Fade To Black Part 28

What it suggested to Rico was that L. Kahn must be feeling pressure. Maybe from Fuchi. The suits at Fuchi wouldn't be too happy about their merchandise getting dusted. And they wouldn't be too happy about the disappearance of an employee named Marena Farris either.

Rico returned to the van, gave Thorvin directions. He could feel Farris staring at him from the rear of the van. That stare was a question waiting for an answer.

The guano was getting deep. Daisaka Security, the Executive Action Brigade, yaks, informants. Maas Intertech, Prometheus, Fuchi. On top of all that was Bandit's latest warning. The shaman hadn't been too clear, but it sounded like somebody had been coming at them magically in the minutes just before they fled the bolthole in Little Asia. How the frag did that fit in? From the original chipfile for the run on Maas Intertech, Rico knew that Daisaka had magicians on-line, but was that his explanation? And did it matter?

And now Marena Farris had a proposition, one that could get at least part of the opposition off their backs.

Rico wondered if he really had any choice.

The problem with corps was that they had the resources to buy just about any kind of contact or informant that might suit their purposes: cops, hustlers, gangs, whole city blocks, entire governments. You couldn't evade power like that forever. Something had to give. Either the corp eventually decided you weren't worth the effort or the nuyen anymore, or it got you, grabbed you by the cojones and made you dance however it wanted, then dropped you down the nearest garbage chute.

Rico and the rest of the team could try and lay low, but that would take money, hard nuyen. They all had some, but how much would they need? Enough to sit for months, a year, two years? They'd have to change IDs, maybe alter their looks. Dok could handle some of the surgical mods, but that was just the beginning. Piper would need new programs and hardware just to stay up to date. Rico himself would need some cybernetic mods to keep his bodyware from falling behind the leading edge of tech. They'd all need things: Dok, Shank, Thorvin. It was a question of how they would get what they needed. The reality was hard.

You didn't get bucks for front-line cyberware playing doorman for some bar or collecting on gambling debts. It took big bucks-and big bucks meant taking big risks. Smuggling contraband. Stealing major paydata. Breaking some slag out of a corporate contract that was the moral equal of slavery.

It came down to two choices. Dying was the easy way out. Simply send Marena Farris back to Fuchi, then sit around and wait for the corps to come and scrag them. The hard way meant going along with what Marena Farris was proposing, check it out, investigate. Then, if everything looked chill, do it. That might get them just as dead, but Rico could see no other way that they could ever get enough nuyen together at one place and one time to make a difference.

And time was running down.

His wives waited silently, as wives should, seated around him in the rear of the Mercedes limo as he whispered sorcerous words and wove the spell into existence. A handful of sparkling motes appeared in the air before him and gradually swelled into a pulsating, coruscating cloud. Daniella lowered a window.

Maurice pointed. The cloud drifted out and across the alley to the door of the runners' apartment. It spread across the door and sifted through the door's substance, pa.s.sing into the s.p.a.ces beyond.

In a matter of seconds, it would expand to fill the three small rooms of the apartment, stunning unconscious everyone it touched.

A second spell turned the alley door into dust.

Maurice nodded. Clad all in black, Claude Jaeger turned and darted through the empty doorway and disappeared into the apartment. He would swiftly dispatch the runners and anyone else he found there. And then their contract would be complete. The knowledge and talent of a skilled magician would be forever lost, and that would indeed be a loss, but it could not be helped. The runners had gone rogue, and L. Kahn had ordered they be exterminated. But the more important point was that, with tonight's work done, Maurice would finally be free to return to his studies. He had wasted too many days working magic on the world instead of pursuing knowledge, truth. He was impatient to be done.

Momentarily Jaeger returned to the doorway. He cast a mouthful of sputum to the concrete floor of the alley. "Mages," he said, with a sneer. "You fragged up."

Impossible.And yet...

s.h.i.+fting to his astral senses, Maurice looked at his ally, Vera Causa. At his command, she had scouted the apartment astrally and confirmed that the runners were present. But for that, she had said nothing since their arrival here in Little Asia. She said nothing now. She did not even look at him. Was it possible she had erred?

