TEXT: SHADOWRUN
  RUN HARD, DIE FAST
  Mel Odom
  A ROC BOOK
  ROC
  Published by the Penguin Group
  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
  First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton NAL, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
  First Printing, February, 1999
  10    987654321
  Copyright ©FASA Corporation, 1999 All rights reserved
  Series Editor: Donna Ippolito Cover art: Luis Royo
  REGISTERED TRADEMARK —MARCA REGISTRADA
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  If you purchased this book without a cover you should  be  aware  that  this  book  is  stolen  property.  It  was  reported  as  "unsold  and  destroyed"  to  the  publisher  and
  neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
  Dear Matt Dain Odom,
  This book is dedicated to you, son, with thanks for sharing your life with me and for introducing me to the rigors of
  being a wrestling parent! May your world always be as exciting and filled with wonderment as it is now. This book
  is a toast to that early morning pre-tournament weigh-in filled with Dunkin Donuts, conversation, and just
  a-borning sun. And to your first pin in the Norman Junior High Duel!
  Love, Dad
  
  Special acknowledgment to Donna Ippolito, one of the finest editors I've worked with, and the person who helped me
  bring into clearer focus one of the most interesting characters in Shadowrun.
  And to Nigel Findley: Argent is your creation, buddy, and I regret that this is the closest I can come to working with
  you. I think it would have been a blast.
  And to the fans of Shadowrun who've written and told me what the shadows mean to them: SeTthSon, Matthew
  Banning, Buddy Lacey, Robert Doyle, Ron Peterson, Dave, Brandon A. Reed, and STR8EDGBOB! Run fast and true,
  churnmers, or the shadows will get you!
  Prologue
  From transcript of conversation with confidential informant, Bonez. Submitted by 
  Sgt. N. Cooper, Department of Special Investigation
  04:11:23/10-6-60 CC:LTG 2418 (32-0113)
  [Note per Cooper: Cap, I know everybody thinks Bonez is a burnout simsense junkie, but the guy is knowledgeable in what
  goes on in the shadows, a regular fanboy  with  a serious  jones for shadowrunners.  Nobody  else had a finger on Argent,  but
  Bonez had this.]
  "Argent? Sure I've heard of Argent. Frag, anybody who's into the serious end of runners knows about this
  guy. And yeah, he's one guy. Some of the street guff says he's a clone or something; maybe got five or six
  of him running around at the same time. Not true.
  "Argent is a scary guy. Not 'cause he's one of those sadistic fragging posers that hang out in so many of
  the  flops  the  shadowfolk  have.  But  when  Argent  gets  down  to  biz,  the  hincky  guttermeat  that  goes  up
  against him generally flatlines in messy pyrotechnics if the ops goes bad. Otherwise, Argent's in and out and
  somebody's slagged before they even know they've been cheated out of their next cardiac bumpety-boom,
  bumpety-boom.
  "Military training? I've heard he had some tours with Fuchi during their Desert Wars. Then he hung it up
  and went private in the shadows. Had a group they called the
  Wrecking  Crew.  They  were  a  specialty  team  that  handled  any  kind  of  project  if  the  credstick  was  big
  enough. Very select about what they took on. Argent's got standards. That  joker  had  his  flesh  and  blood
  arms chopped so he could cyber up. I mean, you know what kind of thinking  and  self-control  that  takes?
  You can have an arm augmented with less trauma. 'Course, then you've only got an augmented arm, not a
  weapon the way Argent went.
  "A few years back, according to a wisp of street buzz I haven't been able to nail  down,  a  run  went  to
  squat and two of the Crew got greased in the confusion. Since then, Argent's operated on a smaller scale,
  only taking on one-man contracts, or two-man if he can fill the bill himself.
  "The  gen  is  that  Argent  lost  some  of  himself  when  the  Wrecking  Crew  flamed  out.  Others  say  that
  Argent won't just partner with anybody, so that's why he's working lonesome these days. Nobody much is
  saying either way anyhow 'cause nobody knows.
  "I go with the first thought. Every runner I know would give their right nut to work with Argent, and half
  the cred involved. Argent's a credstick in the slot every time. He's staying small 'cause he wants to.
  "Oh, one other word of advice, Cooper: you somehow manage to wind up in Argent's way, get the frag
  to a new twenty. There's no back-up in the guy, and when he takes something on, his word's his bond. The
  frag-up  that  cost  the  lives  of  two  Crew  members?  Word  I  get  is  that  Argent  completed  the  contract
  anyway. Signed, sealed, and delivered. That's just the kind of joker he is. Real stand-up, you know."
  1
  "Skyhook, I have your target located."
  "Affirmative, Groundwire, bring us onto the target." Argent shifted in the passenger seat of the Hughes
  WK-2 Stallion helicopter and stared down at the grid of lighted streets through the cool blue polycarbonate
  glazing of the craft' s cockpit bubble.
  He was a big man with a squared-off face that looked like it had been cast in bronze. His fair hair was
  cut in a military flat top that he'd worn for years. He went clean-shaven, and the weak moonlight dusting in
  from outside the cockpit faded against the camou makeup he wore to blunt his features. Dressed in a dark
  
  green one-piece with a combat harness over it, his matte-black finished cyber-arms blended into the overall
  look.
  "Phasing you in, Skyhook," the feminine voice said.
  "Copy, Groundwire. GPS coming on-line now." Argent glanced  at  the  Sony  Nav-Dat  global  positioning
  system mounted amid the helo's control panel. The glowing orange dot that represented the Stallion held its
  course while a purple triangle took form ahead and to the left. The big man glanced over at the helo pilot.
  "I heard," Merkhur stated irritably in his clipped British accent over the helo's commlink. His meat body
  sagged in the pilot's chair, a vehicle control rig plugged into his right temple under the wild tangle of chestnut
  hair. Long and lean even for an elf, he looked almost uncomfortable folded  into  the  seat,  but  the  Vehicle
  Control Rig cyberware made him part of the craft. For all intents and purposes,
  he was the helo. He saw with its cams, heard with its aud pickups, and even felt the air friction against the
  helo's skin. He wore traditional Japanese robes, soft cream over brown.
  For the moment, the Stallion was covered with the markings of the United Canadian and American States
  Post Office. The markings were camouflage, though, and a good rain blowing in across Puget Sound would
  have washed them right off .Argent had known there wouldn't be any rain, and a quick rinse would put the
  helo back to its original green color, making it harder to trace after the op played out.
  The kidnappers had chosen the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood as the dropsite. They couldn't know it,
  but he was familiar with  the  area.  Much  closer  to  ground  zero  now,  Argent  made  out  the  long,  winding
  route of Union Street threading through the sprawl's other thoroughfares.
  "If Shaundra Merlini's captors get away," the feminine voice of Groundwire said  over  the  Wiremasters
  Comm-link X, "they'll have plenty of boltholes to rabbit to before you or Lone Star can dig them  out.  The
  girl will be dead when she's found."
  "I know, Peg," Argent said softly. "But that's not going to happen."
  Peg was a decker, one of the best at getting into  high-tech  systems,  and  Argent  wouldn't  have  felt  as
  confident without her running the data end  of  the  rescue.  He  hadn't  seen  a  system  yet  that  she  couldn't
  sleaze her way through given the time. The problem was that in their job there wasn't always time.
  This time they'd been lucky. When Victor Merlini had contracted a fixer Argent picked up biz from and
  explained the situation, mentioning his daughter's amputated thumb as well, Argent decided at once that he'd
  sign  on  for  the  save  if  he  could  find  a  way  to  get  next  to  the  kidnappers.  Standing  up  for  an  underdog
  against over-
  whelming oppressive odds was one of the jobs he took every time.
  He'd  combed  the  streets  while  Peg  had  ducked  through  the  shadow  information  alleys  of  the  Matrix
  linking  Seattle's  computers  and  telecom  activity.  The  closest  they'd  come  to  identifying  the  kidnap  ring
  through whispered rumors was to establish a reasonably certain tie to the Alamos 20K hate groups. Neither
  of them had turned up names of any of the people connected with the kidnap ring.
  What Argent was sure of was that Merlini had a right to be fearful for his daughter. Argent's research
  had turned up  seven  people  in  the  Seattle-based  shipping  industry  who'd  lost  family  members  in  the  last
  handful of months.
  Merlini's family physician had  also  supplied  a  tissue  sample  from  the  girl,  allowing  Argent  to  hire  two
  street mages and a snake shaman to help him look for Shaundra. Escadero, the snake shaman, had gotten
  the closest to finding the girl.
  While  in  an  induced  trance,  slithering  through  the  may-bes  of  what  might  come  to  pass  regarding
  Shaundra  Merlini's  future,  Escadero  had  spotted  the  young  woman  in  a  van  in  the  Lower  Queen  Anne
  District. But the foretelling vision wasn't always accurate, as Escadero had pointed out.
  Tonight, it had proven on the mark.  And  one  of  the  three  mages  now  astrally  searching  for  Shaundra
  Merlini in Lower Queen Anne using the tissue sample had found her and relayed the information to Peg. It
  had been a long shot,  but  it  was  all  Argent  had  left  to  play.  Lone  Star  had  covered  all  the  conventional
  routes.
  The  Stallion  skimmed  the  canyons  of  corporate  skyscrapers,  apartment  buildings,  and  shopping
  complexes, staying barely five meters above the uneven skyline, juking sideways as Merkhur controlled it.
  The rigger handled the craft with smooth confidence, using some
  of the buildings for cover as they swooped toward Union Street.
  "Groundwire," Argent said over the commlink. "Can you paint the target?"
  "I'm collating data now." As always Peg sounded cool and assured.
  Argent released the catches on the door,  letting  the  wind  whip  into  the  cockpit.  Holding  onto  the  door
  with  one  hand,  he  checked  his  gear  with  the  other,  running  his  palm  over  the  twin  Smartlink  Level  II
  outfitted Ingram  Super  Mach  100s  riding  in  crossed  bands  over  his  hips.  A  Smartlink  Level  II  equipped
  
  Savalette Guardian was synthleathered in a jackass shoulder rig under his left arm  as  backup  in  case  the
  Ingrams didn't quite turn the trick. And he had a monofilament whip tucked away in his boot if things turned
  truly fragged.
  "Skyhook," Peg called, "stand by for targeting."
  "Get to it." Argent activated the circuitry in his cyber-eyes and brought the thermographic utility on-line in
  his right eye. Immediately, the sprawl below took on a new look as the thermographic vision picked up heat
  patterns rather than conventional sight. The signals coming through both his eyes was confusing, but he was
  used to going monocular when he needed to. It affected his depth perception, but mostly only at distances,
  and  that  was  why  the  eye  was  also  equipped  with  a  range-finder  to  compensate.  He  carried  a  lot  of
  cybernetics in his body, but all of it was user-friendly, top-of-the-line deltaware, some of it barely out of the
  prototype stage. His  contacts  put  him  next  to  a  lot  of  gear  that  wasn't  on  the  market,  and  he  spent  the
  money for the upgrades.
  Another  moment  passed,  then  an  oval  pale  lavender  light  lit  up  the  top  of  a  charcoal-colored  Ares
  Roadmaster cargo vehicle. The lavender light was the result of thermal imaging projected by a drone locked
  into  a  pattern  above  the  target  vehicle.  The  drone,  a  stripped-down,  highly  illegal  Lone  Star  Strato-9
  surveillance model knock-off
  engineered by black marketeers in Singapore, had been leased from an outlaw rigger for the night's op.
  "Skyhook, your target has been painted," Peg declared. Operating from information she'd gathered from
  the mages, she'd managed to ID the vehicle.
  "Affirmative," Argent said. "Skyhook sees the paint. Merkhur?"
  "Got  it,  got  it,  mate.  I'm  not  exactly  sleeping  at  the  post,  you  know."  The  helo  lost  altitude  rapidly,
  streaking for the Roadmaster.
  Unaware, the Roadmaster cruised easily through the streets, negotiating the intersections without getting
  hung up. It was coming up on the Seattle Aquarium, crossing Ninth Avenue.
  Argent shifted, opening the helo's door more. He stepped out into the chill  wind  blowing  in  from  Elliott
  Bay. Traffic whisked by less than ten meters below as the helo closed rapidly on its prey.
  With  the  cargo  door  open,  the  wind  slammed  into  the  helo's  cockpit,  throwing  its  aerodynamics  off.
  Merkhur struggled with the controls, forcing the Stallion to stay on course.
  "Lower," Argent ordered.
  "Mate," Merkhur protested, "you're about pushing this old lady's limits."
  Argent didn't have any sympathy. His thoughts were on the young woman in the speeding  van,  and  on
  her father. Corp exec though he was, and used to a daily grind of high-pressure deals and bargaining, Victor
  Merlini had barely made it through the telecom interview Argent had insisted on.
  The Roadmaster pulled into the right lane again. Argent marked the next intersection as Boren Avenue,
  and Union Street curved back to the left, straightening out now. From what Peg  had  learned  in  the  Lone
  Star files, the ransom dropsite hadn't been announced to Merlini
  yet. Peg had confirmed that with a call to the young woman's father.
  In each of the previous cases, the kidnappers had stayed on the move with their hostage, allowing them to
  have  contact  with  a  second  group  of  kidnappers.  With  all  the  cards  in  their  hands,  the  kidnappers
  downloaded the ransom money through a  telecom-equipped  deck  without  having  to  produce  the  hostage.
  The  third  kidnapping  had  resulted  in  the  hostage  getting  chilled  while  on-line  with  her  husband,  and  the
  kidnappers had disappeared without a trace.
  The only chance Shaundra Merlini had of getting out of the situation alive was if  someone  could  get  to
  her before the ransom changed hands.
  "Skyhook," Peg called out. "The call has been made."
  Argent logged the time on his retinal clock, advanced it two minutes, then started counting down. None of
  the other ransom transfers had taken  more  than  two  minutes.  At  the  end  of  that  time,  the  hostages  had
  been executed, their bodies thrown out into the streets.
  Merkhur straightened the Stallion again, bringing it closer to the Roadmaster. Now  that  the  kidnapper's
  vehicle had reached the part of Union Street that ran independent of the other side streets and had a higher
  speed limit, it sped up.
  A minute flashed by as Merkhur worked to get the helo over the Roadmaster. Out in traffic now, Argent
  watched the way the vehicle moved, then noticed the two dark blue Ford  Americars  running  blocker  and
  flanker for the bigger vehicle.
  It  wasn't  a  total  surprise  to  Argent,  but  it  did  make  things  more  complicated.  He  spoke  over  the
  commlink. "They've got cars running cover for the Roadmaster, Merkhur."
  "I see them. But there's no way they won't see us coming if they're alert."
  
  The retinal clock was down to fifty-two seconds. "Then we're going to have to do this quick."
  "I know. I'm ready to start my final approach."
  "Go." Argent clambered down the side of the helo until he was at the landing gear. He handled his weight
  easily, maintaining holds with the cyberhands. The cyberarms more than doubled his  original  strength  and
  weren't as prone to fatigue.
  The  Stallion  dove  like  a  hunting  hawk,  curving  gracefully  through  the  area  toward  the  Roadmaster.
  Merkhur handled his craft expertly, matching the helo's speed with the cargo vehicle. Dropping into position
  over the Roadmaster, he maintained a distance of less than three meters.
  Virulent red tracer fire streaked through the night  around  Argent,  pinging  off  the  armored  sides  of  the
  Stallion. He glanced down and saw gunners from the rear car firing up at the helo.
  Over the speeding Roadmaster now, Argent released his hold on the Stallion's landing gear and dropped.
  2
  Falling free of the helo and no longer part of its forward momentum, Argent became prey  for  the  vicious
  wind. It buffeted him for an instant, pushing him like a kite. Then he flailed, regaining control over his body
  with difficulty. When both his feet missed the Roadmaster, he accessed  the circuitry in his left cyberhand
  and switched on the electro-magnets. He arced his body and slammed his hand against the top of the cargo
  vehicle.  The  magnetic  field  created  by  the  electricity  juicing  the  cyberhand  pulled  his  palm  and  fingers
  against the metal vehicle
  roof, snugging them tight. Even then,  it  took  a  moment  for  his  fall  to  stop,  his  hand  dragging  toward  the
  edge, shrilling noisily.
  Argent  found  purchase  with  his  feet  and  hauled  one  of  the  Ingram  Super  100s  free  of  synthleather.
  Bracing himself, the sound of the engine behind him suddenly racing, he brought the Ingram up and twisted
  around.
  The car behind the Roadmaster sped up, lurching forward. A man leaned out of the passenger window
  and brought up a machine pistol. The pistol's red aiming laser flicked across  Argent  and  the  Roadmaster,
  then ejected brass glinted as the bullets ripped free of the vicious muzzle. The dulled thwacks  of the rounds
  striking the back of the cargo vehicle rattled over the noise of the traffic.
  With  the  smartlink  operational,  Argent's  cybered  eyes  became  gunsights.  Cross  hairs  appeared  in  his
  vision, tracking the Ingram's sweep. He caressed the trigger, expertly unleashing  a  three-round  burst  that
  decapitated his attacker.
  The  headless  corpse  writhed  in  pain  and  reflex,  tumbling  back  inside  the  American  Blood  filmed  the
  inside of the windshield in haphazard streaks.
  Alarmed by his dead companion, the driver swerved, reaching out with one hand to block the corpse from
  falling onto him. The Americar veered sharply into oncoming traffic, drawing a series of hostile horn bleats,
  then came roaring back at the rear of the Roadmaster again.
  Argent  shifted  the  Ingram  and  squeezed  off  four  sustained  bursts  that  emptied  the  machine  pistol's
  60-round, high-density clip. The max amount of rounds that could be fired from the machine pistol in a burst
  was fifteen. The initial burst starred the Americar' s bulletproof windshield on the driver's side, covering it
  over with cracks and limiting the driver's vision. The second and third,
  aimed toward the pavement in front of the car to  take  advantage  of  the  ricochet  potential  from  the  hard
  surface, chopped the front tires to bits. The last burst sprayed across the Americar's front grill, puncturing
  the radiator and punching into the engine block.
  Fire surged from under the Americar's  hood,  trailing  black  smoke.  The  car  lost  ground,  rocking  out  of
  control.
  Above, the Stallion climbed rapidly into the air, without so much as a fare-thee-well from Merkhur. The
  comm-link remained silent, with even Peg quiet on the sidelines. Argent felt alone in that instant, missing his
  dead team mates from the Wrecking Crew as much as he ever had. If Hawk and Toshi had survived the
  run against the Fort Lewis ISP facility Dirk Montgomery had contracted them for . . . but he checked his
  thinking, getting back to the biz at hand.
  Holstering the empty Ingram, he turned his attention to the maglock holding the cargo vehicle's rear doors
  closed. He straightened his free hand, then popped the retractable punching dagger free of his  wrist.  The
  triangular  blade  extended  nearly  ten  centimeters  beyond  his  fingertips.  He  rocketed  his  arm  forward,
  
  shearing into the plastisteel door. He retracted the blade and shoved his fingers through the opening, ripping
  it larger.
  Equipped  with  sensors  sensitive  enough  to  allow  him  to  read  Braille  if  he  needed  to,  the  cybernetic
  interface  linking  Argent's  meat  body  to  his  bodyware  also  gave  him  the  choice  of  how  much  sensation
  came charging back through his nervous system. He'd chosen to feel  only  the  impact  of  his  hand  driving
  through the doors, nothing that his mind could have comprehended as pain.
  Although  his  arm  was  joined  to  a  flesh  and  blood  body  with  a  reinforced  spine  and  joint  and  other
  structural supports, he still didn't possess the leverage to throw cars around the way street sams did on the
  trid action shows. With his cyberware, his already considerable strength
  did double. And the grip in his hand, depending on leverage, was incredible, like the jaws of a vise.
  He closed his hand around the locking mechanism holding the door closed. One quick  squeeze  later,  all
  that remained of the lock was a handful of metallic and ceramic splinters.
  The shriek of the collapsing lock was still in his ears when Argent pulled the door open and stepped into
  the back of the Roadmaster. Bullets smashed into the kevlar covering his chest.
  Five  men  occupied  the  vehicle's  cargo  space,  dressed  in  nondescript  coveralls  that  Argent  assumed
  disguised  the  street  clothes  worn  under  them.  Shaundra  Merlini,  blond  and  disheveled,  her  left  hand
  wrapped in a heavy pad of blood-spotted gauze, sat tied to one of the built-in cargo securing hooks on the
  side wall. She wore the same chartreuse Vashon Island skirt-suit that she'd been wearing when she' d been
  abducted. Her father had shown Argent a pic from the sec cam loop of her departure. Her head swiveled
  weakly in the big samurai's direction, a scream parting her lips.
  One of the young woman's kidnappers rushed toward her with a monofilament  knife  glinting  in  his  fist.
  Argent  sprinted  to  intercept  the  man  wielding  the  knife.  To  his  left,  one  of  the  other  men  broke  into  a
  reflexive  offensive  move  that  was  so  smooth  it  told  Argent  immediately  the  man  was  equipped  with  a
  move-by-wire cybernetic system. The man's hand flashed for a Colt Manhunter snugged up under his left
  arm.
  Letting  his  own  reflexes  take  over,  guided  by  experience  and  his  own  move-by-wire  system,  Argent
  shifted points of attack. The move-by-wire system kept the individual equipped with it in a constant state of
  readiness, almost like a seizure, but resulting motion was simple, direct, and unbelievably fast to anyone who
  didn't have it. The only drawback was the slight tremors Argent ex-
  perienced when his muscles were relaxed—an unfortunate side effect.
  Argent watched the kidnapper's Manhunter pull free of the holster before the man with the knife could
  take one more running step toward the defenseless young woman. Argent accessed  the BrightLight system
  built into his left eye and triggered the Flash-pak.
  The  sudden  glare  of  the  intensely  bright  light  strobing  from  the  samurai's  eye  filled  the  Roadmaster's
  cargo space. No matter what kind of cybered eyes any of the kidnappers had, Argent knew the Flash-pak
  was going to have an effect. His own vision, however, remained unaffected.
  In the brief flicker of confusion that followed, Argent closed on the man holding the knife. The joker had
  staggered, hammered by the painful intensity of the Flash-pak, stopping short of his intended prey. Ripping
  the Guardian free of his shoulder holster, the big street samurai brought the pistol up. The smartgun link built
  into the handle  of  the  weapon  transferred  information  through  Argent's  hand,  allowing  his  move-by-wire
  system to incorporate all the specifics of the weapon in a nanosecond.
  Squeezing off his first shot, Argent put the round into the move-by-wire equipped  kidnapper's  gunhand.
  The heavy-caliber bullet split the hand open, reducing it to metal splinters. He'd had to aim for the weapon
  because geeking the kidnapper might not have stopped his cyber-systems from flatlining the young woman.
  Unable to take another clear shot and not wanting any more bullets whizzing around in the back  of  the
  cargo vehicle than necessary, Argent concentrated on the knife man. He stiffened the  fingers  of  his  free
  hand and shot them into the man's throat, driving the tips through flesh to the spinal column.
  The kidnapper's charge broke into a loose collapse
  of limbs. Catching the dead man still a  meter  short  of  Shaundra  Merlini,  Argent  wheeled  with  the  man's
  body before him, holding the corpse up to use it as a shield to defend the woman.
  Bullets thudded into the dead man's back.
  At a glance, Argent saw that the  shots  came  from  one  of  the  other  surviving  kidnappers.  The  heavily
  cybered  man  had  moved  from  his  position,  lost  for  a  moment  in  the  confusion  of  bodies  shifting  in  the
  Roadmaster's cargo space. Targeting the  shooter,  Argent  placed  a  single  round  between  the  mail's  eyes
  that voided his brain pan in a glistening rush.
  A  shadow  flicked  into  motion  at  the  periphery  of  Argent's  vision,  followed  immediately  by  a  foul
  collection of curses. The Merlini woman screamed behind him,  her  voice  sounding  lost  and  pathetic.  She
  
  was still under the blinding effects of the Flash-pak, totally panicked.
  Before he could bring the Guardian around to face the new threat, the razored joker dropped an arm like
  an iron bar across Argent's wrist, knocking the corpse from his grip. Without wasted motion, the razorboy
  shoved the mangled remains of his hand at Argent's face.
  3
  Argent  twisted,  narrowly  avoiding  the  knot  of  shrapnel  the  razorboy's  arm  had  become.  He  shoved  the
  Guardian's  blunt  snout  into  his  opponent's  wide  mouth,  breaking  teeth,  then  pulled  the  trigger.  Even
  move-by-wire reflexes couldn't avoid the bullet that blew through the back of the gillette's skull.
  The dead man stumbled back, propelled by the large-caliber round.
  Even before the corpse could fall, Argent moved on the remaining two kidnappers. A backhanded blow
  took down the man on the left, the metal cyberhand shredding flesh to the bone with the impact.
  The last man set himself up in a martial arts kata, his arms whipping around as he positioned himself for
  Argent's  attack.  He  gave  a  yell,  meeting  the  street  samurai  halfway  with  a  front  snapkick  that  snaked
  through Argent's defenses.
  The kick collided with Argent's face, popping his head back. Pain flared through his face, but he forced it
  out of his mind, automatically grabbing his attacker's foot with his left hand before the man could pull it back
  to safety. Argent brought his other hand across, defending against a  flurry  of  punches,  then  smashed  the
  Guardian down on the knee of the captured leg.
  Bone crunched, and Argent's enhanced hearing picked up the sound of reinforcing ceramics and metals
  in the man's joint architecture giving way as well. The kidnapper screamed in pain but tried to continue the
  fight. He reached, bending from the waist. Razors popped free of his fingers, licking for Argent's eyes.
  Argent held onto the mangled leg, twisting to gain leverage and to  keep  his  opponent  off  balance.  The
  man  yelled,  but  swiped  the  finger  razors  again.  Lifting  the  Guardian,  Argent  squeezed  off  a  round  that
  impacted  in  the  center  of  the  man's  face.  He  dropped  the  corpse  and  turned  his  attention  to  the  door
  shutting the cargo space off from the Roadmaster's front cab.
  The door opened easily at his touch, but the way the Roadmaster swerved let him know the driver was
  aware that things had gone to hell in the cargo section. As Argent moved into the cramped cab  area,  the
  kidnapper riding shotgun fired his Manhunter from point-blank range.
  Only  Argent's  reflexes,  honed  from  dozens  of  battles,  and  the  move-by-wire  system  saved  him.  He
  dodged to one side, his free hand arcing out to grab the pistol barrel.
  Before another round could be fired, he squeezed his hand, smashing the barrel together.
  The kidnapper pulled the trigger anyway, not knowing the damage that had been done to his weapon. The
  Man-hunter exploded, blowing the slide backward into the man's face and turning it into a mask of blood.
  Shoving his way into the cab, Argent brushed aside the driver's attempt to aim a pistol at him, causing the
  man to fire a round through the windshield. Argent squeezed off two rounds into the wounded man's face to
  make sure he was down, then turned his attention to the driver.
  The Roadmaster rushed through the streets of Lower Queen Anne, drawing a number of frustrated and
  angry horn blasts from other vehicles. The driver pulled on the wheel hard, ramming the Roadmaster into a
  Metro Transit bus, driving the bigger vehicle onto the sidewalk along Union Street. Scattered pockets of the
  sprawl's night life ran for their lives as the bus and Roadmaster fought for control. The bus plowed through
  a small group of umbrella tables at an open-air Thai restaurant. Luckily, the diners all got to safety. Some of
  them even put a few shots through the Roadmaster's windshield. It was no real surprise, Argent reflected
  grimly. In the Lower Queen Anne District a chummer watched his or her hoop as a full-time job.
  Clenching his fist in the driver's coverall, Argent lifted  the  man  from  behind  the  wheel  and  swung  him
  toward the pistol-blasted windshield. Already weakened from the bullets that had struck  it,  the  windshield
  gave way at once.
  The driver tried to grab a secure hold as he slid over the Roadmaster's blunt nose, but failed. He dropped
  in front of the big cargo vehicle as Argent bolstered the Guardian and slid into the seat.
  The street samurai fought the wheel for control, pulling away from the bus. There was only one more tick
  of resistance as the wheels rolled over the kidnapper. Reach-
  ing down  to  the  gear  shift  lever  between  the  seats,  Argent  shifted  into  a  lower  gear,  then  put  his  foot
  heavier on the accelerator, controlling the vehicle.
  
  Activating the commlink, he said, "Groundwire."
  Peg came back on-line at once, a calming influence inside his busy mind. "Here, Skyhook."
  Argent scanned the line of traffic ahead of him and in the oncoming lanes. "There was another vehicle
  running blocker." The other Americar was no longer in front of him.
  "The second car is coming up beside you," Peg replied coolly. She was tied into the action by the drone
  over  the  scene,  scanning  the  vid  it  relayed.  "It  dropped  back  as  you  were  getting  control  of  the
  Roadmaster."
  Argent glanced in the side mirror, recognizing the other Americar at once from the autofire flaming from
  two of the windows. "Got it," he said. "Can you contact Lone Star?"
  "I've already alerted them," Peg answered. "And  given  them  the  specifics  of  who  you  are  and  what's
  going on. Estimated time of arrival is seventeen seconds. They have a unit en route."
  Driving expertly, Argent used the traffic against his pursuers, filling the middle of Union Street when the
  flow  of  traffic  backed  off.  He  watched  the  digital  readout  of  his  retinal  clock  as  it  counted  down,  then
  noticed the fat shape of the Chrysler-Nissan G12A hovercraft in front of him as it plowed  through  traffic
  with full light bars blazing to announce its presence.
  Heavily armored and distinctly marked, the Lone Star SWAT unit looked like a mechanized predator on
  the prowl. Traffic readily made room for it, cringing to the sides of Union Street as the whirling light peeled
  away the layers  of  neon  spilling  from  the  various  businesses  lining  both  sides  of  the  thoroughfare.  Lone
  Star's SWAT teams had a reputation for getting a job done quickly in spite of unfavorable conditions.
  Argent  glanced  in  the  side  mirror,  watching  the  Ameri-car  swing  out  wide  behind  him,  intent  on
  overtaking the Roadmaster. This time, the street samurai let the vehicle come, knowing the SWAT unit had
  to be locked onto the American
  The hovercraft sped down Union Street, scarcely more than fifty meters  away.  Guns  mounted  on  firm
  points on the G12A glinted against the  hide  of  black  armor.  A  Victory  rotary  assault  cannon  kept  a  low
  profile above the black-lensed glass of the hovercraft's windshield.
  Gunfire raked the Roadmaster's side in a sudden drumming din. Argent hunkered down low  behind  the
  steering wheel, dodging a car in front of him that had come to a full stop. He edged to the left, keeping the
  attention of the men in the Americar, watching as the hovercraft settled in the middle of Union Street atop
  its cushion of air.
  He  recognized  all  the  telltales  of  the  hovercraft's  gunners,  knowing  they'd  locked  onto  their  target.
  Without  warning,  he  hit  the  brakes  and  pulled  the  steering  wheel  hard  right.  Since  the  cargo  area  was
  virtually empty, making the back end of the Roadmaster light, the vehicle fish-tailed, the back end  coming
  around like it was racing the front end.
  Argent had timed the move well enough that the Road-master's heavier bulk caught the Americar from
  behind, batting it forward and to the left. The Americar driver fought his vehicle for control. The men inside
  the car were close enough for Argent to see. As he continued shutting the Roadmaster down, he watched
  the men's faces swivel toward the waiting Lone Star hovercraft.
  A  micro-tick  later,  as  soon  as  the  Americar  was  clear  of  the  Roadmaster,  the  SWAT  craft's  rotary
  cannon opened up with a thunderous roar. A full salvo of five cannon rounds slammed into the Americar,
  reducing it to a tumbling ball of fire and wreckage that pummeled the side of a coffin hotel, shedding bits of
  flaming scrap.
  Miraculously,  the  hotel  wall  held.  Fire  washed  over  the  windows  when  the  Americar  exploded  in  a
  heated rush.
  Argent knew most of the hotel's guests shunted away in their small, stacked cubicles with the simsense
  rigs  or  gooned  on  the  what-me-worry  of  their  choice  wouldn't  even  have  registered  the  impact.  The
  Roadmaster quivered to a halt.
  Sliding from behind the wheel, Argent returned to the compartment area of the vehicle. Shaundra Merlini
  wept openly, her mouth working continuously. Tenderly, he freed her from the restraints, then picked her up
  in his arms. She folded in on herself like a child, arms crossed, her chin tucked down on top of her hands.
  Carrying the young woman's weight easily, Argent strode to the back of the Roadmaster. "You're going
  to be okay," he told her in a soft voice. "Your father sent me to bring you home. And I'm going to see that
  done. No one else is going to hurt you. That's a promise."
  She pressed against his chest, shivering.
  Argent held her and  forced  himself  to  keep  his  distance,  didn't  allow  himself  to  think  of  all  the  things
  she'd been through since she'd been taken. Success in his line of work all too often resulted only in keeping
  a  bad  situation  from  getting  worse,  not  by  saving  the  weak  and  the  innocent  from  what  they'd  already
  experienced. He couldn't change history; only influence the future. A soldier learned where the lines were
  
  between what was possible and what wasn't. Personal involvement had gotten too many  good  men  dead,
  and he knew that from experience.
  The  SWAT  members  ringed  the  Roadmaster,  pointing  their  rifles  and  pistols  at  Argent.  He  remained
  standing when he was ordered, then told them to contact Victor Merlini to check on his involvement.
  "Argent," Peg called over the commlink.
  That surprised him. This deep  into  an  op,  without  knowing  whether  they  could  put  a  handle  on  all  the
  elements,
  Peg knew better than to break the communication blackout. He waited as the SWAT members came  for
  him. One of the first things they would do was slap a headjammer on  him  to  block  out  whatever  internal
  commlinks he might have.
  "I knew you'd want to know," Peg went. "I just received a message from Brynnmawr."
  And  that  act,  Argent  knew,  was  even  more  dangerous  than  staring  down  the  muzzles  of  a  dozen
  adrenaline-charged  Lone  Star  SWAT  members.  Brynnmawr  was  part  of  his  past,  one  of  a  number  of
  pasts.
  Only Brynnmawr was more dangerous than all others put together. If everything had gone right, Argent
  knew he'd never have heard from the man again. Even as Shaundra Merlini was taken from his arms and
  containment manacles were snapped around his wrists, he couldn't help wondering  what  had  gone  wrong
  and who had been flatlined.
  Or who was going to be.
  4
  [Chip file: Argent
  [Personal log and review file: Classified]
  Security access: ******—22:43:43/10-9-60]
  BEGIN UPLOAD
  Location: Everett Safe House
  Lone Star didn't try to detain me long. Or if they did, they didn't get to. Victor Merlini saw  to  that.  An
  exec with his kind of power and political clout is going to get
  what he wants. Of course, if things had turned out differently with his daughter, I'd probably still be buried
  deep in the slammer. I kept a realistic view of the world.
  After  I  got  away  from  the  Star,  after  I  cleared  Victor  Merlini's  Toyota  Elite  limo  with  a  certified
  credstick in the amount we'd agreed on, I took a half-dozen cabs to the rented doss in  Everett  that  I  had
  waiting. At least, almost there; I walked the last  three  klicks  after  being  let  out  at  the  main  gates  to  the
  Federated Everett Boeing Facility on 84th Street SW.
  Merkhur had disappeared before any of the Star fly-boys could run him to ground. A quick wash in one
  of the units down near the docks in Elliott Bay and he was as gone as they got. He'd gotten paid half his fee
  up front, and Peg had transferred the other half to the bank he was using once I'd dropped from the helo.
  The biz I do is by the numbers and on time. I even paid up front for the drone he left behind so there'd be
  no hard feelings.
  The Everett doss wasn't  home;  it  was  just  a  flop,  a  place  to  go  to  ground.  When  I  pulled  the  kind  of
  high-profile shadowrun the Merlini kidnapping turned out to be, I stayed away from my homeground for a
  couple days, maybe even a  couple  weeks.  Sometimes  the  trouble  I  took  on  had  a  habit  of  following  me
  around for a time.
  Everett  was  a  good  location  for  cooling  out,  and  the  doss  itself  was  a  few  blocks  down  from  Casino
  Corner, the only red-light zone in the  district.  I  took  the  four  flights  of  stairs  up  to  the  doss  because  the
  elevators didn't work. The bruising F d taken during the Merlini recovery burned with a slow flame across
  my chest, tightening up over my ribs.
  A wave of stale, humid air slapped me in the face as I stepped into the room, like the liquid stench from a
  jungle soldier's athlete's foot gone near to gangrenous rot. I dropped the duffel on the sway-backed bed and
  got serious about the room's security.
  I took a scrambler-equipped Sony telecom from my
  
  duffel and plugged it into the wall outlet. Once it was operational, I tapped in the codes for the MishiMoshi
  commlink program and the Roller Coaster relocate program Peg had installed in the unit and let  them  run
  along with the self-driven compatibility diagnostics. Even if anyone out there happened to be  listening  and
  managed to trace the call, they'd show the origination point as being down in Tir Tairngire,  and  no  one  in
  Seattle was going to traipse down into the elflands easily.
  Reaching  into  the  duffel  again,  I  dug  out  the  battery-operated  motion  detector  wand  set.  The
  monofilament  ends  of  the  wands  sank  into  the  floor  without  a  problem.  They  extended  sectionally  to  a
  height  of  under  one  meter,  hidden  in  the  shadows  draped  across  the  room,  covering  the  door  and  the
  window.  When  they  were  switched  on,  an  overlapping  field  of  fire  surrounded  the  interior  of  the  room,
  including  me.  If  anything  moved  in  that  area,  a  high-pitched  warning  screech  would  sound  that  my
  cyber-enhanced hearing would detect.
  Lights flashed  across  the  front  of  the  telecom  as  the  programs  cycled  through.  When  they  finished,  I
  punched in the LTG code that Peg was using this half-hour.
  She came on at once. "I was getting worried. You're calling later than I thought you would."
  I gazed at the blank face of the telecom even though I knew she wouldn't broadcast vid. Peg didn't like
  people to see her. Fourteen years ago, when she was sixteen, she'd had an accident on her bike. She'd lost.
  When she came out  of  surgery,  barely  alive,  she'd  been  a  quadriplegic,  with  the  injury  so  high  up  her
  spinal cord that cyberlimbs were never going to be an option. Even before then, from the bits and pieces I'd
  been able to put together about her life over the years, she hadn't had a good relationship with her parents.
  They' d liked her even less as an invalid.
  After awhile, her parents wanted to put her in a clinic, get her out from under foot. It had  been  a  hard
  decision
  for a sixteen-year-old kid to make, but she'd agreed. For a price.
  Peg had always been good with computers. In  return  for  accepting  the  exile  to  the  quad  clinic,  they'd
  paid for her first datajack. She took to the Matrix immediately, spending hours every day in there, learning
  from anyone who would teach her,  hoping  to  find  skills  that  would  allow  her  to  live  her  life  on  her  own
  terms instead of being dependent.
  She'd hoped to get enough education that a corp would hire her. Maybe she would have made it. Except
  that she discovered shadowrunners. Slipping through black IC on datasteals gave her an adrenaline rush like
  nothing else.
  In all the years I'd worked with her, I'd only seen her once. Then she was being kept in a clinic in San
  Francisco. I didn't know for sure where she was now. At the time I'd seen her, the paralysis had  wasted
  her body away, leaning it down to skin over bone, putting premature gray in the thick red hair she wore cut
  short.
  But I never felt sorry for her. If I had, she would have known  about  it  and  been  gone.  A  woman  like
  Peg, you accept her on her terms or else.
  I shifted on the bed, feeling myself grow tense. "What's the skinny on Brynnmawr?"
  "He wants to meet with you."
  "Where?" I tried to figure out how old Brynnmawr must be. He'd looked ancient when I'd first met him, a
  frail old man who'd proven to have a mind as sharp as a monofilament edge.
  "In the Matrix," Peg answered. "I can take you there."
  "Did Brynnmawr say what this was about?" I asked.
  "No."
  I heard the frustration in her voice, knew she was taking my reluctance to talk personally.
  "Who is this joker?" she asked. "I ran him through every database I know. I turned up zilch."
  I wasn't surprised. Of course, Brynnmawr wasn't his
  real name. I didn't know his real name, so he was one up on me, which I never had liked.
  "A man we're going to have to deal with." I opened the duffel again and pulled out the trode rig. Lying in
  my hand, the rig looked like the latticework of a helmet waiting to be finished. I pulled the rig into place on
  my head, then inserted the plug into the telecom beside the bed, shifting to make myself feel comfortable.
  Without another word, Peg reached out for me and yanked me into the Matrix, funneling my conscious
  mind through the trode rig.
  I didn't go willingly. I never did.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  
  5
  "Sorry  to  keep  you  waiting,  but  I  had  something  working  that  couldn't  be  put  on  hold."  Richard  Villiers
  walked through a seemingly solid wall. Actually, holos covered the room's three separate  exits,  and  those
  exits moved, creating new corridors to other sections of the NovaTech executive suite and making it harder
  for  anyone  to  penetrate  any  further  into  the  rooms.  None  of  the  doors  were  opened  except  by  Villiers
  himself. Once inside the suite, Villiers's guests were essentially prisoners. Villiers was dark and handsome,
  and  moved  with  grace  and  razor-edged  self-confidence.  The  pin-striped  Vashon  Island  three-piece  suit
  draped him like it had been surgically fit. "This unscheduled visit is about Sencio?"
  "Yes." Miles Lanier was a tall man with an average build, his chestnut hair styled to look like he was a
  week late for his next appointment. He looked ten years younger
  than he was, old enough to demand automatic respect, but appearing young enough that someone who didn't
  know him might make the mistake of thinking  he  wasn't  as  good  as  he  was.  The  dark  maroon  Armante
  evening suit fit him well.
  As Villiers's security head, he knew that the biz they were doing, trying to shape NovaTech up from the
  gutted remains of Fuchi Industrial  Electronics,  required  huge  risks  and  tremendous  forethought.  Until  the
  recent  dissolution  of  the  three  entities  that  had  made  up  Fuchi,  Villiers  had  been  viewed  by  the  other
  megacorps as a gifted player in the economic market. Now he worked to recoup that image, and increase
  his holdings. "It appears she's gotten a message out."
  "To who?"
  "I don't know," Lanier replied.. "I've got agents in the field trying to find out."
  "But it wasn't us?" Villiers asked.
  "No."
  The NovaTech CEO gave a half smile. "Then I guess we've about worn out the trust she had in us."
  Lanier shrugged. "The only chance she has of getting out is us."
  "I saw your reports this morning. Ironaxe hasn't given up pursuit of Sencio and her team."
  "Ironaxe has taken this piece of industrial espionage personally."
  "A pity. And after all the bribes were in place with his staff, too."
  Some of those bribes, Lanier knew, were in the form of blackmail. Extortion always carried more weight
  than a credstick. "We knew at the outset that Sencio and her team might be compromised."
  "We  did,"  Villiers  agreed.  His  face  showed  concern.  "But  she  didn't.  She  may  choose  to  hold  this
  corporation at fault. Sencio can be a vindictive individual."
  Lanier knew that was a  definite  understatement.  Coupled  with  that  was  that  fact  that  if  Clay  Ironaxe
  managed to capture Sencio alive, the woman could be a death sentence for them both. And for the fledgling
  NovaTech corporation.
  6
  Clay  Ironaxe  switched  his  commlink  over  to  the  frequency  his  team  was  using,  then  curled  his  left  fist
  around the butt of the Seco LD-120 combat pistol. When his palm made contact with the smartgun link, his
  cybersystems came on-line. Cross hairs formed in his vision as he scanned the  Albuquerque  sprawl  from
  the safety of the metallic silver Rolls Royce Phaeton limousine.
  At something less than ten minutes after midnight,  the  plex's  red  light  district  was  still  in  full  swing.  A
  mixture of corpgeeks and execs socialized on the wild side, while the night predators went to work.
  The address was in Martinez Town, east of Highway 47. The limo rigger handled the  expensive  luxury
  vehicle with accomplished ease, propelling it off Grand Avenue NE onto John Street.
  Ironaxe  watched  the  dimmed  lights  of  Saint  Joseph's  Medical  Center  coming  up  on  the  right  as  they
  headed north. The hospital stood as one of the few remaining bastions of civilization in the area.
  When the Treaty of Denver settled the dispute between  the  North  American  federal  governments  and
  the Native American Nations, part of the agreement had been to force any non-natives to leave the region.
  
