cla.s.ses. Grinning to himself, he turned the corner and strode along the plush pile toward the "Rooms 510-518" sign, all fake gilt on fake hardwood.

The girl was only too happy to do as he asked. She didn't earn that much in a month.

Geraint was back in his own flat in London by six-thirty, with the entire contents of Serrin's hotel room spread out before him. He hadn't dared risk going out to Longstanton to look for the elf, consoling himself with the fact that the local news had included no reports of trouble at the Fuchi site.

You travel light in the world, old friend, Geraint thought, as he rifled through Serrin's meager belongings. He didn't open the sealed electronic book; that would have been a violation somehow, even though he feared in his heart that the elf was dead. Serrin had left behind some of his permits and licenses, though Geraint guessed they were probably duplicates for backup. The mage wouldn't go out into the bureaucratic British world without every bit of official paper he needed. There were clothes in the suitcase, but they lacked any individuality and ident.i.ty. Well, whatever the elf's indifference to style, at least Geraint had retrieved his belongings for him. The chambermaid had his number and instructions to tell Serrin where to pick up money in Cambridge if he came back to the hotel. She was Welsh, so Geraint had figured he could trust her. h.e.l.l, he thought, I own the land her family lives on. Guess I'd better be able to trust her.

The beep of the telecom startled him. It was the autocheck, the soft chipvoice asking if he wanted messages from the preceding forty-eight hours retained or erased. He instructed it to play.