"Guard,"he told her.

"Yes, master," she replied. "Of course."

There was an acid quality to that reply which Maurice did not like. He considered whether this bound spirit might be escaping his control. A difficult matter to decide.

He snapped his fingers and pointed. Daniella thrust open the door on his right and preceded him outside. He did not object when she and the other slitches followed him into the apartment. Daniella had a certain limited ability in the arts, and the others also had certain skills that might prove useful, To the mundane eye, the apartment looked deserted. It was cluttered with furniture, kitchen appliances, trideos, bookdisks, and what looked like the scattered components from several cyberdecks.

Pillows and blankets, discarded fast-food containers, and other anonymous litter also lay strewn about. The former occupants seemed to have departed swiftly. And yet appearances deceived. On the astral level, the runners appeared to be lingering still. Amid the pulsing fluctuations of the life energy coursing irregularly about the room glowed not one but seven auras, or what appeared to be seven human and metahuman auras.

It was as if the runners had gone but had somehow managed to leave their auras behind. Maurice had never seen anything quite like it. Plainly now, he a.s.sensed that these "auras" were merely a spell, a clever manipulation of mana, drawn from the surrounding etheric energies. What amazed him was the fact that he had been unable to detect this deception while working the ritual spell that had brought him here to these rooms. He had been duped. Led to believe that John Dokker and the rest of the runners were still present.

How, he wondered, could such a perfect mirage have been a.s.sembled? Until now, he had imagined his ritual spell of detection to be inexorable, long and slow, but certain to succeed. Obviously, such was not the case. He felt persuaded by the desire to learn more of this deluding spell. He must investigate the intricacies of a work that conjured such perfect fantasies.

Concentrating his astral perceptions, he moved nearer the false auras. In that very instant, the spell unraveled, as if it had expected the touch of his mind, as if it wished to keep its secrets. Mana flashed, bursting outward in all directions, blazing, rejoining the pulsing streams of the world.

Maurice felt a swift pang of grief, then soft despair. As he returned to his mundane perceptions, he heard a crash like that of a trash can being knocked over, resounding outside in the alley, then the sudden savage snarl of a cat.

Jaeger turned and darted toward the alleyway.

The moment struck Maurice. The snarl of the cat stirred his memory. He tilted his head back, nodding, closing his eyes, and softly laughed. It had become a night for tricks, new and old. The snarling cat in the alley. What manner of shaman could use such a juvenile trick and yet could manipulate magic of a complexity as to conjure illusory auras?

"Husband," Daniella said. "Scan this."

Maurice opened his eyes, then followed his first wife into what appeared to be a bedroom. Lying on a bureau was an item that at first glance resembled a common monofilament sword, an artifact manufactured and distributed throughout the plex in the thousands by Ares Macrotechnology and other corps. On the astral plane, however, the sword's significance was obvious. It's aura had the character of a living thing that lived no more. The sword had once been imbued with power, as a focus for spells. The memory of those spells lingered still. Maurice doubted he would be able to determine much about the spells, but that was a secondary consideration.

The vibrations of the person who had carried the sword also lingered. That was what made the sword significant.

Plainly, it had been left behind by the runners' shaman, perhaps in exchange for something he had taken. That was the shaman's way, the most persistent of the rumors Maurice had heard. When Bandit took a thing, he left another in exchange. Maurice could hardly believe his luck, or the shaman's stupidity.

The sword would serve as a material link, and thus, through ritual magic, would lead Maurice directly to the shaman, thence the runners, regardless of where they had gone.

And this time Maurice would how to no clever illusions.

32The Chapel of the Eternal Light was just over the border from Little Asia in Sector 7. For five hundred nuyen, they laid out Filly's body in a room with perfumed air, quiet music, and molded plastic flowers, no questions asked. That included a five-minute trideo funeral service, cremation, and an urn for the ashes.

Rico paid the tab, despite Dok's protests. It was his responsibility. He was the leader. It was his failure to properly prepare for the meet with Prometheus that had cost Filly her life. Compared to the moral weight of that fact, five hundred nuyen was nothing.