  Albuquerque had become a business force to be reckoned with in the Southwest before the Awakening and
  the Ghost Dance,
  and many of the non-natives had been defiant about being forced out.
  The fighting had spilled out into the streets, and Martinez Town had been one of the  hardest  hit.  When
  the dispute was finally settled, no one had cared enough to rebuild the areas of the sprawl that didn't directly
  contribute to  profits.  Martinez  Town,  like  a  number  of  other  areas,  had  ended  up  with  nothing  except  a
  ghetto  of  broken  buildings  filled  with  squatters,  native  and  non-native,  as  well  as  metahumanity  of  both
  kinds.
  The area had also picked up a contingent of low-rent mercenaries who fought for all sides in the border
  skirmishes  between  other  members  of  NAN  and  UCAS.  Base  camps  for  shadowrunners  tackling  the
  corporations scattered across the Pueblo Corporate Council lands were built and shifted as quickly as rats'
  nests.
  Clay Ironaxe was on a rat-killing spree tonight.
  He shifted in the back of the Phaeton, a big broad man more than two meters tall and a meter across at
  the shoulders. The battle-hardened kevlar body armor fit him well, covered with brightly colored war paint
  that  striped  his  arms,  legs,  and  chest.  More  paint  covered  his  broad,  blocky  face,  teasing  the  flesh  with
  highlights in white that turned his features into a skullface with black eye hollows. A beaten gold circlet with
  engraved Zuni markings held his long black hair back, funneling it down his back.
  "Maybe we'll get lucky and the woman will be there," Aaron Bearstalker said beside him. He was a big
  man as well, though  still  dwarfed  by  his  employer  and  friend.  Like  Ironaxe,  he  wore  kevlar  body  armor
  bearing the war marks  of  the  Ashiwi,  their  people.  He  cradled  an  Ares  Alpha  Combat  Gun  loosely,  the
  blued steel of the battle rifle looking oily in the dim glare that filtered in from the street.
  Ironaxe shook his head. He'd had his fortune read in the sand that day, and the portents indicated that his
  quest
  for honor was not going to be easily won. "No, but perhaps Korrin will know where we may find her."
  The Phaeton rolled to a stop at the end of the cul-de-sac where the present section of John Street ended.
  The  luxury  car's  headlights  knifed  through  the  dark  shadows  surrounding  the  collection  of  shattered
  warehouses  and  apartment  buildings.  Train  tracks  gleamed  white-silver  to  the  west,  only  occasionally
  noticeable through the few open areas.
  "I've got movement," one of the men in the front seats called out. The others immediately echoed him.
  Ironaxe watched the squatters flee. As a general rule, they were thin and wiry, dressed in rags collected
  from refuse bins. But some of them brandished weapons as they retreated.
  "The man we're hunting won't run,"  Ironaxe  said.  He  let  himself  out  of  the  Rolls  Royce  ahead  of  the
  others. They followed his lead, spreading out in a loose perimeter that maintained overlapping fields of fire.
  7
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—23:13:24/10-9-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: Everett Safehouse
  Everything went black, and stillness filled the world I'd entered. I've never found another experience so
  perfect or so complete as the Matrix.
  Then color entered that perfect blackness, shooting
  streamers of bright reds, greens, golds, purples, a plethora of prismatic incandescence that resembled tracer
  fire. The streamers created a grid around us, over us, and below us, connecting dozens of different icons to
  each  other  in  convoluted  patterns.  The  horizon  in  any  direction  was  so  far  off  it  looked  like  the  world
  twisted and funneled into a tight knot.
  Instinctively, I tried to move, to center myself. But I couldn't. The trode rig was a hitcher device, enabling
  me to enter the Matrix and interact with Peg, but not  to  interact  with  the  Matrix  itself.  It  was  like  being
  wrapped in a cocoon.
  "Easy," Peg said. "I'm here." Her voice came from somewhere that my mind identified  as  being  to  my
  left. Actually, there was no left because I had no body.
  Mentally, I pulled back and dropped into parade rest. I'd learned to hold that position for hours if I needed
  
  to, and it was even easier in the Matrix because gravity didn't exist.
  Without warning, the glowing colored lines began whipping past as we gained momentum. Peg controlled
  our movements, thrusting us through a hundred different landscapes in an eyeblink. Our destination became
  immediately apparent: a  lambent  green  glass  tower  corkscrewed  into  a  chunk  of  gigantic  tree  roots  that
  were twisted together and slithered like snakes.
  "Now, there's a pretty picture," Peg commented.
  Her revulsion dripped in her words. "It fits Brynnmawr," I told her. "Just so you know what you're getting
  into."
  She lifted an arm, perfectly proportioned and translucent, glowing from an inner blue fire. Peg's persona,
  the way she saw herself in the Matrix, resembled a liquid being, totally feminine with unrestrained curves.
  Her eyes were pits of stormy blue fire, her lips tight and full, rolling waves held in restraint. Her blue-black
  hair cascaded around her shoulders. She went nude, but the translucent
  body she chose somehow didn't look naked. She'd had other personas over the years I'd known her, but this
  was  the  one  she  chose  when  she  went  into  situations  where  the  outcome  wasn't  something  she  could
  readily control. It was battledress, a flaunting of confidence and self, a mentality I totally understood.
  A  blaze  of  dark  violet  light  jumped  from  Peg's  fingertip  when  she  pointed,  stopping  meters  short  of
  touching the twisted snarl of roots at the base of the corkscrew tower. Some of the roots unwrapped from
  the base of the tower and shot out at us. Peg pulled us back, then formed flat shields of glowing gold and
  green that fit against her palms, no bigger than a buckler used by a Roman legionary. The roots bounced off
  her shields, then withered and died, leaving a trail of gray ash scattered across the black. A moment later a
  breeze gusted up and blew it away.
  "The node's surrounded by IC," she said. Her persona voice fit her image in the Matrix, husky and full. "I
  could possibly get through it, but it would take time."
  "Just knock," I said. "If Brynnmawr's expecting us, he'll let us in."
  "If it's not a trap."
  Attacks in the Matrix could also be lethal. A decker took his or her life in hand every time he or she went
  online. That world was full of predators  and  minefields.  I  knew  that  from  military  experience  as  well  as
  what I'd learned from deckers I'd worked with.
  "No,"  I  told  Peg.  "If  Brynnmawr  had  wanted  me  flat-lined,  he  wouldn't  have  gone  to  the  trouble  of
  leaving a message."
  "It was a way of finding you."
  "Going through the drop gave me control," I pointed out to her. "I could have ignored the message."
  "But he knew you wouldn't."
  I considered that, realizing that Peg knew me as well as Brynnmawr. Almost as well. Brynnmawr was a
  big reason I'd become the person I was, a big reason why I
  thought the way I thought. "Maybe." I used Peg's eyes and stared hard into the core of twisted roots.
  "You still want to go in?" she asked.
  "Yes." There could be no other choice, not and remain true to my convictions. I held a certain amount of
  fear of Brynnmawr, but I refused to knuckle under to it. He was a man, and men died. Sometimes.
  "Give me a minute," Peg requested.
  I waited, watching as a console appeared in the black ether before us. Peg's translucent blue hands glided
  across the buttons and dials, making adjustments.
  "I'm building us an escape route," she explained. "In case  this meet doesn't go as friendly as you think it
  will." She continued working as she spoke. "When Brynnmawr tagged the message drop, he tripped three
  separate trace programs I had set up on that drop. None of them got me Brynnmawr's real-world twenty,
  but one of them got in far enough to let me know he keeps a line open to the Wall Street stock exchange."
  I listened to her, letting her talk because I had some thinking to do myself. Brynnmawr's  interest  in  me
  brought up a lot of speculation, none of it with a foundation that I could reason.
  "A lot of people keep lines of communication open to the East Coast Stock Exchange," Peg said. "They
  have to look after all that money. And, usually, you can bet you're going to hit some of the deadliest black
  IC  ever  designed  if  you  try  to  follow  them  up.  Assuming  you  get  through  the  Stock  Exchange  Matrix
  defenses,  which  is  as  near  an  impossibility  as  I've  ever  found.  But  that  black  IC  is  set  up  to  intercept
  improper incoming datastreams, not outgoing."
  The root system below the  corkscrewed  green  glass  tower  writhed  restlessly,  and  I  could  almost  feel
  eyes scanning me.
  "There," Peg said. "That program should be enough to
  allow us to sleaze out if things start going to slot." The console folded swiftly in front of her, reducing in size
  
  until it became a tiny red button. She closed her hand over it, hiding it from sight. "Ready?"
  "Yeah."
  Peg fired another purple beam from her fingertip. The roots engaged again, wiggling toward us. "Do you
  have a password?" she asked.
  "Prodigal," I answered. Brynnmawr had a wicked sense of humor. Everything about him was wicked. I
  just didn't see it when I was younger.
  Abruptly, the roots stopped their  approach.  In  concert,  the  section  in  front  of  us  opened,  becoming  an
  ebony maw.
  "Well?" Peg prompted.
  "Go," I told her.
  She spread her arms, the button she'd created still tight in her  fist.  Then  she  flew  into  the  mouth.  The
  roots closed the opening behind us.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  8
  Ironaxe took the lead, running across the open space and skirting the remains of the convenience store. A
  rusted sign that announced WALKER'S STUFFER SHACK stuck up from the pile of debris. The roaring
  of the nature spirits and the intermittent blasts of autofire were almost deafening.
  It took a moment for him to spot  the  stone  steps  leading  to  an  underground  apartment  area  below  the
  building across from the Stuffer Shack. He raced down them at
  once, pausing at the bottom only long enough to kick the door off the hinges.
  The small dwelling under the apartment building was small and neat, furnished haphazardly and barren of
  personal effects.
  Tall but seriously underweight, Korrin was an ork, possessing the broad nose and thin lips of his kind. His
  elongated ears tapered to points, matching the disarray of bottom fangs that thrust up from his lower jaw.
  Bushy hair sprouting from the top of his head nearly covered his eyes. He wore a one-piece coverall with a
  patch over the left breast that advertised KIMIKO'S DOMESTIC SERVICE.
  Korrin  raised  a  Fichetti  Tiffani  Needler  and  closed  his  eyes  when  he  fired.  The  small  needle  rounds
  hardly made any noise, but they thumped into the wall behind Ironaxe with  explosive  detonations  that  left
  pockmarks ten centimeters across.
  Ironaxe avoided the needier. He slapped the Fichetti from Korrin's hand, then reached out and grabbed a
  fistful of the man's shirt. He pulled Korrin close, shoving the LD-120's barrel under the ork's left eye.
  "Breathe wrong," Ironaxe promised, "and I'll wipe your brainpan."
  Korrin swallowed hard but didn't move. "I'll talk. You don't have to do anything to  me."  He  cringed  as
  Bear-stalker moved in closer, sweeping the apartment with the combat rifle.
  "You helped a woman two days ago," Ironaxe said. "Talk to me about her,  browncone,  and  you  get  to
  live. Lie to me and you die. You scan me?"
  "Yeah. Sure. What's not to understand?"
  "You know the woman I'm talking about?" Ironaxe asked.
  Korrin hesitated.
  Holding the man by the lapels of his coverall, Ironaxe
  slammed Korrin into the wall inside the open door. The man's breath exploded from his lungs.
  "Do you know the woman I'm talking about?" Ironaxe repeated. He kept the ork pressed up against the
  wall.
  "Yeah. Her name was Sencio. Andi Sencio."
  9
  [Chip file: Argent
  
  Security access: ******_23:17:52/10-9-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: Everett Safehouse
  A night-draped cemetery formed around Peg and me, complete with grave markers that looked like tablets
  with  rounded  shoulders,  and  stones  marked  with  winged  cherubs  nearly  three  meters  tall.  Thick  woods
  stood  beyond  a  tall  wrought  iron  fence.  Through  the  gaps  in  the  fence,  I  thought  I  could  make  out  the
  yellow and red glow of predator's eyes. But it might have  been  laser  spotter  scopes.  In  Peg's  persona,  I
  didn't have access  to all the cyberware I carry so I couldn't zoom in on  their  positions.  That's  one  of  the
  main things I hated about the Matrix. It stripped away so much of what made me who I was these days.
  > This place  is  schizzed,  <  Peg  said.  >Even  for  a  meeting  place,  this  would  only  slot  a  nutter's
  chip-dreams. < Her eyes locked on a grave marker nearby that towered over us. Cut from an azure stone,
  the statue featured a tentacled monstrosity atop it, a pair of wicked hooks at the end of each tentacle.
  She talked to me over the private frequency she'd set up through the commlink built into my headware.
  That  way  we  could  speak  between  ourselves  as  well  as  through  the  commlink  open  on  the  Matrix
  construct.
  Rows and rows of grave markers spread out over the rolling hills under the pecan trees. A pale crescent
  of moon peered out from behind scudding clouds overhead.
  "Argent?"
  I recognized  Brynnmawr's  voice  at  once.  There  was  always  something  about  the  timbre  that  made  it
  stand out from anyone else's. Or maybe he'd conditioned me to respond to his voice. I never knew.
  "Yes,  sir,"  I  said,  and  Peg  projected  my  voice  into  the  construct.  She  turned  and  we  looked  at
  Brynnmawr.
  Slightly less than two meters tall, he was above average height and built  compactly.  Short-clipped  gray
  hair covered his face,  and  hard  black  eyes  gleamed  under  a  widow's  peak.  His  Vashon  Island  suit  was
  simply cut, with a bowstring tie at his throat. He looked like an undertaker, like I always saw him, and the
  appearance was deliberate. But he was younger than I remembered, thanks to the Matrix persona he was
  using.
  Brynnmawr stopped in front of us. Uncertainty gleamed in his bright eyes* something I'd never  seen in
  his eyes before. "How do I know it's you?"
  "Prodigal, sir," I told him after a moment's hesitation. "Who else would know our password?"
  He shook his head. "You  can  never  tell,  my  boy.  They  know  so  much  more  than  I  ever  thought  they
  would."
  "It's me, sir," I said gently. And it felt uncomfortable, because I'd never talked that way to him before.
  He smiled. "You look more like your friend, I guess."
  >I can fix that, < Peg told me.
  In my field of vision, her translucent blue body changed. In seconds, I was looking down at my own arms,
  my own body instead of her persona. But those limbs moved as Peg made them, not me.
  Brynnmawr nodded. "It's good to see you, my boy."
  I held my own counsel. Brynnmawr knew I didn't respond in any other way than honestly.
  "Walk with me," he said, choosing a well-trodden path through the gravestones.
  I tried to fall into step beside him, but couldn't. It was Peg who moved the persona even though it looked
  like me. >Walk beside him,< I told her privately. >To the right and one step behind. <
  She  did  it  without  asking  why.  Maybe  she  understood  it  was  deference  or  maybe  she  was  simply
  fascinated by  him.  Brynnmawr  had  that  effect  on  many  people,  and  some  of  the  most  responsive  were
  female.
  "How have you been, my boy?" Brynnmawr asked.
  "Well, sir," I replied.
  "I don't get much news of you here."
  "You shouldn't, sir," I said, "as long as I do my job right."
  Brynnmawr led the way through the gravestones, idly reaching out to  touch  some  of  them  and  inspect
  them, though I was certain he was intimate with them all.
  ·
  Why can't we read the grave markers ?< asked Peg.
  ·
  They 're covered in IC, < she replied. >I could try, but
  there's no telling what security measures I might set off. <
  >Don't,< I told her. I knew the kinds of deadly surprises Brynnmawr could devise.
  >Good choice, < she said.
  "You're still a shadowrunner," Brynnmawr observed.
  
  "It pays the bills, sir."
  He laughed then, that thin sibilant sound that few people had ever heard. "You were so much more than
  that, my boy. Probably the best I'd ever seen at your chosen field of work."
  I felt uncomfortable. I'd never talked over my past with any of the Wrecking Crew. And of them,  Peg
  would have probably been the least understanding. But I'd been
  young, and my view of the world was very encapsulated, handed to me by the man walking beside me.
  "We're not here to discuss that," I said. "Nor are we entirely alone, sir."
  "I  realize  that,"  Brynnmawr  snapped.  "I'm  quite  capable  of  keeping  secrets."  His  response  sounded
  practiced, filled with more than casual anger.
  But there was something in the way he said it that convinced me he had forgotten Peg was there. That
  was something I wasn't used to. Brynnmawr never forgot anything. His vengeance was a legendary force
  in the right circles, enough to give men nightmares.
  "Why did you ask me to come here, sir?"
  "I'm doing a favor for a friend," he replied.
  I was surprised when I felt a small ache that I wasn't there by Brynnmawr's own choice. Still, it wasn't
  too surprising, given the relationship I'd had with him. Teacher and student had come as close to father and
  son as any I'd ever had. Only betrayal could have ever broken us apart. And I'd known that at the moment
  I'd betrayed him.
  "Who, sir?"
  "Andi Sencio," he answered.
  That name sent my mind spinning because it carried almost as much regret as Brynnmawr's. It just went
  to show that history was cyclical. The past was always intertwined with the present, always with us.
  "She's in a lot of trouble, my boy," Brynnmawr said.
  Given  the  fact  that  she  had  contacted  me  through  Brynnmawr,  I  knew  Andi's  situation  was  highly
  understated.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  10
  "Are you certain Andi Sencio got a message out?" Richard Villiers asked.
  Miles  Larder  nodded.  "Yes.  The  security  unit  I've  placed  around  what  we  believe  to  be  her  current
  position  in  Pueblo  found  a  jury-rigged  satellite  dish  she  used  to  bounce  a  laser  burst  transmission  off  a
  satellite  to  access  the  Pueblo  LTG.  Once  in  the  Matrix  for  that  brief  period,  she  had  access  to  several
  options. Till her position was overrun."
  Villiers appeared to give that some thought. "Your people had no chance to intercept the message?"
  "No. Nakatomi had a group in the area as well. I've discovered  that  Pendleton  Frost,  the  double-agent
  Nakatomi put in Sencio's group, also managed to deliver DNA samples to Nakatomi." And that was what
  had  kept  Sencio  and  her  group  from  using  conventional  commlinks.  Wherever  they  were  hiding,  it  was
  proof—so far—against the mage-commanded watchers Nakatomi and Villiers had searching the area.
  "Before Sencio flatlined him."
  "Yes.  I  don't  know  if  Frost  gave  the  DNA  samples  to  Ironaxe,  but  my  people  are  telling  me  he's
  definitely the guy who tipped Ironaxe off that something was wrong with LegacyTrax."
  LegacyTrax  had  been  the  Trojan  horse  Villiers  had  used  to  trap  Ironaxe  and  render  his  corporation
  vulnerable to Sencio's shadow ops team. Though incredibly savvy in biz, Ironaxe  had  a  weakness  for  the
  lore of his people.
  LegacyTrax  had  a  history  of  ferreting  out  such  information.  They'd  asked  for,  and  received,  access  to
  Ironaxe's huge library on the subject, then winnowed their way into VaulTek itself. The op had been going
  smoothly— until Nakatomi's double-agent stepped in and gave Sencio away.
  "Our  people  weren't  expecting  the  crudeness  of  the  communications  effort,"  Lanier  went  on.  "They
  spotted it in the commlink traps they'd set up in the Pueblo LTG to monitor activity,  but  in  burst  mode.  It
  was gone before they could nail it down. No one's used that kind of technology in decades. Ironaxe's men
  closed on the team that sent it and succeeded in killing one of them. Sencio and another man escaped."
  "Did Ironaxe intercept it?"
  "I don't know," Lanier answered honestly. "But probably not. If he had, he'd have been in your face by
  now. And Nakatomi's  waiting  in  the  wings  to  make  this  deal  if  you  get  blown  out  of  the  water."  Shikei
  Nakatomi, until last year, had been one of the three top men in Fuchi. Now the man headed up the  Fuchi
  
  Asia remnants, and had bought the four million shares of Renraku Computer Systems that Lanier had sold
  to the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank, aligning his corp with Renraku. Or positioning himself to  take  it
  over, depending on which line of thinking was followed. Nakatomi was also Richard Villiers' mortal enemy.
  One of them, Lanier amended silently.
  "You said the burst transmission was traced. Where?"
  "To a geosynchronous  satellite  over  North  America.  We  haven't  been  able  to  discover  who  owns  it."
  And that alone, Lanier knew, meant a lot. Villiers himself had masterminded shadow ops that no  one  had
  ever penetrated. The LegacyTrax op had run smoothly for months before being discovered. Even now, no
  one could assign blame for what had  happened.  Unless  they  could  catch  Sencio.  "All  of  our  attempts  to
  break through the IC covering the system have been blocked. Two deckers are dead
  from dump shock after being forcibly ejected from the system,  and  another  is  in  a  coma.  Even  then,  the
  chances are that the message has been relayed and no longer exists within the satellite's subsystems."
  "A satellite buried that far back and that deeply," Villiers said, "suggests another megacorp."
  "Or the military," Lanier  said.  "They  have  unlisted  satellites.  And  they  were  the  last  to  stop  using  the
  burst transmission sequencing." Security  was  one  area  where  he  excelled  over  Villiers.  He  also  had  the
  determination and resolve to take chances himself, and kill those who got in his way. Villiers was good with
  stock and bonds, but Lanier had grown to adulthood with a gun and a knife in his hands.
  "Sencio was in the military, wasn't she?"
  "UCAS special forces," Lanier confirmed. "All of that information is highly classified."
  "If Ironaxe gets his hands on Sencio, things could go badly for us down there. The  advances  in  Matrix
  security VaulTek has come up with will buy NovaTech weeks  or  months  against  anything  shadowrunner
  teams can put together. Not to mention the worth of a merger with a major player in the Pueblo Corporate
  Council."
  "The possibility also exists that we weren't able to download everything  Sencio  and  her  team  got  from
  VaulTek," Lanier pointed out.
  "I know. I try to keep that in mind. But every breath that woman takes is a menace to NovaTech."
  "I could send the secondary team in now," Lanier said, "but I'd like to wait on that. There's a wild card
  that could still show up on the table."
  "Whoever Sencio contacted?"
  Lanier nodded. "We may be able to use that."
  "Need I point out,"  Villiers  asked,  "that  person  may  be  an  even  bigger  threat  than  either  Nakatomi  or
  Ironaxe?"
  "Maybe," Lanier admitted. "But that other party could
  also turn out to be a smokescreen we can use. Or it could be another resource that could be tapped in our
  favor."
  Villiers nodded his agreement. "Keep me in the loop, Miles. I'm depending on you."
  And Lanier knew that was true. There was no one Villiers had ever trusted more. He wasn't about to let
  his friend down.
  11
  "How you did you know Sencio?" Ironaxe demanded, his cyberhand tight on the ork's thin shoulder.
  "I did a couple tours in the Desert Wars with her," Korrin said. "Both of us were with Fuchi then. You
  don't forget chummers you fought with."
  "What did she want with you?" Ironaxe asked.
  "Out.  She  wanted  out  of  the  Pueblo  Corporate  Council  lands,  omae.  She'd  heard  I  was  connected  in
  Pueblo, but I couldn't help her." Korrin shivered again and shook his head. "I'm small-time. She was asking
  too much."
  "She's still in Pueblo?"
  Korrin nodded. "As of this morning. Unless she found someone who could get her out."
  Ironaxe glared into the ork's weak eyes. "If she contacts you again, you'll let me know."
  "Sure, sure. The minute I hear from her."
  Pushing the  man  away,  Ironaxe  gestured  to  Bearstalker  to  follow  him  out.  Outside,  he  made  his  way
  back to the Phaeton limousine, then dropped into the back seat. He accessed  his commlink and  broke  off
  
  the engagement.
  The  rigger  powered  the  big  luxury  vehicle  up  smoothly  and  rocketed  them  away,  heading  back  to
  Highway 47.
  "This Andi Sencio won't be in contact with Korrin
  again," Bearstalker said. "Not if she's as good as she's proven so far."
  "I know."
  "Have you gotten any closer to finding out who actually owns LegacyTrax?"
  Ironaxe shook his head. "No. The corporation's real ownership is buried in  holding  companies  and  shell
  corporations. Whoever hid it knew what they were doing. My people have followed a dozen different trails
  so far." Someone had done their research well; first by finding out his interest  in  his  people's  history,  and
  second by discovering his business with LegacyTrax.
  Legacy Trax was a small operation that specialized in locating information about Amerindian culture. The
  only other major players in the field of locating magical artifacts from different cultures  that  had  come  to
  light since the Awakening were the Atlantean Foundation, the  Draco  Foundation,  and  Aztechnology.  The
  first two were headed by people close to Dunkelzahn before the great dragon was assassinated. Of them
  all, LegacyTrax's initial findings seemed the most promising. Now, Ironaxe had to wonder if even that was
  a lie.
  "Did you find out if Villiers was actually using their services?"
  "Yes. One of our deckers who built the back door into Legacy Trax's mainframes  after  security  in  the
  corp had been breached found files on Villiers."
  "What was he looking for?"
  "That's secured," Ironaxe replied. "Apparently he never risked his own corp's security integrity."
  "He was already working with LegacyTrax at the time they found you," Bearstalker said.
  "It gave us something in common, I thought," Ironaxe replied. "Though  I  still  don't  know  for  sure  if  he
  was aware that I was involved with them. Now, the possibility exists that I was set up by Villiers. And if I
  find that to be true, not only will I shut down the mergers he was
  wanting to do with VaulTek, but I'll do my best to smash that fledgling corporation of his."
  The commlink buzzed for his attention and he opened the phone connection. "Mr. Ironaxe," a woman said
  smoothly, "I have Shikei Nakatomi of Fuchi Asia on the line for you."
  "Patch it  to  the  car,"  Ironaxe  said.  The  Phaeton  was  equipped  with  a  satellite  uplink.  He  cleared  the
  comm-link and waited for the limo's commlink to come on-line. "Nakatomi," he told Bearstalker.
  "Now that's fragging interesting," Bearstalker said.
  Ironaxe couldn't help but agree. Then the uplink juiced to life, enabling the transmission.
  12
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—23:24:02/10-9-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: Everett Safehouse
  "What kind of trouble is Andi Sencio in, sir?" I asked.
  Brynnmawr stood before me, gazing off at the rows of tombstones, cherubs, and monsters. "I don't know
  the specifics, my boy. Only that she needed me to contact you."
  > Who's Sencio ?< Peg asked.
  >Not now,< I told her, knowing full well she'd run Sencio's name in case  the meeting with Brynnmawr
  went to drek. Whatever Peg found, if anything, wouldn't tie Sencio to me, though. Brynnmawr had provided
  both of
  us—and others—complete security packs that had effectively erased anyone we'd ever been  the  day  we
  walked away from him. Not all of them had gotten to keep on walking. We had.
  Her contacting Brynnmawr through the private satellite and construct were guaranteed to be one of the
  safest  routes  of  communication.  He  knew  too  many  secrets  to  live,  but  he  knew  them  about  too  many
  people for any of them to ever kill him. One of the reasons he'd had people like Andi and I working for him
  was because we were good enough to become faceless ciphers in every dangerous game he played.
  "Why you, sir?" I asked.
  
  "Did she know where you were or how to get in touch with you discreetly?"
  "I don't know, sir." And I didn't. Andi and I had parted ways years ago.
  "She knew F d be able to get in touch with you."
  I remained silent, trying to sort through all the emotions that ran rampant inside me. That was another of
  the reasons I didn't like the Matrix much: it put nearly everything down  on  a  tactile  level.  Or  maybe  that
  was just because Peg got everything that way and my experiences were filtered through hers.
  "I keep an eye on you," Brynnmawr said. "I can't see everything, my boy, so don't worry about that. But
  I know about some things, like the message drop I used tonight. You haven't changed much, you know."
  "I've changed, sir," I argued, keeping my tone light, but needing to say it all the same.
  "Only your frame of reference," Brynnmawr accused. "You're still the boy I remember. Why else do you
  insist only on taking shadowruns that are on the side of what you consider to be of moral good?"
  >Because,<  Peg put in, >you're  basically  a good  chummer doing  a  dirty  biz.  If  we  didn't  do  the
  work we
  do, a lot more people would be in more trouble than we found them in. <
  I didn't  say  anything  to  either  of  them.  They  both  had  their  opinions,  and  I  didn't  agree  with  cither's
  assessment. I was what I was, what I'd spent all of my life learning to be. I knew  where  my  boundaries
  were, what I would and wouldn't do.
  "When you were younger," Brynnmawr admitted, "I used that idealism that is so ingrained in you to my
  advantage. Do you know what you are, Argent?"
  He'd never called me by my given name since he'd renamed me Argent. I sometimes wondered if he'd
  forgotten it. I returned his level gaze and kept my mouth shut.
  "You're a believer," he declared.  "Maybe  one  of  the  last  true  believers  I've  ever  met  in  my  life.  You
  believed in me. You believed in the work that I had you doing. You believed you could make a difference in
  all the cruel injustice that I set you up against day after day. And when you found out I was lying to you,
  you still believed you could make that difference. That's why you betrayed me."
  If I'd been under my own power instead of lodged there in Peg's persona, I'd have walked  away  from
  him then. I felt a pressure on my chest back in the real world, suddenly aware of my meat body.
  "Follow me only a little longer," Brynnmawr said. He turned and continued down the paths  through  the
  graveyard.
  When I wanted to do nothing more than walk away from him, Peg got us in step with him. I didn't trust
  my voice to speak with her, and I needed to wait to find out what had happened to Andi.
  "They  never  trusted  me  after  you  left  quite  the  way  they  had  before,"  Brynnmawr  said.  His  voice
  sounded suddenly old and hollow. "I continued with my caseload and taking charge of field assignments for
  years. Ironically, I was relieved of duty the same year you lost your team mates."
  "This has nothing to do with why I'm here, sir." No way did I want to discuss Toshi and Hawk with him.
  They were a part of my history, not his.
  "It has everything to do with it," he snapped, growing impatient with me. "The trouble that Sencio's in isn't
  simple or she wouldn't have contacted me. You can't afford to be at any less than your best if  you  go  to
  help her."
  "I haven't said that I would yet, sir. Like I said, things have changed."
  "Not that about you, Argent. Never that. You'll never stop believing in the things you believe in."
  "I think you're wrong about that, sir," I said, maybe a little more harshly than I intended. "Once I believed
  in you. Now I don't."
  His left eye flickered just a tick, but he never broke eye contact with me. "But you're here, aren't  you,
  my boy?" he asked softly.
  "Only for a short time, sir. If you want to  continue  playing  cat-and-mouse  games,  I'll  find  Andi  on  my
  own." I called out silently to Peg. >Get ready to get us out of here. <
  >Say the word. This guy really creeps me out. <
  "We're a lot alike now, you and I," Brynnmawr said. "After your betrayal, I couldn't trust anyone the way
  I'd trusted you. I gave you much more of myself than I'd intended. And when you walked away, there was
  quite a lot I didn't get back."
  "That went for both of us, sir."
  He shook his head. "Not true. You had your friends. I had no one."
  "Sir," I said, "you chose that life."
  "Not hardly, my boy. I feel that it chose me." Brynnmawr gestured to the graveyard around him. "This is
  my prison. My body is failing me, but they insist on keeping me alive. Too many of them are afraid that the
  secrets I know will come tumbling out of the hiding places where
  
  I've stored them." He waved at the gravesites. "Do you know what lies buried in these?"
  "No, sir."
  He  grinned,  baring  the  white  shark's  grin.  "My  sins,"  he  answered.  "Memories  of  everything  I'd  ever
  done. Atrocities piled upon atrocities. And every now and again when I walk through this prison they've left
  me in, one of those atrocities will rise up out of the grave and try to kill me."
  >Oh drek,< Peg whispered. >They've trapped him in here with this ?<
  She  sounded  like  she  couldn't  believe  it.  I  did;  I  knew  some  of  the  people  Brynnmawr  had  been
  responsible to.
  "They also make me hungry, part of the programming, you see, to remind me that I am not king  of  my
  own castle anymore." Reaching up, he plucked a pecan from the branch above him, then held it out for me
  to inspect.
  Even in the moonlight, I could see that it looked like an ordinary pecan, paper-shelled and slightly bigger
  and longer than my thumb.
  "Think about it, my boy," Brynnmawr said. "Think about where the roots of these pecan trees grow."
  I did think about it, and I forced myself to be cold about it. Peg made retching noises inside my head.
  "Those roots dig down into those graves," he went on, "and they suck out everything inside to make these
  nuts. All the dead that I laid to rest, or caused to be laid to rest. With the programming in this place, I have
  to eat the pecans." His voice broke. "I'm feeding on my own sins here, and I can't stop."
  "What can I do?" I asked.
  He looked at me strangely, then broke into laughter, convulsing so hard that he had to sit down on one of
  the grave markers. "See, Argent, you haven't changed at all. You still believe that  you  can  do  something
  about everything."
  I didn't know how to take his reaction, so I remained quiet.
  >He 's insane, < Peg stated. >But you can't blame him. <
  "Don't  you  see  how  humorous  this  all  is?"  Brynnmawr  asked.  "I'm  trapped  in  this  prison  because  I
  believed I could do anything I wanted, and you're trapped by your own fears after losing Toshi and Hawk.
  I'm afraid to die, and you're afraid to live."
  "I live just fine, sir," I told him.
  "And you work alone," Brynnmawr said, "except for that bedridden slitch that feeds  off  your  heart  and
  legs."
  > That son-of-a-slitch, < Peg grated.
  "I'm leaving now, sir," I told him. "I've taken all of this I intend to."
  "Go," Brynnmawr said. "But you ask yourself who else could have told it to you like this, to your face?
  You've got to put those dead men behind you, get back to being what you were before it gets you flatlined.
  If you're not ready for this, I'm sending you to your death. Believe it or not, my boy, but I don't want any
  more of your blood on my hands."
  "Where can I find Andi?"
  Brynnmawr pushed himself up from the grave marker  and  dusted  off  his  suit.  "She's  set  up  a  contact
  with a Mr. Johnson in CalFree State. In Los Angeles. A simsense tavern down in East  Hollywood  called
  Lookers. He'll have all the details you need."
  "How do I find him?"
  "He'll find you. Sencio gave him a holo of you, and a password. She said you'd know it when you hear it."
  "Thank you, sir."
  He looked at me. "You're going, aren't you?"
  "I don't see that I have a choice, sir. She asked."
  "Even though the two of you haven't seen each other in years."
  "Yes, sir."
  "Do you realize how dit-brained that is?"
  "You relayed the message, sir," I pointed out. "That possibly isn't one of the safest moves you've made."
  "No, but my jailers are quite protective." He crossed over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Take
  care of yourself, my boy, and if you should get the chance—" He stopped speaking.
  "Yes, sir?" I inquired.
  "Nothing," he said gruffly. "Just don't get your fragging hoop spiked while you're out there. I taught you
  better than that. Don't be a drekking embarrassment to me." Without another word, he turned and walked
  away, threading his way through the gravestones.
  >Get us out of here, < I told Peg.
  She pressed the concealed panicbutton in her hand. My senses blurred as we shot through the airspace
  
  above the graveyard, the markers dwindling down to black pinpoints behind us.
  "If you're going after this Sencio person," she said as we skidded along one of the Matrix's gridlines and
  came out of the East Coast Stock Exchange without being noticed by the security IC, "maybe you should
  tell me about her."
  "I'll think about it," I replied, knowing her statement revealed that she hadn't found out a single fact about
  Andi. If that was the case,  if  Andi  had  conducted  her  biz  so  well,  I  knew  the  problems  she'd  be  facing
  would be large, nasty ones.
  END UPLOAD
  13
  At the other end of the satellite uplink beaming into Clay Ironaxe's Phaeton limousine, Shikei Nakatomi sat
  at  the  big  desk  Ironaxe  had  come  to  associate  with  the  Fuchi  Asia  CEO.  He  was  smooth  and  elegant,
  round-faced,  with  his  black  and  silver  hair  carefully  combed  back.  His  narrow  black  tie  was  knotted
  precisely. Behind him was a holo of a cherry tree in full bloom.
  "Ironaxe-san," Nakatomi stated in his precise  English,  "please  pardon  the  interruption  I  have  caused.  I
  know it is quite late there. I was hoping to make the job of tracking down your betrayer somewhat easier."
  "I have  the  woman's  name  now."  Only  a  few  days  ago,  Nakatomi  had  given  Ironaxe  the  information
  about the team of shadowrunners operating inside LegacyTrax.  Despite  that,  Ironaxe  knew  the  man  had
  held onto the information for longer than that. Maybe even long enough to have made a difference.
  "Hai. As do we. Only moments ago, we discovered her identity as well: Andrea Louise Sencio."
  Ironaxe forced himself to remain poker-faced. "I'm listening."
  "Very  good,"  Nakatomi  nodded  happily.  "As  you  know,  I  have  recently  made  some  business
  commitments to Renraku."
  Four million shares of Renraku wasn't what Ironaxe would have called a commitment; it was more like a
  blood oath. Using that much liquid capital to buy up the shares back in  April  must  have  tapped  the  Fuchi
  Asian
  banks for a time. Perhaps the corp was still reeling from the effects. Anytime liquid assets were used up, it
  impacted  directly  on  research  and  development,  the  area  where  most  liquid  capital  was  spent,  and  was
  demanded. Not many people wanted to buy into or finance a maybe, and Ironaxe knew that first-hand.
  "Without going into detail concerning your internal  security  problems,"  Nakatomi  went  on,  "I  contacted
  some of the sec chiefs in Renraku and sent them a holo of the woman." Sencio, if that was her name, and
  her team had been caught on security cams while fleeing the Legacy-Trax offices. The  sec  cam  footage
  had immediately been impounded by Ironaxe's sec teams. Evidently Nakatomi had a decker who'd gotten to
  them. "The Renraku security  staff  confirmed  three  of  the  shadowrunners'  identities.  The  other  two  men
  worked with Sencio in sensitive areas for Renraku over five years ago."
  "But  they  weren't  working  for  Renraku  when  they  hit  the  mainframes  at  LegacyTrax,"  Bearstalker
  sneered.
  "No." Nakatomi remained quiet after he gave his answer. His eyes remained locked on Ironaxe's.
  Ironaxe  knew  full  well  that  Nakatomi  wasn't  above  lying.  "What  have  you  found  out  about  her?"  he
  asked.
  "She was with the military at one point," Nakatomi went on. "During another  part  of  her  career,  it  has
  been confirmed that she worked for Richard Villiers during the Desert Wars."
  "That tie is damning," Ironaxe said. "Because if she worked for Villiers  at  that  time,  it  also  means  she
  was working for Fuchi. And you."
  "I had no contact with her."
  "Can you prove that?" Bearstalker asked.
  "Unfortunately, no. I have only my word to offer you."
  "And that's worth about as much as a degaussed cred-stick," Bearstalker said harshly.
  "Agreed." Nakatomi's voice reflected no rancor.
  Ironaxe was impressed by the man's restraint.
  "There is, however," Nakatomi went on, "one more chit that I have to offer. Earlier today, Sencio and her
  people were able to get a message out of Albuquerque. I'm sure you were aware of it."
  "Yes," Ironaxe admitted. Their taps on the Pueblo LTGs had spotted the illegal message blasting through
  the grids the moment it was released.
  "One is beyond my reach, having arrived at a satellite in geosynchronous orbit with the earth that I can't
  
  get to. My people were successful in tracking the second to California Free State." Nakatomi leaned back
  in his chair, looking satisfied with himself. "You'll find that Richard Villiers has  been  duplicitous  with  you.
  I've only treated you fairly. Your business means much to me. I've taken the liberty of ordering a team into
  the area.  When they apprehend the person or persons who are in receipt of this message, I'll be happy to
  turn  them  over  to  you.  As  you  know,  Amerindians  aren't  always  welcome  in  Cal-Free.  And  I  do  have
  teams already inside the nation. I could have them moving in a couple hours if you will allow me."
  What Nakatomi said was true, and Ironaxe knew it. When the NAN had split away, splintering the North
  American countries and states, then had kicked out all the non-natives at gunpoint, they'd made no friends in
  the other nations. Also, he didn't have a team ready for insertion into CalFree.
  "I'd like them alive if I can get them," Ironaxe said finally, knowing there was no way to keep Nakatomi
  out of the mix. Watching the man's actions might help, though.
  "It shall be done." The uplink broke and the commlink vid faded to black.
  "So who do you trust? Villiers or Nakatomi?" Bear-stalker asked.
  Ironaxe relaxed in the plush seat as the Phaeton shot up the ramp leading them to Highway 47. "Neither.
  But
  both will have stories to tell as they war against each other. In that confusion, the truth will come out. And
  when I find out who betrayed me, they'll come to know true regret." It was a promise he meant to keep. No
  one threatened what was his and lived.
  14
  Argent booked a seat on one of the evening suborbitals from Sea-Tac International Airport and  landed  at
  Long Beach International in California Free State before 10 p.m. In order to get the security clearances he
  needed to get through the airport enforcement arm with all his cyber-ware,  Peg  set  up  an  interview  with
  Affiliated Artists for the next day, leaving him today free to make the meet with the Johnson at Lookers.
  The interview regarding Affiliated Artists was legitimate. One of the execs at the media studios had been
  trying to contract Argent for a  shadowrun  over  the  last  three  weeks.  The  run  entailed  "freeing"  a  talent
  from AA's rival,  Amalgamated  Studios.  The  talent  happened  to  be  a  dwarf  named  Klingsteidt  who  was
  quickly becoming one of the best F/X guys in the biz. AA was currently experiencing a boom in the simflick
  industry, involving real life actors doing their own stunts  instead  of  simsense  reproductions.  In  fact,  three
  current productions had a body count attached to them that was boosting ticket sales.
  The contact person at  AA  had  no  problem  arranging  free  passes  for  Argent  and  the  two  people  he'd
  hired to come with him. AA was  a  multi-billion-dollar  biz  and  carried  considerable  corporate  clout  in  the
  economic arena. Politicos still liked to rub shoulders with the simstars as well.
  Argent passed through  the  doors  of  the  circular  tunnel  leading  from  the  suborbital  to  the  airport  gate.
  He'd gotten no sleep at all after last night's visit to Brynnmawr. Thoughts of Andi Sencio had plagued his
  mind, memories of how things had been and how they'd gotten to be. And wondering if she was still alive
  now.
  "Mr. Erskine?"
  Swiveling his head, Argent spotted a young elfin bottle-green chauffeur's livery holding up a sign that said
  MR. ERSKINE. "Yes?" Argent said, coming around to square up with the  elf.  Argent  wore  a  steel-gray
  Vashon Island business suit, cut stylish but conservative  by  the  local  standards.  Gray  synthleather  gloves
  concealed the cyber-hands. A  pair  of  gray  wraparound  Corona  "Private  Eye"  Computer  Display  glasses
  completed the look and gave him access  to the computer datafeed Peg could provide over the glasses and
  the commlink chipped inside his head. His deltaware commlink had an add-on spur that allowed him to jack
  it into the Coronas for Peg's use.
  Passersby kept on their appointed paths, chatting and hurrying to their destinations. Out in the center of
  the long corridor connecting the gates, moving sidewalks rolled steadily in either direction, passing the shops
  that lined both sides.
  "Mr. Hornberg sent me," the young elf said. "From the studio.  He  thought  maybe  you'd  appreciate  the
  use of a car while you're with us."
  "Do you have identification?" Argent asked.
  The elf hesitated, seemingly caught off-guard by the question. He reached into his jacket and brought out
  a credstick. "Sure. Here."
  
  Argent took the credstick and crossed over to the ticket booth. While he slotted the stick into the public
  reader/ transfer system, Argent also accessed  his headlink and called Peg. She was there even before the
  transfer/reader had time toping up a reply. "Run Shamura, Tobin. Get back
  to me." He spelled the name, speaking quietly, then added the SIN.
  Shamura took his credstick back and pocketed it uncertainly. "Is everything all right?"
  "I'd like to see the car," Argent said.
  "Sure, Mr. Erskine."
  Argent fell in a half-step  behind  the  nervous  chauffeur  and  opened  another  channel  on  the  commlink.
  The bright lights of a Stuffer Shack blazed out into the dimmer recesses of the airport corridor. "Beedle," he
  said, calling for one of the two-member team he'd hired in Everett that morning. The pair cost  plenty,  but
  they were worth it. And they'd arrived in CalFree on the same flight so they could provide security for him,
  as well as handle the meet with the Mr. Johnson later.
  "Here," Beedle's voice croaked over the commlink.
  "Talk to me." Argent kept his gaze sweeping the corridor  ahead  of  him.  With  its  crowds  and  constant
  movement, he knew from experience that an airport was a good place for an assassination as long as the
  wetware specialist kept a low profile. And a weapon didn't have to be anything high-tech. He'd once known
  an assassin who'd only had one finger augmented, turning it into a dart pistol that held one shot. That  one
  shot contained cyanide and killed almost instantly. Most of her victims had never met her.
  "The driver's mundane," Beedle replied, verifying that he'd checked the scene out on the astral and with
  detect spells at his access.  "No Art, and no cyber. That guy's one hundred percent flesh and blood. But I
  gotta tell you, the sec systems in this place are wiz. I've ferreted out cyber systems hidden in the walls, but
  only because the magic  barrier  has  been  breached  before.  And  you  don't  even  want  to  know  about  the
  wards the sec mages have put over the property."
  "Good  enough."  Argent  followed  Shamura  through  sliding  glass  doors  past  a  McHugh's  and  a  Sloppie
  stand.
  Beedle was a street mage, one of the best Argent had ever seen, and one of the few he would trust on a
  run.
  Human and thin, barely above medium height, with a long nose and close-set eyes below a razored shock
  of dark brown hair, Beedle hardly ever drew a second glance. But mages who assensed him registered him
  on their personal radar because he carried a lot of power.
  "Telma," Argent prompted.
  "Telma reads you, Thunder-Walker," the sultry voice answered. "Your escort is unescorted. He and you
  make two. And two is the magic number."
  Telma  Stinnett  was  a  professional  bodyguard  with  an  impressive  record.  She  hadn't  gone  in  for
  augmentation, choosing to remain flesh and blood entirely so she could better fit into the social calendar of
  her upper crust employers, as well as pass all their security  ware.  Besides  mastering  most  of  the  known
  martial art forms, she knew everything worth knowing about small arms and close combat.
  Shamura led Argent to an escalator that took them down into the private loading area below. Sec teams
  patrolled  the  area  with  vigilance,  guns  plainly  visible  on  their  belts.  The  chauffeur's  and  Argent's  sec
  clearance  chips  were  scanned  at  the  entry  gate.  The  passes  Horn-berg  of  AA  had  arranged  allowed
  access to the heavily guarded floor.
  Ever since the Great Quake of 2028 had hit and wiped out Los Angeles,  Long  Beach  had  become  the
  most secure airport in the area.  Besides the augmented muscle on hand and the hi-tech equipment, mages
  also contributed to the defenses covering the area.
  "I've got that information," Peg called back.
  "Show  me,"  Argent  responded,  following  the  young  man  through  the  final  gates  and  out  onto  the
  concourse. The interior was dimly lit for privacy,  with  pools  of  light  staggered  systematically  through  the
  underground parking garage.
  The right lens of the Corona wrap-arounds grayed over, becoming slightly opaque. Argent could still see
  through it by concentrating on the  images  on  the  other  side  of  the  lens,  but  he  was  also  able  to  see  the
  display Peg juiced through the computer display connected to his commlink.
  "Shamura,  Tobin,"  Peg  intoned  as  front  and  right  profile  images  of  the  chauffeur  formed  on  the  lens,
  "checks out. He's licensed and bonded, and employed by Affiliated Artists. His length of service is slightly
  more than eight months in that capacity, which is actually enough to qualify him as someone considered to
  be a long-time employee." The  front  and  profile  views  blurred  into  a  single  three-dimensional  image  that
  rotated on an axis.
  "Any records?" Argent asked.
  
  "Shamura's  been  noosed  for  DWI  and  DUI,  but  that's  been  four  years  ago.  There  were  a  couple
  shop-lifting charges at about the same time. Evidently he's cleaned up his act."
  Data streamed across the right lens of the Corona. Argent stared through  it  at  the  bottle-green  Toyota
  Elite limousine as Shamura opened one of the rear doors. "End transmission," he told Peg. So far, so good.
  15
  Dropping his valise on the bed, Argent scanned the hotel suite Affiliated Artists had reserved in the Erskine
  name.  They  hadn't  spared  the  expense.  The  decor  was  the  epitome  of  affluence  and  decadence.  The
  theme for this one was 1940s, with the large, bulky  furniture  and  Salvador  Dali  prints  of  the  time  on  the
  walls. Unfortunately, that
  opulence also provided for a number of hiding places for aud and vid snoops.
  He checked his retina clock. It was 10:21:43, giving him something over an hour to make the rendezvous
  at Lookers. By that time, Beedle and Telma  should  have  everything  in  place  at  the  tavern.  He'd  briefed
  them on the meet before the flight to CalFree. Peg had provided the floor plans and a place to pick up the
  necessary hardware.
  Accessing the commlink hardwired inside his skull, Argent called Peg. "I'm ready to set up and bring the
  Parabyte on-line." He thumbprinted the maglocks on the  valise,  releasing  the  catches.  He  worked  coolly,
  taking the Parabyte out of its case. It was small, no longer than five centimeters to a side, and thinner than
  his forefinger. Trodes stuck out near the top, and they were formatted to slip directly into a telecom's circuit
  grid.  He  used  a  small  electric  screwdriver  to  remove  the  suite's  telecom  case  as  the  unit  sat  on  the
  nightstand beside the bed. The telecom case  came off and he laid it to one side. He studied the interfaces
  left  open  for  his  inspection.  Lights  winked  red,  green,  blue,  and  amber  as  current  flowed  through  the
  connections, keeping the telecom ready to access the Matrix. "Power up the Parabyte and get it on-line."
  "I'm bringing the Parabyte on-line now and taking over the telecom LTG there."
  Argent watched as the lights on the telecom blinked in syncopation. The cycle was familiar. He'd used it
  with other Mr. Johnsons in the past.
  The Parabyte was only one of the contributions Peg  had  made  to  the  Wrecking  Crew  over  the  years.
  The device, when hooked in, took over the transmission and reception of the  frequency  at  the  LTG,  then
  shunted the signal through the  main  switchboards  of  a  given  arena.  If  the  signal  was  tracked  back,  Peg
  would know it and could cut the trace off before it reached any destination except the Parabyte's location.
  With it in place, she could also
  spin out communications lines, splitting them and sending them to more than one commlink.
  "You've got a green light at that end," Peg stated. "Standing by to access the other units."
  Argent  watched  the  screen  closely.  From  her  deck,  Peg  carefully  blended  all  the  incoming  telecom
  signals. Using the hotel suite telecom line, she created a web in the local communications grid, then masked
  it with a Passport 55 deception utility she'd layered in for that purpose.
  Five small windows opened across the telecom screen, leaving a sixth space blank. Two of them showed
  views  inside  the  tavern  Argent  knew  to  be  Lookers.  The  other  three  showed  exterior  street  scenes
  covering three sides of the tavern.
  Four stories tall, Lookers stood like a staggered giant amid the clutter of L.A.'s El Infierno neighborhood.
  Argent was familiar with the area from past assignments. "Where's the fourth exterior cam?" he asked.
  "Couldn't get that one in place," Telma answered from  the  bar  where  she  was  positioned.  "I  used  two
  broken telecom lines and a patch into a security cam at a convenience store to get what we have, but there
  wasn't access to the fourth side."
  The cams she'd used were fish-eye  cams,  no  longer  than  Argent's  forefinger  and  smaller  in  diameter.
  They were designed to plug into telecom lines and transmit vid and aud.  The  aud  pickups  left  a  lot  to  be
  desired because they couldn't always cut out the undercurrent of noise.
  Argent didn't like the idea of leaving the west wall out of the complete picture, but there wasn't anything
  to be done for it. He studied the views open to him, memorizing the layout of the tavern and the surrounding
  streets. Terrain was everything to a soldier.
  "Argent," Peg called, "let's see if the Coronas are online through your headware."
  Taking the sunglasses out of his pocket, Argent slid
  them on, making the connection to his commlink so Peg could start feeding him data. "Go."
  
  "Processing,"  Peg  responded.  "With  the  smaller  area  of  the  lens,  you  won't  be  able  to  see  all  of  the
  individual frames at one time the way you can on the telecom there."
  "Understood. Can you change them as I need them?" Argent studied the views of the different screens
  as they flipped through a steady cycle. He viewed the streets and the tavern's gathering late night crowd.
  Lookers definitely didn't bring in the high rollers.
  "I've got them set up on voice command," Peg  answered.  "As  you  can  see  them  on  the  screen  there,
  they are views one through five. Memorize their sequence and call them out to bring them up on display."
  Argent quickly checked  the  voice  command,  noting  the  smooth  way  each  scene  was  replaced  by  the
  other. The image inside the tavern showed Beedle lounging at one of the tables making interlocking circles
  on a napkin with the bottom of a sweating glass. The mage fit in with the rough crowd. Where Argent had
  expected Telma to stick out, though, he was only slightly surprised to see that she had set herself up as a
  street  hustler.  She  sat  at  a  table  near  the  back,  fanning  out  cards  from  a  Tarot  deck.  Three  spectators
  watched her flip the cards, prompting her with questions and dropping nuyen notes on the table. She'd gone
  high-profile, knowing she was going to be noticed, and blending in as a huckster that no one wanted to make
  eye contact with if they wanted to hang onto their money.
  The operation was as complete as Argent could make it. The Affiliated Artists cover was still intact, and
  he had the zone wired for vid and aud.
  Twenty-seven minutes remained before the meet. He removed the Ingram Super  Mach  100s  from  the
  valise and snugged them under the suit jacket. It had been cut well enough to conceal the snubbed machine
  pistols. Ex-
  tra magazines for the pistols hooked onto the specially made  belt  he  wore,  at  his  back  and  out  of  casual
  sight.
  He closed the valise and triggered the release of the powerful acid trapped inside  the  lining.  His  cyber
  fingers left no prints and AA would do their best to clean up after him for deniability if anything went wrong
  today.  Equipped  with  an  auto-destruct,  the  Parabyte  on  the  suite's  telecom  was  gone  as  soon  as  Peg
  triggered  the  proper  sequence.  Argent  concentrated  on  his  breathing  as  he  quit  the  room,  keeping  the
  memories at bay while he centered himself. Life and death was measured in those heartbeats.
  16
  The ork cab driver braked his wheezing vehicle  at  the  curb  twenty  meters  from  the  El  Infierno  district's
  main gate. "Sorry, chummer," the cabbie said, shaking his head. "This is as far as I go. El Infierno's more
  like a demilitarized zone than a part of this city."
  Argent looked at the massive open gate ahead. The night-darkened street continued, but not much traffic
  went.  The  stone  wall  encompassing  El  Infierno  branched  in  both  directions.  Homeless  people  nestled
  against the base of the wall in plastiboard snacks shivering in the breeze.
  Words carved into the stone above  the  main  gate  announced:  "Abandon  hope,  all  ye  who  enter  here."
  Despite  the  mortaring  jobs  that  had  been  done  over  the  years,  bullet  holes  and  grenade  scars  showed
  through. More war had taken place than repair.
  "This is fine." Argent slotted his credstick into the cab's reader, added a tip, then climbed out of the cab
  and
  crossed the street. There were no guards on the gate into El Infierno.  Guards  weren't  put  there  until  the
  rest of the city was ready to keep the locals in.
  El Infierno had a history of trouble. Even as far back as the 1990s, the area had been filled with violence;
  gang  wars  and  drive-by  shootings.  In  the  early  21st  century,  the  violence  had  been  stepped  up  by  the
  addition  of  yakuza  and  Korean  Seoulpa  Rings  filtering  into  the  area  and  adding  to  the  turf  war.  Then
  VITAS  II,  cousin  to  the  virulent  strain  that  had  depopulated  so  much  of  the  earth,  hit  and  the  National
  Guard was called in to liberate the stockpiles of anti-VITAS serum that were on hand. After the virus had
  been eliminated, a major war for real estate was fought in the area.  The walls had gone up to section off
  the neighborhoods that hadn't been taken over. When the L.A. city government, already granted free  city
  status,  realized  how  many  losses  it  was  going  to  incur  in  the  effort  to  try  to  take  the  rest  of  the
  neighborhoods, they cut their losses. As a result, El Infierno festered and fed off the  rest  of  L.A.  like  an
  infected boil that no one dared lance for fear of unleashing all the poisons into the other communities.
  Six blocks  of  buildings  that  had  been  battered  and  broken,  and  gutted  by  fires  stretched  out  behind
  
  Argent.  The  populace  showed  a  higher  percentage  of  metas  versus  human  norms  than  the  overall
  demographics of the Cal-Free State published. Prejudice, Argent had found in his dealing around the world,
  was established and enforced by wealth.
  Taking a left at East Alondra Street, Argent strode under a withered canopy  of  sun-faded  synthcotton,
  past the collection  of  empty  fruit  and  water  stands.  A  pawn  shop  across  the  street  blared  out  hot  salsa
  music from a public address system in an attempt to draw paying customers. All of the buildings more than
  two stories tall were generally filled with squatters or gangers. Both groups were
  transitory, one fleeing retribution and the other seeking new market areas.
  Lookers towered above the buildings around it, topping out at four stories. A hand-painted sign hung out
  front, the letters big and bold in bright crimson. The two windows facing the street had been shattered, then
  coated  with  spray-on  acrylic  to  hold  the  pieces  in  place.  Electrostatically  charged  chalk  held  the  day's
  specials on the acrylic in day-glo blue.
  A Latino troll yabo guarded the bar's main entrance, carrying a chopped-down Defiance T-50 shotgun in
  one hand. Bandoliers of ammo crossed his chest.
  "There's a cover charge, chummer," the yabo stated around the thick nicostick in his mouth. He released
  a cloud of blue-gray smoke.
  Argent slotted his credstick, noting the way the yabo's eyes flickered to the reader.
  "Mr. Smith," the yabo read.
  Argent gave him a small smile. "You can all me John."
  "Yeah, well, get this Mr. Smith: I don't put up with no trouble in my place." The ork  lifted  the  shotgun
  meaningfully.
  "I'm not here for trouble."
  "You decide you are," the ork warned, "and we dole out double portions around here."
  "Got a regular buffet, right?" Argent gave the ork a cold smile, then stepped on into the tavern.
  The tavern was dimly lit, the effort beaten into docile submission by the clouds of nicosticks and reefer.
  Several small tables and booths covered the floor space as well as booths to the left of the long bar and in
  the back. Over the bar, two trids were tuned to World Sports Broadcasting's "Combat Bike Heat XXVII."
  The signal to the trids was pirated, Argent knew, because WSB was a premium pay-channel. Most of the
  tavern's customers were quiet, but  some  of  them  shouted  encouragement  to  the  recorded  version  of  the
  competition.
  Argent felt eyes on him as he stepped up to the bar.
  "Want something?" the laconic  elven  bartender  asked.  Slender  and  pale,  a  bar  towel  thrown  over  one
  shoulder, the bartender glanced up over the noteputer he was working on.
  "Water," Argent said. Water was in short supply in all of CalFree State, but not nearly so much as in El
  Infierno. Some gangers regularly hijacked water delivery trucks and brought it back into the district to sell
  there, or to resell to the original owners.
  "Got some stuff  in  from  Denver."  The  elven  bartender  pulled  the  bottled  water  from  the  chiller  racks
  behind the bar and named the price.
  After  slotting  his  credstick,  Argent  took  the  bottle  and  sat  at  the  corner  of  the  bar  furthest  from  the
  tavern's main door. Speaking  softly,  he  started  the  sec-cam  images  cycling  through  the  right  lens  of  the
  Coronas. Neither Bee-die nor Telma paid any attention to him.
  There  were  a  few  passersby.  Most  of  them  looked  like  they  were  just  getting  started  with  the  night,
  cruising the broken streets outside.  Only  a  handful  of  vehicles  passed  by.  Four  of  them  looked  like  they
  were on their last legs, springs and shocks worn, and belching from black market fuel.
  Argent's stomach tensed when a silver and crimson Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit pulled to a stop in front
  of Lookers. Two Korean men got out, dressed in black suits and wraparound black sunglasses.
  Argent knew from the way they walked and  the  cut  of  their  suits  that  both  were  armed.  He  kept  his
  hands on the table, trusting his speed and reflexes to keep him out of harm's way if the drek hit the fan.
  The  men  were  young  and  cocky,  talking  easily  between  themselves  in  Korean  as  they  entered  the
  tavern. Some of the men seated at the bar left their seats to make room. The yabo at the door let them pass
  without a word.
  They spoke briefly with the bartender, who disappeared behind the bar for a moment.
  Argent tagged them then, knowing they must have been representatives from a local Seoulpa ring. The
  Korean crime families had a lock on some of the areas within El Infierno.
  One of the Seoulpa soldiers stared at Argent, his obsidian gaze totally unreadable.
  "Chemistry," Telma said inside Argent's head. "He just doesn't like you."
  Argent didn't comment. He  knew  the  look,  and  what  made  the  man  respond  to  him.  He  returned  the
  
  man's stare in full measure.
  The  second  Korean  took  the  gray  plastisteel  case  the  elven  bartender  offered.  The  man  tapped  his
  partner on the shoulder and nodded toward the door. They left together, without another word.
  "Bag man," Peg said over the commlink, "Picking up the protection fee."
  Argent silently agreed. He froze the cam view on the Coronas and watched the image of the Jackrabbit
  speed down the street.
  "Tense," Beedle said with a forced lightness in his tone. "One of those  guys  was  carrying  some  heavy
  ju-ju."
  Uncapping his water, Argent took a long drink. The liquid tasted clear and clean, totally out of place with
  the dirt and foulness that seemed to cling to the air in El Infierno.
  "Why would Sencio choose this place?" Peg asked over the commlink. "She should know you'd stick out
  in a place like this."
  Argent knew she was watching him, patched in  through  the  sec-cams  tied  to  the  telecom  back  at  the
  hotel suite. Even if things went right, he planned on finding another place to stay than the hotel. "Exactly. I'll
  stick out and whoever's hunting her will stick out as well. If it's someone who can't afford to get identified,
  they may pass up the meet. If it's not, I'll scan them up close and personal."
  A  rental  car  with  a  misfiring  engine  stuttered  to  a  stop  in  front  of  the  tavern.  The  driver  stayed  put,
  fingers drumming nervously on the steering wheel.
  Watching the man, Argent knew it was the Johnson. He alerted Beedle and Telma, then waited.
  Somewhat reluctantly, the Johnson pushed himself out of  the  car.  Slim  and  twenty-something,  the  man
  looked like he'd traveled far and hard. He wore a brown  turtle-neck  and  synthdenim  jeans  that  had  seen
  better days, covered by a mid-thigh khaki jacket. Stubble  covered  his  chiseled  lower  face  under  the  long
  chestnut hair that trailed down to his shoulders. Blue lensed Whitelaw sunglasses walled his gaze off from
  scrutiny.
  The  way  the  man  moved  surprised  Argent.  It  was  a  gliding  stride  that  the  big  warrior  had  seen  in  a
  number of martial arts masters, but never in one so young. He entered through the door without hesitation
  once he got underway.
  "Beedle?" Argent asked quietly over the commlink.
  "Don't know," the street mage answered. "I'm getting some fragged up readings when I assense him. But
  he's flesh and blood."
  "Is he augmented?"
  "No. Flesh and blood through and through."
  As the Johnson closed on him, Argent felt a tightness in his chest. The nape of his neck prickled in silent
  warning.
  "He moves too cleanly for someone not razored," Telma said. "He's been trained, but  I  don't  recognize
  the style. From the cut of his jacket, he's carrying a pistol at the back of his belt."
  Argent had already picked up the weapon. "Peg?"
  "I can't get a scan on him," she answered. "The vid acts like it's on the blink when I try to scan an image
  and save it. I can't check if there's a legitimate ID out on him."
  Turning slowly, Argent faced the approaching man.
  The man stopped more than an arm's length away, then scanned the tavern. "Jesus, what a dive."
  Argent didn't comment, waiting.
  "You're  Argent,"  the  man  said.  "The  lady  who  contacted  me  said  you'd  have  a  password."  His  face
  remained cool and dispassionate under the blue lenses of the Whitelaws.
  "Not without prompting, Mr. Johnson," Argent replied. "You've had more contact with her than I have."
  "Mr. Johnson?" A smile that could have been called cruel twisted his lips. "Call me Chandler."
  Argent spread his hands. "Buy you a drink?"
  Chandler waved a hand around the tavern, taking in the clientele. "You and me, we're set up as a regular
  sideshow here. We're so wiz we could sell tickets."
  "There was a purpose for that."
  "Figured that. Should have turned the job down flat, but I'll admit it got my curiosity up. There's not many
  things that'll do that these days." Chandler pulled a chair out and sat across the table from Argent. "She said
  you had a name in common."
  Argent answered without hesitation. "Iron Albatross." The name was a reference to the CAS/GD Battle
  Tank they'd used during an exfiltration during the Desert Wars. It was  the  first  time  they'd  met,  the  first
  time they'd nearly lost their lives together. The heavy cav unit had earned its name during the operation.
  "That's the name," Chandler agreed. "Let's get down to biz."
  
  17
  "Have you got a team in there?"
  Miles Lanier  glanced  op  from  his  office  console  as  Richard  Villiers  strode  into  the  room.  Villiers  had
  changed clothes, but Lanier doubted that his friend had slept.
  "Insertion's taking place now," Lanier said.
  "How are you handling it?"
  Tapping the keyboard, Lanier booted the image he was viewing on the flat screen into the holo projector
  built into the right side of his desk. The image took on three dimensions, forming the buildings of downtown
  El Infierno in miniature landscape.
  "L.A.?" Villiers asked in surprise, reading the data-string hanging in the air under the holo. He sat in one
  of the plush chairs in front of the desk.
  Lanier took pride in his office primarily because it put the world at his fingertips. As long as a spy drone
  was in position like the one out in El Infierno, or other measures had been taken, he could almost be there.
  "El Infierno," Lanier corrected, taking a laser pointer from his desk drawer.
  "Do you know who the contact is yet?"
  Lanier nodded. "We've got the go-between." He used the keyboard to  shift  the  downtown  scene  to  an
  image of a young man with long chestnut hair. "His name's Vincent Chandler.  He's  licensed  as  a  private
  investigator in CalFree. Chandler's also an oddity."
  "How so?"
  "For starters, he's supposed to be forty-seven years
  old. That holo doesn't show it. And a joker we ran the information down with said there's been this rumor
  that Chandler once took on a case for Lofwyr."
  "Can this man be bought?"
  "Not from what I understand. When Chandler takes on a case, he sticks with  it.  Before  I  interfered,  I
  thought it might be better to know who he was meeting." Lanier switched the holos again, going back to the
  street scene of El Infierno. He flicked the laser pointer on and placed a purple dot over the tallest building
  among  those  shown.  "We've  got  two  of  our  best  armed  surveillance  drones  on-site  and  in  the  air.
  Commlinks are being managed through one of the geosynchronous satellites we have over Seattle. L. A. is
  well within its broadcast range."
  "Have you identified whomever Chandler is meeting?"
  "No." Lanier moved the laser pointer to  indicate  a  building  to  the  right  of  Lookers.  "We  also  followed
  Nakatomi's people into the area."
  "Nakatomi. Not Ironaxe?"
  Lanier nodded.
  Villiers stroked his jawline thoughtfully. "Nakatomi must have convinced Ironaxe to let him handle things
  in CalFree."
  "Nakatomi does have a number of people in the area," Lanier commented. "He'd stand a better chance
  of getting one of his teams in close quickly."
  "Evidently he talked Ironaxe into that as well. It doesn't surprise me, though. Ironaxe is going to see how
  far  he  can  trust  Nakatomi.  He  wants  to  make  a  deal  with  one  of  us.  If  he  can  keep  his  defenses  up.
  Where's your team?"
  "Setting  up  a  commlink  relay  station  in  this  building."  Lanier  flashed  the  pointer  on  the  building.  His
  attention was drawn to the monitor. The surveillance team across the street had set up on Lookers. Their
  cams came on-line, filling the screen with three different views of the tavern. "We've got the contact in El
  Infierno. There's Chandler." He flicked the laser pointer on the private eye.
  Chandler sat at a table across from a man.
  Villiers tapped the keyboard and sharpened the image, bringing both men into focus. "You say Nakatomi
  has fielded a team into the area?"
  Lanier nodded. "They're there now." He used the laser pointer, putting four purple dots on men along the
  perimeter  of  the  tavern  on  one  of  the  other  views  provided.  As  he  watched,  a  white  Federated-Boeing
  Commuter  2050  tilt-wing  plane  appeared  on  the  holo.  Equipped  with  vertical  take-off  and  landing
  capabilities, the Commuter locked into position above the street, and dropped altitude.
  "Do you recognize the man with Chandler?" Villiers asked.
  "Argent," Lanier said. "He's a guy you tend not to forget."
  
  "Surprising that Sencio would reach out to him," Villiers commented.
  "She didn't have a lot of choices," Lanier pointed out. "She knew we'd already hung her out to dry."
  A cargo door on the Commuter opened, revealing men in red riot armor. They threw lines out the door,
  then stepped over the side and slid down the street.
  "Does Chandler have a mobile telecom listing?" Villiers asked.
  Lanier nodded.
  "You've got the LTG?"
  "Of course."
  Villiers's eyes glittered as he watched the Nakatomi sec force drop into  the  street.  "Call  him.  Tell  him
  you'll give him a million nuyen for whatever he's about to turn over to Argent."
  "I don't think he will," Lanier said.
  "It would be more to our benefit if he didn't," Villiers stated. "Be sure he knows who made the offer."
  "And if he tells Argent?" Lanier asked.
  "I want Argent to know I'm involved," Villiers said. "He worked for me once,  remember?  Maybe  with
  enough pressure, it can happen again."
  Lanier glanced at the holo, watching the action unfold. He reached for the telecom headset built into the
  desk. The unit was heavily encrypted so the signal couldn't be easily accessed.  "You're assuming Argent's
  going to live through that drekstorm descending on him."
  "I'd put money on it," Villiers said. "Argent's not a man who's easy to flatline."
  18
  Clay  Ironaxe  watched  Nakatomi's  sec  force  deploy  from  the  Commuter  2050  in  El  Infierno.  Tense,  he
  stood in his VaulTek office in Albuquerque in front of the holo-display, unable to sit. The furniture reflected
  his cultural heritage, big and blocky, made of timbers hewn from land that he owned, that his father and his
  father's father had owned before him. Designs made of colored sand were etched into each  piece,  telling
  histories and mythologies of his people.
  More sand paintings covered the walls, along with ceremonial weapons warriors in his tribe had carried
  into a dozen different battles over the generations. Ceramic pots and kachina dolls filled niches, and a totem
  to his chosen deity, Wolf, stood in one corner. The four faces  on the totem were all incarnations of Wolf,
  brilliantly painted. Mixed in with the cultural artwork, Ironaxe had also added some original paintings of the
  Southwest by Georgia O'Keefe.
  "We have identified the man the courier was meeting with," Nakatomi announced.
  " Who is he?" Ironaxe asked.
  Another bubble opened on the holo, showing an oval view of the interior of the tavern. Two men sat at a
  table. Ironaxe recognized one of them as the CalFree private investigator Nakatomi's people had originally
  identified and his own sec staff had verified.
  "His name is Argent," Nakatomi said. "At least, that's the only name my people have been able to find for
  him. He's a shadowrunner."
  Ironaxe looked at Bearstalker, who immediately relayed the name by intercom.
  "By  all  accounts,"  Nakatomi  said,  "Argent  is  a  very  dangerous  man.  I'm  not  sure  if  we  can  take  him
  alive."
  "I'd prefer it," Ironaxe said without inflection. "I want the woman's location, and I want to make certain
  who employed her."
  Nakatomi hesitated, frowning slightly. "My teams will do what they can." He broke the connection.
  Ironaxe waited, feeling the tension build. So many things were out of his hands.
  19
  Chandler  folded  the  portable  telecom  and  dropped  it  into  a  jacket  pocket.  "Now  that,"  he  said,  "was
  interesting." He smiled, honestly amused.
  
  Argent waited, not asking the obvious question.
  "Andi Sencio offered me ten thousand nuyen to deliver this package of hers," Chandler said. "An amount
  she said you'd be willing to pay."
  "I am," Argent replied.
  "I took her job on faith, not knowing if I was even go-
  ing to be able to cover my fuel cost on this one, let alone  turn  a  profit."  Chandler  tapped  the  pocket  that
  contained the portable telecom. "Now I'm offered a million nuyen for it."
  "If he tries," Telma promised, "he won't make it out the door."
  Argent had Telma in his view over Chandler's shoulder. "So how are you going to play it out?"
  "I hired on at a price," Chandler said. "I stay hired. You heard me tell him I'd think about it."
  "Yeah."
  Chandler relaxed on the other  side  of  the  table,  spreading  his  arms  out  to  claim  the  booth  completely.
  "That was to buy you time, not me. The joker told me he was Miles Lanier, making the offer on behalf of
  Richard Villiers. I'm guessing that was more of a message for you than for me."
  "You're guessing right," Argent replied.
  "So how do you want to handle it?"
  "Keep  thinking  about  it."  Argent  took  his  credstick  from  inside  his  jacket.  "You  and  I  have  some
  unfinished biz."
  "The chip, you mean?" Chandler gave him a blank  blue-lensed  stare.  "The  message  I  got  from  Sencio
  was recorded. It hit my telecom service and stayed there. I didn't have an opportunity to  talk  to  her.  But
  she sounded like she was in deep drek. And if names like Lanier and Villiers are going to be tossed around
  so casually, I have reason to believe she is in deep drek."
  Argent waited getting a feel for the man's motivations. "You want to know what my intentions are."
  "Sounds kind of archaic when you put it that way, but yeah."
  "That's none of your biz."
  Chandler shrugged expansively and grinned coldly. "Call me old-fashioned."
  "Give me a green light," Beedle said over the comm-link, "and he goes to sleep before he knows what hit
  him."
  "What if you don't like the answer I give you?" Argent asked.
  "Then I breeze," Chandler replied, "and see if I can get the lady some help elsewhere. You come across
  as a real hard guy. You might not be concerned enough about how she's going to turn out after all this."
  "Do you know where she's at?" Argent asked.
  Chandler shook his head. "The download was encrypted, but  I  know  people  who've  got  resources  that
  are on the cutting edge of wiz. I've got a few favors I can call in. It might  take  some  time,  but  I'd  get  it
  broken."
  "She might be dead by then."
  "She might be dead if I give you the information."
  Argent closed his hand over the credstick. Chandler didn't even glance at it. Money wasn't his motivation.
  "He's for real," Peg  said  inside  Argent's  skull.  "I  ran  his  file.  CalFree  Lone  Star  and  the  Better  Corp
  Bureau have data on him. He plays fast and loose with the rules, and has come close to losing his license,
  but he has a reputation for sticking by his clients."
  "The message was for me," Argent said.
  "Yeah, and I keep wondering about that. If the message was for you, why not send it to you?"
  "Because it wasn't safe to. It might have been intercepted."
  "Yet she sent you a message to have you meet me here."
  "The source she used to get to me wasn't one she'd want to trust."
  "But you did," Chandler pointed out.
  "No. She knew I wouldn't ignore the message. There was a possibility that it wouldn't have been passed
  on. What would you have done if I hadn't been here today?"
  "Looked you up."
  "It would have been harder than you think. And by then, it might have been too late."
  Chandler decided to try another tack. "What's your relationship with the lady?"
  Argent got the impression that the eyes behind the blue lenses never ceased in their effort to size him up.
  "We were friends."
  "Were?"
  "We went our separate ways years ago."
  "But she put out the call for you."
  
  "All of which indicates to me," Argent said,  "that  she  can't  trust  anyone  around  her  now.  That's  more
  reason for me to move quickly on whatever info you have."
  Chandler leaned forward again, and this time he had a datachip folded in one hand. "For the moment," he
  said  in  a  calm,  measured  tone,  "I  want  you  to  hang  onto  your  ten  thousand  nuyen.  When  this  situation
  resolves itself, I want to hear from the lady. You can send me my fee then."
  "If this thing gets totally fragged up," Argent said, "this could be your only chance to collect your fee."
  Chandler's smile was mirthless. "Then somebody else will owe it to me. I'll make sure I  collect.  I  don't
  like leaving unfinished biz."
  Moved  by  the  man's  commitment  to  his  work  and  to  his  view  of  himself,  Argent  offered  his  hand.
  "Another time, maybe."
  "Turns out you ever need an investigator, Argent, I'm listed." Chandler took the hand and squeezed with
  surprising strength. "Maybe I can toss some work your way, now that I've got a feel for the biz you're in."
  "I'll leave you a number where you can reach me."
  The investigator handed the datachip across, safely sealed in a gel Pro-Tek pouch.
  As Argent took the datachip, Peg's voice blared inside
  his  head.  >Get  out  of  there!  A  sec  force  in  a  Commuter  just  pulled  into  the  airspace  above  the
  building!<
  Wheeling around, Argent spotted the first of the shock troops descending rappelling lines that undoubtedly
  came from the VTOL craft hanging above the streets. He slid the sleeve back on his left arm, then flipped
  open a storage compartment built into the cybernetic limb where the disk would be protected.  He  pushed
  himself out of the booth, unlimbering the Ingram Super Mach 100s. The smartlinks zapped into his nervous
  system, putting dual cross hairs in his vision, one blue and the other red.
  A hail of bullets shattered the big window overlooking the street. A handful of them smashed to painful
  stops against the body armor worked into Argent's suit. Beside  him,  Chandler  went  down,  literally  blown
  apart by the heavy-caliber rounds.
  20
  Argent  leveled  both  Ingram  Super  Machs  before  him,  taking  cover  behind  the  wall  to  one  side  of  the
  window. The vicious little machine pistols balanced in his metal hands, and the recoil was negligible as he
  squeezed off controlled  bursts  through  the  shattered  plastiglass  of  the  tavern.  The  smartlink  connections
  kept him on target.
  The first wave of blackclad shocktroops ignored the autofire. Then a handful of them went down, bloody
  holes  ripped  through  their  armor.  Two  explosions  jarred  the  surrounding  area,  brief  flashes  of  light
  illuminating the night.
  Expecting company of the worst sort if the meet got  slotted,  Argent  had  selected  his  ammunition  with
  mass
  destruction  in  mind.  Instead  of  hardball  rounds,  he'd  loaded  the  Machs  with  EX  Ammo  explosive
  armor-piercing rounds.
  The survivors went to cover, ducking behind parked and abandoned cars.
  Argent used more deliberate aim and took out another of the attackers. "Do you have any idea who they
  belong to?" he asked Peg over the commlink. He wheeled behind the window frame and ejected the spent
  clips from the Ingrams. Tucking one after the  other  under  his  arm  after  reloading,  he  had  both  weapons
  fully recharged in less than three seconds.
  "I'm running the Commuter's serial number now," Peg replied.
  The tavern's patrons had joined in the fight, armed to the teeth. Judging from the shouted curses, most of
  them believed the attack came from the Los Angeles City Authority. Instead of having one or two targets,
  the  arriving  hard  crew  suddenly  faced  nearly  two  dozen  armed  citizens  in  the  tavern  equipped  with  a
  razor-edged paranoia.
  Argent also knew that if the men and women in the tavern realized he was actually the target they'd get
  down to some serious negotiating with the yabos outside. He glanced across the room and spotted Telma in
  motion.
  She laid down a pattern of  fire  with  her  pistol  that  picked  off  two  men  beating  feet  for  the  doorway.
  "Staying  here  is  not  an  option,"  she  said  over  the  commlink.  "Whoever  put  this  into  play  may  also  have
  
  enough pull with the Cal-Free National Guard to get them in as backup."
  "We go up," Argent said. His satlink connection through the Corona  glasses  to  the  mini-cams  revealed
  that  ground  units  had  arrived  at  the  scene  as  well.  They  fanned  out  behind  and  along  the  sides  of  the
  building, creating an armed perimeter.
  "And get trapped like rats at the top of this building?" Beedle asked. He gestured at the street outside. In
  response, a three-meter wide section of the pavement  suddenly  erupted.  The  earth  beneath  the  concrete
  rose up a meter and a half and shoved itself forward in a ripple that ran nearly six meters before collapsing.
  The  secguards  that  occupied  positions  in  its  path  were  flung  around  like  sparks  jumping  from  a
  malfunctioning static-charged dust sweeper.
  "They've got the building surrounded," Argent replied.
  "So fragging quick?" Beedle asked in disbelief.
  "Yes."
  A high-caliber round caught the troll bouncer in the head and punched him free from his position near the
  open door. As he stumbled back, struggling to retain his  footing,  a  dozen  more  rounds  smacked  into  him,
  driving him backward. His corpse slammed into the bar counter and left a bloody swath on the synthwood
  as it slumped to the floor. Other bullets chipped away the synthwood surface, revealing the ceramic plating
  beneath.
  Keeping the mini-cams cycling on the right lens of the Coronas, Argent watched as some of the  attack
  team infiltrated the building. Once inside, they disappeared from view.
  "The helicopter belongs to Asian Fuchi," Peg reported. "By way of four shell companies in the area.  The
  corp also owns the bank the company who owns the helicopter makes payments to."
  "Nakatomi?" Telma asked. "You didn't say anything about him being involved in this, Argent."
  "I didn't know," Argent said. He  laid  down  a  blistering  arc  of  fire  that  blunted  another  attempt  by  the
  attackers to regroup.
  "I guess we're talking fragging bonus when we get out of here, huh?" Beedle said.
  "We haven't made it out of here," Telma snapped.
  "Details, details." Beedle gestured again. In response, a smoke cloud billowed up outside, swirling around
  the
  sec force. Many of the men collapsed, choking on the sulfuric fumes that made up the smoke.
  Before Beedle could get back to cover, he spun around, blood flying from his shoulder. He cried  out  in
  pain, dropping to his knees.
  At the same moment, three Asian Fuchi secmen fired through the windows at the tavern's side. A male
  and female elf went down under the bullets before they could defend themselves. Their ork companion rose
  up with a roar of rage and fired a cut-down shotgun at the secmen.
  Argent didn't wait to see who was going to win. It was only a matter of how many the ork took with him.
  Reinforcements were coming up behind the sec force, revealed to the big warrior by the mini-cams linked
  to the Coronas. He crossed the floor, dropping the Ingram from his left hand and  letting  it  hang  from  the
  Whipit sling around his shoulder. He closed his fist, trapping the material of Beedle's shirt.
  Beedle looked at him, barely hanging onto his consciousness. The bullet had taken the young mage high
  on the upper chest, punching all the way through.
  From the way his arm hung, Argent guessed the heavy round had broken the clavicle as well. He lifted
  Beedle to his feet and draped him across one shoulder. Before Argent could move, he felt a chill wind ghost
  across the back of his neck.
  "Have you got him?" a voice asked behind him.
  Argent spun, bringing the Ingram in his right hand up. He stared across the sights at Chandler.
  The private investigator's clothing had been shot to hell. The turtleneck and mid-thigh khaki jacket hung in
  rags across his upper body. But there was no blood. He held a nickel-plated Ruger Thunderbolt pistol in his
  fist.
  Seeing the man standing there, apparently unharmed, Argent knew then  what  had  seemed  so  different
  about Chandler.
  "Fragging vampire," Beedle groaned in a pained voice that was barely audible above the sustained bursts
  of gunfire filling the tavern.
  Chandler grinned. "Not exactly my first career choice."
  "Clear the area," Peg called over the commlink.
  Argent caught the reason for her concern only a couple heartbeats after Peg did. He instantly recognized
  the vehicle pulling into the periphery of vision afforded through the mini-cams.
  Then the sound of grinding tracks hammered into the tavern, rising above the din of wounded and gunfire.
  
  Staring  through  the  broken  plastiglass  shards  clinging  to  the  window  frames,  he  saw  the  dark  green
  LAV-103 Striker Light Tank roll into position in the street.
  The  tank  crew  was  obviously  experienced,  locking  down  quickly.  The  treads  chewed  into  the  street,
  ripping it up as the anchors resettled the weight.
  "Oh bloody frag!" a woman screamed.
  Argent kept the Ingram centered on the middle of Chandler's face.  Even a vampire could die if its brain
  or spine were too severely damaged. At this range, both of them knew Argent wouldn't miss. "How did the
  tank get here?" he asked.
  "Beats me," Chandler said. "But if I'd only come to set up you, I wouldn't be standing here now."
  Argent ignored the man's words. As a vampire, Chandler didn't have to worry about injury as much as a
  human. He could regenerate any wounds he took, and turn to mist if things got too bad. Staying with them
  he could serve as a living gunsight.
  "The tank was brought there on a truck transport," Peg answered. "I've got it on-screen."
  Cycling through the images on the Corona, noting that he'd lost one of the mini-cams, Argent spotted the
  truck a few blocks down the street. Peg enhanced and magnified the image, showing the ramp sticking out
  the back.
  “I’ve traced the license and the name of the company on the side of the track," Peg said. "It's out of Los
  Angeles."
  "You were followed," Argent stated, pulling the Ingram away from Chandler's face.
  "No  drek."  Chandler  looked  uncomfortable.  "Didn't  figure  on  this  little  piece  of  biz  getting  slotted  so
  drek-king quick. And if they followed me, they must have been using some wiz tech. I'm no wannabe, and
  I've been to see the elephant."
  Argent ignored the comment. He gathered Beedle's sagging weight, shoving the younger man toward the
  back door. "Telma."
  She broke from her position at once, ramming a fresh  clip  home  in  the  butt  of  her  weapon.  Two  men
  near the back door on the other side of the bathrooms noticed the group moving toward the exit.
  "You're the ones brought this down on us!" one of them snarled, lifting his pistol.
  Without a word, Telma shot him through the shoulder, expertly hitting the nerve cluster that controlled the
  hand.  The  pistol  tumbled  from  the  joker's  numbed  fingers  as  he  squalled  in  pain  and  fury.  His  partner
  dropped his weapon and stepped back.
  Argent kept the Ingram moving, holding back the Lookers clientele. Beedle was nearly dead weight in his
  grip, his head lolling around on his shoulders. Watching the image of the Striker tank on the Coronas lens,
  Argent saw the turret turn, coming to bear on the front of the tavern.
  Telma pushed through the door and into the dark, narrow corridor beyond. Glass doors beckoned at both
  ends of the corridor, letting out into the street in front and a parking area behind the building. "We can try
  for a vehicle," the bodyguard suggested.
  "Not one of those," Argent said. "They'll have those covered." He  gestured  toward  the  stairs,  knowing
  they'd be less vulnerable on them than in one of  the  elevators  midway  down  the  corridor.  In  the  Corona
  lens, he saw
  the Striker tank's turret turn more, coming to rest on the corridor of the building. He didn't know  how  the
  sec force had managed it, whether by infrared sights or by one of the tank crewmen assensing them on the
  astral plane, but the cannon was definitely pointed at them. "Move! They've got a lock on us!"
  21
  Using the strength of his cyberarm and the leverage he'd  learned  from  years  of  having  it,  Argent  hauled
  Beedle over one shoulder and raced up the steps after Telma. His breath came harshly from the exertion of
  the last handful of minutes, but his body performed like a machine, flawlessly and relentlessly, just the way
  he'd built it and trained it to respond.
  Telma ran ahead of him, graceful as an acrobat. She held her pistol in both hands, twisting her shoulders
  as she swept the shadows.
  Beedle kept up a steady litany  of  curses.  His  words  and  the  breath  jarred  out  of  him  as  his  abdomen
  slammed into Argent's shoulder.
  The  cannon  round  from  the  Striker  tank  slammed  into  the  front  doors  of  the  corridor  below.  The
  
  plastiglass  doors  didn't  stand  for  a  nanosecond  against  the  projectile,  but  the  impact  set  off  the  shaped
  charge within the  sabot  round.  Designed  as  a  tank  killer,  the  sabot  round  penetrated  its  target's  exterior
  surface, then exploded a secondary charge within that target's belly. In this case, the target's belly was the
  corridor.
  A sheet of coiling, racing flames speared out across the corridor. The concussion  and  heat  spilled  over
  Argent, knocking him flat as he reached the second floor, then
  making the air too hot to breathe for a few seconds. If he hadn't had a damper in his cyberears to weed out
  sudden increases in sound, he would have gone deaf temporarily.
  Dazed by the concussive force, he had to push himself back to his feet. Ceiling tile sections dropped from
  the  grids  above  him,  fragmenting  against  the  floor,  the  railing  around  the  second  story  balcony,  his
  companions, and himself. White powder puffed up from the broken tiles, dispersing in clouds throughout the
  air.
  A coughing fit racked Beedle, causing him to cry out in pain as well. The blood stain across his shoulder
  had spread, matting the material of his shirt to his flesh.
  "They're getting set to fire again," Peg warned over the commlink.
  "Do they still have a lock on us?" Argent asked. He glanced down at the swath of destruction that filled
  the corridor below.
  Flames  clung  to  the  walls  and  floor,  and  licked  greedily  for  anything  they  could  claim  as  fuel.  Debris
  scattered the floor, littered with gleaming diamond pinpoints of shattered plastiglass. Black shadows showed
  where holes had been knocked in the walls. A plastic rubber tree plant hung upside down from the ceiling,
  burning brightly.
  "I don't know," Peg answered.
  Chandler was the first to rise, whirling up out of the debris in mist form, then taking on flesh  again.  He
  picked his Thunderbolt up from the floor.
  Telma shoved her way out from under tiles, covered in the white dust. She still held her weapon.
  Kneeling, Argent reached inside his jacket and took out the  small  case  of  slap  patches  he  carried.  He
  opened it and took out a low-grade tranq patch and put it over Bee-die's neck.
  "No," Beedle protested.
  Argent ignored the protest. The tranq patch would negate, or  at  least  interfere,  with  Beedle's  ability  to
  work
  his magic. But Argent didn't want the man in pain because that could make him even harder to work with.
  A  second  cannon  round  screamed  into  the  interior  of  the  building,  impacting  against  the  wall  with  a
  blinding display of pyrotechnics. The rush of heat took away the air again for a moment, and the vibration
  shook the balcony, stressing the supports enough to leave them bent and sagging. The balcony floor pulled
  away  from  the  sides  of  the  second  floor,  leaving  gaps  ten  and  more  centimeters  wide.  The  vibrations
  continued, accompanied by screeching as plastisteel rebar in the foundation gave way under the weight of
  the concrete.
  Beedle's hand worried at the tranq patch on his neck, but his efforts grew rapidly weaker as the strong
  anesthetic surged through his system. His eyelids fluttered, slowly and finally closing.
  The mini-cam locked onto the street view wavered, going gray, then flickering back into full-color mode
  alternately. The gray-toned projections started lasting longer and Argent knew he was losing the cam.
  "Argent," Telma said.
  "Up," Argent said.
  The floor shifted violently, tilting toward the corridor below. Benches and artificial plants skidded toward
  the railing, then spilled over, falling into the flames.
  Telma bolted up the stairs, having difficulty navigating  them  because  they'd  turned  sideways  when  the
  bottom section had been blown loose. She  paused  at  the  top  of  the  third-floor  landing,  sinking  into  cover
  provided by a pillar connecting the landing to the next floor.
  To her left, an elevator opened, the floor level indicator light flashing on. The doors  opened  and  a  man
  stepped out, guiding two young girls.
  Telma broke her stance. "Clear," she called back to Argent.
  The big warrior never broke stride. Beedle hung limply over his  shoulder,  making  negotiating  the  stairs
  harder.
  Argent accessed the commlink. "Peg, what's on the top two floors of this building?"
  "Primarily residences," she told him. "A few scattered individual businesses."
  That agreed with what Argent remembered from the files Peg had sent him during the plane flight. He
  joined Telma on the landing, Chandler at his heels.
  