They all knew the risks. Death was part of the game. For the sake of the survivors, Rico was trying hard not to think about the price of his failures or the chance that he might slot up again. If you wanted any chance at surviving, you did what you had to do and saved all the grief, self-doubts, and questions till the run was over and people were safe in bed.

When the pre-recorded serviced ended, Piper said, "I want people to remember, when gray death sets me free, I was a person who had many friends, and many friends had me." She paused a moment, then added, "Filly had many friends. And we her friends have her still. In our hearts. We will always have her there."

Another surprise. Rico puzzled. The words seemed somehow too openly compa.s.sionate for a reticent j.a.panese, and too Christian for a fanatical Buddhist-Ecologist. Maybe it was gender. Maybe it took a woman to speak with that much compa.s.sion, to get past her own habits and beliefs long enough to say what ought to be said. Rico wondered where the first few rhyming lines had come from. They sounded like something from a poem, but Piper had never shown any interest in poetry.

Wasn't anything what it seemed anymore?

Dok cursed and cried, then clenched his teeth and turned and walked away. Rico didn't think any less of Dok for any of that. He was only showing his strength.

An hour later, they met Mr. Victor's contact amid the stacks and factories of Sector 10. The slag pointed them to an unoccupied warehouse not far from Port Sector.

The place was five stories tall, about as wide as a tractor-trailer, jammed between a truck terminal and some kind of foundry. The air smelled like burnt metal.

Beyond the big bay door was a loading bay, an open area, narrow but long, with a loading platform at the rear. Beyond the platform was a short hall sided by several small rooms: an office, a bathroom,-and what looked like a lounge. Plastic-molded furniture and cus.h.i.+oned benches. Semi-nude holopics of celebs like Maria Mercurial and Taffy Lee and the Sayonara Baby joygirls decorated the walls. A scattering of trash, narc caps, BTL carriers, and rat s.h.i.+t littered the floor.

"Now I know we're in deep," Shank grumbled.

A curt reply leapt to Rico's lips, but he held it back. Shank was right. Maybe they'd never enjoyed luxury accommodations while on a run, but they'd usually managed to find something you could call decent.

Places where you had no second thoughts about using the furniture or maybe taking off your clothes for a shower. Taking refuge in a rat-infested squat in one of the filthiest parts of the plex didn't say much for how things were going. A glance at the bathroom confirmed it.

They supped on Nathan's Finest with rice and noodles. Rico watch Marena Farris dab at her mouth with a paper napkin. He'd have to make a decision about the woman: use her or lose her. Accept her proposal or let her go.

"Let's hear your proposition again," he said.

Farris hesitated, looking at Rico as if uncertain. Piper threw him a sharp glance.

Dok scowled. "What proposal?"

"Huh?" Shank added.

Farris told her story. The slag they'd busted out of Maas Intertech hadn't been Surikov, just a double named Michael Travis. The real Surikov was still with Fuchi Mult.i.tronics and not particularly happy about it.

Farris had begun negotiating a transfer to another corp on the real Surikov's behalf just prior to being lifted.

If Rico and the team would help her complete the transfer, she'd see to it that they were taken care of, paid cash nuyen, and forgotten by Daisaka Security.

"I wouldn't trust the fragging slitch."

The words could've been Piper's, but they came from Dok, hard and raw. Rico sat back and lit a cheroot. Shank said, "n.o.body's asking you to trust her."

"No, of course not." Dok grinned acidly. "Just risk our lives!"

"We could use the money."

"Even if she's telling the truth, she can't guarantee Daisaka stays off our b.u.t.ts."

"There ain't no guarantees about nothing, chummer."

"And," Thorvin said, "we could still use the money.""Money won't buy back your life, friend."

"Can't see living long without it, either."

Dok looked at Rico, and said, "You can't be thinking of going ahead with this?"

"No?" Rico said.

"It's insane!"

"No more than any other run."