  "We're about out of running room," Telma stated grimly.
  "We've got company downstairs," Chandler said.
  Argent peered over the railing's side. Nearly a dozen men fanned out below, taking up covering positions
  with overlapping  fields  of  fire.  The  hard  black  armor  reflected  the  flames.  "We're  not  going  to  wait  for
  them. Let's find the quickest way to the roof."
  "I've got the building's schematic," Peg said. "At the top of the fourth-floor landing, turn left and go down
  twenty-five or thirty meters. There's a maintenance room there with a ladder that goes up to the rooftop."
  Argent nodded at Telma, giving her the lead.
  She took off in a sprint.
  Argent followed her, feeling the steps jerk under the weight he was carrying. Groaning metal roared up
  from below as the bottom two levels of the stairs pulled free and fell. Bullets ripped through the air around
  them, tearing chunks out of the walls and ceiling.
  The maintenance room door was locked when they arrived. Telma pulled on it in frustration. "I can pick
  it, but it's going to take time we don't have."
  "I've got it," Argent said calmly. He released the Ingram and splayed his fingers out. Ramming his hand
  into the door facing around the handle, he closed his fist and yanked back. The maglock ripped free of the
  door. He tossed it onto the floor, then gripped the door and yanked it open.
  Track  lighting  illuminated  the  room  on  the  other  side  of  the  door.  Shelves  lined  the  walls,  filled  with
  cleaning
  supplies,  spare  bulbs,  and  carpenter's  tools.  Two  washers  and  a  dryer  occupied  a  corner,  their  hoses
  wrapped up and thrust inside the compartments.
  Argent scanned the room. "Where's the ladder?"
  "Mounted inside the ceiling," Peg told him. "There's an access chute that runs to the roof."
  "Here," Telma called  out,  moving  into  a  corner  at  the  back  of  the  room.  She  leaped  up  and  caught  a
  dangling chain. The hatch mounted on the ceiling opened and a ladder extended down to the floor.
  "Let's go," Argent said.
  "You can't get Beedle through there on your back," Telma said.
  Argent looked at the narrow chute and silently agreed. When he spotted the drive belts on  the  wall,  he
  wasn't sure what they were intended for. But he knew how he could use them.
  The belts were thin, hard plastic, with teeth cut into them to mesh with notches on pulley wheels. He took
  four of them, finding that number made a comfortable handgrip. A nearby box yielded an emergency flare
  that he pocketed. Turning back to Beedle, he looped them over the man's upper body and pulled his arms
  out.
  "The sec force has taken the bar," Peg said.  "Many  of  them  are  running  into  the  corridor.  I  can't  see
  them there."
  Argent didn't have to guess to know that the sec force  was  dogging  their  footsteps.  The  secmen  must
  have been thinking they had them cornered.
  "Go," Argent said to Telma.
  She stared up the ladder, going quickly hand over hand. "Running across the rooftops isn't a good  idea.
  Most of them are too far away. Especially trying to carry Beedle."
  "We're not going to run," Argent said. He motioned Chandler up next.
  "You go," Chandler said. "I'll come up behind in case you need help with your friend."
  Argent didn't argue despite the fact that he didn't like
  to  be  contradicted  in  the  field.  What  Chandler  said  made  sense.  He  climbed  the  ladder  one-handed,  his
  move-by-wire reflexes allowing him to carry Beedle's weight perfectly balanced.
  He was bathed in perspiration by the time  he  reached  the  top  of  the  chute  at  the  end  of  a  five-meter
  climb. Judging from the distance, he guessed the building had storage space over  the  top  floor.  Breathing
  hard, he carried Beedle to a safe place near the roof's edge.
  Blood continued to flow from the  street  mage's  gunshot  wound.  Argent  knew  if  it  wasn't  stopped,  the
  young man was going to die. Just like Hawk and Toshi had.
  Kneeling, Argent gently ripped the cloth from around the wound. He took the flare from his pocket and
  popped the self-starter. The flame sizzled to life, burning with a carmine and gold intensity.
  "What are you doing?" Chandler asked.
  "Trying to save his life," Telma answered. "Do it, Argent. There's no easy way."
  Argent clamped down on his feelings the way Brynnmawr had taught him all those years ago, becoming
  as hard as the ferrous metals and ceramic that made  up  the  cyberhand  that  held  the  flare.  He  shoved  it
  against the bleeding wound.
  
  When the pain  hit  his  system,  the  young  mage  almost  woke  up,  struggling  against  Argent's  inexorable
  grip. Then he passed out again, a scream still-born on his lips.
  Argent held the flare against the wound for a quick count of five, then pulled Beedle over and applied it
  again to the exit  wound.  Flesh  sizzled  and  white  smoke  that  smelled  like  frying  meat  twisted  up  into  his
  nose. Raw, angry red blisters healed up at once.
  But the bleeding stopped.
  Argent  hoped  it  would  hold  the  wounds  long  enough  to  allow  them  to  get  Beedle  to  a  medico  who
  worked in the shadows and off the books. He closed his fist on the flare, crushing out the fire that still clung
  to it. When he
  tossed it to one side of the pebbled roof, a few sparks scattered, then the chemicals went inert.
  "You did good," Telma said.
  "I did what I had to," Argent replied. He stripped out of the jacket,  laying  it  across  Beedle.  The  street
  mage was already going into shock. Orienting himself, Argent approached the  side  of  the  roof  above  the
  front of the tavern four stories below.
  The Commuter VTQL rested in mid-air, the props turned straight up, a little more than six meters below
  and nearly twice that distance away from the building. Rappelling ropes hung from the  open  cargo  doors,
  and a man with an assault rifle stood guard there.
  "Now what?" Telma asked, glancing over to the nearest rooftop.
  "Wait,"  Argent  said.  He  marked  the  plane's  location  in  his  mind,  then  jogged  a  few  steps  away.  He
  turned and faced the rooftop, making sure the twin Ingrams were out of the way.
  "Argent," Telma said softly, suddenly understanding what he was about to do.
  Argent erupted into motion. Although his legs were flesh and blood, he'd had muscle augmentation done
  that  made  them  incredibly  powerful.  Coupled  with  the  move-by-wire  system  and  the  training  he'd
  undergone, he was an Olympic-class athlete.
  He drove his feet against the rooftop. At the rooftop's edge, he put his right foot on top of the edge and
  pushed himself out into the air. For a moment, there was no gravity, just him hung out over  the  street  far
  below.
  But the Commuter VTOL was there as well.
  Gravity asserted itself and sucked Argent down toward the waiting prop at the end of the nearest wing.
  22
  The  drone  of  the  Commuter's  flashing  prop  blades  grew  steadily  louder  in  Argent's  ears.  He  heard  the
  cybernetic  dampers  cut  in,  lowering  the  incoming  noise  to  something  he  could  handle.  The  balance
  augmentor inside his ear kicked in, finding his balance point immediately.
  Argent  positioned  himself  as  he  fell,  reaching  out  with  both  hands  and  activating  the  electromagnetic
  properties of both. He felt the suction of the madly whirling prop as it threatened to suck him into his deadly
  orbit.
  He slammed his hands onto the wing when he landed on it,  hoping  the  electromagnets  would  hold.  His
  weight proved too much, drawing him to the edge. The wing dipped uncertainly beneath his weight, pulling
  toward the building Argent had leaped from.
  The Commuter pilot compensated quickly, powering the craft up and regaining the lift.
  Argent closed his hands  on  the  wing's  edge  and  held  on.  His  shoulders  ached  with  the  strain,  already
  fatigued from carrying Beedle.
  "Argent!" Telma called over the commlink.
  The Commuter dipped and rolled again, struggling with the unaccustomed weight at the end of the wing.
  Argent held on, riding out the sudden shift. He craned his head  toward  the  VTOL  craft's  cargo  doors.
  The sec-man there was having the same problems he was, but the man had seen Argent.
  Argent made his way toward the body of the plane hand-over-hand. He gripped the wing so tightly that
  his
  cyberhands left impressions in the metal. He'd nearly reached the cargo doors when the secman recovered
  his balance and raised his weapon.
  The assault rifle kicked a line of bullet holes through the metal-covered wing with high-pitched pings.
  Argent released one hand and hung from the other. Closing his free hand around the butt of the Ingram,
  he pulled it up, the smartlink connection painting cross hairs in his  vision,  and  fired  at  the  secman's  face,
  emptying the man's skull.
  
  Crossing hand-over-hand again, Argent reached the body of the plane.  The  cargo  doors  remained  less
  than a meter out of reach. He let go of the wing and twisted forward to grab the lip of the cargo door. A
  quick pull and he was inside the Commuter. He filled his hands with the In-grams and went forward to the
  pilot's section.
  "They know you're aboard the plane," Peg said.
  Argent wasn't surprised. The rigger flying the craft was  in  constant  radio  contact  with  the  rest  of  the
  teams.
  "They'll  consider  the  plane  expendable  now,"  Telma  said.  Her  words  proved  prophetic  when  bullets
  crashed into the Commuter from below.
  Argent didn't worry much about pistol or rifle fire, and the Striker's cannon couldn't adjust to shoot into
  the air since the plane was well above the turret's elevation. However, with all of the ordnance already in
  evidence, he wasn't going to believe someone below couldn't pull an anti-aircraft gun out of their hoop.
  The plane shifted, climbing. The flimsy door  sectioning  the  cargo  area  off  from  the  pilot's  cabin  didn't
  even properly slow Argent.
  In the pilot's cabin, the rigger lay jacked into the Commuter and wearing it like a second skin. He was a
  thin .man, human, who'd seen a lot of hard years.
  "Hey," the rigger called out over the cabin's internal speaker system, "you don't need to flatline me. And
  if you do, who's gonna fly the plane?"
  "I will." Argent yanked the rigger's trodes from the console. Being forcibly ejected from the deck system
  triggered dump shock that rendered the man unconscious. Argent slipped into the co-pilot's seat and pulled
  back on the yoke.
  Sluggishly, the Commuter came under his control. Part of his training under Brynnmawr had  included  a
  familiarity with most known military aircraft. He was also  well  versed  in  boats,  ships,  subs,  and  wheeled
  and tracked vehicles.
  Working the pedals, he turned the rudder and trimmed the flaps, then tilted the props to gain speed.  He
  flew away from the building for a moment. When he had enough speed to gain altitude, he pulled back on
  the yoke, feeling the nose of the plane come up.
  He accessed the commlink. "Telma."
  "I'm still here, but we're not going to be alone much longer."
  "Another minute," Argent promised, "you won't be there." The engines screamed as he brought the plane
  around, dropping the right wing and pulling back on the yoke hard enough that it seemed the Commuter was
  pirouetting  on  the  wingtip.  As  he  came  around,  he  spotted  green  tracer  fire  arcing  up  at  him  from  the
  ground.
  Flying toward the target building again, he cut power to the props, then tilted them up. The plane settled
  into a descending glide path, then came to a dead stop over the building rooftop.
  Telma started forward, carrying Beedle over her shoulder. Chandler followed close behind.
  Watching  the  altimeter  gauges  on  the  instrument  panel,  Argent  used  the  sonar  scanner  to  put  the
  Commuter's  belly  less  than  a  meter  above  the  rooftop.  He  locked  the  autopilot  on  to  hold  the  plane  in
  position, then reached for the unconscious rigger. Hooking his fingers in the back of the man's shirt, Argent
  dragged him to the cargo door and tossed him out as Telma reached the plane.
  Argent  took  Beedle's  weight,  moving  the  man  quickly  but  gently,  not  wanting  to  break  open  the
  cauterized wounds. "Belt him down," he told Telma.
  She knelt to strap Beedle in. "They're on top of us."
  "I know." Argent headed for the pilot's cabin.
  "Company," Chandler called from beside the cargo doors. Bullets slammed into the plane's sides.  Some
  of them were stopped by the reinforced plating in the cargo area, but others ripped through the tail section.
  Chandler fired his weapon.
  Argent settled into the co-pilot's chair and took the autopilot off. "Hold on." He added more power to the
  tilt wings, pushing the craft toward the roof's edge.
  Without warning, the escape route was suddenly cut off by a wall of fire that flamed up from the rooftop.
  The flames swarmed and grew taller, reaching a height of four meters or more as they twisted violently.
  23
  
  "That's no normal fire," Telma called from the cargo section.
  Argent  knew  that.  He  also  knew  from  experience  that  a  normal  fire  might  or  might  not  explode  any
  munitions that passed through it. But  the  firewall  spell  guaranteed  detonations  every  time.  If  Beedle  had
  been conscious, he might have been able to negate the spell or take out the mage that had used it. At the
  least, Beedle would have known who had performed the spell.
  Glancing to his right, Argent halted the forward momentum and brought the Commuter around in a tight
  circle, taking full advantage of the tilt props. When the nose
  came around facing the group of secmen continuing to come up through the roof  access  door,  he  slid  his
  thumbs over the heavy machine gun triggers mounted on the yoke.
  The machine gun bullets ripped through the secmen, knocking some of them down and driving the others
  into startled lunges for cover. Return fire smashed against the plastiglass windows of the Commuter's nose,
  fracturing it till visibility was almost impossible.
  The wall of fire disappeared.
  Turning  his  attention  back  to  escape,  Argent  powered  the  props  again  and  tilted  them  forward.  The
  Commuter streaked across the rooftop, through the smoky haze left where the fire had burned. Tracers lit
  up the air around them for a moment when they flew over the roof's edge and across the street below.
  "Rocket!" Telma yelled in warning.
  The  plane's  warning  systems  lit  up,  tracking  the  approaching  anti-aircraft  rocket  from  the  Nakatomi
  ground crews in front of Lookers. Argent pushed the yoke down, losing altitude to gain speed, and dropped
  the left wing till the Commuter went vertical.
  The rocket screamed by them, barely skimming past the plane's underbelly.
  Argent fought the plane's inclination to continue losing altitude  or  flip  out  into  one  of  the  buildings  they
  flew past. If the plane had been powered by jet engines, the outcome  of  the  encounter  would  have  been
  different. The anti-aircraft rockets were usually equipped with heat sensors that would have allowed them
  to lock on.
  "Peg," he called over the commlink. "I need a place to drop the plane."
  "Where do you have in mind?"
  Argent mentally flicked through the terrain he knew existed around the L.A. area.  "The Barrens. It's in
  Harbor Town."
  "Got it," Peg said. "I'm sending you a map over your
  headcom that will translate over the Coronas, but without a satlink, I can't vector you into the area."
  "Just  find  it  for  me,"  Argent  replied.  "I'll  get  there."  He  aimed  the  Commuter  south  for  the  Harbor
  District. The Harbor District ran straight on to the Pacific Ocean.
  The right lens of the Coronas pulsed, then filled with a map. Quickly, the map of Los Angeles grew more
  detailed, peeling away areas  till it got down  to  the  Harbor  District.  Streets  and  avenues  around  the  area
  were clearly marked on the map, but the streets inside the Harbor District started and ended in a confusing
  maze. Security in the  area  was  also  reputed  to  be  lax.  The  details  came  from  the  intel  packet  Peg  had
  assembled on the areas around El Infierno during the night.
  "You're taking a chance putting down there," Peg said.
  "Yes," Argent agreed, "but it's the best one we have. Lone Star's activity there is minimal at best."
  "That's because the local corps use the area as a dumping ground," Peg pointed out.
  Argent  knew  that  from  the  reports  he'd  read.  There'd  been  numerous  sightings  of  strange  creatures
  lurking  in  the  rubble  left  from  the  quake.  He  adjusted  his  approach,  keeping  his  altitude  low  but  not
  interfering with the surveillance systems protecting the corp buildings below. Still, he was high enough that
  he could see the lights  of  the  plex  below  butt  up  against  the  darkness  that  evidently  marked  the  Harbor
  District. The deeper black of the San Gabriel River lay beyond.
  "You've  got  more  to  worry  about  than  toxic  chemicals,"  Peg  said.  "A  thrill  group  called  the  Steppin'
  Wulfs has laid claim to that district."
  Argent  remembered  that  from  the  reports  as  well.  The  Steppin'  Wulfs  were  reputed  to  be  cybered
  crazies who zealously guarded their turf. Putting the Commuter down in the Harbor District was  going  to
  draw immediate attention. But they were all out of choices.
  "Argent," Telma called from the back. "We've picked up a tail."
  Glancing  over  at  the  cam  console,  Argent  brought  up  the  rearward-facing  cam.  Increasing  the
  magnification,  he  spotted  the  wasp  shape  of  the  helicopter  closing  in  on  them.  Green  digital  numbers
  marked the distance as 1206 meters and dropping steadily.
  "We're going to need the safe house," Argent told Peg.
  
  "On it," she said.
  Coming into the area, Argent had known the run might turn dirty early, and he'd figured they might need a
  bolt-hole to run to. He concentrated on his piloting, watching the darkness that clung to the Harbor District
  swell till it filled the view behind him. Shoving the yoke forward, he began a sharp descent.
  24
  Tracerfire split the night around Argent, and a few rounds hit the Commuter. The altimeter dropped steadily
  as he continued the descent toward L.A.'s Harbor District.
  Studying the controls, Argent found a switch that voided the fuel tanks. Normally it was used for flushing
  the tanks to expel bad fuel. He overrode the security controls.
  At something less than sixty meters above the ground, Argent spotted a street two blocks into the Harbor
  District.  According  to  the  map  Peg  had  sent  over  the  Coronas,  Hawaiian  Street  had  initially  been  a
  nine-block-long two lane that had ran south down to the train tracks  only  a  few  blocks  east  of  Interstate
  110. Eight of those blocks still existed.
  Argent hoped it would be enough to bring the Commuter
  down safely. He dropped more altitude, looking for Los Angeles Harbor College along Interstate 110 to get
  his bearings.
  He  adjusted  his  approach,  locking  onto  the  street  between  the  piles  of  rubble  that  filled  the  Harbor
  District. The attack chopper was only 400 meters behind, and the sec cam revealed that at least two more
  were coming into the area. Heavy machine gun fire rocked the plane steadily now.
  Fighting the prop plane's inclination to go nose-up at the landing, Argent guided it  onto  his  chosen  flight
  path. He ignored the bullets shearing through his craft, ignored the sparks that issued from the left tilt prop
  as machine gun fire strafed the blades. Smoke belched from the rotor housing as oil spilled out and burned
  across the heated engine.
  The altimeter dropped to 25 meters as  the  attack  chopper  zoomed  in  for  the  kill, closing  to  within  200
  meters.
  Argent waited, his finger poised above the fuel void switch. He knew the pilot would be getting eager to
  hammer him to the ground. The smoke steaming from the prop engine grew thicker and blacker.
  The attack chopper's pilot opened up with the machine guns. Tracer fire filled the air.
  Argent voided the fuel tanks in a liquid, gurgling rush loud enough to be heard over the engines. He didn't
  see the fuel in the rear cam until the tracer fire ignited it.
  A  large  cloud  of  twisting,  roiling  flames  lit  up  the  night  and  wrapped  around  the  helicopter.  It  wasn't
  enough to knock the helo from the sky, and wouldn't last long as a diversion.
  Argent  powered  the  plane  forward,  listening  to  the  gut-wrenching  noise  made  by  the  engines  as  they
  coughed and died, reducing his control. He fought the yoke,  forcing  the  plane  onto  the  path  he'd  chosen.
  Barely ten meters above ground level, he sped between the huge piles
  of rubble left by the quake. Chunks of brick, mortar, and concrete created hazards in the street.
  He left the landing gear up, knowing they'd stand a better chance in the landing without risking a wheel
  that might collapse or get caught on an obstruction. Pulling the nose up, he gave the plane full  flaps  in  an
  effort to slow their approach speed.
  The Commuter's belly touched, and the grinding rush of the rubble and refuse underneath the craft filled
  the cockpit. Argent fought the rudder to  keep  the  plane  on  an  even  keel.  The  flaps  provided  him  a  little
  control  over  the  skid,  but  that  was  gone  the  instant  the  left  wing  contacted  a  pile  of  broken  rock  that
  towered seven meters in height.
  The wing tore from the plane like tissue paper. The Commuter dipped forward, riding hard on her  nose
  without  the  wing  to  help  stabilize  her  weight.  Sparks  flared  up  and  bounced  against  the  bullet-shattered
  windshield.
  The safety belts snugged tight against Argent, helping him maintain his position. They were on top of the
  railroad tracks before he knew it, cresting the small incline and going airborne again for an  instant.  When
  the Commuter came down, it slammed hard, the structure buckling.
  The  broken  remains  of  a  building  filled  the  windshield.  The  impact  ripped  Argent's  seat  free  of  its
  moorings. He crossed his arms in front of him and blocked off most of the collision with the console.
  The plane stopped dead in its tracks, shivering like a BTL junkie.
  
  Argent ripped the safety harness free and went back to the cargo area.  The plane was tilted, making it
  hard to walk. He switched on his low-light vision.
  Chandler  lay  across  Beedle's  lower  body  while  Tel-ma  sprawled  over  the  mage's  upper  body.  The
  vampire showed no signs of stress or damage, but Telma looked like hell.
  "I think I broke my arm," she said, pulling back from Beedle's unconscious form.
  Argent helped her to her feet and ripped free a cargo restraint. He fashioned a sling and cinched her arm
  into place against her stomach, immobilizing it.
  "Can you handle it?" he asked.
  She nodded, pain touching her dark eyes. "I've been hurt worse than this."
  Argent knelt and picked Beedle up. The young mage was still under the effects of the tranq patch, and
  some of the bleeding had started up again, though it didn't appear life-threatening.
  Chandler managed the cargo door, shoving it open with metallic squeals. The air outside was laden with
  noxious-smelling chemicals  that  burned  Argent's  nose.  The  olfactory  booster  receptors  set  into  his  nasal
  passages  and  at  the  back  of  his  mouth  damped  down  the  effect  immediately,  and  he  kept  the  gas
  spectrometer in his main sinus chambers on-line so it would sift through all the unusual smells and identify
  any  that  might  be  biologically  harmful  to  them.  Of  course,  that  warning  would  only  activate  if  the
  spectrometer identified a chemical trace that was in its programs as harmful.
  Argent settled Beedle over his shoulders in a fireman's carry that left both his hands free. Rotors droned
  overhead,  letting  him  know  the  attack  helos  hadn't  given  up  pursuit.  A  Lone  Star  helo  had  joined  the
  collection of aircraft, circling along the outer perimeter and exchanging nervous fire with the corp helos.
  Chandler scrambled to the top of the plane and wrenched the top off the in-flight fuel valve. "I know you
  voided the tanks," the vampire said, "but  I  also  know  you  get  more  explosive  effect  from  gaseous  vapor
  than you do the liquid itself. I figure maybe this will confuse the issue a little more." He took a Zippo lighter
  from his pocket and ripped a shred of his torn turtleneck free. "You chummers get going. I won't be long."
  Argent jogged through the piles of debris in the direc-
  tion of Interstate 110. Telma stayed close behind, her pistol gleaming in her hand.
  The bright flare of the material catching fire from the Zippo warned Argent of the impending explosion.
  Two of the helos descended from the dark sky at the same time, racing for the crash site.
  Argent spotted Chandler on top of the plane, saw the vampire drop the flaming bit of cloth into the nearly
  empty tanks of the Commuter. The tilt-prop plane exploded, proving too much even for Argent's cybereyes.
  By the time they adjusted, only twisted and burning wreckage remained of the  Commuter.  There  was  no
  sign of Chandler.
  "Did he—?" Telma asked.
  "No," a strained voice answered.
  Argent turned, watching as the vampire turned back into flesh and blood from mist form.
  "But I admit that was closer than I thought it was going to be," Chandler said.
  The helos swarmed the area.  Argent knew they were going to split up into search  patterns,  looking  for
  survivors,  knowing  that  the  plane  could  have  been  set  off.  But  the  fire  would  throw  off  all  the  infrared
  equipment in the immediate vicinity.
  Argent moved out, taking the lead. His thoughts centered on Andi Sencio and the trouble she was now in.
  Getting to her wasn't going to be easy. Not if the combined forces of Nakatomi and Villiers couldn' t reach
  her. Of course, the chip would give him more intel than either of those men had. But getting her out of her
  situation was going to put them all in harm's way.
  25
  "I'm sorry, Nakatomi-san, we lost them."
  Clay Ironaxe stared at the vid-feed coming from Cal-Free over the telecom channel to which Nakatomi
  had linked him. The telecom also held calls on hold from Arthur Vogel and Shikei Nakatomi. The VaulTek
  CEO felt the pressure of the moment, but the adrenaline surging through him was an accustomed drug of
  choice, almost drowning out the anger that he felt.
  The  vid-feed  from  CalFree  pulsed  uncertainly  across  the  telecom  screen,  showing  the  depth  of  the
  encryption process the Asian Fuchi deckers were using  to  keep  the  signal  from  the  secteam  inviolate.  It
  displayed the battered remains of the Commuter plane. Flames still licked hungrily at the twisted fuselage.
  The incoming vid-feed had connected with the site in time for Ironaxe to witness the explosion.
  The man speaking to Nakatomi was in charge of the  ops  unit  that  had  attempted  to  take  Argent.  The
  
  number of dead hadn't been counted.
  "I do not take failure lightly," Nakatomi was saying  over  the  commlink  connecting  him  to  the  ops  unit.
  Ironaxe had been added to the aud transmission only after Argent's escape, and he knew the events coming
  now were designed solely to impress him.
  "Hai, Nakatomi-san," the unit commander said. He bowed stiffly, his face ashen. "This I understand."
  "You know there is only one answer I will accept," Nakatomi said harshly.
  "A finger or his life?" Bearstalker asked impassively.  He  stood  slightly  behind  Ironaxe,  gazing  over  his
  employer's shoulder. "I'm betting he's going to have the guy geek himself."
  Ironaxe didn't comment. This part of Nakatomi's effort was pure sales job, showing how much control he
  had over his men. And the lengths to which he was willing to go.
  "Know that I beg your forgiveness, Nakatomi-san," the unit commander said.
  "There is no forgiveness in this matter," Nakatomi said. "There is only weakness and failure."
  The man bowed as a member of his team approached him, carrying a rectangular case.  The commander
  opened the case and took out the short sword inside. The other man fell to his knees, reversing the sword
  and tearing the tail of his uniform blouse free. He wrapped the black material around the haft of the sword.
  "One of the local trid stations has just arrived," Bear-stalker said.
  Ironaxe glanced at the large trid monitor built into the wall across from  the  desk.  Nine  smaller  screens
  framed the one in  the  center,  each  a  fifth  the  size  of  the  central  monitor.  The  central  screen  showed  a
  CalFree channel tagline, and the scene was of the plane crash in the  Harbor  District.  Lines  of  script  ran
  across the bottom of the monitor because the unit was on mute. The footage was evidently being shot from
  an aerial unit—either a drone or a helicopter, Ironaxe wasn't sure which.
  The snoop recording the story spoke with a lot  of  exclamation  points  in  the  script,  but  very  few  facts.
  There'd been a brawl in El Infierno and several people were dead. Then the vid locked onto Nakatomi's unit
  commander.
  On two screens, getting two different perspectives, Ironaxe watched the man plunge the short sword into
  his own belly. The blade must have been equipped with a
  monofilament edge because the man sliced himself in halves. Both halves jerked as life left them.
  The trid snoop kept filming, describing what his or her viewers were seeing in graphic detail. The vid tried
  to follow the other members of the secteam, but a hail of bullets smashed into the helicopter, causing it to
  break off course. The fact that the snoop was filming from  a  helicopter  was  confirmed  when  he  dodged
  back and his cam recorded his own arm dripping with the pilot's brains. Even on mute, the hearing-impaired
  script prompter captured the snoop's last screams as the helicopter went down, translating them into written
  sounds as well as showing the decibel level on a graph that flickered into view.
  The  vid  didn't  end  immediately  even  after  the  helicopter  hit  the  ground,  showing  the  way  the  snoop
  bounced. The cam came free and pointed to the downed helo on top of a pile of debris. The dead snoop's
  face was partially in the view, the single open eye only in fuzzy focus.
  Almost immediately, a window opened up on the trid-cast, framing a female anchor who went on air to
  continue fleshing out the story. But the window was strategically placed not to cover up the dead snoop's
  face or the broken helicopter. Background info on the dead snoop was spooned into the tridcast on the spot.
  Ironaxe turned back to the vidlink recording the sec force unit commander's death. Only the body and the
  Commuter remained in view. He knew Nakatomi would wipe the dead man's records, making him appear
  SIN-less, another unidentified cipher in the plex.
  "Whoever  investigates  this,"  Bearstalker  said,  "will  probably  think  it  was  the  yakuza  fighting  another
  border war with the Seoulpa Rings. They've been having turf battles with each other for years."
  Ironaxe didn't know anything about that, but he knew Bearstalker did. Bearstalker hadn't always lived in
  the NAN, and he'd worked as a security specialist for
  smaller corps all along the West Coast. "So Nakatomi has deniability."
  "Yeah. He's a smart fragger,"  Bearstalker  admitted.  "Having  the  commander  geek  himself  like  that  is
  going to help the investigators leap to the quickest conclusion. Crime family violence with trid at 2300. Case
  closed."
  "And by ordering the death of a man in front of me, he assumes he has deniability to me as well."
  "Probably."
  The vidlink ended, closing to an iris of black.
  Walking back to his desk, Ironaxe considered all that he'd  learned  in  the  past  few  minutes.  "This  man,
  Argent, is a very capable warrior."
  "From the way he busted out of that box Nakatomi's people had him in, I'd say so."
  "But a man as valuable as that," Ironaxe said, "it doesn't make sense that Nakatomi would give him up.
  
  Not if Argent was in his employ."
  "That depends on how twisted you think Nakatomi might play this. One man, even an operative as good
  as Argent, isn't worth more than what he hopes to gain by arranging a merger with you."
  Ironaxe knew  that  was  true.  It  wasn't  just  the  Matrix-ware  that  was  in  development  that  Villiers  and
  Nakatomi coveted; they wanted the leverage Ironaxe had with the Pueblo Corporate Council. An alignment
  like that would shore up either of the splintered Fuchis, and would be a hammer  blow  to  the  other  unless
  they could find someone else with whom to work out an arrangement quickly.
  Of the two, Richard Villiers's NovaTech was the stronger. At the moment. And that could change with
  the biz whizzing through Wall Street on any  given  day.  One  wrong  move  could  possibly  cost  Villiers'  his
  fledgling empire.
  Villiers also had the inside track on the merger with Ironaxe because he had more to offer in North and
  South
  American  markets  than  Nakatomi.  However,  to  complete  the  merger  they  were  talking  about,  Villiers
  would have to give up some of the autonomy he'd maintained since the break-up of Fuchi. Ironaxe had to
  ask himself if the man would be willing to do that.
  Nakatomi had never mentioned that Argent had worked for Fuchi in the past, yet Bearstalker had gotten
  the information readily enough. Of course, Aaron Bearstalker's  sources  among  shadowrunners  was  quite
  remarkable. That was another of the reasons Ironaxe had hired him.
  He looked at Bearstalker as he took his seat again behind the desk. "So which of them," he asked, "has
  betrayed me? Nakatomi or Villiers?"
  "We'll  find  out,"  Bearstalker  replied  quietly.  "Knowing  you've  been  lied  to  is  the  most  important  part.
  When we find this Sencio, we'll find the truth."
  26
  "How do you want to handle this?" asked Miles Lanier.
  Richard Villiers' impassive face gave nothing away. "Keep the coverage on Nakatomi and Argent going,
  but pull your team way back in CalFree. I don't want any repercussions from our involvement there."
  Lanier phoned his unit commander and relayed the orders. He  scanned  the  continuing  trid  coverage  of
  the  running  gunbattle  taking  place  in  the  Harbor  District.  The  Lone  Star  helo  had  touched  down  within
  seconds.
  Ground units had arrived on the scene where the Commuter VTOL plane had ripped her guts out, then
  exploded. Sec-clad Lone Star High-Threat Response Team personnel fanned out along the ground,  sifting
  through the burning debris that could be approached for evidence.
  "Argent will go to ground after this," Villiers said. "He'll investigate whatever Sencio's told him."
  "I'd think so. After the telecom call I made to the private eye, Argent knows you're a player. Maybe he
  made some of Nakatomi's people while he was at it. And the information Sencio sent might name Ironaxe.
  Argent's too professional to miss an opportunity to learn more that might help him."
  "Back when he worked for us in the Desert Wars," Villiers said, "he set up a communications system."
  "Through the personal ads sections of the local scream-sheets," Lanier said. "I remember."
  "Since he knows we're involved, maybe he'll be ready to talk to  us.  Taking  on  Ironaxe  or  Asian  Fuchi
  isn't something he's going to be ready to do. Possibly we can establish some kind of bargaining position."
  Knowing Argent to be the kind of man he was, Lanier also knew that if Argent decided to try to make
  the save on Sencio and her people, he'd put their safety first. Even over the bad blood that had come from
  working with him and Villiers all those years ago. "You want to offer to help him?"
  "Yes," Villiers said. "But only  you  and  I  are  going  to  know  about  this.  I  want  a  position  of  deniability
  maintained  on  this  whole  operation.  Whatever  help  he  takes  from  us  I  want  to  lead  straight  back  to
  Nakatomi. Pay him out of one of the bank accounts of Nakatomi's that we've penetrated if you have to. It'll
  expose some of the resources we've developed for keeping an eye on Nakatomi, but it'll be worth it."
  "All right."
  "And keep me apprised of anything that happens the instant it does." Villiers pushed up from his seat and
  walked across the room.
  "There is the possibility," Lanier reminded, "that Argent may write Sencio off after this."
  "No," Villiers replied. "We know Argent and this is exactly the kind of op he won't be able to walk away
  
  from. The man has a conscience. It's the only thing that ever kept him from being perfect."
  27
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—01:37:26/10-11-60]
  BEGIN UPLOAD Location: CalFree Safehouse
  Before I'd gone down into California Free State, I'd made sure of two things. One was that we'd have a
  safe  house  if  we  needed  it.  And  the  second  was  that  I  had  a  street  medico  that  would  be  ready  and
  trustworthy if we needed him.
  Either one of those was expensive. I'd paid no-return deposits on both, the balance  due  at  the  time  the
  services were rendered.
  Chandler helped me get Telma and Beedle  to  the  medico,  then  vanished  into  the  night.  Beedle  was  in
  serious condition, requiring an immediate operation. If he hadn't been a mage, patching him up could have
  been made easier by artificially replacing some of the damaged bone instead of knitting  it  with  vat-grown
  materials made from his own DNA. The medico guaranteed me that Beedle would make a full recovery.
  Telma  hadn't  been  as  banged  up.  But  after  the  medico  got  her  back  on  her  feet,  she  had  a  regular
  assignment to
  get back to. She'd arranged a bye on it to cover my back in CalFree, but she couldn't go any further.
  I went to the safehouse  alone.  Except  for  Peg,  who  kept  trying  to  draw  me  out  into  a  conversation  I
  didn't want  to  have.  Or  maybe  didn't  want  to  is  too  strong  a  declaration.  I  knew  I  needed  to  have  that
  conversation with her, but I wasn't ready.
  The safehouse  was  a  flop  based  in  Gardenia  called  Pierson  Place  where  a  shadowrunner  could  doss
  down into relative obscurity. The upper floors of the flop offered only conventional security. The basement
  levels, though, offered the max in sec ware and a shielded jack.
  Nolly showed me to my room, taking me through one of the hidden passages to the lower levels. I'd never
  been able to verify how many rooms were in the basement. I took that as a good sign. If Peg and I hadn't
  been able to find the answer, I felt certain it would be difficult for anyone else to.
  "Your fee pays for the room," Nolly said, "and guarantees anonymity while you're here." She was a thin
  wisp of an ork,  wearing  a  peasant-style  dress  that  fit  the  decor  of  the  upper  rooms.  Her  gray  hair  was
  pulled back in a bun that was counter-balanced by her thick jaw. "If you draw attention  to  yourself  while
  you're here, or attempt to invade the privacy of anyone else in these rooms, you'll be evicted."
  "I understand," I said, scanning the room. All I  carried  with  me  was  the  duffel  containing  my  back-up
  gear.
  She excused herself and left the room. I heard the door lock behind her. It  wouldn't  open  again  unless
  she opened it. I had the combination to another hidden door in the closet that led to a passage I could use to
  get outside the safehouse, but it was a one-time use.
  The room was Spartan in furnishings. There was a small kitchen area and creatively stocked larder. An
  uncomfortable-looking bed pulled out of the wall.
  I plugged in the encrypted telecom unit from the duffel
  and plugged it into the shielded jack. Then I brought Peg on-line and she ran a diagnostics on the uplink.
  "We're secure here," she announced.
  "Good. Give me a few minutes more." Although the chip Sencio had sent by way of Chandler was locked
  away in the hidden compartment of my arm and weighed only a few grams at most, I remained sensitive to
  its presence. I finished searching for vid and aud transmitters but found none. Nolly's reputation was well
  deserved. I'd used the safehouse twice before, never the same lower basement room, and never the same
  way out.
  Thankfully, Peg followed my lead and didn't talk much.
  I finished setting up two of the minicams I had in the duffel. After placing them on  the  walls  so  they'd
  have overlapping fields of view, I tied them in through the encrypted telecom.
  "The minicams are on-line," Peg told me.
  Taking the motion-detector wands from the duffel, I set them up to cover the door  I'd  entered  through,
  and the one inside the closet. Only then did I take the chip from my cyberarm and slot it in the telecom.
  
  "Do you want me here for this?" Peg asked.
  "Yes," I replied. But, in truth, I didn't know. I wasn't thrilled about having so much of my past life coming
  into her view. And Andi Sencio was a very confusing part of it. "I want you to upload the chip's contents to
  your deck," I said. "When I'm done here, I'm going to destroy this copy."
  "All right."
  I slotted the black chip into the telecom and punched UPLOAD.
  "It's passcoded," Peg announced. "The copy's done."
  I pulled the bed out and sat on its edge, willing myself to be calm. I turned out the lights, making the room
  dark except for the green  glow  of  the  telecom.  One-handed,  I  tapped  out  the  password  Andi  and  I  had
  agreed on the last time we saw each other.
  Chrysalis. A time of change. The word had represented events that had been going on around us at the
  time, and the changes that had been taking place between us then as well.
  The telecom screen flickered, then came on. The vid was sketchy at best, too  dark  and  the  chromatint
  jumped,  causing  tidal  waves  of  explosive  colors.  At  first  I  thought  the  vid  had  been  shot  inside  a  dark
  building, then I saw the rough stone around Andi and realized it had been shot while underground.
  "Examine the files," I told Peg. "I want to know if they've been tampered with in any way."
  Andi looked back at me from the telecom screen. She still wore her black hair hacked off street-short, a
  holdover from our military days. Her skin was dark and burnished, tight over supple muscle. Every now and
  again  the  chromatint  got  her  eye  colors  right:  a  turquoised  hazel  with  a  cyber  sheen.  She  wore  a  black
  synthleather midriff shirt, black synthdenim jeans, and the go-ganger square-toed boots she favored.
  She smiled, and maybe the casual observer wouldn't have noted the tightness behind that smile, but I did.
  Andi was nowhere near comfortable.
  "Since you're getting this," Andi said wryly, "and you know how things were left  between  us,  I  assume
  you know that I'm probably in the worst drekpot of my life." She shrugged and paced, shoving her hands in
  the back pockets of her jeans. "And if I'm not, then I'm flatlined. Some choice, huh?"
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  28
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—01:55:10/10-11-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: CalFree Safehouse
  I watched Andi Sencio as she spoke, matching what I saw against what I knew I'd  never  forget.  Andi
  knew a side of me that I didn't show. Her ability to reach  that  side  of  me  hadn't  ended  just  because  the
  relationship had.
  "You were never one to waste words," Andi said coolly, "and I don't have a lot of time here either. Even
  with  the  burst  capability  on  the  communications  transmission  we've  cobbled  together,  we're  pushing  the
  clock."  Despite  her  outward  appearance,  I  picked  up  the  tell-tale  spike  in  her  voice  with  my  enhanced
  hearing that told how twitchy she was feeling.
  As I watched Andi speak, I couldn't help thinking  she  might  already  be  flat-lined.  Even  the  corn-burst
  getting off to Chandler only ensured that she'd lived that long, no longer.
  "I'm still working for Richard Villiers," Andi  said.  "He  assigned  me  to  a  covert  run  against  one  of  the
  NAN-megas.  We  were  on  a  major  datasteal  from  a  company  in  the  Pueblo  Corporate  Council  called
  VaulTek."
  "I'm searching for VaulTek now," Peg told me.
  "The CEO of VaulTek is a man named Clay Ironaxe,"
  Andi said. "He's Amerind, always trying to learn more about his people and his culture. When Villiers put
  my  team  on  the  assignment,  he  had  a  good  cover  waiting  for  us  as  part  of  the  research  staff  of
  LegacyTrax, an institution catering to the location of antiquities and information in the Awakened World."
  LegacyTrax I knew about. They were a small operation that specialized in tracking down the  reality  of
  myths and legends that had been handed down before magic returned to the world. The big player in that
  field was the Atlantean Foundation. I'd done some  close-cover  work  on  some  of  Atlantean's  fact-finding
  hunts over the years. But there were some who said Atlantean served its own purposes and not everything
  that was found was turned over to the contractors. LegacyTrax still enjoyed a good rep, as far as I knew.
  "Some  of  my  team  were  actual  research  assistants,"  Andi  went  on,  "while  the  rest  of  us  held  sec
  
  positions. The assignment required that VaulTek open up many of their mainframes to us so our techs could
  confirm the mythologies being searched. Ironaxe had a number of security measures  set  up  against  what
  we accomplished, but they were easier to get around after we'd been given an invitation to be there."
  The  fact  that  Villiers  had  used  Ironaxe's  own  curiosity  against  him  wasn't  surprising  news.  On  the
  surface,  Villiers  had  a  reputation  for  acting  quickly  and  ruthlessly.  And  there  were  some  people  in  the
  plexes where he did the majority of his biz who considered him to be ready for sainthood. Every move was
  polished, though, and took into account any weaknesses Villiers could take advantage of.
  "If you're wondering how Villiers worked our insertion into LegacyTrax," Andi said, "he did it by buying
  out the corp on a closed-market deal through other shell corps and dummy bank accounts. No one will be
  able to trace it back to him."
  Without saying it, Andi knew  I'd  understand  that  she  was  the  weak  link  in  Villiers'  covert  datasnatch.
  Without Andi's testimony to tie NovaTech  to  LegacyTrax,  Iron-axe  might  suspect,  but  he'd  never  prove,
  that Villiers had been behind the datasteal. And for one corp player to make a move against another corp
  player without gaining a bad rep, proof had to be involved at some point.
  "While we had access  to VaulTek's mainframes and cybernetic systems," Andi said, "we also managed
  to download information Villiers wanted us to retrieve. We used the open databases to patch and bridge our
  way into the R&D computers, then upload all the files to our decks."
  I shifted on the bed and took a bottle of spring water from the stores Nolly had assigned me. I  popped
  the tab unconsciously and drank off a third of its contents, focusing on Andi's words.
  "You already know about all the in-fighting that's taking place between the three Fuchis," Andi said. "Any
  shadowrunner worth contracting has, and I'm guessing that you've been offered a lot  of  work  in  the  past
  few months. Maybe you're too busy to handle the bit of action I'm trying to push your way. I hope not. If
  there was a way to get out without help, you know I'd never have contacted you. I gave you my promise
  back then, and you know I don't go back on those any more than you do."
  I studied the way Andi  was  dressed,  noting  the  scuff  marks  of  gray-colored  dust  on  the  knees  of  the
  synthdenim jeans. Wherever she'd gone to tape the corn-burst, there'd been some climbing involved.
  "I uploaded most of the information we snatched to Villiers' cut-off team working  the  perimeter  of  our
  op," Andi said. "But they didn't get it all. Villiers also knows we're still alive. Some of us. And as long as we
  are, we're a liability. If he can't find a way clear to exfiltrate us from here without exposing himself and this
  op, I have
  no doubt he'll have us chilled. I want to hire you to exfiltrate us."
  Watching the way she moved, pacing as she spoke, I knew her left leg had been injured. The movement
  wasn't noticeable in a big way, but to someone who knew her as intimately as I did, it was obvious.  Andi
  had always carried a sinuous grace about her in anything physical: from dancing to sex to assassination.
  "You know the kind of money Villiers paid us when you worked for him," she said, then gave me a wry
  smile. "And you probably remember the way I liked to spend it. Maybe you'd be surprised at how much of
  it I've put back in recent years, though. I'll pay a fair price for your time. Almost from the day you left me, I
  set up a joint account with the names of  aliases  you  and  I  used  to  operate  under.  The  last  report  I  saw
  showed a little more than four hundred thousand nuyen in the account. It's with Solar First in Washington,
  DC." She read off the account number twice, speaking clearly both times.
  I tapped the telecom and froze the chip play. "Run it," I told Peg. "But be careful. Things could get gnarly
  when you access the information about that account."
  "It's not like you to try to tell me how to do my biz," Peg said irritably.
  I sipped my water and ignored the comment. When she had Solar First's entry page on the telecom, I put
  my thumb  over  the  scanner  built  into  the  telecom  and  watched  the  light  bar  flash  across  the  print.  It's
  expensive making sure my thumbprints match  after  getting  a  cyberhand  or  cyberlimb  damaged,  or  losing
  one  entirely,  which  has  happened  as  well.  The  cyberdoc  I  used  worked  at  corp-spec  and  was  very
  expensive.  But  when  my  thumbprint  was  laid  into  the  bank's  sec-systems,  access  to  that  account  was
  allowed immediately.
  A short commercial played on the telecom  display,  cramming  as  much  info  as  the  bank  could  manage
  about
  their  services  into  a  ten-second  burst.  Then  Peg  went  through  the  menu,  fencing  momentarily  with  the
  bank's sec-systems as they tried to track down my location. She sleazed through the defenses and fed them
  a false location. By the time they figured out their mistake, she was out of the system.
  When  the  account  opened,  the  balance  was  four  hundred  thirty-seven  thousand,  one  hundred-thirteen
  nuyen and change. A quick scan of the account's activity log showed that monthly deposits had been made
  for the duration of the account, with no record of anything ever having been withdrawn.
  
  I considered that maybe Andi had thought the longer we didn't speak, the more money it would  take  to
  bring me back around if she ever needed me. That realization made me feel  uncomfortable,  but  I  quickly
  pushed the feeling away. Operating out of an emotional frame of reference wasn't acceptable.
  "She wasn't lying about the money," Peg said.
  "No.  I  didn't  think  she  was."  I  stared  at  the  names  on  the  account.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Linda  and  Robert
  Raynes. They were two perfectly normal citizen names and carried none of the history that our real names
  or the names we wore now brought with them. Even the SINs would be spotless.
  "Argent," Peg said in a quiet voice, "is Andi Sencio your wife?"
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  29
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—02:03:57/10-11-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: CalFree Safehouse
  I gazed  at  the  still  frame  displayed  on  the  telecom  and  considered  how  brainfragged  answering  that
  question had been even back then, without all the time and distance that separated us now. Even trying to
  wall myself off from the emotions that seeing Andi stirred up in me, I still wanted to touch her and smell her
  hair. More than that, I wanted to know she was all right.
  "We were never married," I told Peg.
  "Are you all right?" she asked almost immediately.
  "I'm fine."
  "I've never heard your voice like that before."
  I only felt the tightness in my throat then. The cyber-ware I had installed  was  very  sensitive.  I  cut  out
  some of the feedback from my central nervous system, leaving only the mechanical application. Maybe I'd
  sound more like myself. "It must be the aud pick-up in this room."
  "Maybe."
  But I thought Peg was cutting me some slack. She wasn't ready to deal with that side of me any  more
  than I was. I forced myself to go on because answering Peg's question was the only way I was going to get
  her to totally
  concentrate on what we were going to need  to  do.  "We  were  close,  Peg,  as  close  as  I've  ever  been  to
  another person. There were days back then when it didn't even seem like we were two people."
  "I see." The tone of Peg's voice told me she was uncertain about her answer. With her meat self getting
  kluged so early on, she hadn't never had the chance to experience a full physical relationship with another
  person.  Toshi  had  told  me  that  once,  but  I  didn't  know  how  he  came  to  know  it.  There  was  sexually
  oriented simsense on the  market,  but  from  what  I'd  seen  and  heard,  that  medium  allowed  the  human  or
  meta participant too much control. A real relationship—at least to me, and maybe that was because of the
  upbringing and training I'd had—was a gestalt, something that was greater than the sum of its parts.
  The  relationship  I'd  had  with  Andi  convinced  me  of  that.  She  was  the  first  to  convince  me  that
  relationships weren't based purely on the physical, though that was a good springboard for them.  And  the
  friendship I'd had with Hawk and Toshi, the one I still had with Peg, remained proof to that belief. Over the
  years there'd only been a handful people I'd let close: Raven, Dirk Montgomery,  and  Rick  Larson,  a  few
  others.
  Maybe Peg had had some experiences in the Matrix that came close to what she considered meaningful
  relationships. I didn't know because she'd never mentioned them and I'd ask.
  "What happened between you?" Peg asked.
  "We both worked for Brynnmawr and the agency he represented," I said, wondering at how I was going
  to reduce all that history to just a few words. "She was on my team."
  "But she was more than a team mate."
  "Not at first. That came later. When things with Brynnmawr fell apart, we left together. It was safer for
  both of
  us. That way we each had someone who could guard our back."
  "Was Sencio in agreement with leaving Brynnmawr?"
  For someone who hadn't experienced much of life before she became a paraplegic, Peg was remarkably
  insightful. But that was one of the reasons she was so good at what she did. "No. Back then Brynnmawr
  
  was our only source  of  security.  The  things  we  were  taught,  the  things  we  were  encouraged  to  believe
  in—the ties were very strong."
  "But you left," Peg said.'
  "I had no choice. I didn't believe any more. Not with them. Andi left  because  she  wanted  to  stay  with
  me." Even then I'd realized that  Andi  had  come  along  not  because  she  had  problems  with  Brynnmawr's
  way of doing things, but to protect me. That realization had left me  conflicted  later,  made  it  harder  to  do
  what I'd done.
  "Then you went to work for Villiers?" Peg was pushing the limit and I was sure she knew it. However,
  she also knew she had a right to because her hoop was going to be on the line as well.
  "Not  immediately.  For  awhile,  Andi  and  I  freelanced  in  our.  .  .  field.  Our  circumstances  were  very
  dangerous, and there was no security. Where we were, the situations we found ourselves in, we could be
  compatriots to our employers one day, then hunted outlaws the next. Villiers offered security. At least, he
  offered as much as we could expect in that part of the world at that time."
  "There had to have been more. You're not an easy sell, Argent, and I can't believe there was a time you
  ever were."
  Even back then, I hadn't been sold. But Andi had, and I'd gone along with what  she  wanted  because  I
  wanted her and because I was tired of running. And because she'd followed me when I'd  chosen  to  split
  from Brynnmawr. I didn't mention that to Peg. "At that time, Villiers
  made a kind of sense. He was young, just putting together the deals that were going to make him big. He
  was cut-throat, but he wasn't like he can be now."
  "That you knew of."
  I nodded. "That made all the difference."
  "Then when you found out he was like every other corp CEO out there, you quit."
  "There was a certain amount of disillusionment on both sides. I didn't like  the  way  he  did  some  things,
  and Villiers didn't like it that I wasn't tractable."
  "But Andi Sencio stayed?"
  "Yes." The answer was simple now, but it hadn't been simple then.
  "Why did she stay?"
  "She wanted to."
  "Why?"
  "Because she wanted to." I stared at the screen where Andi stood frozen, knowing  Peg  was  watching
  me. It made me feel uncomfortable. This was an area that I was supposed to be able to keep to myself.
  "Did something happen between you?"
  I hesitated.
  "Argent," Peg said softly, "if you haven't talked to anyone about this, now might be the time." She paused,
  but I didn't reply. "And I need to know so I can  watch—  things  better  as  we  go  into  this.  The  situation
  she's in doesn't appear to  be  something  you  can  handle  by  yourself.  And  you're  not  exactly  in  a  neutral
  position on this."
  "She made a choice." I kept my voice uninflected, surprised at how much  of  that  old  emotion  was  still
  alive inside me. "When I decided to leave Villiers, I asked her to come with me. She told me she couldn't.
  Our lives alone had been difficult. Brynnmawr's people still hunted us, and there were others by that time.
  You can't take sides without making enemies. And with the way things changed so rapidly back then, you
  couldn't count on your allies."
  "Better to take the evil that you know than face more that you don't."
  I nodded. It was a fair assessment.
  "She let you go?" Peg asked.
  "If I'd stayed, I wouldn't have been the same," I replied. "Andi knew that. Neither  of  us  had  a  choice.
  About going or staying." And that was why, at the end, she' d let me go. If she'd tried harder to hold me, I
  honestly didn't know what would have happened.
  "You haven't seen her since then?"
  "No."
  Peg waited a beat, then asked, "So what are you going to do now?"
  I answered without pause. "It's a contract, Peg, pure and simple." I leaned forward and tapped the Play
  button again, sending the chip spinning to generate more of the message.
  It was time to find out how hard the projected run could be,
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  
  30
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—02:08:12/10-11-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: CalFree Safehouse
  "It's more than just Villiers and Ironaxe," Andi said. "Shikei Nakatomi's involved as well. Villiers kept me
  away from Nakatomi while the Fuchis were one, so I don't think Asian Fuchi knows who I  am.  At  least,
  they  didn't.  Nakatomi's  corp  espionage  teams  must  really  be  earning  their  nuyen  these  days,  because
  somebody tripped them to this run." She  let  out  a  deep  breath  and  I  could  see  the  pain  lines  around  her
  mouth. "Nakatomi smuggled  a  mole  onto  my  team.  A  guy  named  Pendleton  Frost.  Villiers  put  the  team
  together and I had the final say, but you know how that scans."
  I knew exactly how that scanned. It was one of the chief reasons I was no longer a player in the  corp
  scene. The corps looked at the bottom line, at what they wanted to accomplish rather than how feasible it
  was. Villiers was usually a joker who played his cards close to his vest, but he was also a risk-taker. Corp
  players had to be. Steady and conservative only netted modest profits. Someone willing to roll the dice on
  an all-or-nothing bid brought up the big payoff.
  Villiers operated off the potential profit margins, using them  as  a  benchmark  to  justify  the  risk.  Money
  had never interested me as much as doing the right  biz  for  the  right  reasons.  Maybe  it  was  all  the  early
  indoctrination Brynnmawr and his associates programmed into me while they were bringing me up. I liked
  to think I was that way because I chose to be. Walking away from Andi had been the hardest thing I'd ever
  done since leaving Brynnmawr, but both of those steps had been affirmation in my mind that I was my own
  man.
  And being that was my bottom line, it was the only thing I could live with.
  "By the time I found out about Pendleton Frost," Andi said, "it was too late. He'd compromised the run,
  too late to stop us, but early enough that four of my people died when we tried to  get  away."  She  smiled
  wryly. "Almost got away, I should say. The son-of-a-slitch sold DNA samples from my group to Nakatomi.
  While we were occupied dodging Ironaxe's corpcops, Nakatomi's people
  ambushed us. I lost two more people in a dustup with Asian Fuchi. The last report I got from my spotters
  surrounding the periphery of this site told me Ironaxe's people may be close to digging us out here."
  I paused the chip-play again, keeping my emotions locked in. I  had  no  way  of  knowing  if  Ironaxe  had
  found Andi or not. "Peg, scan through the news trid and scream-sheet downloads coming out of the Pueblo
  Council lands."
  "I've been doing that since Ironaxe's name first came up," Peg responded. "They've still got a lot of hot
  spots out there, and the number of acts of violence I've listed are in the dozens now. It's going to take some
  time ferreting out all of the information on them. I'm dividing them into two initial groups:  ones  where  the
  victims are identified, and ones where they aren't."
  "The corp could run Andi's corpse under a false name," I pointed out. "They could buy some time there."
  "What would you suggest?"
  "Break  it  down  further,"  I  said.  "Assuming  that  the  bodies  have  actually  surfaced,  and  there's  no
  guarantee of that, they'll be shipped to funeral homes."
  "And any funeral homes owned by VaulTek or Nakatomi will be immediately suspect?"
  "Yes." Not  many  people  knew  that  most  of  the  major  corps  own  funeral-home  chains  throughout  the
  plexes. Corp vengeance was quick  as  a  striking  deathrattle,  but  there  was  no  getting  around  the  habeas
  corpus writs the courts still handed down. However, if an ex-employee who'd been terminated was shipped
  to a corp-owned funeral home, that corp controlled the listing  of  the  cause  of  death.  Corp-owned  on-site
  medical facilities could also  generate  a  past  medical  record  on  the  spot  that  would  show  the  deceased's
  history  of  congenital  heart  failure  and  documented  unwillingness  to  have  a  transplant  or  a  cyber-organ
  installed. They had a menu of pre-existing conditions an employee could exhibit before flat-lining on the job.
  "And if I find any," Peg asked, "what am I looking for then?"
  "If any of Andi's people have been shipped to a funeral home that Ironaxe or VaulTek own, see if the
  family  made  arrangements  with  the  funeral  home  for  the  body."  Sometimes  a  corp  made  those
  arrangements, too. But Iron-axe and Nakatomi  would  have  been  working  hurriedly.  Maybe  they'd  made
  
  mistakes Peg could find. I released the Pause button on the telecom.
  "We haven't made it out of the Pueblo Corporate Council lands," Andi said. "But you know me: never go
  into  any  place  without  someplace  else  to  run  to.  I  cut  a  deal  with  the  Underground  Awakened  in
  Pueblo-Under  to  put  us  up  for  a  few  days.  It  helped  that  three  of  my  surviving  team  are  metas.  With
  Nakatomi, Ironaxe, and Villiers all turning over rocks in the area, though, we're going to wear our welcome
  out slotting quick."
  I knew only a little about the Underground Awakened. The Goblinization that  helped  remake  the  world
  when, magic returned hadn't rested easily in the ranks of the Amerind cultures. Many  of  them  ostracized
  children and adults that  suddenly  transformed  into  trolls  and  orks  sometime  around  adolescence.  In  their
  own way they were as xenophobic as the Humanis Policlubs.
  Mary  Hawkmoon  ran  the  Underground  Awakened  as  tribal  chief.  Her  father  had  been  an  influential
  subchief in Pueblo, but that hadn't kept her from being banned by the tribe when she'd morphed into a troll.
  The little I did know about Mary Hawkmoon and her tribe of outcasts came from a report  Brynnmawr
  had put together years back, and from sources  in  the  shadows.  At  one  point,  Hawkmoon's  assassination
  had been deemed necessary because the tribe was suspected of trafficking in BTL chips and Brynnmawr
  had been tentatively contracted to handle the wetwork.
  Had it gone through, I would have been the  point  man  on  the  op.  Back  then  I  wasn't  asking  as  many
  questions, and
  Hawkmoon would have gone down. But back then I didn't know how much of the BTL trade Brynnmawr's
  employers controlled—for financial as well as other reasons.
  "If you choose to take this on," Andi said, "you need to know everything you're up against. I've got eight
  people in hiding, counting myself. Only four of them are physically able to move unaided. The other four are
  practically gurney cases  that we'll need to med-evac to a shadow  hospital  ASAP.  I'm  not  going  to  leave
  any of these people behind."
  It was good to know that some of Andi's basics hadn't changed. Neither one of us had ever left a man
  behind.
  "Besides ducking the  combined  forces  searching  for  us,  we'll  also  need  to  retrieve  the  DNA  samples
  Asian Fuchi's mageslaves have," Andi said. "The nuyen's there in the account, so I guess it's up to you to
  decide if it's worth the risk." She gave me the location of the Underground  Awakened  safe  house  where
  she and her crew would be staying. When she finished, her hand filled the viewing area on the chip. Then it
  backed away and I saw the tears on her dust-covered cheeks.
  Her emotion shook me, nearly toppling the control I stubbornly held onto. Even with all the death and hurt
  we'd experienced and dealt ourselves, I could count the number of times I'd seen Andi Sencio cry on one
  hand and have fingers left over.
  "I hate to ask this, Argent," she said in a soft, ragged voice, "because I know you won't walk away from
  this. At least, the man I remember wouldn't. But I don't want to be stuck here thinking I got you geeked."
  Her  hand  came  down  and  broke  the  connection,  ending  the  recorded  segment.  The  telecom  monitor
  turned black as death.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  31
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******_02:21:43/10-11-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: CalFree Safehouse
  I played the chip three more times, but nothing new came to my attention. When I was finished, I stored
  it back in the hidden compartment in my arm.
  "The safest thing to do would be to walk away from this," Peg told me.
  "Yes."
  She hesitated, putting it into words since I wouldn't. "But you're not going to, are you?"
  "Not till after I've looked into it," I answered. I at least had to do that.
  "Then give me a game plan," Peg said. "Something I can work with."
  "Run the names you've gotten  tonight,"  I  told  her.  "Get  all  the  data  you  can.  Dig  into  Nakatomi's  and
  Villiers' current operations. The shadow boards will be filled with truth, lies, and speculations. See if there's
  anything there that applies to the current problem."
  
  "What are you going to do?"
  "Make a few calls," I said. "If you call back soon, I'll be out for a little while."
  Peg's silence told me she didn't like the idea. I knew
  she was worried about me,  and  she  had  every  right  to  be.  We'd  worked  together  so  long  that  we'd  left
  traces on each other. There was a good chance that if I went down in a nasty piece of biz, anyone looking
  too close might be able to tie her with me.
  I shut the telecom down. I wanted the solitude the doss offered. Forcing myself up from the bed, I went
  to the fresher and showered. When I emerged a few minutes later I wasn't feeling at my tiptop form, but I
  felt better than I had.
  I took a pair of creased slacks and a loose printed shirt from my duffel,  then  got  dressed.  Leaving  the
  tails  of  the  shirt  out  gave  me  enough  cover  to  tuck  the  Savalette  Guardian  at  the  back  of  my  waist.  I
  dropped spare magazines into the deep pockets of the slacks, fitting them into the specially  tailored  bands
  inside the pockets to hold them in place.  I  added  a  couple  of  CarbEnergy  Bars  rather  than  risk  boosting
  some stuffers. I eat healthy when I can.
  Then I buzzed Nolly, asked her to open the door, and left.
  I walked fourteen blocks south, then another eight to the east till I reached a  Stuffer  Shack  that  had  a
  working public telecom.
  The first number I entered was to a cut-out I kept in a warehouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, in which I
  had an investment under another name. The warehouse barely broke even, but having the cut-out available
  was worth it. I'd designed the system myself. There were things I had in place that even Peg, Toshi,  and
  Hawk hadn't known about. The system was antiquated next to anything Peg could put together, but it had a
  lock-down that flushed automatically if anyone tried a trace-back.
  Once I had the North Carolina number up, I worked through its system and punched in an LTG I knew
  from memory. I didn't worry about the time; Rottstein was always up.
  "Yeah," a phlegmatic voice answered.
  I told him who I was.
  "Just a minute." Rottstein turned away from the telecom—I could tell because the sound of hacking and
  coughing receded somewhat. After much spitting and wheezing, he came back on the line. "Time for a new
  set of fragging lungs, omae."
  He wasn't kidding about the lungs. He's had four transplants in the time that I'd known him. Rottstein had
  been one of the groundpounders I'd worked with in the Desert Wars, but he'd been in the nastiest part of
  the firefights toward the end. His entire unit had been hosed with a bacterial bug that concentrated in  the
  respiratory  system.  Even  the  transplants  didn't  remove  the  bac-agent;  it  had  started  on  his  lungs  again
  immediately, deteriorating them day by day.
  "Sencio's between a rock and a hard place," I said. "She asked me to dig her out."
  "You want my advice, omae? She made her bed, let her lie in it."
  Rottstein had known both of us from the old days. "Can't."
  His sigh of disgust broke into a painful fit of coughing. "I know. I was just hoping you'd listen. I don't have
  that many friends as it is. Can't afford to lose one. What do you need from me?"
  "I'm running too hot down here to try to set up anything in the shadows. Peg's up against the wall, too. I
  need to recruit for the op."
  Rottstein  was  a  fixer,  a  joker  who  could  get  whatever  someone  needed—for  a  price.  He  networked
  between Mr. Johnsons and shadowrunners, arranged buyers for boosted data and physical  swag.  And  he
  could get in touch with the people I wanted to work with.
  "Who?" he asked.
  I gave him the list I'd worked up in my mind on the way over to the Stuffer Shack.
  "Give me till noon tomorrow."
  I didn't like the time frame, but I didn't tell him. Gath-> ering the runners was going to take time, too.
  "I'll shave time off where I can," Rottstein promised, "but you're  talking  about  an  up-scale  crew  here.
  What kind of contract price should I mention?"
  "Fifty thousand nuyen," I said. "It'll be paid up front. You can mention that there's a  chance  we'll  turn
  another profit along the way if we can grab some of the data involved."
  That surprised Rottstein. "Not like you to handle a datasteal."
  That was how I' d built my rep. I wasn't a conventional shadowrunner. A lot of them were thieves who
  broke  through  corp  security  and  boosted  data  from  personnel  or  research  and  development  branches.
  Industrial espionage wasn't honorable, and I'd never done it. However, if a Mr. Johnson could convince me
  
  he was entitled to a piece of data, I'd retrieved it.
  "It won't be a datasteal," I replied. "But there're a number of angles to play on this op. We may be in a
  position to blackmail our way out of it. If we do, the price goes up."
  "I'll tell them," Rottstein said. "Fifty thousand is a lot of nuyen for some of these people, but it's a drop in
  the bucket to others."
  "Make the offer," I suggested. "We'll go from there."
  "Sure, omae." Rottstein paused. "I don't want to come across sounding selfish,  but  where's  my  fifteen
  percent coming from? If we cut into that fifty grand apiece, we're knocking it down another seven-five."
  "I'll pay the freight on this," I replied. "You'll have the nuyen slotted to one of the accounts I have access
  to by morning."
  "That's a big handle to carry over," Rottstein said. "Unless you're taking a large cut."
  "Mine's the same as theirs," I said.
  "You're going in the hole ten thousand nuyen on this op?"
  "I'm paying the handle," I said.
  "Slot me for a sympathetic brainwipe," Rottstein sighed. "I'm not going to see you go in the hole. I'll get it
  connected for fifty thousand."
  "You don't have to."
  "I know. Maybe I don't like everything there is about Andi Sencio, but she was one of us. Capish?"
  "Yeah."
  "Call me tomorrow."
  I broke  the  connection,  listening  to  a  fresh  burst  of  gagged  coughing  from  Rottstein.  I  stood  in  the
  shadows  of  the  pay  telecom  shell  and  considered  my  options.  Nakatomi  and  Ironaxe  were  going  to  be
  dangerous players, but I thought I knew how to leverage Villiers. Turning back to the telecom, I slotted my
  credstick and brought up the on-line screamsheets.
  I found the note from Neon Rose in the personals of six screamsheets. The message was the same.
  CASSIDAY,
  WOULD  LOVE  TO  HEAR  FROM  YOU  TO  TALK  OVER  OLD  TIMES.  IT'S  POSSIBLE  WE  STILL  HAVE  SO
  MUCH IN COMMON. IF YOU THINK SO TOO, PLEASE CONTACT ME SOONEST.
  —NEON ROSE
  I slotted the credstick and placed the call to NovaTech. It was time to start putting the pressure back on
  the players.
  END UPLOAD
  32
  Miles Lanier punched the telecom to Connect on the first warble for attention, recognizing Argent's broad
  features even before the pixels repainted the image properly.
  "Hello, Mr. Lanier," Argent said in that calm voice he had. "Is Mr. Villiers there?"
  The  professional  stance  Argent  displayed  at  all  times  was  also  one  of  his  trademarks.  "I’ll  get  him
  patched in," Lanier promised.
  "Stop the trace-back as well," Argent warned. "If your people get too close, they're going to get hit with
  some black IC that could damage some of their systems. I'll also be gone before you talk to me. And you
  want to talk to me."
  Without hesitation, Lanier opened an audlink to the dataslaves. "Break off the trace."
  "What is it, Miles?" Villiers asked as the view to his telecom sliced the screen in half.
  "I have Argent on the line." Lanier tapped the circuits, opening a three-way on the telecom.
  "You seem to have stumbled onto a piece of my biz," Villiers accused.
  "I was invited in," Argent said. "And since I plan on taking a  hand,  I  wanted  to  establish  some  ground
  rules."
  "You're hardly in a position to be giving—"
  "I'm in exactly the position to be giving orders to you," Argent interrupted. "I've got a chip recording with
  a confession detailing how you attempted to breach the security at VaulTek. I also  know  you're  trying  to
  put a
  deal together with Clay Ironaxe to shore up some of NovaTech's holdings in North America.  Earning  the
  
  enmity of the Pueblo Corporate Council wouldn't do you any good at all."
  "If you'll let me," Villiers said smoothly, "I could be of help to you.  I've  got  men  and  equipment  in  that
  area. I could—"
  "No." Argent's reply was cold and hard, leaving no room for argument. "You've  got  a  different  agenda
  than I do."
  Villiers' eyes darkened with anger. "Your  involvement  represents  a  serious  threat  to  my  efforts  in  this
  arena."
  "Mr.  Villiers,"  Argent  said,  "that  was  the  path  you  chose  when  you  assigned  Andi  Sencio  to  this
  shadowrun. If I'm successful, Ironaxe will never know you crashed his computer systems. If you don't do
  as I say, I'm going to see to it personally that Ironaxe gets a copy of that chip file."
  "What about the rest of the data Sencio was supposed to send out of there?"
  "We'll see,"  Argent  replied.  "But  I  don't  want  your  people  cluttering  up  the  field.  Pull  them  now."  He
  broke the connection.
  Lanier watched as the half-screen faded to black. A tick more and Villiers' face filled the screen again.
  Villiers  smiled  and  placed  the  fingertips  of  both  hands  against  each  other.  "This  isn't  exactly  how  I'd
  intended it," he said, "but this is going to work out nicely."
  "He could trade the information he has to Ironaxe," Lanier pointed out.
  "Then he'd lose the leverage he has over me. I'd have Sencio geeked for it, and he knows that as well."
  Villiers shook his head. "No, he's as trapped by these circumstances as we are. And that's how we're going
  to keep him."
  33
  The  telecom  in  the  safehouse  buzzed  for  attention  the  next  morning.  Argent  woke  quickly,  his  body
  responding to the move-by-wire system. Sitting up on the edge of the bed, he tabbed the telecom, knowing it
  could only be one person.
  "Are you awake?" Peg asked.
  "I am now."
  "Get dressed," Peg said. "There's someone I want you to meet."
  "Who?"
  "If you intend to go after Sencio, you're going to need a decker because I can't physically go with you. I
  can cover you from outside, but if you run into systems and can't  patch  a  commlink  into  them  that  I  can
  work through, you're going to need someone who can handle the scutwork."
  Argent considered that. He'd worked with Peg so long that he hadn't thought about that  possibility.  But
  every contract he'd taken before had allowed him  work  an  angle  that  allowed  Peg  to  piggyback  into  the
  systems they went up against. "You've got someone?"
  "I recruited the best I know. We're just drekking lucky she was available. Get moving."
  "Sure." Argent tabbed the telecom off and headed for the fresher.
  The decker was elven. For her to have come to El Infierno in the heartland of gangers, yakuza, Seoulpa
  Rings,
  and the dregs of metahumanity was a big statement of how much nerve she had.
  Seated  at  a  back  table  of  the  Chinese  restaurant,  she  stood  out  like  a  flower  in  a  snowfield.  Her
  complexion  was  a  milky  white  without  flaw  that  Argent  could  see  even  with  his  enhanced  vision.
  Wraparound Whitelaw sunglasses covered her eyes as she turned to look at him. Her platinum blond  hair
  was pulled back from her heart-shaped face in a style that was attractive and served to keep it from being
  loose enough to be grabbed by a prospective attacker. Metal glimmered at her right temple, advertising the
  datajack there. She wore a mid-thigh-length jade green jacket over a lighter green blouse and matching skirt
  that ended well above the knee. An Armanto briefcase occupied the seat beside her.
  Argent stopped at the counter and ordered two waters that matched the brand on the table in front of the
  elven decker. Before he could finish slotting his credstick, one of the trio of roller-blade  gangers  near  the
  front door wheeled over to her table.
  The ganger was young and Hispanic, his hair buzzed and the color of watermelon taffy. Gold necklaces
  dangled around his neck. "Hey, hermana," the ganger said, "my amigos and I were wondering."
  Argent  stayed  by  the  counter,  watching  the  exchange.  He  adjusted  his  hearing  to  pick  up  the
  conversation.
  The elf said nothing, regarding the ganger from behind her sunglasses.
  
  Her lack of response seemed to throw the ganger off. He shrugged, getting himself back on track. "We
  were wondering what a beautiful woman like you is doing down here?"
  She remained silent, but one of her hands dropped down to her lap.
  "Mis  amigos,"  the  ganger  said,  "they  tell  me  you  must  be  some  kind  of  corp  exec  come  down  to  El
  Infierno to
  check out some of the corp housing. But me, I say you're a joy girl here to do some biz."
  If she was offended at being mistaken for a prostitute, the elf didn't show  it.  "What's  your  name?"  she
  asked in a soft voice.
  The ganger rolled on his blades till he was snug up against the table,  within  arm's  reach  of  the  elf.  He
  smiled, flashing gold-capped teeth. "I am called Luis."
  "Well, Luis, why don't you roll back over to your muchachos and tell them you were wrong," the elf said.
  Still smiling, Luis leaned forward on the table, placing both hands on the tabletop. "How do I know that I
  am wrong?"
  "Do you like my legs?" the elf asked. "I saw you and your friends looking at them earlier."
  "Si," Luis responded.
  "Do you know why you can see my legs?" the elf asked.
  "Because you like showing them off. You have good legs."
  "Thank you, but no, that's not the reason I wore a skirt today. Come a little closer, Luis."
  The ganger leaned down further.
  She whispered and Argent's cyberears picked up her words. "Guess what I'm  wearing  under  the  skirt,
  Luis."
  An even bigger smile split the ganger's face. "Must be nothing, hermana, for you to tease me like this."
  "Wrong." The cool look never left the elf's face.  "I'm wearing an Ares Light Fire 70 in  a  thigh  holster.
  Actually, I guess I'm only wearing the holster now, because I'm holding the pistol."
  The ganger's eyes dropped from her face to the arm concealed beneath the table. "You're lying."
  "Want to find out?" the elf asked. "I've got sixteen rounds in the clip before I have to reload. I  plan  on
  putting four of them through your cojones, then  another  four  through  that  cute  little  belly  button  of  yours
  showing
  beneath that half-shirt. Then I'll find out how far your amigos want to press their curiosity."
  Argent placed the bottles of chilled water on the counter, waiting to see how the biz played out.
  34
  "Puta daisy eater!" the ganger snapped, not moving.
  "Now I'm offended," the elf said with no change in her voice at all. "I'm going to give you to the count of
  three to clear my table before I start squeezing this trigger. And move slowly or I might misinterpret your
  actions."
  The ganger pushed back angrily, moving slowly.
  "Hands over your head," the elf instructed.
  Anger suffusing his face, the ganger obeyed. The other people in the restaurant glanced in his direction
  but seemed unaffected by his behavior. El Infierno, Argent decided as he picked up the bottled water again,
  had become jaded to violence. As long as bullets didn't start flying, everything was normal.
  The elf left her hand in her lap as she gazed at Argent.
  "May I sit?" Argent asked. "I believe we have a mutual chummer."
  "Give me a name," the elf said.
  "Peg."
  "All right, Mr. Johnson."
  Argent took a chair opposite the elf. He placed the bottled water in front of her, then adjusted the empty
  plastiglass napkin dispenser on the table so he could see the reflection of the gangers behind him. He wore
  the Savalette Guardian under his shirt at the back of his pants. "You can call me Argent."
  "Fine."
  "Peg didn't give me your name," Argent said. That had surprised him, but then he supposed they each had
  their secrets.
  "There's no point in it," the elven decker said, "until I accept the contract."
  
  "Peg didn't fill you in?"
  "I told her I'd rather hear it from you," she said. "I'm better at convincing myself than having other people
  convince me."
  Argent was impressed. Most shadowrunners only looked at the bottom line: how much up front, and how
  much on the back end.
  "I was told there would be some risks."
  "There  are,"  Argent  agreed,  then  he  began  spinning  it  out  for  her,  leaving  out  the  particulars  and  the
  names of the main players. Even if she bought into it, there were some things he was determined to keep
  only  on  a  need-to-know  basis.  He  was  surprised  when  he  got  through  the  whole  set-up  and  she  hadn't
  buzzed turbo.
  "I can handle this," she said. "You can call me Archangel. Let's take a  walk.  I'm  sure  you  have  some
  questions you want to ask me, and the atmosphere in this place has definitely lost its appeal."
  "Two sloppies," Argent told the street vendor outside the laundry two blocks down. He took the time to
  make sure they weren't being followed. He'd contacted Peg over the commlink, but the decker had refused
  to talk to him until he'd finished his conversation with Archangel.
  The vendor doled out the sloppies, covering them with relish, chili, onions, and cheese.
  Argent slotted his credstick to pay for them, then gathered the food in one huge hand. He picked up extra
  napkins. Returning to Archangel, he gave her one and kept the other for himself. He'd pointed out that they
  could have eaten in the restaurant or gone to another one. Archangel
  had responded that she liked to think while she was on her feet.
  "Peg tells me you're a drek-hot decker," Argent said.
  "And you're wondering what a drek-hot decker is doing operating solo," Archangel said.
  "Yes."
  "You're direct," she told him. "I like that. Cuts through a lot of unnecessary bulldrek."
  "You haven't answered my question." Argent matched her long stride easily as they walked past the six
  stories of plascrete rectangle that was the Eli Whitney Tower, a corp-sponsored housing project. The corps
  funded several of the housing projects in the  area,  primarily  so  they  could  have  a  hostage  test  group  for
  products they developed.
  Archangel bit into the sloppie with clean, white teeth. She chewed, swallowed, then answered. "I choose
  to work solo, contract by contract."
  "There's not much security in that."
  "You make do without a team."
  "There's Peg."
  "Most of my work has been solo," she said. "If you know who to check with and the places to ask, you'll
  find I've been a busy girl. I was with a team for awhile."
  "What happened?"
  "I'm a professional. I got too close to one of the team."
  "Caring about the people you work with isn't a bad thing."
  "The  way  I  was  starting  to  care,"  Archangel  commented  softly,  "was  definitely  a  bad  thing.  I  need
  distance in my biz to be good. If I start concentrating on one thing, on one person, wondering what'll happen
  to him when the drek comes down on a run, how the frag am I supposed to keep everybody else out of the
  drek?"
  "Does  he  know?"  The  story  touched  Argent;  he  could  hear  the  pain  and  confusion  still  in  her  voice
  despite her attempt to cover it up.
  "I told him."
  "What did he say?"
  "I left a note."
  "That's one way to avoid things."
  She turned her black-lensed gaze on him. "There was nothing to avoid, Argent. What I did was a career
  choice. You should appreciate how professional I can be. I've made it my biz to know limits. Especially my
  own."
  "You're right." Argent also knew how exacting that professionalism could be. The only time he'd truly felt
  alive since leaving Brynnmawr and Sencio had been when he was with the Wrecking  Crew.  Part  of  him
  had died again when Toshi and Hawk had flatlined. "How long ago was that?"
  "Three years." Archangel looked away and started walking again.
  "Three years is a lot of time," Argent stated.
  
  "Meaning?"
  "You could have hooked up with another team."
  "I haven't found one I'd want to stay with."
  "Why?"
  "They weren't good enough. Their agendas didn't fit mine. They had manners I didn't appreciate. Why?
  Are you trying to put a permanent team together?"
  "No." The thought twisted Argent's stomach slightly, surprising him. Getting close to someone again and
  losing  them  wasn't  something  he  wanted  to  go  through  again.  Having  Andi  Sencio  in  her  present
  predicament was reminder of that.
  "Why not?" she pressed.  "You've  got  a  good  rep  in  this  biz.  You  wouldn't  have  a  problem  enlisting  a
  team."
  "I'm  more  comfortable  organizing  specialty  teams  for  specific  runs.  If  you  put  a  team  together,  you
  become responsible to it."
  "Only if you let yourself."
  "You have to take care of the team if you expect it to take care of you," Argent said, and it was one of
  the most
  basic lessons he'd learned even when he'd just been starting out with Brynnmawr.
  "I don't need to be taken care of," Archangel said. "I take care of myself. I like it that way."
  "Three years and you haven't gone back?"
  "No."
  "Keep in touch?"
  "I've got a friend who keeps me updated."
  "But you ask?" Argent asked.
  "Yes."
  "You haven't gotten past those feelings."
  She regarded him. "You're pushing."
  "I'm learning," Argent disagreed. "If you still have feelings for this joker it means you're capable of deep
  commitment. That you haven't gone back because you can't make it right in your  own  mind  tells  me  that
  you're capable of deep convictions—no matter how much they hurt."
  "Did you interview the other people on this run as closely?" she demanded.
  "I know them," Argent stated flatly. "I know what I can expect of them, and what I can't."
  "You could trust Peg."
  "I do. That's why I'm talking to you now."
  Archangel gave him a cold smile filled with the promise of bitter winter. "You can be a son  of  a  slitch,
  Argent."
  "Do you still want the contract?"
  "Then I meet with your approval?"
  "Yes."
  She turned from him. "I'd already accepted the contract. From Peg. That's why I was here."
  "Peg isn't managing this run."
  "Whether you use me on the run or not," Archangel said, "I made the deal with Peg. I don't put myself
  through this kind of drek. I handle myself, and the people I work with are glad to get me."
  Argent believed her.
  *    *    *
  Argent made the call to Rottstein from a pay telecom outside of a barber shop that he was sure fronted
  for  a  bookie  operation.  Commlinks  in  the  El  Infierno  neighborhood  were  at  a  premium  so  the  gambling
  operation still worked off shoe leather. A dozen small kids of different colors and metahumanity sat on the
  curb beside the street.
  He placed the  call  through  the  protected  North  Carolina  exchange  and  got  the  fixer  on-line  almost  at
  once. "It's me," Argent said.
  "Yeah, yeah. Gimme a minute."
  Argent listened to the racking coughs that followed, only partially muted by Rottstein turning  away.  He
  glanced  at  Archangel  across  the  street.  She  was  looking  in  the  window  of  a  second-hand  store  that
  specialized in children's clothes. Her attention seemed captured by a little girl's sky-blue dress.
  "Got  some  bad  news,"  Rottstein  said  when  he  came  back  to  the  telecom.  "Cholonga  got  whacked  in
  Philadelphia last week. You're looking for a back-up long gun on this op, you're drek outta luck."
  
  35
  "What happened to Cholonga?" Argent asked.
  "Skinny I get is that he went on the corp-dole as a black-ops specialist and got geeked running what was
  supposed to be a buy-back from another corp. At least, that's the scan they're giving out."
  "But you got it another way?" Argent said.
  "Yeah.  The  street  buzz  is  that  Cholonga  was  a  sacrificial  offering.  He  blew  up  somebody  at  a  corp
  where his
  boss corp was making nice-nice again. In order to do biz, the other corp wanted Cholonga's brainbox on a
  stick."
  "You've got addresses for the others?" Argent asked. Cholonga would be missed  on  this  op;  he  was  a
  true professional.
  "Yeah. You ready?"
  Argent took a blank chip from his forearm and slotted it into the telecom. "Push it through."
  "Coming."
  The telecom whirred for a couple heartbeats. Argent scanned the encrypted information feeding into the
  chip.
  "You got times and places on there," Rottstein said.  "An  LTG  if  your  timetable  gets  fragged  along  the
  way."
  Argent took the chip out of the telecom and housed it inside his arm again. "Thanks."
  "Null sweat," Rottstein said. "Just keep your head low, omae. You're one of the few who I can still do biz
  with and not end up with herniated bowels 'cause I'm trying not to drek myself."
  Argent punched the Disconnect and crossed the street to Archangel. She had her sunglasses off as she
  studied the children's dresses. Her eyes were bronze with startling gold  flecks  in  them.  He  couldn't  quite
  identify the emotion in her eyes, but part of it was sadness.
  "Like to buy something?" he asked.
  Smoothly, the sunglasses slid back into place. Her expression was neutral when she turned to face him.
  "No."
  "You can have it sent."
  "No. Cut to the chase."
  "Sure." Argent led the  way  down  the  sidewalk,  searching  for  an  El  Infierno  cab.  Most  of  them  were
  armored up like tanks, and very few of them existed at all. "Do you speak French?"
  "I speak eleven languages," Archangel replied. "French is one of them."
  "Good, because speaking English in Quebec City isn't a good idea."
  "We're headed to Quebec?"
  "As soon as we can catch a plane," Argent replied. "We' re going to be traveling a lot over the next few
  days."
  The jet touched down in Quebec City at 21:43:11, local time. Secmen and sec-systems filled the airport.
  Argent's cyberware sent the silent alarms into a panic frenzy as soon as he stepped off the plane.
  A half-dozen men, rendered faceless by the riot helmets they wore and covered in kevlar,  pointed  their
  weapons at him. "Down on the "floor!" ordered a man with sergeant's chevrons marked on his shoulder. He
  spoke in French, then repeated himself in English. "Hands on your head!"
  Argent  complied,  moving  lithely  into  position  and  staring  full  into  the  sergeant's  facemask.  "I've  got
  papers," he said in French. The remainder of the plane's passengers cowered in the tunnel leading to the jet.
  The people in the airport itself stared in frozen curiosity.
  The sec sergeant nodded to one of his men. The sec-man came forward  cautiously,  remaining  small  in
  the field of fire.
  "I'm a bounty hunter," Argent said. "I've got a work visa."
  Peg  had  supplied  the  cover,  including  the  visa.  Quebec  didn't  recognize  the  sentience  of  paranormal
  creatures, and even wanted to put trolls on the bounty lists the government paid off on. The problem was,
  even though those sentient creatures weren't recognized as intelligent, they often turned  the  tables  on  the
  people who hunted them. Bounty hunters regularly crossed the borders seeking gainful employment.
  