In a way, Rico supposed, maybe they owed it to the slag who'd died in the parking field of the Willow Brook Mall, and to Filly. Both those people had lost their lives because of corporate treachery. Doing right by Farris and the real Surikov-a.s.suming he was the real Surikov- would be a form of vengeance. Maybe the only kind of vengeance they could hope to exact. Somewhere down the road they might be able to cost Fuchi and the other corps a few percentage points on the exchange and lose them some money, crash their computers or spread nasty rumors about their financial health. For the moment, though, scoping out Farris'

offer was the only chance for vengeance they had. A forced transfer of corporate a.s.sets. It wouldn't hurt a corp the size of Fuchi much, but it would still hurt.

"You in or out?" Rico said.

Dok stared, briefly. "You're saying the decision's already made?"

"The decision is we scan the scene, check what we can, make plans, do it right If everything's chill, then we "We could be walking into a trap!"

Rico took a long drag on his cheroot before speaking "Look around you," he said. "The trap's already set."

"Yeah," Shank said. "An' it's closing fast."

The grime-smeared window beside the loading bay door gave a fair view of the street out front. Rico stood watch, if for no other reason than he couldn't sleep. Too much on his mind. He wasn't there in the gloom of the loading bay more than half an hour before Piper appeared on the platform at the rear of the bay.

"Jefe...?"

"Here, chica."

For someone with ordinary eyes,-the bay was nearly black. Piper groped her way down off the loading dock and across the bay. Rico caught her searching hand and drew her over to the side of the window. She hugged herself to his flank.

"We should just walk away, jefe," she said softly.

Rico murmured, "You know I can't do that."

"Why?"

He recounted the reasons for her, but the truth of it went beyond questions of money and survival. It went beyond any debts real or imagined to those who had died, It came down to something very simple: Marena Farris. Maybe the woman had plans to get away from Fuchi, but the fact was that she hadn't been ready to leave when they lifted her, so, in effect, she'd been s.n.a.t.c.hed. Kidnapped. And now they'd had her too long to just send her back. Fuchi security would likely a.s.sume that she'd been tampered with, that they were getting some kind of trojan horse-maybe a spy or saboteur-in place of a loyal employee. She'd be questioned, a.n.a.lyzed, watched every minute of the day and night. She might never be trusted again. Piper would probably say it didn't matter, the woman was a fragging corporate, an enemy. Rico didn't see it that way. Farris might be a corporate and maybe she had secret agendas, but she was still a woman, and still a human being. That warranted some consideration. To Rico, it meant she had the right to walk her own path, and to get set back on that path if somebody tugged her in a direction she didn't choose herself.

Making that happen would take some doing, and Rico wished he could really trust what Farris told him. He hoped she was playing straight, or straight enough that any discrepancies didn't matter.

"Maybe we should go away somewhere after we finish with this," he said.

Piper clenched him tightly around the waist, moaning, "I don't care what we do as long as we get out of this alive."

"We'll make it."

For all their sakes, Rico hoped he was right.

33.

At just after three a.m., Marena Farris' aura changed subtly, indicating she had finally fallen asleep, curled up on one of the cus.h.i.+oned benches in the lounge.By four a.m., she seemed to be sleeping deeply. Everyone else in the lounge was sleeping, too.

Bandit waited a bit longer, then began.

His fingers found the medallion under his s.h.i.+rt. He used this because the medallion held power. The spell he began gathering, for all its subtlety, demanded great power.

He lifted his free hand slightly, just slightly, just enough to point his fingertips toward Marena Farris, then, he began mouthing the words, powerful words, never to be spoken aloud. This was one of his most intricate spells, designed and developed over the course of years. Each word must be spoken in a very specific manner, and must be spoken silently so that their secrets should remain forever secret.

Slowly, the mana gathered, first around his slightly uplifted hand, then flowing together into a narrow stream that flowed slowly, slowly, slowly across the etheric plane. Slowly arcing over Marena Farris'

slumbering aura. Slowly surrounding her aura. Interpenetrating. Then curling, turning, joining. Gradually weaving a web. Gradually forming a connection.

Sleep, the magic softly directed. Sleep till you are told to awaken ...

From out of the depths of mind came a sound, a soft gentle sound, a sound of concord and harmony and willing acquiescence. Slowly it arose and slowly it coalesced, a.s.suming form and substance, evolving into a word, a word like, Yessssss ...