  The bounty hunter cover explained much of the cyberware Argent had.
  The secman pulled the Quebec-stamped document from Argent's blouse pocket. He scanned through it
  quickly. "It's a certified license, sir," he reported. "His name is Kortmunder."
  "Run it," the sergeant ordered. Neither he nor his men lowered their weapons.
  Argent waited on his knees, watching as the secman crossed the boarding cubicle to the telecom on the
  greeting  desk.  He  spoke  briefly,  then  scanned  the  visa  in.  Argent  felt  his  stomach  tighten  involuntarily,
  wondering how well Peg  had  been  able  to  sleaze  her  way  through  Quebec  City's  bureaucratic  systems.
  They should have been easier than any corp's in the plex.
  "It's valid," the secman said.
  The sergeant nodded, waving his troops into parade rest. They holstered their weapons. "Enjoy your stay
  in Quebec City, Mr. Kortmunder," the sergeant said.
  "It's  got  to  be  better  than  this,"  Argent  said,  standing  up  and  grabbing  his  duffel.  He  made  his  way
  through the packed airport and to the baggage claim area.  After he had his gear, he went to the rental car
  area.  Finished  with  the  paperwork  and  scanning  the  Kortmunder  thumb-print  he  was  wearing  into  the
  contract, he found the Ameri-car he'd been given and drove to the upper levels of the airport.
  Archangel stood in front of the main entrance.
  Argent pulled to the curb and reached across to open her door.
  "Now that was exciting," she said as she placed her briefcase in the back seat.
  Argent  said  nothing,  pressing  on  the  accelerator  as  he  roared  away  from  the  curb  and  slid  into  the
  shadowy  maw  of  Quebec  City.  He  headed  for  the  newest  section  of  the  plex.  Locals  called  them  the
  Enterprise Zones because the corps had built there with exactly that in mind.
  When  the  work  had  begun,  thousands  of  plex  natives  had  been  displaced  as  room  was  made  for  the
  Enterprise  Zones.  There'd  been  five  in  the  beginning,  representing  MCT,  Aztechnology,  Fuchi,
  Yokogawa-Honeywell, and
  Yamaha. Three more opened in 2054, bringing the total up to eight.
  "That has the distinct look of a demilitarized zone," Archangel commented.
  "It's more dangerous than that," Argent said quietly. "The Enterprise Zones are treated as extraterritorial
  and beyond the laws of Quebec. The corps can kill whomever they like over there, and Quebec City won't
  do a thing about it as long as they don't advertise the fact."
  "We aren't going there, I hope."
  "No." Argent leveled a forefinger  and  pointed  through  the  mosquito-smeared  windshield.  "There."  The
  Hilton International Quebec stood twenty-five stories tall in the distance. Lime-green neon advertising raced
  up its sides, blending it into the rest of the plex's lighted Upper Town area.
  36
  "Do you want to tell me who we're here to meet?" Archangel asked as they stepped off the elevator on the
  eighteenth floor of the Hilton International Quebec.
  Argent scanned the hallway as he stepped out. He'd taken the Savalette Guardian from his  bags  in  the
  parking lot. The hotel security systems weren't designed to keep out people with weapons, but a sec-force
  was in evidence in the foyer. The elevators were also bugged with audlinks and vidlinks. Except for a few
  watercolor prints on the walls, the hallway seemed clear.
  "Her name is Laveau," Argent said. "She's a street shaman. I've worked with her  a  few  times  before.
  She's in eighteen-fourteen." He counted doors down, closing on his objective.
  "What's she doing here?"
  "Her latest gig," Argent answered. "She's set herself up as a card reader for the corps, telling fortunes,
  creating good luck totems, and the occasional love potion. With all the corp  action  here,  she's  doing  quite
  well, from what I hear." Rottstein had filled him in on the specifics. "Here we are." He pressed the button
  beside the door and stood in view of the button-cam at the top of the door so Laveau could see his image on
  the scanner inside.
  Argent counted the ticks, waiting for the door to open.
  "You're early," Laveau complained as she swung the door wide. "I'm still with a client." She was a black
  ork, her hair cut and styled in curls, the canines jutting up from her lower jaw gleaming and white. She stood
  almost as tall as Argent and wore  a  flowing  white  dress  covered  with  silver  embroidery  in  the  shape  of
  
  skulls, grinning, leering, angry, and sad.
  "We can wait," Argent offered.
  "Madame Fontaine," a man's voice called from inside, "don't hesitate to invite your next client in. I'm quite
  satisfied that we've done all we can with this visit."
  "As you wish, Tajira-sara." Laveau stepped back into the well-furnished apartment, waving Argent and
  Archangel in behind her.
  Stepping  into  the  room,  Argent  automatically  dimmed  his  olfactory  sensors  because  of  all  the
  accumulated  incense  smoke.  The  decor  reflected  Laveau's  shamanistic  roots  in  Jamaican  voodoo.  Lit
  candles occupied nearly every flat space in the living room, glinting from ceramic and plastimetal surfaces.
  A  hand-woven  tapestry  representing  Damballah  Wedo,  Laveau's  chosen  patron  loa,  hung  above  the
  synthfireplace against the opposite wall. Rendered in psychedelic colors, Damballah Wedo was a gleaming
  serpent winding through a tall forest to reach for the moon-kissed clouds above.
  "I'm sorry to interrupt your time," Argent said, turning to face the man in the room.
  "Arne Gemmell," Laveau said, introducing Argent as the alias he traveled under, "this is Hideo Tajira."
  Argent kept his hands at his sides and performed a perfect bow. "Tajira-saw, I'm honored to make your
  acquaintance."
  "And I to make yours," Tajira answered.
  Argent read the man as a corp exec at once. He was a half head shorter than Argent and moved with a
  smoothness that suggested a long familiarity with marital arts combined with boosted reflexes.
  Tajira wore a black Armante and went smooth-shaven. His long hair, exceeding the specs of most corps,
  was  pulled  back  in  a  ponytail.  His  green  eyes  glimmered  for  just  an  instant,  registering  more  fully  on
  Argent's face than was proper in the Japanese culture. "Madame Fontaine, you'll find your account credited
  properly.  I  thank  you  for  your  time."  Tajira  pulled  on  thin  black  gloves.  "The  evening  has  been  most
  enlightening."
  Laveau  took  his  arm  and  moved  him  toward  the  door.  "Shall  I  schedule  you  for  the  same  time  next
  week?"
  "Of course. I'll look forward to it."
  Argent  took  in  the  ashtrays  containing  the  burning  incense  unleashing  coiling  smoke  trails  against  the
  ceiling. His mind sped up, recognizing the danger they were suddenly in.
  Tajira paused in the doorway, turning to take a final look inside the room. He locked eyes with Argent for
  just a moment.
  Laveau closed the door, then turned to face Argent.  When  she  spoke,  her  English  took  on  the  slurred
  tones of her native New Orleans. She didn't speak French to let the big shadowrunner know how upset she
  was with him. "Ever hear of a leetle thing called de telecom, cher? It takes all de inconvenience from dese
  messy meetings."
  "It's about to get more inconvenient," Argent said,
  freeing the Savalette Guardian from his waistband and activating the  smartlink.  His  vision  blurred  for  the
  instant it took for the cross hairs to form. "Your client is with Asian Fuchi, right?"
  "Yes, cher. But how you know that? You got bad juju between you?"
  "I've never seen him before," Argent answered. "But he recognized me."
  37
  "They know we're coming."
  Belted  into  the  opulent  comfort  of  the  Agusta-Cierva  Rotorcraft,  Clay  Ironaxe  peered  down  into  the
  purple  twilight  staining  the  city  of  Pueblo  as  night  swept  in  over  the  desert.  The  plex  had  once  been
  prosperous, not the darkened and dying husk it was now. The warehouse district lining the Arkansas River
  below was desolate.
  "It doesn't matter," Ironaxe told Bearstalker. "They won't be able to run." He looked through the window
  and up, spotting the other two helos that accompanied the one he occupied.
  Their  espionage  teams  had  born  fruit.  Only  hours  into  his  assignment,  they'd  turned  up  the  fact  that
  Nakatomi  had  a  sec-force  housed  in  one  of  the  empty  warehouses  below  through  one  of  the  spies  he
  regularly employed. The Asian Fuchi CEO hadn't bothered to mention the presence of the team.
  Even as the helos descended like hunting hawks, ground units poured in through the  main  entrance  and
  
  swept toward the targeted warehouse. The Agusta-Cierva touched the pockmarked tarmac below with an
  audible thump. Its
  spotting lights centered on the warehouse doors as a large team of black-outfitted men circled them.
  Fisting his Seco LD-120 pistol, Ironaxe stepped out of the helo. He put on the kevlar helmet Bearstalker
  offered as he strode toward the thriller graffiti covered warehouse doors. His sec forces moved to the walls
  of  the  warehouse.  Chainsaws  ripped  through  the  thin  sheet  plastimetal  skin  into  the  rooms  beyond.  In
  seconds, Ares tear gas canisters were shoved through the holes, making the place look like it had been hit
  by a fumigator. Ironaxe breathed easily inside the kevlared helmet because it had a filter and a miniature air
  supply.
  The small force inside put up only token resistance. They knew they were heavily outnumbered, and the
  tear gas took away the last of their resolve. The interior of the warehouse had been superficially changed to
  house  the  men  inside.  The  electronic  equipment  was  only  rudimentary.  Hammocks  and  sleeping  bags
  littered the floor. The fifteen men and women lay scattered across the floor as well, all writhing painfully in
  the throes of the tear gas.
  Ironaxe bent down and caught a young Japanese woman by the back of her blouse. She groaned in pain,
  her hands clawing at her eyes. He propped her against the wall near a work bench, then squatted down so
  she could see his eyes through the visor of the kevlared helmet. "You're working for Nakatomi, aren't you?"
  The woman started to deny the accusation, but Ironaxe raised a big hand and scared her out of it. "Hai.  I
  work for Nakatomi."
  "Doing what?"
  "He put us into place here to find the slotters that jacked your decks. We're trying to do you a fragging
  favor."
  Ironaxe ignored the anger. "How were you going to help me?"
  "We had DNA samples of the shadowrunners," the woman replied.
  "How did he get the DNA samples?"
  "I don't know. I think he managed to turn one of the runners against the others."
  "Did you find them?"
  She shook her head and wiped at her mouth again. "Not yet, but we know they have to be in this area
  somewhere. They've just dug in deep."
  "How do you know that?"
  "Because this is the last place we traced them to."
  The medic arrived and Ironaxe left the woman to him. Then he joined Bearstalker in searching through
  the personal effects the Asian Fuchi team had. Bearstalker had already found the DNA samples. Ironaxe
  had  a  mage  sent  over.  The  female  mage  came  over  and  sketched  out  the  things  the  mage  team  had
  discovered.
  "They were using ritual sorcery," the mage stated. "Very expensive and very time consuming. Evidently
  they weren't successful."
  "Can we use the DNA samples?" Ironaxe asked.
  "No." She shook her head. "Only the mages who began work on these can use them. Ritual  sorcery  is
  much more proprietary."
  Ironaxe dismissed her, scowling.
  "Having the DNA samples here could mean a number of things," Bearstalker said.
  "I know." Ironaxe's mind was already leaping to the more obvious of solutions. "That Nakatomi really is
  trying to pin the blame rightfully on Villiers. That Nakatomi was running the operation from here and kept
  the DNA samples on hand so he wouldn't lose the group he'd put into LegacyTrax himself. That the DNA
  samples  are  fakes  and  the  shadowrunners  we're  searching  for  have  already  buzzed  turbo,  taken  out  by
  Nakatomi." He glanced at the DNA samples spread across the corpmage's knees. "Or those DNA samples
  are fake and we were supposed to find them, then waste time looking for matches that don't exist."
  One of the sec people came running up with a portable telecom. "Your office, sir," the man said. "They
  said it was important." He extended the handset. A cord connected it to the encrypted backpack commlink
  across his shoulders. The signal was relayed to the lead helo managing the satlink.
  Ironaxe said his name into the handset, listening to the echo of the voices and the helos trapped  on  the
  open line.
  "I do apologize for the deception," Shikei Nakatomi said without hesitation. "I'd truly planned in being in
  possession of those shadowrunners before now."
  "You should have told me you had the DNA samples," Ironaxe said.
  "If  I  had  informed  you,"  Nakatomi  pointed  out,  "we  couldn't  have  been  sure  that  Sencio  and  Villiers
  
  wouldn't have found out we had the DNA samples."
  Ironaxe watched as his sec guards gathered the scouting team from the floor and marched them out into
  a waiting Roadmaster converted  into  a  containment  vehicle.  "For  all  I  know,  these  people  are  a  support
  group for the runners who infiltrated LegacyTrax."
  "If you believe that, you'll be making a mistake," Nakatomi assured him smoothly. "Also, I didn't just call
  you because you'd raided the team I had in place there. I just received word from an employee in Quebec
  City that Argent is there now. I have a team en route to his position. He'll be in our hands in minutes."
  "You'll call me?"
  "Immediately."
  "I'll be waiting." Ironaxe punched the Disconnect and handed the phone back to the comm  officer.  His
  brain whirled, figuring all the angles. That Nakatomi hadn't told him about the team for the reasons he gave
  made sense, but he knew none of those were the real reason.  If  the  team  had  pinpointed  Sencio's  group
  first, Nakatomi would have recovered all the data she'd stolen before
  killing her and turning her over to Ironaxe, regretful that he hadn't been able to bring her in alive.
  Or Nakatomi might have had her killed because she could have fingered him for contracting her.
  It was hard to know, or even guess, which was the truth.
  38
  Showing the professionalism that had marked everything  she'd  ever  done,  Laveau  scrambled  through  the
  doss and grabbed only the things that were essential to her continued survival. It didn't prevent her, though,
  from  hurling  curses  in  Argent's  direction  and  bemoaning  the  fact  that  she  was  leaving  behind  very
  expensive things.
  Argent stood at the door to the doss, the Guardian tight in his fist.
  "You never mentioned Asian Fuchi as being a problem, cher," Laveau said. "Else me, I would have had
  dat boy long gone from here, yes."
  Archangel  remained  calm,  sizing  up  the  rest  of  the  rooms  in  the  doss.  She  was  the  first  to  think  of
  removing the telecom and dialing out to a pay service so it couldn't be tapped into and used as a spy device
  inside the room.
  Argent appreciated Archangel's thoroughness and calm. "The people you worked with must  have  been
  good," he said.
  "The guy who ran the team was clever," she admitted. "There isn't much in the way of a run that gets by
  him."
  "Was he the one?"
  Archangel fixed Argent with a chill stare of her bronze and gold flecked eyes. "That question  is  out  of
  place."
  "Yes." But Argent knew they were both aware  that she'd answered it all the same. Still, her own plight
  mir-
  rored his to an extent and it made him more curious about her than he normally would have allowed himself
  to be. She had bailed on the guy she'd fallen for because she couldn't handle the  emotions  and  still  be  as
  professional as she wanted to be. And Argent was being pulled into Sencio's problems because  he  hadn't
  been able to walk completely away from his own feelings. Nor would he have chosen to. Admitting those
  feelings existed would have been detrimental. The last person he needed to lie to was himself.
  "Let's go, cher," Laveau said. She'd slung everything she could carry into a backpack, Argent noted with
  approval. The ork street shaman was as efficient as always. As a girl in New Orleans, she'd grown up in
  the streets, making her way as a thief before turning to magic. As a result, her lifestyle had never taken on
  more than the semblance of permanence. She carried a Colt Manhunter at her side. "I'm  correct  thinking
  dese men be wanting to flatline you dey catch you, cher?"
  "Yes," Argent replied.
  "Den we get out drekking quick and make no hesitation."
  Argent  took  the  lead,  stepping  out  into  the  hallway  while  using  the  doorway  as  a  shield.  "The  fire
  escape," he said. "They could already be tapped into the audlinks and vid-links in the elevators."
  "They'll have them in the fire escapes as well," Archangel said.
  "We'll have more room to move," Argent said. "Does Tajira come alone to these meetings?"
  
  "He's a corpexec," Laveau said. "Ever know one of dem to come alone to anything? No way. He keeps
  men stationed in de bar downstairs."
  Movement caught in his peripheral vision, sending him into motion. A hail of bullets slammed through the
  airspace where he'd just stood. The Guardian came up in his fist, spitting and snapping.
  The bullets crunched through the face of the man standing at the corner at the other end of the hallway.
  Before the body fell, Argent fired again as another man moved around the corpse. His  second  burst  only
  succeeded in smashing against the second gunner's kevlar jacket, driving him back.
  "Move!" Argent ordered.
  Archangel and Laveau fired as well, keeping the gunner back while Argent reloaded.
  The big shadowrunner streaked for the  fire  escape.  His  move-by-wire  system  kept  everything  flowing
  smoothly, taking in information in nanoseconds and making corrections. As always, even moving at full tilt
  his body felt like a greased bearing rolling through its tracks.
  His  infrared  vision  lit  up  the  shadow  through  the  window  on  the  fire  escape  door.  He  brought  the
  Guardian up in his fist, not breaking stride as he squeezed off two rounds in quick succession.
  The bullets ripped through the plastiglass  a  heartbeat  ahead  of  Argent.  The  big  shadowrunner  thought
  that both rounds had scored on their target, but he didn't take any chances. He spread a big hand out and
  caught the door against his palm.
  With the enhanced weight the cyberware added to his body and the strength possible in  his  cyberlimbs,
  the  reinforced  door  shrieked  out  of  its  moorings  and  exploded  backward  in  a  warped  rush.  The  door
  smacked into the man and shoved him down the steps, over the top of two more men charging up after him.
  Argent  activated  the  electromagnet  in  his  palm  and  slapped  it  against  the  wall  beside  the  steps.  The
  effect helped  anchor  him  and  brought  him  just  short  of  making  the  same  fall.  The  smartlink  brought  his
  gunhand up and fired the Guardian dry at the two men, targeting the exposed faces  rather than  the  areas
  protected by bulletproof armor.
  Archangel was at his heels, cradling her pistol in both hands. She didn't fire because it wasn't necessary.
  All three men were geeked.
  Without warning the whumpf  of  a  set  explosive  shivered  through  the  building  and  filled  the  halls  with
  noise. Immediately afterward, klaxons screamed stridently.
  Argent looked back at Laveau and spotted the remote control device in her hand.
  "Just a precaution, cher,"  the  ork  shaman  said.  "You  know  I  don't  never  figure  on  staying  in  any  one
  place too long, me. Ol' Laveau, she knows she gonna be a traveler most of dis life." She smiled and dropped
  the detonator. "Firebomb in de apartment, dat explosion gonna give dem something to think about, yes?"
  "Yes."
  "Those fire alarms are also going to put everyone in the hotel out into the fire escapes," Archangel said.
  "That's putting a lot of innocents in harm's way."
  Argent was thinking the same thing. He'd worked with Laveau before and found her to be competent at
  her craft, but it was generally her neck she thought of first. He moved his estimation of Archangel up. He
  missed having Peg inside his head, but they'd agreed to keep the commlink  silent  unless  necessary  to  cut
  down on the chances of them being picked up.
  "Very few staying in dis place got any claim to innocence, dem," Laveau said.
  Argent moved through the dead men, keeping a pace that he figured would keep the women stressed to
  match. Archangel seemed to flow along behind him, but  Laveau  was  breathing  hard  after  six  stories.  At
  least it was downhill all the way.
  "Nakatomi's people should know they don't have to watch the elevators," Archangel said.  "By  now  the
  fire alarms will have made them all return to the lobby floor."
  "And they won't have found us on them," Argent said.
  Dozens of people filled the fire escape now, all of them in varying degrees of panic and demanding to know
  what had happened. "So the elevator shafts should be the safest place for us."
  "Yes."
  Argent had already thought of that but he didn't mention it. That Archangel was thinking as quickly and
  clearly as she was only impressed him more. Who had she been working with before that she  thought  so
  quickly on her feet?
  He led the way down to the ninth floor, then apologized as he forced his way through the packed throng
  barring  the  way  back  into  the  hotel  corridor.  He  jogged  halfway  down  the  hallway  till  he  reached  an
  elevator.  The  way  he  had  it  figured,  the  elevator  would  put  them  over  the  lobby  and  the  underground
  garage below. It was on the right side of the underground garage that he'd left the rental car.
  Slipping his fingers between the locked elevator doors, he leveraged them open. The interior of the shaft
  
  only held red warning lights advertising the absence of the elevator cage.
  Operated by the maglev systems,  the  egg-shaped  cage  sat  at  the  bottom  of  the  shaft.  There  were  no
  connecting  cables,  no  infrastructure  offering  extra  support.  Only  smooth  sides  of  plastisteel  for  the  next
  eight stories.
  "Laveau," Argent said.
  "Yes, cher." The ork shaman crowded close and peered down into the inky depths.
  "Can you clear the way to the underground garage?"
  "Through de floor?"
  "Yes."
  She shook her head. "You ask a lot, cher, but I think dese old bones up to de job." Chanting to  herself,
  her voice rising, she gestured at the cage below.
  With his infravision on, Argent thought he saw the
  waves of disruption spike from Laveau's fingertips. When they  made  contact  with  the  elevator  cage,  the
  cage cram-pled at once.
  Continuing with her chanting, her  voice  hoarse  with  effort  now,  Laveau  gestured  again.  This  time  the
  crumpled mass of the elevator cage exploded through the floor  below,  opening  a  hole  almost  two  meters
  across.
  "That'll do," Argent said.
  "Good, cher, because dere was no much else dese old bones had to give, I tell you dat." Laveau's color
  had faded and perspiration covered her face. "Been living easy maybe too long, I have."
  "That's eight stories," Archangel said.
  "Trust me," Argent said. He powered up the electromagnet in his palm again and flexed it at her.  "The
  current generated won't be enough to stop us from falling, but it should slow us."
  The look on Archangel's face told him she didn't like having to depend on him. But she didn't argue. She
  slipped her belt off and ran it through his, making a loop she could hang onto.
  Argent stood at the edge of the shaft and let Archangel stretch out, hanging over the abyss as he took her
  weight. Grimly, he stepped over the edge, clapping his  hand  against  the  plastisteel  wall.  At  the  mercy  of
  gravity, they fell.
  The trip lasted only seconds, faster than Argent would have wanted. He was aware  of Laveau levitating
  herself after them, her dress furling around her legs. Then they hit bottom. Argent's move-by-wire system
  and strength kept him on his feet, but Archangel went rolling away with a groan of pain.
  "Archangel," Argent called, disengaging his magnetic hand.
  "I'm  fine."  She  forced  herself  to  her  feet  shakily,  her  pistol  still  gripped  in  her  hand.  "You're  wasting
  time."
  Argent dropped through the hole and into the underground garage, landing almost five meters below with
  some effort because the debris of the floor and the elevator cage lay scattered across the garage floor. He
  started  to  reach  back  for  Archangel,  but  she  had  already  lowered  herself  from  the  lip  of  the  hole,  then
  dropped carefully to the floor.
  Laveau floated through with no problems at all.
  A few of the hotel's guests were moving among the parked cars now, talking anxiously. Argent didn't see
  anyone who looked like they  worked  for  Asian  Fuchi.  The  big  shadowrunner  led  the  way  to  the  parked
  rental.
  In minutes they were outside the building,  on  their  way  back  to  the  airport.  Argent  breathed  a  sigh  of
  relief when they were in the air, but his thoughts were already turning to Atlanta, Georgia.
  39
  Miles Lanier paced  behind  his  desk,  trying  to  exercise  away  some  of  the  tension  he  was  feeling.  In  his
  experience, it would  have  been  better  to  be  in  front  of  a  group  and  have  to  mask  those  feelings.  Being
  on-stage was where he excelled at duplicity. Being alone with the tension was much worse.
  And having Argent out there roaming while the shadow op team sat like  a  ticking  nuke  in  Pueblo  was
  increasingly nerve-wracking.
  "What is it, Miles?" Richard Villiers asked over the telecom.
  "Argent was just spotted in Quebec City less than an hour ago," the security chief reported. "One of the
  
  moles we've got in with Yamaha informed me that Nakatomi's people tried to close in on Argent. He killed
  four of their people and escaped."
  Villiers leaned back in his chair behind the desk. "What was Argent doing in Quebec City?"
  "Seeing a fortune teller named Antoinette Fontaine according to my source. She had an expensive SIN,
  but once we started investigating, we found out it was pure sim."
  "Argent's recruiting," Villiers announced.
  "Yeah, and at the same time there's been a new problem added in Pueblo," Lanier went on. "Ironaxe just
  hit Nakatomi's scouting party in the warehouse district. Our spotters in the area confirmed that Ironaxe is
  now in possession of the DNA samples Pendleton Frost got to Nakatomi."
  "I know," Villiers said. "Ironaxe was tipped off by his espionage teams."
  "And who tipped them?" Lanier asked, not liking it that their control over the op seemed to  lessen  with
  each passing minute.
  A half-smile flirted with Villiers lips. "Why I did, Miles."
  "Why?"
  "To get the DNA samples out of Nakatomi's hands. Argent had to know they existed because that would
  have been one of the first things Sencio would have told him. Getting the DNA samples from Nakatomi's
  group would have been hard because he'd have had to find them first. Finding Ironaxe once Argent knows
  the man has them, will be easier."
  "We could have taken the DNA samples off the board and left the way clear for the exfiltration."
  "Not  without  showing  ourselves,"  Villiers  pointed  out.  "Also  as  a  result  of  doing  things  this  way  and
  exposing the Asian Fuchi team covertly in Pueblo, Nakatomi's position has gotten soft. He's put on a front
  of being honest with Ironaxe. Now he's had to admit that he was hiding things as well. Ironaxe will have no
  choice but to realize believing in Nakatomi could be very dangerous."
  Lanier considered the implications. "If Ironaxe has the DNA samples, he's going to figure that Sencio and
  her crew are hiding out in Pueblo-Under. You've just cut the safety margin on her."
  "Drastically, I hope," Villiers stated.
  40
  Argent abandoned his initial plans for getting a nearly straight flight to Atlanta. Having to dump the  cover
  ID after Laveau had mentioned it to the Asian Fuchi corp-exec meant having to activate a backup ID. That
  wasn't hard because he and Peg kept a number of them active for him. He'd also had another  set  up  for
  Laveau. But outfitting Archangel for another proved time-consuming.
  He'd paid for tickets at Quebec City only minutes before the flight out to Cleveland, Ohio, but they'd left
  the plane  at  Buffalo,  New  York,  dumping  the  SINs  they'd  been  traveling  under  before  they  cleared  the
  airport.
  They also gained back an hour in crossing the time zone. Just after midnight, they were dossed down in a
  motel near the  hub  of  the  plex  under  other  names.  Argent  paid  for  a  suite  of  rooms,  then  spent  twenty
  minutes talking at the table in the center room. He filmed the conversation, having already primed Laveau
  and  Archangel  for  the  subject  matter.  Their  cover  was  investments  and  they'  d  studied  financial
  screamsheets on the plane, learning a number of the current markets and the pro/con index on them.
  He  found  two  button  cams  in  the  room  with  an  overlapping  field  of  view  of  the  table.  Using  two
  mini-cams from his duffel, he wired them into the hotel cams, mir-
  roring  the  fields  of  view.  He  keyed  the  RECORD  function  on  both  mini-cams  to  shoot  him  as  he
  approached the table where Archangel and Laveau were. He cued the mini-cams again after he sat.
  Then they talked investments for twenty minutes, all of them professional enough to put their fears at rest
  while  they  finished  the  performance.  Argent  figured  the  only  glitch  in  the  plan  was  if  the  sec-team
  monitoring the room actually listened to more than twenty minutes of conversation coming from the room.
  But he didn't know anyone who' d want to listen to talk about over-the-counter trading stock.
  When  he  finished  the  twenty  minutes,  he  used  the  remote  control  again  to  cut  his  mini-cams  into  the
  hotel's system. When the sec unit checked their monitors, all they'd see was the conversation continuing at
  the  table.  It  didn't  offer  the  security  of  a  safe  house,  but  it  was  the  best  he  could  do  under  the
  circumstances.
  
  "Okay," Argent said as he pushed up from the table, "as long as we don't move from  this  room  or  into
  view of the main hallway we should be fine."
  The two women stretched and got up from the table as well.
  "You realize dat de bathroom, it be down dat hallway as well," Laveau complained.
  "You  had  your  chance,"  Argent  said.  He  glanced  around  the  suite.  The  rooms  offered  nothing
  extravagant in the way of decor, just the typical couch, desk, table and chairs. A wet bar was in the corner
  of the room, but the shelves were barren except for no-name brewkaf. He started a pot, then dragged out
  three disposable cups with the hotel's logo on them.
  Activating the commlink inside his head, he placed a call to the number Peg had set up to run this part of
  the op. It was answered on the second ring, and a recorded uni-sex voice informed him  that  Glatenstatt's
  was closed
  for the evening, he should call again at ten in  the  morning.  He  disconnected,  then  heard  the  telecom  line
  jangle again immediately when the call-back feature Peg had programmed into it kicked in.
  The original call went through the Albany LTGs, lighting up the hotel on their mainframes. But when the
  call came back from the Glatenstatt number, the call was piggy-backed through the LTGs so it was almost
  impossible to trace. Even if someone decided to check it out. The call was also encrypted.
  "Argent," Peg said, "I heard about the biz in Quebec City. Are you all right?"
  "Yes,"  Argent  replied.  "We  all  are."  He  brought  her  up  to  date  quickly.  "How  much  of  the  news  is
  already out?" He tuned the hotel's telecom, bringing one of the 24-hour news stations on-line, setting it for
  closed caption. He scanned the news as he talked.
  "Nothing  in  the  regular  media,"  Peg  told  him,  "but  your  name  has  been  bounced  around  some  in  the
  shadow-boards."
  "Who's doing the bouncing?"
  "Asian Fuchi. I tracked back two of the entries and found they originated in Quebec City and in Tokyo."
  "Nakatomi's staying involved."
  "Yes, but they don't seem to have anything definite. Other than one of their corpexecs IDing you."
  "Getting our travel plans back together is going to set our schedule back a half day or so," Argent said.
  "Call the others and let them know when we finish this call."
  "I will.  I'm  still  working  on  getting  the  Pueblo  maps,"  the  decker  said.  "Some  of  those  are  locked  up
  tighter than I'd expected. There were clandestine military ops in that area before the NAN took over."
  "How many of the terrain maps do you have?" Argent asked.
  "Above ground I've got all of them. Old maps as well
  as new ones that have been shot from the air and ground. I've got a cache Archangel can retrieve for you."
  Glancing across the room, Argent saw that the elven decker had  already  jacked  out  of  her  meat  body
  and into the Matrix. She sat on the floor  with  her  back  to  the  wall,  her  deck  across  her  knees.  A  cable
  inserted into the data-jack on her temple connected her to her deck.
  "The underground maps are the ones I need most," Argent said.
  "I know. I'm trying. I've got a friend who knows a source who has a number of pre-Awakened  World
  documents, but you know how hard some of those can be to come by."
  Argent did know. When magic had returned, followed by the killer computer virus that caused the Crash
  of 2029 and succeeded in toppling world governments, a lot of knowledge had vanished with those political
  bodies. Part of it was wiped out  when  the  computer  systems  went  down,  but  the  physical  records  were
  destroyed in the fever of independence that swept around the world. Some runners, though, had discovered
  several small fortunes in documents they'd been able to find. By then, most of them were hard to find.
  "Pueblo's records should be easier to locate than most," Peg said, "though Mary Hawkmoon and Pueblo's
  Underground-Awakened  have  gone  to  considerable  trouble  to  eliminate  those  records.  Luckily,  Pueblo
  didn't have much industry go into it even before the NAN took over."
  "I need them, Peg," Argent said, "if I' m going to make this work."
  "I'll have them for you," the decker promised. "I've got Archangel's new SIN ready. At least, it will be by
  morning."
  "Thanks.  I'll  call  you  then."  Argent  broke  the  telecom  connection  inside  his  head  and  walked  to  the
  nearby
  window looking out over the front of the hotel. The streets of the plex were still alive with movement.
  "Cher."
  Argent turned around to face Laveau. He knew it was bad from the look on her dark face.
  She licked her canines hesitantly. "Man I know, he does biz with Asian Fuchi. Leetle things dat require a
  deft hand, you know what I'm talking, but his  loyalty,  it  can  be  bought.  Well  he,  dat  man  be  doing  some
  
  checking as a favor to me. Said dat scuttlebutt he hears along de way is dat VaulTek discovered an Asian
  Fuchi covert op in Pueblo."
  Argent felt his stomach tighten, thinking maybe he was too late to help Sencio after all.
  "Not dat woman you be after, cher," Laveau went on hurriedly, "no, not  dat  one  at  all.  Dis  be  another
  group, one holding de broom, you know what I mean."
  "They were the ones who had the DNA samples," Argent stated, getting the feel for the op. The Asian
  Fuchi group had been a sweeper team, designed to tidy up potentially embarrassing situations by whatever
  means possible. "Nakatomi had them in the area trying to run Sencio and her group down."
  "Dis man I talk to, he don't know what dey be doing dere, but I dink you're  right.  We  both  right,  cher.
  Nakatomi, he get ambitious, dink maybe he can get some leverage over Ironaxe, maybe de man figure he
  owe Nakatomi a big favor. Instead Nakatomi, he gets caught fisting his own wanker, you know."
  "How?"
  Laveau shook her head. "Dis man I talk to, he don't know. He lucky to know what he know."
  Argent silently agreed, but part of him thought maybe the knowledge getting out to the shadowboards that
  Laveau had access to was deliberate. Nakatomi wouldn't have sold out his own team—unless there was a
  profit in it.
  That line of thinking only left Villiers to be at the root
  of it. The NovaTech CEO wasn't going to quietly sit on the sidelines. Argent hadn't expected it anyway.
  "Dis thing going to be a nasty bit of biz, ain't it?" Laveau asked.
  "Having second thoughts?" Argent asked.
  "Fifty dousand nuyen still fifty dousand nuyen, cher. And you talking to a woman, she ain't got no home
  no more." The ork shaman looked up at Argent. " 'Course, dat's a foolish thought. People like us, we ain't
  never going to have no home because we be thinking somebody done come along and snatch it from us."
  Quietly, in the still part of his soul that still remembered Andi Sencio and what life could be like at times,
  Argent fervently hoped that wasn't so.
  41
  Argent left the rental car in the huge parking lot in front of Rebel Hell. The parking area covered acres  of
  black-topped  countryside,  and  he'd  been  forced  to  park  near  the  outer  perimeter.  They'd  flown  into
  Hartsfield International Airport from Albany after a brief layover in Memphis and driven straight out to the
  bar in the plex's Southtown district.
  Calling the establishment a bar was a major understatement, the big shadowrunner knew. It was a lot like
  calling Southtown a bad place to be. On a good weekend night, Rebel  Hell  could  provide  sex,  drugs,  and
  southern rock and roll to forty-five thousand citizens  of  Atlanta's  over  six  million  inhabitants.  And  on  the
  weekends, South-town only saw an increase in the crimes that were  committed  there  on  a  regular  basis.
  The Yakuza ran most of the black market biz in Southtown out of warehouses.
  Neon lights flashed across the front of the  bar,  alternately  displaying  an  original  Confederate  States  of
  America flag flying in the breeze and a cyberware cowboy mounted on a heavily cybered bull bucking for
  all it was worth. Strident music hammered the still, humid night around Argent as he made his way to one of
  the half-dozen entrances guarded by yabos and mages.
  Laveau and Archangel  both  wore  street  dress,  taking  their  lead  from  Argent,  who  wore  slacks  and  a
  loose  print  shirt,  pulling  it  all  together  with  a  synthleather  covered  Kevlar  jacket.  The  women  were
  overdressed for the event, but Argent hadn't bothered to tell them. They weren't staying.
  Most of  Rebel  Hell's  clientele  appeared  young  and  daring.  Argent  saw  hairstyles  he  was  certain  he'd
  never seen before, as well as colors he hadn't thought possible. And it would have been easier to describe
  what the clothing covered rather than what it  didn't.  He  also  noticed  that  the  clothing  had  a  habit  of  not
  always covering what it started out covering.
  The doormen were hulking bruisers who looked like they'd been bottle-fed on steroids and hadn't lost the
  taste as they'd grown. All of them were also heavily cybered. Standing at the door, Argent felt the  music
  hammer into him, literally setting up vibrations inside his flesh.
  He slotted his credstick when he got to the door, indicating he was paying for himself as well as the two
  women. "Can I get a message to Travers?" he asked.
  The doorman regarded him with heavy lids. "Which one?"
  
  "Doesn't matter," Argent said. "I'm looking for them both."
  The doorman smiled without mirth. "Biz or pleasure?"
  "We're chummers."
  The  doorman  didn't  appear  convinced.  "Guess  we'll  see  about  that.  Jesse  and  Jason,  they're  already
  having
  themselves a time tonight. Go to the main bar. I'll get a message out. Want to leave a name?"
  "Bobby Lee."
  The doorman smirked. "After the Civil War Confederate general? Think you're a flip joker, huh?"
  Argent dropped folded nuyen into the doorman's hand and passed through the door.
  Tables  and  chairs  formed  a  loose  ring  around  three  different  dance  floors  that  he  could  see.  Smoke
  wreathed the air, and the smell of alcohol burned his nostrils. He drew several hostile stares as he made his
  way through the crowd to the main bar.
  More  than  a  dozen  bartenders  worked  behind  the  polished  synth-pecan  bar.  The  music  made
  conversation almost impossible,  and  the  unseen  DJ  kept  spinning  the  tunes  together  so  tightly  there  was
  almost no break at all.
  He  placed  drink  orders,  Tir  na  nOg  berry  water  for  himself  and  Archangel,  and  a  Virgin  Mary  for
  Laveau.
  "Who are we here to meet, cher?" the ork shaman asked.
  "The Travers twins," Argent replied.
  "I don't know dem boys."
  Argent glanced at the crowd moving across the bar's open spaces, ebbing and flowing like a human tide
  to the crescendo of music. Rebel yells punctuated the noise. "Jesse and Jason are street sams," he told her.
  "Some  of  the  best  I've  ever  worked  with.  And  they  have  a  tendency  to  stick  no  matter  how  bad  the
  drekstorm is when it comes down."
  "I've heard of them," Archangel told Laveau. "They're supposed to be good."
  "They are," Argent confirmed. He waited patiently at the bar, conscious of the stares he received and of
  the time passing. The news that Ironaxe had  pinned  down  Sencio's  location  in  Pueblo  had  preyed  on  his
  mind during the few hours of sleep he'd gotten.
  Thankfully he'd been able to keep focused while putting the plan together using the information Peg had
  turned
  up on the terrain. Detailed notes were already stored in his personal noteputer where he kept his journals.
  Two trolls shoved their way through the crowd around Argent, vectoring on the big  shadowrunner  with
  deliberation. They were both over three meters tall and nearly half of that across. Scarred black go-ganger
  synthleather covered them.
  "Dese be dem boys?" Laveau asked hopefully.
  Argent knew the ork shaman had scanned the malicious glint in the trolls' cybered eyes. "No." He pushed
  away from the bar and turned to face the trolls. They weren't the Travers twins, and they definitely looked
  like trouble.
  42
  "You don't look like a local," one of the trolls told Argent as they spread out in front of the shadowrunner in
  Rebel Hell. The shadows around the bar intensified as the trolls blocked off the light.
  Argent didn't respond to the  taunt.  He  knew  from  experience  that  anything  he  could  have  said  would
  have only been used against him.
  "Me and Dweedle don't like people sniffing around our bar that we  don't  know,"  the  troll  went  on.  He
  triggered the synapse link that popped the heavy forearm snapblades he wore. The  points  gleamed  in  the
  low light, matching the silver caps on the canines of his lower jaw that jutted almost to his eyes.
  The immediate crowd hugging the bar began pulling back, creating a widening circle.
  "You and Dweedle keep on sticking your nose in other people's biz, Khelp," a light-hearted voice behind
  the
  trolls said, "you may end up sniffing your own hoop during a dirtnap. If you've got a nose left to sniff with."
  Khelp turned slightly, looking confused by the interruption. "This ain't any of your biz, Travers."
  "Long as I'm working this floor to keep browncones from flatlining each other or anyone else it's my biz."
  
  Travers  stopped  well  out  of  range  of  the  snapblades  and  without  interfering  with  Argent's  maneuvering
  room.
  Travers was at least eight centimeters  taller  even  than  Argent,  and  broader  across,  not  yet  out  of  his
  early twenties. He looked like a young giant. Dressed in a flimsy  Confederate  gray  tank  top  and  maroon
  synthdemin pants, Travers' muscular build was intimidating. His hands looked as big as pie plates and hung
  easily at his sides. Curly dark brown hair fell to his shoulders. His  eyes  shown  cerulean  blue,  a  hint  of  a
  flash  that  revealed  they'd  been  cybered.  The  jawline  was  firm  and  hard,  but  the  grin  on  his  lips  was
  irreverent, almost juvenile.
  "You may think you're big," Khelp said, "but you  ain't  troll-sized  yet.  Me  and  you  have  never  had  any
  problems."
  "Meaning I should wonder if I can take you?" Travers shook his head and laughed derisively. "Couple of
  things you don't get, scrod-head. One: when I walk this floor, I think I can take any son-of-a-slitch out here,
  and maybe any two or three, or I'd head back to the doss and drek myself every night. Two: I don't let any
  mother's son tell me what I can think or not think. And three: Letting you take that man on might get you
  flatlined for sure when I'd only slap a knot on your head. It's not him I'm worried about."
  As Travers spoke, other troll go-gangers gathered around them, adding encouragement to Khelp. Argent
  noted the alcoholic flames burning in the go-ganger's eyes, but the quick, jerky motions he moved in spoke
  of other types of chem fragging his system as well. Common sense wasn't on the agenda anymore.
  "Frag you, Travers," Khelp said. "For all I know, this
  guy's a Lone Star groundhound you let onto the premises to snare me and my buds to keep your own hoop
  out of the slammer." He spun without warning, flicking the snapblades out.
  Guided by the move-by-wire  system  and  his  own  training,  Argent  reached  out  for  the  snapblades.  He
  caught them  one-handed,  a  heartbeat  before  the  blades  could  have  turned  into  cleavers  that  might  have
  shorn  through  even  his  cybernetic  limb.  He  closed  his  fingers  on  the  blades,  breaking  them  off.  They
  dropped to the floor, seemingly soundless with the music crashing throughout the room. Before Khelp could
  draw his hand back, Argent seized that as well, controlling the man with crushing force.
  The troll go-ganger's eyes rounded even more when Argent placed  the  biz  end  of  the  Guardian  at  the
  center of his forehead.
  "Breeze  or  bleed,"  Argent  offered,  his  face  impassive.  "Your  choice.  I  don't  care  which  you  choose.
  Either way, I don't want to see you again."
  "You won't," the  troll  said,  trying  not  to  show  the  pain  he  was  in.  But  he  meant  the  answer  to  come
  across as intimidating.
  Another troll suddenly flew backward, propelled by a barstool that flew across the air with the force of a
  battering ram. He landed in the midst of a group of dancers who protested loudly.
  "Don't be so unwise, vous  enfants  miserable, to dink  dat  only  one  man  stands  before  you."  Laveau's
  voice was cold and hard. She held  out  a  hand,  palm  up.  The  smoke  in  the  area  twisted  into  a  miniature
  hurricane that spun in her palm. "And do not dink we are without resources."
  The show stopped any thoughts of retribution on the part of the go-gangers. Argent  released  the  troll's
  hand and stared the man down. Trying to hang onto the shreds of his dignity, Khelp turned and shoved his
  way through
  the trolls around him, cursing at them and slapping the ones who didn't move away quickly enough.
  "Hoi, Argent," Travers said, approaching with a hand out.
  Argent  took  the  young  man's  hand  and  shook  it.  The  brief  grip  Travers  showed  only  hinted  at  the
  strength that even exceeded the massive build he showed from steroids and weight training. Argent knew
  both of the twins well enough to know that they'd had massive amounts of muscle augmentation in addition
  to the other cyberwork they'd had done to make themselves bigger and taller.
  "Hello, Jesse," Argent said.
  The young giant smiled. "You always know, don't you?"
  "I have so far," Argent replied.
  "Even a lot of our family still can't tell us apart all the time," another voice said.
  Argent  turned  slightly  and  saw  Jason  Travers  approach  from  beside  the  bar.  The  other  twin  samurai
  carried an Ares AZ-150 Super Stun Baton in his left hand. "Hello, Jase."
  "You knowing how to do that is kind of disconcerting," Jason said. "In our biz, we sometimes depend on
  people losing track of who's who."
  Jesse grinned. "Makes it easier for them to think we've got them surrounded."
  "You're late getting here," Jase said.
  "Made us start to worry," his brother put in.
  
  "We kind of counted on this piece of biz com," Jase said.
  Jesse leaned against the bar and scanned Archangel from head to toe. "Didn't count on the lush scenery
  being thrown in, though."
  "Always love the fringe benefits when we work with you, Argent," Jase said.
  "Zero out," Archangel said in a frosty voice. "If you get the wrong ideas in those tiny little brainboxes of
  yours,
  taking on a bar full of troll go-gangers is going to look wiz by comparison."
  "Spunk," Jesse said, smiling and nodding in approval.
  "We always like spunk," Jase stated.
  "But," Jesse took up the slack, "Argent doesn't allow any poser behavior while we're working."
  "And you're working now," Argent told the twins. He'd worked with them six times before. Despite the
  irreverent attitudes and macho complexes they exuded, the  Travers  always  came  through  when  the  heat
  turned hottest. And for sheer mayhem, pound for pound, Argent had never seen anything like the twins.
  Jesse came away from Archangel still smiling. "Good to know we're working."
  "This past year," Jase said, "we've been saving back a little out of each contract."
  "Investing." Jesse raised an eyebrow salaciously.
  "Thinking of the future," Jase said.
  "Our future, of course," Jesse said.
  "We wanted something we understood."
  "And something close to home."
  "So we've been putting our extra nuyen into the bar," Jase said.
  "We share in the quarterly profits," Jesse said.
  "Feels kinda strange being legit," Jase confided.
  Jesse nodded. "That's why we were glad you showed up with the offer."
  "We'll be back in a couple ticks," Jase promised.
  "We've got to get our stuff."
  Argent watched them go, neither of them breaking
  stride but managing to talk to several of the bar attendees
  along the way just the same, calling out to them by name,
  although the bar patrons seemed confused as to which
  brother was which.
  '
  "Are they that hyper all the time?" Archangel asked quietly.
  "No," Argent said  truthfully.  "Sometimes  they're  worse.  But  when  they're  working,  they  don't  get  any
  better."
  "Where to next, cher?" Laveau asked, swirling her drink in a long-nailed hand.
  "Fort Worth, Texas," Argent said. "There's a guy I've got in mind to replace the long gun on the team, but
  I know what he'll probably say."
  43
  "Go with you to Pueblo just to get my fragging hoop shot off?"
  "All I could do was ask," Argent said. He was seated in a booth at the Satin Doll, a night club rendered hi
  an opulent Japanese decor, the next morning. Only members and their guests were allowed entry. Argent
  finished his glass of water and started to rise. "Stay healthy, Harrison."
  "Spirits." Harrison Dane reached out and caught Argent's thick wrist in his hand. He was elven, long and
  lean, sporting fiery red hair that framed his angular face in an expensive cut that made him look like a trid
  version  of  a  Mafia  don.  The  expensive  Armante  suit  carried  out  the  appearance.  He  cursed  fluently  in
  Sperethiel.  "You're  going  to  walk  out  of  here  just  like  that?"  He  glanced  around  quickly,  as  if  to  see  if
  anyone else had noticed his guest leaving so quickly.
  Argent resumed his seat. "I've got things to do. I'm pushing the time frame on this one. You said no."
  "And I meant no, fraggit," Dane growled. "Do you realize what you're asking me to do?"
  "That's why I'm here."
  "Well, you can't just ask that anymore."
  "So ka," Argent said. "Then I've got to go." He started to rise again.
  
  "Sit down," Dane pleaded. "Please. I've got an image to maintain here. The trid show is hanging in at one
  of the top ten consistently, and has for the last two seasons. Do you know what the chances of that are?"
  "No," Argent replied. Trid was not one of his interests, but he knew the show Dane was talking about.
  Kase for  the Defense  Was  one  of  the  hottest  action/  adventure  trid  shows  on  the  air.  And  Harrison
  Dane was a mega-star. Dane starred as Konrad Kase, an ex-Texas Ranger turned defense attorney who
  defended sympathetic shadowrunners and individual  companies  from  the  evil  clutches  of  mega-corporate
  bad guys. During the course of an action-filled hour of trid, Kase  could be counted on  for  shoot-outs,  car
  chases, explosions, and babes.
  Argent  had  gotten  the  information  from  a  local  scream-sheet  he'd  read  on  the  flight  into  Dallas/Fort
  Worth International Airport from Atlanta. He hadn't talked to Dane in over two years. At that point, Kase
  for the Defense had been in its premiere year.
  "Let me tell you," Dane said. "These days  any  kind  of  success  on  trid  is  a  rare  and  wonderous  thing.
  Most trid series die within their first six outings." He quieted as three young women came up and asked for
  his autograph. He smiled generously and signed their  books,  then  waved  good-bye  to  them.  'Tans,  spirits
  love 'em."
  Argent waited, letting Dane catch him in the act of checking the time.
  "You're busting my stones here," Dane said.
  "I took no as your answer," Argent said.
  "But you didn't argue. You didn't mention how much I owe you." Dane looked uncomfortable bringing the
  matter up.
  "You don't owe me," Argent said. "I never thought you did."
  "Then why are you here?"
  "To ask you if you could cover the action on this.  You  said  no.  There's  no  problem."  Argent  meant  it.
  Back in the days when he'd worked with Brynnmawr, he'd learned all about manipulation and he'd promised
  himself never to use it. The confusion over the answer lay within Dane, not him.
  "And you're not even going to mention the  fact  that  all  this  success  I'm  enjoying  now  is  due  to  you?"
  Dane asked.
  "I didn't train you to be an actor," Argent pointed out.
  "No, but if you and Peg hadn't helped me build this new SIN and identity a few years back, I'd still be a
  wanted assassin with a price on my head."
  "I'm glad it's worked out for you."
  "But?" Dane prompted.
  "No buts," Argent said.
  "I couldn't have done it without you."
  "You couldn't have done it without someone who could have manufactured the new ID."
  Dane still didn't look happy. "So you're just going to let me off the hook?"
  "There never was a hook," Argent said.
  "Everybody  in  the  shadow  biz  is  out  for  some  kind  of  payback,"  Dane  said.  "They  call  your  marker
  because you owe them, or they want to frag your hoop because you slotted them over."
  "You don't want any part of this," Argent said. "I can respect that."
  Dane sighed and looked pained. "What about Cholonga?"
  "He got flat-lined in Philly," Argent said. "Tried to go corp-issue and they offered his head up as penance
  for a piece of biz that got slotted."
  Dane massaged his jaw, thinking. "Cholonga was the only guy I knew who might have been as good as I
  am." Then he paused and looked directly at Argent. The elf's almond-shaped chartreuse eyes  glittered  as
  they narrowed to slits. "You called Cholonga first? Before me?"
  "You've been out of the biz a few years," Argent pointed out. "Maybe you've lost your touch."
  "Bulldrek!" the elf said. "If you thought that, you wouldn't be here now."
  "I figured I could ask."
  "I haven't lost my touch. I still  shoot  with  the  stunt  guys  working  the  set  on  Kase.  I don't  show  them
  everything I've got, but I show them enough to take their nuyen when they're pushing it around."
  "A chummer can lose his edge and not know it," Argent pointed out.
  "I haven't lost my touch," Dane repeated. "I get off to myself, I can still peg a shot at two kilometers."
  "Glad to hear it." In his day, Dane had been the finest sharpshooter Argent had ever worked with. Even
  better than people who'd been chipped and hardwired. The elf seemed to have a sixth sense for his targets,
  knowing if, when, and where they'd move after he fired his shot, allowing him to place the bullet exactly.
  "Look," Dane said in a gentler voice, "you have to understand why I can't do this. The show, chummer,
  
  it's going through the roof in a biz that normally eats talent like troll kibble. That's not happening  with  me.
  I'm a fragging star."
  "So I've been told."
  "We're doing a thing with the show," Dane went on. "Do you know what an arc is?"
  "Probably not when it comes to trid," Argent admitted.
  "It's a series of stories," the elf replied, "that kind of make up one really  big  story.  This  arc  is  going  to
  cover nine weeks. We're only halfway through that now. We've had two- and three-story arcs before in the
  series, and I thought the sponsors were going to drek themselves then.  Nobody  watches  a  fragging  story
  arc anymore.  Tune  in  for  instant  gratification,  chummers,  that's  the  only  road  to  go.  But  our  fans  made
  those story arcs some of the biggest events to air on trid. Frag, they were picked up as
  straight-to-chip releases, putting both or all three episodes together  and  packaging  them  to  sell.  And  they
  did. Now they're talking about a premiere release on the big screens. This nine-show arc is important. I just
  wanted you to know."
  "I understand," Argent said.
  Dane twirled the tail of one of the shrimp hanging on the cocktail in front of him. "I don't like the way you
  understand."
  Argent  nodded,  conscious  of  the  time  going  by.  If  Dane  wasn't  going  to  buy  in,  there  were  other
  arrangements he needed to make.
  "So who are you going to get to cover your back?" Dane asked.
  "I was told Mellion was free," Argent said.
  "Pathetic. Who else?"
  "Kristos."
  "Little more than a poser wannabe. Who else?"
  "Chalmers, Garrett, or Torkelette."
  "Chalmers  won't  stick  if  things  get  tight.  Garrett's  a  maybe  on  really  long  distances  at  best.  And
  Torkelette's working with a BTL-chip monkey on his back these days. You use any of those people, you're
  going to end up slotted."
  "I need the long gun," Argent stated. "The joker we're 'fronting will have armored cav in the area."
  "I've been wondering about that too," Dane admitted. "How do you plan on getting around the ground and
  air forces he can put in there?"
  "I've got an idea."
  Dane looked at him steadily  for  a  moment,  then  broke  out  into  a  big  grin.  "Love  to  hear  it,  chummer.
  You're facing rugged terrain, an incredibly large army, and limited resources."
  "The terrain is going to work for me," Argent said. "I've just got to make an exfiltration. Nothing  fancy
  like a prolonged insertion."
  " 'Nothing fancy,' " Dane repeated. He leaned back in his seat and shook his head. "Still hard for you to
  admit the impossible, isn't it?"
  Argent thought back over Toshi and Hawk dying. At the time, that had seemed  impossible.  "It's  easier
  these days."
  "But you think you have a shot at this?"
  "If I didn't, I wouldn't go."
  "Who have you got working on it with you?"
  Argent shook his head. Unless someone was confirmed for a run, no one got any information. And then,
  if it was truly sensitive, only when they needed to know.
  "You knew I'd be curious," Dane complained.
  "Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime." The waitress approached, wearing a cocktail dress split up high
  on the sides. Argent waved her off. "I've got to go."
  "For curiosity's sake," Dane said, "how much was this gig going to pay?"
  "Fifty thousand."
  "Fifty  thousand!"  the  elf  spluttered  indignantly.  "Do  you  know  how  much  I  get  for  an  episode  of
  Kase?"
  "No. I only know how much this was going to pay."
  "Well, it's a lot more than that, I'll tell you," Dane said. "And I get paid that while some stunt double gets
  paid a whole lot less to go in and risk getting his hoop slotted."
  "I'm glad everything's going so well for you." Argent stood. "Be seeing you around."
  "Yeah." Dane didn't look comfortable saying good-bye.
  Argent left the elf sitting there and headed for the door. Before he reached the main foyer, though, Dane
  
  was at his side.
  "Can't let you go, chummer," the elf said. "I owe you too much."
  "You don't owe me anything," Argent said.
  "Then I owe me something," Dane said.
  "What about the show?"
  Dane grinned. "Frag, I'm a star. The star. They'll work around me. I've just got to make a few calls, clear
  up a few problems. Drek, truth to tell, just sitting there thinking about doing something like  this  again  was
  making me quiver all over. I can always count on you to get my adrenaline up, chummer. Hasn't ever been
  a time I've worked with you that the odds weren't against us."
  44
  Argent  arrived  in  Denver  at  Lowry  Airport  with  the  team  that  evening.  The  SINs  and  IDs  Peg  and
  Archangel had managed to cobble together for them over the past two days held up under the scrutiny of
  the flesh and blood and cybernetic security in place to protect CAS interests. Hard-eyed secguards covered
  the airport, weapons in sight. The security tech was also top of the line. Laveau registered the magework
  done to keep the integrity of the airport secure.
  Denver was also known as the Front Range Free Zone. Independent and dependent all at the same time,
  the mile-high city was divided between  six  political  sectors  that  included  the  UCAS,  CAS,  Sioux  Nation,
  Aztlan, Ute Nation, and Pueblo Corporate Council.
  With the way the relationships between the six countries remained within the plex, no trade or currency
  could legally travel between the sectors. If it hadn't been for the runners plying the shadows between  the
  sectors, commerce of any kind would have died in the area, or would have been bitterly fought over on six
  armed fronts.
  Argent was  counting  on  the  Wild  West  nature  of  the  area  to  help  with  the  exfiltration  efforts  he  had
  planned. Once they'd dropped into the CAS, getting permits for
  weapons  hadn't  been  a  problem.  The  CAS  had  a  permanent  soft  spot  for  allowing  personal  defense
  weapons  to  its  citizens  and  guests,  and  that  courtesy  continued  to  be  respected  in  the  CAS  sector  of
  Denver. The SINs Peg and Archangel had put together covered the weapons the group carried.
  The only thing  that  wouldn't  have  made  it  through  security  had  been  Archangel's  deck.  Knight  Errant
  provided the  security  for  the  sector  regarding  decks,  and  even  those  that  were  properly  licensed  by  the
  CAS sector of Denver had ID-trace chipsets installed so Knight Errant could monitor activity going through
  the Matrix.
  Then again, with the black market running rampant through Denver, Argent knew they could replace the
  deck within an hour after they started looking.
  The only potential hose-up had been when a group of fans had recognized Harrison Dane from the trid
  show.  He'd  split  off  from  Argent  at  once  and  started  signing  autographs.  It  also  provided  him  the
  opportunity to check along their back trail.
  Outside the airport, Argent flagged down a cab. He and Archangel took the first cab while the Travers
  twins  and  Laveau  went  on  to  the  hotel  the  big  Shadowrunner  had  set  up  in  Chinatown.  With  all  the
  animosity running through the areas regarding Chinatown, Argent had figured it would be the safest place to
  be. Luckily, they were trying to stay hidden, not find anyone. Digging someone out of the sectors was much
  harder than disappearing.
  Argent and Archangel made the rendezvous Rottstein  had  fixed  up  with  the  CAS  Yakuza  at  half-past
  2200. After slotting the credstick  he  had  for  the  transaction  with  the  black  market  dealers  the  fixer  had
  recommended,  Argent  and  Archangel  walked  away  with  a  top-of-the-line  NovaTech  Slimcase  10
  cyberdeck.
  Inside a cab Argent flagged down a few blocks from where the transaction had taken place, Archangel
  ran her
  hands across the NovaTech cyberdeck. "Expensive," the elven decker said quietly.
  "You can work with this?" Argent asked. Peg had set up the specs while Archangel had been deep into
  the Matrix.
  "Easily. What I'm talking about is the cost of the deck. Even without the black market prices, this unit is
  
  over two million nuyen."
  Argent was aware of the price. Being selective about the work he did in the shadows didn't always push
  him toward the big money.  Even  with  the  impressive  brag  sheet  on  the  shadownet,  there  had  been  lean
  times, or runs that had doled out a high cost. Leveraging the two million nuyen to buy the deck had left him
  tapped out, especially after the shadow tariffs Peg' d had to pay to jockey the money around. And if he had
  to cover the whole cost of the unit if it was damaged or destroyed, he'd be broke for a long time to come.
  "We can't keep it," the big shadowrunner told the elven decker. "That investment has tied  up  all  of  my
  liquid capital and then some."
  "I can understand."
  "In case you were thinking out upping your end of the contract price," Argent said, "I'm broke."
  She looked at him thoughtfully, studying his face, his eyes.
  For a moment, Argent got the impression that she was looking straight into whatever was left of his soul.
  "I wasn't scamming toward that at all," she said softly. "I'm not that way. I've got standards, and I stick
  to them."
  Argent nodded.
  "Why?" she asked.
  "Why what?" Argent didn't understand the question.
  "Why risk everything for a woman you haven't seen in years?"
  45
  Argent  didn't  say  anything  for  a  time  and  sat  draped  in  the  shadows  filling  the  back  seat  of  the  CAS
  Denver cab.
  "If I've stepped over the boundaries, I apologize," Archangel said quickly.
  "No," the big man replied. "I was just thinking  how  best  to  answer  your  question.  I  think  you  asked  it
  wrong."
  She glanced at him.
  In her  eyes,  Argent  again  saw  some  of  the  pain  and  confusion  that  she  worked  so  hard  to  mask.  "It
  would be easier to ask me how could I not risk what I'm risking."
  "Okay."
  "The answer is that I couldn't not risk it."
  "Why?"
  "Part of it has to do with the way I see myself," Argent answered. "When chummers need me, I'm there.
  When I hire on with a Mr. Johnson, if I'm not lied to, or if I understand why I was lied to at the time, I stick.
  How many absolutes do you see in the world we live in?"
  "I don't know that I've ever bought into the metaphysical," the elven decker said.
  "I've  seen  the  Matrix,"  Argent  said.  "Being  involved  with  that  world  involves  buying  into  a  lot  of
  concepts. Not everything is as it looks in the Matrix."
  "But there is something there," Archangel said. "And if you ignore it, it will slot you fragging quick."
  "My  behavior  is  my  own,  but  only  to  a  degree.  I  was  raised  with  absolutes.  The...  training...  I
  experienced allowed only absolutes. I walked away from much of
  that. But I couldn't walk away from it  all.  If  I  had,  there  would  have  been  nothing  left."  Argent  paused,
  looking at the elven decker. "Do you understand?"
  "Maybe," she answered. "When you run the Matrix and encounter IC that you've never seen before, you
  can't depend on what you think you know about all the IC you've seen before. You have to depend on what
  you know about yourself, about what you can handle. It gives you a certain perception."
  "Close enough." Argent rubbed his face, feeling the stubble there and knowing he'd need to shave soon.
  His  appearance  was  one  of  those  absolutes  he  kept  for  himself.  "Most  of  your  world  stems  from  your
  encounters in the Matrix."
  "And yours is based on what you can accomplish while working with  people  and  the  situations  they've
  involved themselves in."
  "Yes."
  "But what made you develop this ..." Archangel seemed at a loss for words.
  "Code of behavior?" Argent supplied.
  "That'll do."
  "Because there was nothing else," Argent told her honestly. "Everything I was trained to believe in was
  taken from me. All I am is the way I conduct myself. I was all I had left."
  
  "And Sencio."
  "Yes."
  "Only her code of behavior ultimately proved different than your own," the elven decker said.
  "Yes."
  "That left you and how you saw the world."
  Argent nodded. "It's a strength and a weakness, Archangel. My view makes me strong because I believe
  in it."
  "Even to the point of putting your life on the line for it."
  "There's no other way to truly believe in it."
  "Then how does it make you weak?" the elven decker asked.
  "Because I could be wrong."
  "Wrong to believe?" She seemed confused again.
  "No. Believing is never wrong. But belief isn't fostered only out of passion. There has to be logic behind it
  as well. I can't just believe because I want to. I have to believe because I know  I can believe, not because
  I have to."
  "Even if it's something you've never done before?"
  "Do you always know you can defeat IC in the Matrix?"
  "Of course not. I've found some that I haven't been able to sleaze my way through."
  "But any time you set yourself to take it on, you believe you can sleaze your way through it?"
  "Yes. Otherwise, why try?"
  "Exactly."
  Archangel  shook  her  head  and  turned  away,  staring  out  at  the  passing  street  in  the  downtown  CAS
  sector of Denver. "I don't see how what I feel about the Matrix applies to relationships."
  "You're the one who's drawn the lines," Argent told her.
  "What do you mean?"
  "You feel the way you do about your skills inside the Matrix because you want to."
  "I have to feel that way in order to get my job done."
  "Then you have a reason to feel that way," Argent granted. "But you've chosen to have that confidence.
  Just as you choose not to have that confidence in relationships."
  She was quiet for a time and the hum of the cab's tires rolling across the street filled the compartment.
  "You make it sound easy."
  "It  shouldn't,"  Argent  said.  "Because  it's  not.  Belief  is  a  very  strong  thing,  but  it's  also  the  most
  demanding emotion you'll ever know."
  "How do you get it?"
  "You don't," Argent said. "It gets you for the most part.
  When there's nothing else to turn to, when you're at the most alone you've ever felt in your life, that's when
  belief will come to you."
  "Just like slotting a datachip?" Archangel snorted derisively.
  Argent ignored the emotion. What he was dealing with, what she was feeling at the moment, was a very
  powerful thing. It wasn't just an epiphany for her or him; it was a shared thing that came out of both their
  needs to know. "No. It's always a very small thing at first, and if you don't recognize it for what it is, don't
  nurture it, it'll die."
  "And if it does?"
  "It's only because you discovered you weren't as alone as you thought. People turn to other things during
  those crises. Some to chem, some to BTL chips, some to other people or religious trappings. Most people
  can probably get by without believing. There are too many other things to lean on."
  "But you can't?"
  "No."
  "That's such fragging bulldrek." Tears sparkled on Archangel's cheeks, but she quickly wiped them away
  and no more reappeared.
  "You weren't asking those questions about yourself, were you?" Argent asked.
  "No."
  "They were about someone else? The guy you started to get involved with from your old team?"
  "In some ways, you remind me of him," Archangel said.
  "How?"
  "He has to believe too," she replied. "He has to know what he's doing is right. But I don't think he's  as
  aware of the process as much as you are. He's always tried to keep his life simple, with no attachments to
  
  anyone. Because he doesn't trust himself to be what he needs  to  be  for  other  people.  But  he  can't  walk
  away from things, either. His life just continued to get more complicated."
  "Because of you?"
  "Jack—" She stopped herself. "He didn't even know I was starting to care too much about him."
  "He didn't see it?"
  "There were other problems at the time. Other commitments."
  "You didn't tell him how you felt?"
  "No. He had enough to worry about. I felt it was unfair to pull him in so many directions. And I knew for
  fragging sure I wasn't going to get involved with something like this. It was a dead-end street. Not going to
  happen no matter what."
  "Why?"
  "Because I choose not to let it," Archangel responded. "I am going to be in charge of my life, in charge
  of the decisions I make without having them influenced by other clutter in my life. I'm good  at  what  I  do
  because I'm a pro."
  Argent considered her words, then chose his next tact, feeling there was  no  convincing  her.  The  elven
  decker didn't want to be convinced; she was  trying  to  understand  because  the  run  had  touched  her  own
  feelings more deeply than she'd thought it would. "You don't think we can pull this run off?" he asked.
  "I do," Archangel said. "Otherwise I wouldn't be here no matter how much Peg wanted me to be."
  "Then what?"
  "You're doing it for the wrong reasons."
  "How do you figure?"
  "I'm getting fifty thousand nuyen for my part in this," Archangel  said.  "You  aren't  getting  that.  In  fact,
  even after reselling this deck when we're finished with it, you're going to end up in the hole."
  "You can look at it that way," Argent admitted. "But the way I look at it, if I didn't attempt to rescue Andi
  Sencio and her team, I'd end up a lot further in the hole than a few nuyen."
  "Only because of the expectations you place on yourself."
  "Yes. But without those expectations, I wouldn't be who I am. Saving my life only to lose my self doesn't
  sound like a good trade-off."
  "That isn't what would happen."
  "I think it is," Argent said. "Let's turn things around for a moment. Suppose this friend  of yours got into
  trouble? The worst trouble you could imagine, and he asked you for help. What would you do?"
  "If I could help, I would."
  "Even if it meant risking your own freedom, your life, your financial well-being?"
  "Yes."
  "And you think he'd do the same?"
  "At the time," Archangel said, "I didn't have a doubt about it. But things have changed."
  "Because you left?"
  "Yes."
  "How long has it been since you've seen him?"
  "Three years."
  Argent got the feeling she could have let him know the time to the hour and minute. "Then why haven't
  your feelings about it changed?"
  "I don't know."
  "Maybe you should see him," Argent said softly.
  "I think that would be a mistake," the elven decker replied.
  "You don't know till you try."
  She faced him, sliding her sunglasses into place and tripping the night-vision function. "Look, we got a lot
  deeper into this than I wanted to. I was just looking for a perspective point, not a lecture."
  "Sure,"  Argent  said.  "Lecture's  over."  He  leaned  back  in  the  cab's  back  seat  and  turned  his  vision
  outward. Despite the elven decker's discomfort with the conversation,
  he'd found that it strengthened his own resolve to see it through. He was right about what he was doing.
  All that remained to be seen was if he was skilled enough to see it through. Or lucky enough.
  46
  
  "Where are we going?"
  Argent slotted his credstick in the cabby's reader, adding a generous tip. Most sec forces in the sectors
  knew better than to ask the cab drivers for information about people they ferried around. In Denver, it paid
  to make sure memories remained dim, unless someone had a big enough hammer or could offer proof.
  "We've got one more meeting," Argent said. "We'll need transport out of Pueblo when  we  manage  the
  exfiltration."
  The section of town the cab had let them off in looked even  more  run-down  than  the  warehouse  area
  where they'd cut the deal with the Yaks for the cyberdeck.
  Argent watched with approval as Archangel took her small pistol from its shoulder holster and tucked it
  into her jacket pocket where it was immediately accessible.
  Three blocks down Means Street, he turned left into an alley and followed it down. Chem-guzzlers on the
  skids lounged in the shadows, asking for money with practiced pitches. A  clutch  of  thrillers  stood  outside
  the single door of a bar at the end of the alley. A listing neon sign hung over the single, weather-beaten door
  that had shed its synthwood veneer years ago.
  Before  Argent  could  step  inside,  a  heavily  cybered  troll  stepped  out  of  the  shadows  beside  the  door.
  Green neon
  spitting from the failing  light  above  the  door  gave  the  troll  a  sickly  cast,  but  there  was  no  mistaking  the
  augmentation.
  "You got biz inside, omae?" the troll asked. "Because it's off-limits to anybody ain't a member."
  "I'm here to see Wakiza Summertrees," Argent said.
  "You got a name?" the troll asked.
  "Fullburn," the big shadowrunner said.
  The troll popped the top of the wristphone and spoke briefly. "So ka," he said, closing the device.  "You
  can go on in." He opened the door with a large hand.
  Argent stepped through the door and turned his low-light  vision  up  higher.  The  interior  of  the  bar  was
  dark, filled with smoke-tainted shadows that seemed to writhe restlessly to the heavy clangor of troll rock
  stemming from the system buried in the walls.
  The Ridgerunner was a T-bird bar and made no bones about it. The walls held scale models of  LAVs.
  The low-altitude vehicles were definitely the hardware of choice favored by the bar's owners. Most of the
  featured models were GMC Banshees that looked like stripped  down  whales  arcing  through  the  air  sans
  flukes. The majority of them also featured cannon on their forward firmpoints.
  T-birds and their crews were the life's blood of Denver. Without the runners and the jammers taking on
  the border guards to move product around, the shadow commerce  would  have  died  in  the  area.  And  the
  T-birds  didn't  just  handle  the  locals.  They  made  runs  across  the  North  American  continent,  including
  Quebec and Aztlan.
  Several of the people in the bar reacted to Argent, reading him as someone who didn't belong in the bar.
  He drew hostile glares the way cyber took to electricity.
  "Hoi, Argent, my friend," a deep voice  called  from  the  group  of  tables  around  a  simsense  competition
  table. In the holo presented by the competition table, two ancient biplanes battled to the death amid a blue
  sky full of white clouds. Machine guns ripped sparks between them.
  “Hello, Wakiza." Argent stuck out a hand.
  The  Amerind  took  the  shadowrunner's  hand  briefly,  his  eyes  flicking  over  Argent's  face.  Wakiza
  Summertrees was young and reed slender, only coming to Argent's shoulder. He wore a red synthleather
  flightsuit with a  blue-black  dreamcatcher  woven  over  his  left  breast.  His  dark  hair  hung  in  a  long  braid
  down his back. High cheekbones made him look thinner and almost buried his almond-shaped too-blue eyes
  in slits. The datajack gleamed behind his left ear, lending him an even more alien appearance.
  "In a hurry?" Summertrees asked. "Or can you take a trip?"
  "I've got time," Argent said. "I want to see the hardware."
  Summertrees smiled. "It's one sweet machine. I've upgraded since I saw you last."  He  started  toward
  the back of the bar. "Come on through. I've got a car at the other end of the alley."
  47
  
  On the outskirts of the Denver  plex  where  the  CAS  sector  nearly  bumped  up  against  the  UCAS  to  the
  south in a thin strip that barely marked territory before the Pueblo Corporate Council's claims began again,
  Argent studied the T-bird that he had hired with the last of his liquid assets. With all the planning he'd done,
  trying to take advantage of the few weaknesses he'd found in Ironaxe's control over the area, he'd known
  from the beginning that getting Sencio's team evac-ed without a LAV was drekking impossible.
  The warehouse was only one of several structures honey-combed into the side of the red clay foothill?,.
  Enough corp and black market influence was in the art ea
  to make sure that no surprise  raids  by  law  enforcement  personnel  from  other  Denver  sectors  or  nations
  would  be  successful.  Or  be  accomplished  without  immediate  retaliation.  The  black  market  biz  was  a
  protected investment of the whole Front Range Free Zone.
  Argent walked around the massive vehicle as it sat in the garage on its three fold-out wheel struts. The
  Banshee held a Victory Rotary Assault Cannon on its  forward  firm-point,  backed  by  two  belt-fed  SMGs
  that covered the back and both sides.
  Black European Arm Works modular ablative armor covered the exterior of the LAV. All of it appeared
  in pristine condition. With the reactive explosions  trapped  inside  the  armor,  when  it  took  a  hit,  the  armor
  defused the attack by blowing up back and throwing the used ablative section off. Like the ablative armor,
  the LAV's hull was black and radar-absorbent.
  "When do you plan to make the run?" Summertrees asked.
  "Tomorrow  night,"  Argent  answered.  He'd  worked  with  the  Amerind  rigger  before,  on  other  ops  that
  weren't quite so close to home for Summertrees. The rigger was one of the most capable T-bird jammers
  he'd ever seen, guiding his vehicles only centimeters above the ground at times and  pushing  everything  to
  the edge of control.
  "Still Pueblo?" Summertrees asked.
  "Dead center," Argent told him.
  Summertrees' facial expression didn't change much but Argent knew the man well  enough  to  know  he
  wasn't completely happy. "Things have heated up down there. Joker named Ironaxe is turning over rocks all
  through Pueblo looking for some runners."
  "The runners are the cargo," Argent told him. "And I knew about Ironaxe."
  "He's got a big crew down there."
  "We're not going to take his crew on," Argent said. "We're just going to get away from them."
  "When I first checked into this op," Summertrees said, "there wasn't that much activity down there."
  "Events  are  getting  closer  to  the  bone."  Argent  surveyed  the  black-out  windows  in  two  of  the
  warehouse's walls, "I'm going to have to know if you're in or out."
  "You never have said who's picking up the bottom line on this run," Summertrees said.
  "I am," Argent replied. "This one's for a friend. Where's the second unit?"
  "Further  back  in  the  warehouse,"  Summertrees  answered,  taking  the  lead  and  heading  back  into  the
  darkness.
  Argent adjusted his low-light vision automatically and picked out the crates stacked neatly on pallets and
  the  work  benches  built  into  the  sides  of  the  walls.  The  LAV-98  Armored  Personnel  Carrier  sat  in  the
  middle of the floor. Code-named Devil Rat, the LAV-98 was a piece of equipment Argent was extremely
  familiar with from the Desert Wars. It was painted a flat, non-reflecting black as well, and covered with the
  ablative armor.
  The Devil Rat was a work horse of military hardware. Capable of going off-road and amphibious, it was
  the choice of armies in the CAS and CalFree for combat and combat-support missions. A heavy machine
  gun was mounted on the top turret.
  "Have you arranged transport for the LAV-98?" Argent asked.
  "Yeah. Got another rigger friend of mine who thinks this has got to be the most bimble-brained thing he's
  ever heard of, but he's agreed to provide the air transport because the chance to do it would be so wiz. And
  there's the nuyen involved. You realize, of course, that even after I drive this monster out of the cargo plane
  and start the drop, there's a better than even chance it's going to get lit up by hostile fire long before it hits
  the ground."
  "Ironaxe's teams are going to be having problems before we drop the LAV-98," Argent said. "By then,
  there should be a major amount of confusion going on."
  "And if there's not?" Summertrees asked.
  "Then you don't make the drop," Argent said. "Simple as that."
  
  "You realize that we're going to lose the LAV-98 if we make the exfiltration?" Summertrees asked.
  "It's an acceptable loss," Argent replied. "And it's actually  a  loss  from  the  minute  it  comes  out  of  that
  cargo plane and starts the descent."
  Summertrees shook his head. "Chummer, even getting the deal I got on it, you're talking about shucking a
  hundred and seventy thousand nuyen in flames. And  then  there's  the  costs  on  the  upgrades  to  the  ECM
  hardware."
  Argent  knew.  The  electronic  countermeasure  hardware  remained  a  constant  expense,  based  on
  improvements and changes in the field. "I know. Are you in or out?"
  Summertrees  extended  a  hand  and  flashed  a  crooked  grin.  "I'm  in,  chummer.  This  is  the  kind  of  run
  legends are made of. Drek, it might even make a good epitaph."
  48
  The hotel room in Denver's CAS sector's Chinatown was small and cramped, filled with the smells of the
  Cantonese  restaurant  occupying  the  lower  story  of  the  building.  Archangel  encrypted  the  telecom
  transmissions at  that  end,  allowing  Peg  to  be  present  during  Argent's  briefing  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the
  team.  To  prevent  eavesdroppers  and  electronic  surveillance,  Argent  set  up  white  noise  generators  in  a
  perimeter that cut off the outside world,  blanketing  all  four  walls,  the  floor,  and  the  ceiling.  As  a  further
  precaution, Laveau kept a watcher spirit in the astral around the room.
  "We only get one take on this op." Argent stood in the center of the room, his hand resting on the  holo
  projector control he'd set up and programmed for the brief.  "If  it  gets  fragged  at  any  time,  drop  it  in  the
  drekker and pull out however you can. For most of you, we've already established SINs that will allow you
  to leave Denver. Those of you who end up in-country have no choice but to try to get free on your own."
  "Nice of you to set it up so we have such a  cheery  beginning."  Harrison  Dane  lounged  in  a  chair  and
  sipped a whiskey sour. He wore street  clothing  and  looked  like  he'd  just  put  in  a  hard  eight  at  a  nearby
  loading dock. Wherever the elf went, from gutter to social club, Argent had always known him to blend in.
  Argent swept the team with his gaze. "This is the last night you have that you may draw an easy breath
  for awhile. I want you to know what you're risking."
  "Dey know, cher," Laveau said, lights glinting on the many silver rings she wore. "Else dey not be here,
  no?"
  "The upside," Argent went on, "is that I think we can do this." He flicked the holo projector on.
  A bright bubble of color filled the air above his head. In heartbeats, it sorted itself out into a trid image.
  Darkened  plexscape  showed  lights  from  businesses  and  dwellings,  advertising  as  well  as  defensive
  perimeters.
  "This is downtown Pueblo," Argent said. "Our target is in the Underground-Awakened."
  "The local rally point—" Jesse Travers said, leaning against one side of the room's door back to the main
  hallway.
  "—for metahumanity," Jason Travers continued, standing on the other side of the door. "Primarily for the
  victims of goblinization—"
  "—who got kicked out of their own tribes," Jesse said.
  "We read the downloads you had on the noteputers you outfitted us with," Jason finished.
  "Sencio and her team are with the Underground-Awakened," Argent said, "under the warehouse district."
  The holo tightened up its focus, sweeping to the warehouse area.
  "That's also where Ironaxe and his sec teams have started to concentrate their search," Peg commented
  over  the  telecom.  A  map  of  bright  red  stars  suddenly  shot  through  the  holo.  "Each  one  of  these  stars
  signifies a vehicular unit Ironaxe has put into the area. As you can see, there are dozens."
  "And you plan on evading all those units." Wakiza Summertrees sat cross-legged on the floor.
  "Are you sweating this, flyboy?" Jesse Travers asked.
  "You're the last man to be committed to this free-for-all," Jason said.
  "Evading  them  is  the  only  chance  we  have,"  Archangel  spoke  up  from  her  corner  of  the  room.  "But
  we're going to manage that in stages."
  "As you know," Argent said, "we've got to  consider  more  than  the  physical  transportation  of  the  team
  trapped in the Underground-Awakened. Ironaxe has a comm-base set up inside his search perimeter."
  
  "And you've found it?" Harrison Dane asked.
  "Peg did," Argent answered. A yellow triangle  lit  up  on  the  screen.  "Ironaxe  set  up  ops  in  one  of  the
  warehouses, complete with sat-link and troop-link capability."
  "So we blow it up and we no longer have to worry about a sat-link scanning the area.  I can punch holes
  in most of that for you with a Barrett Model 121 from nearly two thousand meters out, using thermographic
  sights. Next thing the guys know inside the comm-base, they're geeked."
  "That's part of it," Argent agreed. "However, Ironaxe has been establishing negotiations with Asian Fuchi
  and NovaTech. It's a safe bet that both of those entities have satellite recon in the area."
  "Dey be waiting to jump in and help ol' Ironaxe, him find himself in a fix," Laveau said.
  Argent  nodded.  "So  what  we  have  to  do  is  take  an  alternate  comm-relay  point,  patch  into  their  deck
  feeds, and prevent Ironaxe from falling back on either Asian Fuchi or NovaTech."
  "Do you think he'd use one of them if he's as suspicious of them as you think he is?" Summertrees asked.
  "In a heartbeat," Argent answered. "First, he's pretty sure whoever set the shadowrunners loose in his biz
  hasn't completely gotten everything they wanted on the datasteal. And second, if either of the two corps try
  to turn him down when he requests assistance, he may have his guilty party."
  "He may not go for them," Summertrees said. "An APC, even an accomplished rig like the LAV-98, isn't
  going to be able to fade the heat in a combat situation like the one you're going to be  addressing  down  in
  Pueblo."
  "What's this about an APC?" Dane demanded. "Nobody mentioned using a fragging Devil Rat on this op.
  Spirits, tooling around in that, we're going to be sitting ducks on a hot zone evac."
  "That's where everything gets interesting," Argent said.
  49
  Argent hadn't revealed everything to the crew yet, and Harrison Dane's reaction in the briefing room only
  underscored that. Before anything went down with the op, he had to sell them on it. He could almost feel
  Toshi and Hawk in the background around him, almost hear their approval for the daring route he was going
  to take with the exfil-
  tration. "We'll leave that for the moment. Before this run gets that far, other things have to be taken care
  of."
  "One of those things being that a patch has  to  be  made  into  Ironaxe's  cybernetic  systems,"  Archangel
  said. "That's where I come in. After I get  into  position,  Dane  will  take  down  Ironaxe's  sat-link.  Peg  has
  found a probable point of entry."
  "Here,"  Peg  announced.  A  purple  light  joined  the  others  on  the  holo  representation  of  the  Pueblo
  warehouse district.  "While  I  was  sleazing  my  way  around  Ironaxe's  on-site  systems  after  tracking  them
  through his corporate systems, I found the back-up system linking him directly into the local telephone grid."
  "So when the sat-link gets slotted by Dane—" Jesse said.
  "—-then Ironaxe will try to go on-line through the LTG," Jason stated. "Only Archangel will be there—"
  "—and she'll feed in the data we want the other corps to have—"
  "—fragging their systems."
  "If everything works right," Argent said, "that's exactly how it will go down."
  "And if it doesn't?" Summertrees asked.
  "Then everybody buzzes turbo and clears the hot zone," the big shadowrunner said. "Everybody scan?"
  Nods circled the room.
  "Step One is to shut down Ironaxe's sat-link and reestablish a patch with NovaTech and Asian Fuchi that
  will allow us to sideline them as well. Hopefully that will create even more of a diversion because Ironaxe
  will have to put some people on that end  of  his  ops  to  find  out  if  he's  been  betrayed  and  if  any  more  is
  coming. Once we control the comm-links, we move directly into Step Two. And that's to create confusion
  at the physical location in Pueblo." Argent glanced up at the Travers twins, forcing himself to concentrate
  on the logistics of the plan and not
  all the things that could go wrong during the implementation of it. "Dane, we're still going to be needing the
  long gun at this point."
  "Have  you  got  a  position  marked  for  me?"  the  elf  asked.  The  trid  star  demeanor  had  dropped  away,
  replaced by the canny gaze of the trained assassin Argent was most familiar with.
  
  "Peg," Argent prompted.
  "Here," Peg replied. Obediently, a green light winked on in the holo, topping one of the taller buildings in
  the warehouse district. "This location will give you an overview of Ironaxe's whole Pueblo operation.  The
  longest shot you'll have to make will be somewhat less than twelve hundred meters."
  "Cake," Dane stated. "Simhard at best."
  "Ironaxe's ground troops are going to be around—" Jesse Travers said.
  "—and they're going to try to light you up if they find you," Jason added.
  "The Barrett I got for you is  also  going  to  be  equipped  with  APDS  rounds.  They'll  punch  through  the
  armor."
  "Should be enough to slot somebody's day," Dane commented. "That fragging Barrett  is  a  big  drekking
  weapon, though. I assume I'm going inside Pueblo earlier than the rest of you?"
  "You're out of here in the morning," Argent said. "You're going in with Summertrees when he stashes the
  T-bird. If you get caught before tomorrow night, the run is off."
  "How will we know?" Laveau asked.
  "If he's in place, he'll call," Argent said.
  "What about comm-links?" Jesse Travers asked.
  "By twenty-three hundred tomorrow,"  Argent  said,  "we'll  have  a  sat-link  up  and  running.  Peg  made  a
  time-buy from one of the T-bird comm-links in the area to back our action. The time  was  expensive,  and
  they're
  giving us only eleven minutes to make our play. Then we lose everything they give us."
  "But during that time we'll all be linked?" Jason asked.
  Argent  nodded.  "From  what  I  remember,  everyone  in  this  room  is  checked  out  on  the  BattleTac
  Integration System." When no one disagreed with him, he went on. "I've also got my hands on some Esprit
  light military armor for the on-site teams. You won't be invulnerable, but it should help out."
  "While Dane's flat-lining everything he can put cross hairs over," Jesse asked, "what are we going to be
  doing?"
  "Creating havoc along the warehouse district," Argent said. "We're not stinting any on heavy bang-bang
  for this run. After we take out the sat-link, after Dane opens fire on the vehicles that  could  offer  pursuit,
  you'll drop from the cargo plane with Summertrees and hit the ground running. You'll have a backpack filled
  with mines and incendiaries. Put them to use."
  "And me?" Laveau asked. "Where will I be during dis time?"
  "With Summertrees," Argent said. "Since we can't get word in to the Underground-Awakened or Sencio,
  I want to make sure we don't get blasted for our trouble by the people we're trying to rescue."
  "Also to let dem know dat you have one of deir kind among you," Laveau said.
  Argent returned her gaze full measure. "Yes." There was no other answer. "Also, Sencio has people who
  aren't going to be able to move under their own power. You can help out with that and get first aid going.
  And when that Devil Rat hits the ground, rest assured that you're going to draw more than your  share  of
  attention.  You  and  Summer-trees  will  have  to  hold  them  till  Archangel  and  I  can  double  back  to  your
  position."
  "What's this about a Devil Rat?" Dane asked suspiciously. "I thought we were going to use the T-bird to
  get out of there."
  "We are," Argent said. "After we get out of Pueblo. That was the interesting part I told you we'd get to."
  He told them the rest of it, beginning with the way the APC  was going to be air-dropped into the hot zone.
  He watched as conviction gave way to surprise, then to disbelief. Finally, he reeled them back in to his way
  of thinking, convincing them how it was going to work, convincing himself one more time.
  Interest, Argent had always found, was in a direct ratio to how close a chummer cut it to getting geeked.
  And interest on this run was off the" charts.
  50
  Argent braced himself in the back of the Hawker-Siddley HS-895 Skytruck and gazed down into the black
  night seen through the open cargo door at his feet. The twin rear-facing pusher propellers set up an unusual
  vibration he hadn't quite gotten used to in the short flight from the CAS sector in Denver.
  Wakiza Summertrees and Laveau stood  behind  him,  to  the  right  of  the  LAV-98  strapped  down  to  the
  
  bottom of the Skytruck. Archangel stood at his side, clutching a handrail mounted on the side of the plane's
  immense cargo hold.
  All of  them  were  dressed  in  the  black  Espirit  light  military  armor  Argent  had  purchased  on  the  black
  market. He missed having Peg inside his head as he got ready to make the drop a little over twenty klicks
  outside the Pueblo plex. He wore the Ingram  machine  pistols  in  double  shoulder  slings  and  the  Savalette
  Guardian on his thigh. The BattleTac wrapped securely around his left
  wrist. Pouches and slings on his armor held reloads for his weapons and incendiaries.
  He  took  a  deep  breath  to  clear  his  lungs  of  carbon  dioxide,  then  checked  his  retina  chron.  He  and
  Archangel had a little over an hour to make  the  rendezvous  with  Ironaxe's  back-up  comm-link  in  Pueblo
  before 2300.
  He glanced at the elven decker and used the short-wave radio built into the suit's helmet to communicate
  with her. "Are you ready?"
  Archangel ran her hands over her gear. The cyberdeck hung in a special bulletproof and impact resistant
  case across her lower back under her parachute. "Yes."
  "See you on the ground, Wakiza," Argent told the rigger.
  "We'll be there, omae, but I sure hope this comes off the way you say it will."
  "Have a little faith," the big shadowrunner said. "If there's one thing that can be counted on in this world,
  it's corporate greed. Too many interested parties have  too  much  at  stake  on  this  play.  It's  not  just  about
  Sencio and her people any more."
  "Take care down dere, cher," Laveau said. "Dese old bones feel good about dis, but dey say you watch
  your hoop all de same. And you know dat Hawk, he be watching over you from de other side tonight. I feel
  him with you, cher."
  "I hope so," Argent said. Without another word, he kicked the pack at the side of the cargo door out into
  the slipstream following the plane. Then he leaped out and followed it.
  The big pack Argent kicked out had a static line pull cord. A hundred meters back of the Skytruck, the
  black parachute belled out and filled with air.
  Argent popped his own parachute and followed the cargo chute down, glancing up only briefly to make
  sure
  Archangel had cleared the Skytruck safely. The elven decker's synthsilk  opened  above  him,  a  black  oval
  that blotted out the stars above.
  Long minutes ticked by. If it hadn't been for the cargo chute, Argent would have popped synthsilk much
  closer  to  the  ground.  Losing  it  was  possible  because  the  Battle-Tac  system  wouldn't  be  on-line  till  the
  sat-link they'd arranged to cover the op came to life. There was no way to replace the equipment the pack
  carried if something went wrong. Safer was slower but surer.
  The  pack  touched  ground  first,  almost  disappearing  against  the  shadow-wrapped  crest  of  a  hill.  The
  terrain in all directions was broken and uneven.
  Argent unstrapped the chute and gave it to Archangel. The elven decker took his chute  and  hers,  then
  covered them with loose rocks she found. There was nothing on the chutes to tie the team to them, nothing
  even a mage could dig up  because  no  personal  contact  had  been  made  with  them  that  hadn't  been  with
  gloved hands.
  Using the tool kit that came in the pack, Argent assembled the two Artemis Industries Night  Gliders  in
  something under twelve minutes. They sat on the ground when he  finished,  two  hang  gliders  with  wedge
  shaped sails. Luckily, Archangel had used an electric-driven turbo-fan powered Night Glider before, though
  she hadn't informed Argent as to when or what the circumstances had entailed.
  Switching the batteries on, Argent took a running start with the lightweight Night Glider and leaped into
  the air. Rather than use the vertical lift that was possible from the unit because it was such a drain on the
  batteries, he opted for the gradual lift as they  flew  away  from  the  hillside.  The  southwesterly  wind  filled
  with the chill that came over the area at night provided  a  crosscurrent  and  made  Argent  grateful  for  the
  heavy armor he wore.
  They switched off the helmet comm-links, preferring
  to give off no electronic signature. The  turbofan  engines  were  whisper  quiet  and  couldn't  be  heard  from
  more than a few meters away. The glider's mesh skin was radar absorbent so Argent wasn't worried about
  tripping any of the electronic security Ironaxe had surrounding the warehouse district in the Pueblo plex.
  He glided, barely aware  of the turbofan humming in his ears as he watched the lights of  the  plex  grow
  stronger and closer. His heart hammered in his chest and he tried in vain to sort out all  the  emotions  that
  filled him.
  
  The retina clock whirred by, and time chased Argent all the way into Pueblo.
  51
  Argent and Archangel dumped the Night Gliders two klicks out of the plex and jogged into Pueblo without
  incident. Ironaxe's team were gearing toward not letting people out of the area instead of guarding against
  people coming in. The entrance to the Underground-Awakened Sencio had given  Argent  was  through  an
  abandoned warehouse on Creel Street, on the outer perimeter of the loading docks  fronting  the  Arkansas
  River.
  Leading the way through the tangle of broken and empty streets, Argent spotted the helicopters hovering
  over the central area of the warehouse district. Ironaxe hadn't spared the expense in his search, which gave
  the big shadowrunner hope. Sencio and her team were still free.
  Perspiration covered him under  the  light  military  armor.  He  gazed  out  at  the  black  water  of  the  river,
  smelling the pollution that had tainted it from the mining
  operations that had created a rat's warren under Pueblo. The steel industry had been  demanding,  and  the
  plex had fed on itself before the world had Awakened. Mounds of tailings from all the mining efforts stood
  in tall near-mountains beyond the plex's rim and on the other side of the river.
  A third helicopter dragged the river in front of the warehouse district, working a route that kept it above
  the dark water. There was no doubt that the crew aboard the helo swept the river as well as the banks with
  their surveillance equipment. The river would be the most likely route of escape.
  On  Creel  Street,  Argent  paused  in  the  shadows  and  glanced  across  the  broken  thoroughfare  to  the
  two-story building that had once housed a machine shop that had supplied the various mining companies and
  smelting factories in the area.
  He crossed the street at a jog, his hands filled with the Ingrams. Boards covered the door and the broken
  windows of the building. He scanned the door carefully and found the miniaturized silent lock-squealer that
  would signal if the door was opened. Evidently Ironaxe's teams had already searched the building.
  Holstering the Ingrams, he knelt and fished a screwdriver and wirecutters from his armored vest pockets.
  A lock-squealer wasn't hard to work around;  the  trick  lay  in  spotting  them  before  it  was  too  late.  Using
  some of the electrical wire he carried in the vest, he wired around the contacts, then opened the door.
  His  low-light  vision  amplified  the  light  streaming  in  through  the  dusty  panes  of  the  board-covered
  windows. The room beyond was empty, the concrete floor littered  with  debris  that  squatters  had  used  to
  make their stay in the building more comfortable. The smell of fresh ashes lingered in the air.
  There was no sign of any squatters, though. Either
  they'd  taken  the  hint  when  Ironaxe's  troops  had  invaded  the  area,  or  they'd  been  routed  when  the
  door-to-door search had begun.
  Closing the door behind him, Argent made his way deeper into the building. He knew the way from the
  floor plans Sencio had sent. Archangel stayed at his heels. Machine pistols in his hands, he found the door
  leading down to the basement and followed the switchback metal stairs down.
  Six rooms lined the basement, three to a side. All of them showed signs of having been used by squatters
  before. In the third room on the right, Argent crossed to the line of rusty metal lockers covering the  wall.
  All of them had bent and warped doors, totally empty of contents that would be helpful in any way.
  He counted six down, just the way Sencio had  called  it,  then  bent  down  and  caught  the  bottom  of  the
  locker.  His  fingers  just  made  it  under  the  clearance  provided  by  the  locker's  stubby  legs.  He  found  the
  catch hidden there and released it. Then he lifted the locker, having to use the greater strength provided in
  his cyberlimb.
  At first, the locker resisted. Then the resistance gave way and the locker moved smoothly upward, taking
  two on either side of it. The lockers shoved upward nearly a meter, not quite half their length, stopping just
  short of the ceiling. There were no tracks or scrapes on the wall behind it to reveal that the lockers could be
  raised.
  Adjusting  his  low-light  vision,  Argent  peered  into  the  waiting  darkness.  Nothing  moved.  But  a  tunnel,
  hewn from the rocky strata, drifted down into the ground, opening into a chamber beyond.
  "Well?" he said to Archangel.
  "If  it's  according  to  the  gameplan,"  the  elven  decker  said,  "we  go.  We're  losing  time  sitting  here
  wondering."
  
  Argent silently agreed. He sniffed the air, using his cyberware to gather the trace scents of minerals, the
  river,
  and human and meta perspiration. All of it seemed old, like it belonged there.
  He slid through the opening under the lockers and waited till Archangel joined him. The tunnel beyond left
  enough  room  for  him  to  stand  if  he  hunkered  over  slightly.  He  reached  up  and  pulled  the  locker  down,
  closing the hidden entrance.
  Resuming the lead, he made his way toward the chamber, recognizing it as one of the  mine  shafts  that
  had been driven deep beneath the city. Before the world had Awakened, Pueblo had continued to grow as
  a plex, soon stretching out over old mines that had been abandoned and closed up. When metahumanity had
  filled the ranks of the Amerinds, they' d found living quarters already established for them beneath Pueblo.
  Shadows suddenly filled the chamber, and the harsh clacks of weapon safeties being released filled the
  air.
  "Drek," Archangel said quietly behind Argent.
  "Put your weapons down!" a male voice commanded from the shadows.
  Argent  stared  through  the  shadows,  seeing  the  trolls  and  orks  dominating  the  ranks  of  the  Amerind
  metahumanity lining the opposite side of the underground chamber. He released the Ingrams,  letting  them
  fall to the length of their Whipit slings. "Do what he said," he told Archangel.
  His retina  clock  showed  the  time  as  22:42:12.  He  had  less  than  eighteen  minutes  to  get  into  place  to
  make the call to Harrison Dane. Otherwise, the team buzzed turbo and they were all trapped.
  52
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—22.:43:21/10-14-60]
  BEGIN UPLOAD Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later date)
  "Argent."
  I recognized Andi's voice at once, and I felt the pull of it despite all the years and distance that had been
  between us.
  I stood in the darkness with my hands raised over my head, the weight of the Ingrams pressing  against
  the sides of my chest only an eyeblink away if I chose to go for them. And if Andi hadn't been among the
  group of two dozen there in front of me, maybe I'd have taken my chances.
  They  couldn't  see  it,  but  I'd  palmed  an  AFR-7  flash  grenade  from  my  weapons  rigging.  The  pull-ring
  looped over my thumb. One flick and I'd yank it free. A heartbeat after that and the chamber would have
  been filled with blinding light that my cybereyes could adjust for. In the instant after that, there'd have been
  a lot of flat-liners filling the chamber.
  Andi limped from the shadows, favoring her left leg more than she had in the vid-file she'd sent  me  by
  way of Chandler. Her face showed efforts of cleaning, but her
  complexion was off, waxy with pain. "I was starting to think you weren't coming," she said.
  I took my hands out of the air as her temporary allies lowered their weapons. They didn't fully trust me,
  but they were sociable enough not to be obvious about it. I spoke for the others to hear, not wanting them to
  make any mistakes. "I've got a noteputer in my chest pouch." I reached in and took it out, using sleight of
  hand to return the flash grenade to my weapon webbing.
  "I didn't doubt you," Andi said, "but I didn't know if the message got through." She didn't stop coming till
  she reached me.
  I took her into my arms to help support her.
  Andi touched my  face  with  her  hand,  drawing  it  slowly  down  the  line  of  my  jaw.  "You  look  like  you
  haven't changed at all."
  I felt her body briefly against mine, but as familiar as it seemed, there'd been changes too. Holding onto
  the  past  was  never  a  good  thing.  It  had  a  tendency  to  make  you  question  things  you  had  no  business
  questioning, and made you slow to react to things you didn't have time to question.
  She must have felt it, too, because she drew away. And in that instant, so cold and hard and crystal-clear
  between us, we both knew that the ties that bound us were no longer the ones we thought had been there.
  But neither were they completely gone. And I think both of us knew they never quite would be.
  I took a comm-link headset from my chest pouch. It was encrypted and set  to  the  frequency  the  team
  was using. "You'll need this."
  She took it without a word, standing apart from me now.
  
  I  also  handed  her  the  noteputer,  switching  it  on.  The  pale  green  screen  filled  the  darkness  of  the
  chamber. "This is a map of the mine tunnels under Pueblo.  There's  a  destination  marked  on  it  that's  less
  than a klick from the
  present position here. Can you get your people there," I consulted my retina clock, "in fourteen minutes?"
  "I can try." Andi glanced at the noteputer. "You got maps of the mines."
  "A  friend  of  mine  did,"  I  said,  referring  to  Peg.  "We  got  maps  of  most  of  the  mining  areas,  but  we
  weren't sure about all the changes the Underground-Awakened have made."
  "Not many," a strong, clear voice advised.
  I  looked  up,  spotting  the  tall  troll  as  she  stepped  from  behind  two  yabos  sporting  assault  rifles.  I
  recognized  her  from  the  file  Peg  had  uploaded  me  regarding  the  Underground-Awakened:  Mary
  Hawkmoon, the meta tribe's chosen chieftain.
  There'd been two pictures in the file I'd scanned. One showed her as she was now, a brutish looking troll
  with  canines  that  reached  up  to  the  bottom  of  her  eyes.  The  other  picture  was  of  her  before  she'd
  goblinized: a petite girl of about twelve or thirteen, raven's-wing dark hair, and a smile full of joy.
  The goblinization had eradicated all the appearance of the young girl, leaving  what  her  family  and  tribe
  had considered to be a monster in its wake. Gray filled her hair, making her look ancient.
  "If we made too many changes in these tunnels," Mary Hawkmoon said, "our movements would be too
  easily found out."
  I nodded. "There's also a path marked from that point," I said. "If you can get word to your people that
  we'll be traveling that way, it'll help keep them clear of the firezone."
  "You're going to bring Ironaxe and his people down here?" Hawkmoon seized the noteputer  from  Andi
  and gazed at it.
  "Can't be helped," I said. "Escape overland isn't an option."
  "How dare you do so," an ork told me, his dark eyes flashing as he stepped threateningly toward me. He
  carried an assault rifle and let the barrel drift in my direction.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  53
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—22:49:03/10-14-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED
  Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later time)
  "Look," I told Hawkmoon, shifting slightly to give myself some maneuvering room against the assault rifle
  the ork held on me in the underground chamber, "you knew  the  risks  you  were  taking  when  you  offered
  sanctuary to these people. And Ironaxe is already closing in."
  "He's right," Hawkmoon said. "We've lost six of our people to Ironaxe's sec forces."
  The ork backed down, but he obviously didn't like it.
  "Clear your people out of those tunnels," I said. "Iron-axe is going to know we're moving in"—I checked
  the time—"eight minutes. When we do, he's going to follow us. Then we'll either get away from him, or he'll
  geek us where he catches up to us. However it goes down, he should leave the  rest  of  the  Underground
  Awakened alone."
  Hawkmoon called out names, sending her warriors on their way. "The Spirits look over you, warrior, and
  I wish
  you well with your war." She turned and headed out of the chamber.
  I shifted my attention to Andi. "See you on the other side."
  Andi looked like she wanted to say something more, but there  was  no  time.  And  more  than  likely,  she
  didn't know what to say.
  My heart beat like a leaden gong as I watched her. I guess I'd fantasized somewhere in the back of that
  lizard brain that pushes us all through life, figuring how she'd react when I rode in to save her. Brynnmawr
  programmed me to be a hero, or maybe he only helped shape that innate need within myself to push myself
  to the limit to be more than I ever could be. Being a hero was only a manifestation of that.
  
  How I conducted myself, how I saw the world and my place in it, that only mattered to me. And looking
  into Andi's eyes, I finally saw the true distance that really separated us.
  I'd always believed in what I was doing because I felt the actions I'd taken  were  to  make  the  world  a
  better place. It sounded altruistic to admit it to myself, but that was when I knew. Brynnmawr had groomed
  me, made me what I was, because he had recognized what was within me.
  And in that moment, I also realized that maybe I'd never  truly  understood  what  it  was  that  was  within
  Brynnmawr. We were more alike than I'd ever imagined. Only somewhere in there, he'd  broken,  lost  the
  faith that I needed so desperately to survive.
  An image of Brynnmawr living in the Matrix in that empty, grave-filled world of his blurred in front of me,
  and I realized my time with him hadn't been finished after all.
  But  I  did  see  Andi  clearly,  saw  her  as  she  was  and  not  as  I'd  wanted  her  to  be.  She  was  a  true
  professional at what she did. And she did what she did to benefit herself.
  I couldn't fault her for it. Most people lived their lives that way.
  "I'll be there," she said finally. Then she stepped through the mouth  of  the  chamber  into  another  tunnel
  and was gone.
  I went back to the hidden entrance and opened it, surging through. The retina clock was clicking off the
  seconds, adding up to minutes. There were only three of them before Archangel and I had to be in position.
  "How do you feel about the situation now?" Archangel asked as we ran up the shaking metal stairs.
  "With Sencio?" I asked.
  "Yes. There wasn't all that chemistry and sparks I'd expected between you two."
  "Disappointed?" I asked, trying not to let my own confusion sound in my voice.
  "Maybe a little. You've got all this advice  on  how  I  should  look  at  my  own  situation,  and  you've  been
  pretty fragging free with it."
  "My advice," I said, "is to get a good look at your situation, then decide what to do with it. Don't just run
  away from it."
  "I didn't ask for your advice."
  I ran to the door leading out into the street. Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds remained for us to get
  to  the  secondary  comm-link,  and  to  give  the  signal  to  Harrison  Dane.  "The  only  reason  I  offered  it  is
  because you 're tearing yourself apart with it," I said.
  Maybe she wanted to argue, but I never found out. In the next minute we were buzzing turbo down the
  street, staying in the shadows. At something less than a minute remaining on the chron, I knew there was
  no time for finesse when we reached the targeted warehouse.
  Three members of Ironaxe's sec forces stood at the doorway to the warehouse, all wearing the dark blue
  light military armor his troops favored on the op. Still at a dead run, coming out of the shadows and drawing
  their  attention  now,  I  extended  the  Ingrains  and  gave  myself  over  to  the  smartlink  capabilities  and
  move-by-wire systems.
  There could be no  hesitation  now,  no  false  moves.  And  if  I  couldn't  fight  for  Andi  in  quite  the  way  I
  thought I'd be able to, I could still fight for the way I saw myself.
  My fingers caressed the triggers of the Ingrams as Ironaxe's sec guards brought their weapons up.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  54
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—22:59:57/10-14-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later date)
  Hardwired into the move-by-wire and smartlink systems, time slowed and I became a gunsight. The initial
  bursts from the Ingrams slammed into the three men guarding the door to the warehouse and dropped them
  meters from where they'd been standing.
  I raced by the falling sec guards, aware  that they hadn't even gotten a shot off. But  I  also  didn't  doubt
  that they'd been in contact with their commanding officers, announcing the attack.
  "Back," I yelled to Archangel as I slapped a Kleen-tac coated chunk of Compound 12 boomjelly  to  the
  locked doors. I set the two-second timer with a flick of my forefinger, then turned away.
  
  The shaped charge took out the doors, blowing them inward.
  Wheeling, I darted in after the smoke, the Ingrams in my hands again. The warehouse had a wide open
  pit area at the center of it. Memory of the schematic dropped into my head as I vaulted over the torn and
  buckled sheet plastimetal of the door.
  Bullets cut a swath around me, ricocheting from the floor and walls. Tracer-fire gleamed at the periphery
  of my vision.
  I leaped, going into  an  immediate  tuck  and  roll,  firing  the  whole  time  because  the  cybersystems  I  had
  allowed me to do so. Most of my rounds found their targets, knocking down  men  wherever  they  touched
  them, punching small holes in the walls when they didn't.
  I came up on my feet, finishing the clip in the left Ingram by taking out two men entering the room from a
  door on the ground level. I emptied the clip in the  right  Ingram  by  taking  out  the  track  lighting  overhead,
  plunging the room into darkness. I had my cybereyes and I knew as an elf, Archangel would be able to see
  well  in  the  darkness  even  if  she  hadn't  been  cybered.  But  Ironaxe's  men  were  dependent  on  the
  night-lenses most of them weren't wearing.
  Dropping the Ingrams to hang  from  their  Whipit  slings,  I  drew  the  Savalette  Guardian  and  flicked  the
  safety off. The sounds of the gunshots, muted though they were because of the selectivity permitted from
  my cyber-ears, seemed to echo forever in the cavern of the empty warehouse.
  A man appeared at the railing on the stairway above me. He raised a hand and started to gesture.
  Magic takes time to use, and that's where a street sam has the edge  on  a  mage.  I  lifted  the  Guardian,
  feeling the pistol's smartlink programming rushing through my palm and up my arm, replacing the Ingrams'
  programming. By
  the time I had the Guardian extended, it was as much a part of me as one of my cyberarms.
  I shot the mage through his  hand,  interrupting  whatever  spell  he  was  about  to  cast,  then  I  placed  two
  rounds through his head. I was moving as he fell and broke through the frail railing.
  Hitting the bottom step of the stairway, I legged it up the stairs, pushing off on every third or fourth one. I
  knew it was twenty-three hundred hours and the sat-link Peg had set up was suddenly working because her
  voice filled my head.
  "Argent!" she called out.
  "Here, Peg," I said. And there was more pure emotion, rich and deep, in having her back than there was
  in seeing Andi again.
  "Are you all right?"
  I pulled up short against the edge of the doorway and tucked the Guardian in close. I listened, adjusting
  the perception of my cyberears, and ferreted out the sound of a man's frightened breathing inside the room.
  I tightened my grip and waited just a little longer, realizing the breathing was actually coming from two men.
  "I'm fine," I told Peg.
  Then I turned, dropping and bringing the Guardian up. The smartlink lit  up  both  targets,  painting  one  of
  them red to mark him as primary, and ghosting the other in orange to mark him as secondary.
  Bullets slammed into the door frame and cut the air beside my head.  The  second  man  had  an  external
  smartlink.  I  put  a  pair  of  rounds  through  the  first  man's  chest,  blowing  him  through  the  boarded  over
  window behind him. He flailed weakly as he fell, letting me know the kill hadn't been instant.
  I shot the second man through his smartlink goggles. There was no doubt about when  he  flat-lined.  He
  was DOA before his shattered face hit the floor.
  The room had been an office at one time. The comm-link gear occupied a scarred plastimetal desk that
  was covered
  with rust spots. Empty filing cabinets, their function going back decades, were over-turned  in  one  corner.
  Bookshelves filled with spiderwebs covered one wall.
  "I've got it," Archangel said from behind me. She came into the room with her pistol naked in her fist and
  carrying the cyberdeck in her other arm.
  "Count it down," I rapped into the comm-link. "Team leader is One."
  "Two," Peg called.
  "Three," Archangel said as she placed the cyberdeck on the desk next to Ironaxe's  back-up  comm-link
  systems. Her hands moved fast and sure, feeling the coaxial cables between the two decks.
  "Four," Harrison Dane called, "and I'm in position, ready to jam my primary target."
  "Five," Jesse Travers said.
  "Six," Jason Travers said almost immediately.
  "Seven," Laveau continued.
  I watched as Archangel slid the deck cable into the datajack in her skull. An instant later, her whole body
  
  relaxed as she entered the Matrix.
  "Eight," Summertrees finished.
  Crossing  to  the  broken  window  one  of  my  targets  had  dropped  through,  I  glanced  out  across  the
  warehouse district. Ironaxe's people were in motion, getting their response together. In  seconds  they'd  be
  breathing down the secondary comm-link station. Turning to the east, I pinpointed Dante's position. "Dane."
  "Yo," he answered laconically.
  This was the elven master assassin I remembered. Cool and competent, not full of himself. Even Toshi
  had acknowledged Dane as being better with the long gun. I reloaded my weapons, knowing we were  all
  about to be in the fight for our lives. "Light up your first target."
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  55
  Harrison  Dane  lay  prone  across  the  rooftop  of  the  building  twelve  hundred  eighteen  meters  from  his
  primary target. He breathed smoothly and easily, and focused on his target through the thermographic sights
  of the Barrett Model 121.
  The thermographic sniperscope reduced the three men inside the sat-link command center to garish red,
  yellow, and orange simulacrums of human beings. Dane didn't see them that way. To the elf assassin, the
  three men were objectives and dangers. But they were dangers only if they were allowed to live. For the
  moment, they were objectives.
  Dane took his finger from the trigger guard and placed it carefully over the trigger. He breathed easily,
  smoothly,  focusing  on  the  man  seated  at  the  desk  next  to  the  sat-link  deck.  Then  he  pulled  the  trigger
  through.
  The Barrett jerked slightly against the shooting pad he'd Kleen-tacked to his right shoulder. The bullpup
  design of the sniper rifle, putting the ejector behind the trigger, also aided in recoil reduction. Still, the round
  was massive. Since he was using caseless ammo, all the ejector expelled was non-traceable smoke as the
  next bullet jacked into place.
  The APDS round streaked through the plasticrete side of the building without a problem, then struck the
  decker in the back of the head. He had the second round in the air before the first one hit, and had locked
  onto the third man just as the first round struck home. The third
  man didn't even have time to move as he watched the other two men flatline in front of him. Then he was
  dead as well.
  Dane put two rounds into the deck, making sure  it  was  taken  out  of  commission,  then  locked  onto  the
  sat-dish  bolted  onto  the  side  of  the  building.  His  sixth  shot  sheared  the  plastimetal  support  strut  and  the
  power cord in two, dropping the sat-dish to the ground.
  "Argent, your primary targets are down," he said quietly. Spirits, he thought, tracking onto the first of the
  vehicles open to his field of fire, the trid show's success notwithstanding, there was nothing  like being on
  this end of a rifle.
  "Message received," Argent replied. "Move onto your secondary targets."
  "Locking on." Dane put the thermographic cross hairs over the driver's side of the Landrover  streaking
  toward Argent's position. He squeezed off another round, putting a bullet into the man's chest.
  The Landrover  went  out  of  control  immediately,  smashing  into  the  side  of  a  building.  Before  the  men
  riding inside it could clear, Dane put a follow-up round through the gas tank, turning it into a  burning  pyre
  that killed at least four men.
  Swiveling his attention to a Leyland-Rover Transport van, he put two rounds through the front seat area,
  then targeted the gas tank there as well.
  Movement  in  the  dark  sky  above  drew  his  attention.  Gazing  over  the  top  of  the  thermographic
  sniperscope, he spotted the Hughes WK-2 Stallion helicopter  coming  toward  him.  The  Vanquisher  heavy
  machine guns opened  up,  scattering  scarlet  fire  from  their  barrels.  The  bullets  ripped  into  the  rooftop  to
  Dane's  left,  closing  in  and  letting  him  know  the  pilot  must  have  been  chipped  to  the  max  for  weapons
  proficiencies.
  Coolly, Dane ignored the line of fire tearing across the gravel and tar surface. He put the cross hairs over
  his tar-
  get. Shooting straight wasn't a problem as long as a chum-mer had the right equipment. And making a great
  shot was usually a matter of standing ground and taking that shot.
  He squeezed the trigger when the Vanquisher was laying down a spray of bullets less than a meter from
  
  him. The bullet hit the plastiglass nosepiece of the helo and cored through, striking the pilot in the head and
  doing its best to blow the man's head through the helmet in all directions.
  The Hughes went down in a skewed path, crashing into a warehouse and erupting into a red and orange
  explosion that lit up the battlefield.
  Dane didn't watch it burn; he was already moving on to other targets.
  56
  Miles Lanier watched the vid feed coming in from the sat-link over Pueblo in disbelief. Explosions rocked
  the warehouse district where he knew Andi Sencio was holed up. At first, he'd thought Sencio had finally
  gotten desperate enough to attempt to break free on her own.
  Lanier wouldn't have blamed her. Ironaxe and his people were practically breathing down her neck.
  Even  though  they  had  the  vid,  there'd  been  no  way  to  get  aud  from  any  of  Ironaxe's  sec  teams.  He
  pressed one digit on his desktop telecom to connect him to Villiers.
  "I see it, Miles," Villiers replied calmly. "I'm watching it now."
  Lanier watched as one of the  helicopters  suddenly  slid  sideways  and  smashed  into  a  fireball  against  a
  warehouse. "At first, I thought this might be Sencio's doing,
  that maybe the Underground Awakened had gotten cornered by Ironaxe's people and struck back. But as I
  look at it now, I see it's too deliberate." He glanced at Villiers on the telecom screen.
  "If it's Argent, he's running a higher profile on this than I'm comfortable with," Villiers admitted.
  "We still have the teams in Pueblo," Lanier reminded. "They could be there in five minutes, probably take
  Sencio and her team five minutes after that. But at the moment, I'd prefer to keep them there. As long as
  we know what's going on, let's keep our distance. Nakatomi has teams in the area as well, and that could
  still work to our advantage."
  Villiers's eyes cut away from the telecom  screen.  "Hold  on  a  minute.  I've  got  a  call  coming  in  on  my
  other line."
  Lanier  continued  watching  the  destruction  on  the  screen,  amazed  at  how  surgical  it  appeared.  As  a
  military specialist himself, he appreciated the action. Two men, possibly  three,  armed  with  armor-piercing
  rounds, he guessed. But he didn't think there were many in the Underground Awakened who had that kind
  of skill. And Sencio's people, the ones she had left, weren't capable of that kind of long-distance killing.
  That  meant  that  the  efforts  he  was  watching  had  to  be  a  result  of  Argent.  But  what  was  the
  shadowrunner trying to do? Any attempt he made to get Sencio out of the area would be a covert one  at
  best.
  "Miles," Villiers called from the telecom.
  Lanier regarded his employer and friend, mentally  prying  around  the  dangerous  edges  of  what  he  saw
  transpiring, trying to guess at the depths of the biz Argent must have put into action. "Yes?"
  "Clay Ironaxe is on another line," Villiers said. "He wants to use whatever satellite access  we have over
  Pueblo. Somebody took his sat-link off-line. He's wanting to patch through our vid-feeds to coordinate  his
  defense."
  "What are you going to do?"
  "I'm going to let him. Under the present circumstances, I can't see how I can refuse him."
  "If you turn him down, tell him you don't have a sat-link over the area—"
  "He's going to know I'm lying," Villiers said. "If I tell him no, he's going to take that as a breach of faith."
  "And adding him to the sat-link feeds is going to jeopardize the integrity you have over that area," Lanier
  finished.
  Villiers nodded. "He's going on-line in forty-seven seconds."
  "Make  sure  those  vid-feeds  from  that  sat-link  are  separated  from  everything  else  we've  got  running
  through the Matrix." As security chief for NovaTech, the situation  was  incredibly  anxiety-rife  for  Lanier.
  These were the instances Villiers paid him for, and the ones he lived to handle. His mind was already flying,
  figuring out angles to get around Ironaxe's presence. "We're going to lose our secured link with the teams
  you've got in Pueblo. Before we do, I'll contact my captain there  and  tell  him  that  if  he  sees  Nakatomi's
  people move in, or if Sencio is identified and captured by Ironaxe's people, or if the vid-feed is interrupted,
  he's to move in at once."
  "I want Sencio secured or terminated. Anything else isn't acceptable."
  
  Lanier agreed with a nod and punched the code into the telecom, counting down the seconds. He still had
  a really bad feeling about the whole situation. Going in bold as brass wasn't Argent's way. Not unless the
  shadow-runner was holding a hell of a hole card.
  57
  "We're not going to get the sat-link back. A scout team I ordered over there just confirmed  that  it's  been
  totally fragged. We're down to the Phillips Tacticom communications system, which is going to limit  us  to
  local aud-links only because we don't have sat-link capabilities with those units."
  Seated in the  air-conditioned  and  bulletproofed  Command  and  Control  Ares  Mobmaster,  Clay  Ironaxe
  glanced at Aaron Bearstalker. "I've just placed a call to Richard Villiers," he said, controlling the anger he
  felt. "He's agreed to let us use the sat-links he has in the area."
  The  Command  and  Control  vehicle  housed  computer  equipment  that  linked  them  with  the  individual
  ground and air units, leaving precious little space left over for the tech ops who marshaled those capabilities.
  Four  techs  worked  feverishly  around  Ironaxe,  trying  to  set  up  another  in-country  sat-link  from  his
  corporation, and going on-line through Villiers's systems through the secondary comm-link.
  "Villiers admitted they were there?" Bearstalker asked.
  "Yes. He told me they'd been put into place to watch Nakatomi. There's another Asian Fuchi sec team
  outside of Pueblo."
  Bearstalker glared at the eight small monitor screens in front of him. All of them showed different views
  of the action taking place outside. "So who's backing this play?" he growled. "Villiers or Nakatomi? Who's
  covering up ownership of these posers we've ran to ground?"
  Ironaxe shook his head. "I don't know. I've also called Nakatomi and requested access  to his sat-link. In
  case Villiers's techs try feeding us false information, we can check the two feeds."
  "Unless they're in it together."
  "Worst case scenario," Ironaxe said, "and I can't believe that's possible after everything that's transpired
  between them." He glanced at the monitors Bearstalker was watching.  "Let's  find  the  people  responsible
  for this, and flatline them. Then we'll get all the answers we need."
  Bearstalker nodded in agreement.
  "And make sure our people know we're not working off of a secure line anymore. The world is listening
  in."
  58
  Archangel tripped the light fantastic inside the Matrix, flowing along the lines of data that suddenly rerouted
  through the direct satellite feed she'd managed through the comm-link. Once  inside  the  Matrix,  accessing
  from the LTG in Pueblo, she watched the cyber landscape spread out around her in all directions.
  In all those directions were strands of rainbow colored lights, threading through the black sky above her
  and  the  black  firmament  below  her.  Most  of  the  ones  streaming  from  the  Pueblo  Corporate  Council
  appeared as southwest turquoises and blacks, shot through with reds and streams of silver. Between those
  strands of light that actually represented encrypted communications and data-transfers along the LTG were
  colorful nodes in thousands of hues and shapes.
  Concentrating on the datastream jetting out of the Pueblo LTG she' d identified, Archangel forced herself
  to
  concentrate on the job ahead of her. She was a professional, fraggit, and despite the confusion Argent had
  created within her during the last few days, she  was  going  to  do  a  professional  job.  She  wasn't  going  to
  think about Jack or Emma or Quint or Elvis or Wheeler or Cullen.
  She reached out in front of her, imagining that the datastream coming from Ironaxe's location in Pueblo
  had gravity till she felt the pull of it. A private sat-link felt much different than normal LTG, and the sleazing
  took a whole new level of skill.
  The fact that the datastream wasn't a true exchange, but rather a vampiric relationship as the Pueblo site
  drank down all the incoming vid-feed from the sat-link boosting images from the drone NovaTech had over
  the  area,  made  tackling  it  even  harder.  Still,  Archangel  was  decker  enough  to  know  that  Villiers's
  
  dataslaves would be trying to swipe as much data from Ironaxe's on-site decks as they could.
  Getting  into  NovaTech's  outer  cybernetic  perimeters  wouldn't  be  easy,  but  she  knew  she  could  do  it.
  Provided  she  masked  herself  and  her  surprise  packages  as  something  that  looked  both  intriguing  and
  passive.
  With access to the same vid-feed as Ironaxe was getting by virtue of the fact that Villiers was feeding it
  to the VaulTek CEO, Archangel knew even before Argent had suggested it, that Villiers and Lanier would
  try  to  access  the  aud-feeds  coming  from  the  VaulTek  sec  forces.  She  disguised  herself  in  a  string  of
  audible communication data from one of the verbal reports a field op was giving of the sat-link's destruction
  and the ensuing chase of the person or persons responsible, compressing herself till she blended in. As the
  communication went along, she went with it, hurtling through the Matrix.
  The  hard  part  was  keeping  herself  and  the  compressed  data  together  as  they  bounced  through  the
  sat-link systems back toward Boston.
  The first line of security was the Boston System Ac-
  cess  Node.  The  datastream  Archangel  was  part  of  surged  toward  the  SAN.  As  she  got  closer,  she
  recognized the white IC surrounding the SAN.  It  was  represented  in  the  Matrix  as  a  huge,  disembodied
  hand wrapped tightly around a phone booth.
  Sleazing  her  way  through  the  Boston  SAN  was  simple.  Any  serious  decker  had  a  dozen  different
  passcodes to any LTG SAN on any given hour. She flashed the pass-code and went into the Boston LTG
  as a matter of course, sliding right between the huge fingers.
  Without warning, the datastream she'd made herself part of jaunted into a huge cylinder of light wrapped
  around the heart of a collapsed star. Suddenly,  Archangel  felt  as  though  she  was  ten  times  heavier  than
  what she was accustomed to. She fought against the panic that filled her, making herself stay masked and
  encrypted.
  All light went away in the tunnel and the datastream's speed picked up  dramatically.  Archangel  stayed
  aware, knowing she could still jack out at this point any time she wanted to.
  The  tunnel  ended  abruptly  in  front  of  her,  slamming  into  the  exploding  star  construct  that  represented
  Nova-Tech  in  a  rushing  torrent  of  color.  The  barrier  IC  ahead  of  her  took  the  shape  of  a  plastiglass
  gargoyle rendered in tri-D against  a  wall  of  plastiglass  bricks.  The  datastreams  on  the  other  side  looked
  tantalizingly within reach.
  Archangel kept herself relaxed as she hurtled toward the open mouth of the plastiglass gargoyle. Barrier
  IC wouldn't accept the deception program she was using to slide by in the datastream. She had no choice
  but to attack it and hope for the best.
  As she rose from the datastream, stretching out into her full  persona,  movement  to  her  right  drew  her
  attention. She turned to look, spotting a neon blue kimodo dragon hurtling across the intervening cyberspace.
  She knew instinctively that it was another decker launching an attack on the barrier IC.
  The kimodo dragon slammed into the plastiglass gargoyle at full speed, grinding to a halt as the barrier IC
  held up. Before the dragon lizard could pull back to safety, the plastiglass gargoyle wrapped its arms around
  it.
  From the way the system was set up, after traveling through the light tunnel, Archangel knew she wasn't
  at a readily accessed path to the NovaTech construct. Her ruse had gained some ground.
  Flipping through her attack utilities, she pulled out one she'd only started working with, thinking under the
  circumstances it might work fine. She flew closer enough to the barrier IC to see her own reflection in the
  plastiglass gargoyle's eyes. In the Matrix, her icon was a green, winged woman.
  She extended a hand and released the attack utility. Instantly a frost formed over the barrier IC, blurring
  the plastiglass gargoyle's features. When the attack utility completed its job, the elven  decker  slapped  her
  hands against the barrier IC in a deliberate off-rhythm.
  The barrier IC shattered into a million gleaming shards, leaving the path open ahead of her.
  "Who are you?" the freed kimodo dragon demanded, turning to face her. Its great, snapping jaws  were
  open, revealing plastimetal teeth with serrated edges.
  "For the moment," Archangel said, "I'm an ally."
  The kimodo dragon's eyes narrowed in angry distrust, but it kicked its feet and swam  through  the  area
  where the barrier IC had been, following the same datastream that Archangel had come in on. Apparently
  it had a time problem too.
  Archangel believed she already knew who the kimodo dragon represented, but she tagged it with a track
  utility in the form of a gold ring around one of its feet.
  "You son of a slitch!" the dragon lizard exploded, turning in on itself immediately. Its clawed feet pried at
  the gold ring, trying desperately to pull it free.
  
  Suddenly, a lightning blaze of blue-white seared through
  the space between Archangel and the dragon lizard. Immediately, the other decker forgot about the  track
  utility locked around its leg and got set to deal with the black IC coming up in the form of an Ares sentry
  drone.
  Archangel saved the information coming back through the track utility, trying to ferret out who the other
  decker was and where he or she had come from. She flapped her wings, gaming speed, using up one of the
  slow utilities she had at the ready on the black IC. The slow utility went to work immediately, taking shape
  as a large fishing net  that  wrapped  around  its  target,  dropping  the  sentry  drone's  speed  by  half.  But  the
  intelligent movements, not quite as smooth as a real program's, let the elven decker know the sentry drone
  wasn't black IC after all, but a NovaTech decker taking the field.
  Already  on  the  attack  again,  dodging  the  blue-white  electrical  beam  that  burned  past  her,  Archangel
  unleashed a black hammer utility that smashed into the NovaTech decker. The results were immediate. The
  utility traced  the  decker  back  to  the  real  world  and  rendered  him  or  her  unconscious.  The  sentry  drone
  persona faded, leaving only a few electrical sparkles floating in its wake.
  Moving swiftly, Archangel seized the floating specks in one  hand  and  used  another  track  utility  on  the
  residual connection. Though the decker was off-line, his jack-point into the Matrix was still open.
  Archangel followed the track utility, sleazing her way into  NovaTech's  outer  perimeter  with  ease.  The
  kimodo dragon was on her heels, gnashing at her wingtips with its huge jaws as it tried to close the distance.
  She only stayed for a quick trip through the decker's CPU, then used the route open to her to lock in on
  the sat-link interface through the LTG. The construct for the sat-link interface was a shimmering emerald
  triangle filled with a single glowing yellow eye.
  By the tune she reached the sat-link, the kimodo dragon
  had been identified to her by the track utility as an Asian Fuchi decker.
  In the datastream outputting to  the  sat-link  over  Pueblo  again,  Archangel  unloaded  the  surprises  she'd
  packaged into  her  deck.  The  hog  utility  was  candy-coated  in  a  Trojan  Horse  package  that  scanned  like
  perimeter definition requests from the NovaTech computer.
  As soon as the sat-link programming gulped the hog utility down, the  triangle  blinking  the  utility  into  its
  eye, the programs Archangel had designed for the deck virus went ballistic and nasty. In nano-seconds, the
  hog utility filled the sat-link program up with a self-replicating code that overtaxed the deck's active memory
  and started the collapse of running utilities.
  The kimodo dragon swam up out of nowhere, its giant jaws distended as it tried to gulp Archangel down.
  The long pink tongue in its mouth suddenly shot  out,  coiling  around  one  of  Archangel's  wrists,  letting  her
  know she'd been tagged with a track utility herself.
  Instead  of  attacking  the  track  utility,  the  elven  decker  used  a  relocate  utility.  As  she'  d  hoped,  the
  dragon's tongue stuck to the sat-link construct as her relocate utility shoved  it  off  onto  the  closest  target.
  The track utility the Asian Fuchi decker was using would ensure that the hog utility spread in that direction
  as well. As an added incentive, she slaved the hog utility to the track utility already attached to the kimodo
  dragon.
  Stepping back from the Asian Fuchi decker struggling with the NovaTech sat-link construct, Archangel
  put  her  hands  together,  accessed  her  deck,  and  jacked  out  of  the  Matrix  as  black  IC  from  Villiers's
  cybernetic defenses swarmed the position.
  59
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access:******—23:06:19/10-14-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later time)
  I kept watch out the window, standing guard over Archangel's prone body while Harrison Dane and the
  Travers twins unleashed a drekstorm over the warehouse district. The twins had been busy since they'd hit
  Pueblo  armed  with  packs  filled  with  boomjelly.  I'd  forgotten  how  truly  destructive  they  could  be  when
  properly motivated. Dane's sniper skills added to the bodycount and the general confusion.
  Even though the Ingrams weren't long-range weapons, the smart-link  and  move-by-wire  systems  I  had
  helped me account for more of Ironaxe's stormtroopers. And they did have a vested interest in the building
  where Archangel and I were.
  Peg kept up a steady conversation inside my head, wanting to know what was going on although she was
  as privy to the conversations as I was and had a clearer picture due to the sat-link she monitored from the
  
  drone  Wakiza  Summertrees  controlled  above  us.  My  answers  were  short  and  distracted.  I  was  too
  conscious of the retina chron counting down the time. The schedule was too tight to allow any lost time.
  "Argent." Archangel's voice sounded weak, hoarse.
  I turned to face her, seeing  her  slip  the  fiberoptic  cable  from  the  datajack  at  her  temple.  I  looked  the
  question at her, not bothering to put it into words.
  "Their systems are down," she said. "I took out Villiers’s and I believe I got Nakatomi's at the same time.
  He had a decker  in  the  system  who  was  trying  to  break  through  into  NovaTech."  She  let  the  fiberoptic
  cable retract into the deck's housing, then stored it in the protective case.  She draped the case  across her
  back.
  I accessed the commlink and called for Summertrees. "We've got a green light at your end."
  "I read you," Summertrees answered back. "Give me the go."
  Looking  back  out  at  the  streets  winding  between  the  warehouses,  I  saw  the  area  where  the  Travers
  twins would have to put the truck they'd commandeered. "Jesse," I said over the telecom.
  "Here."
  "Showtime," I said.
  Bullets drove me back from the window, but I remained close enough to watch as  Jesse  pulled  the  big
  GMC Bulldog Step-Van into position in the middle of the street. He and his brother had stolen it earlier in
  the day, then set it up for the op now. The motion attracted only a handful of Ironaxe's sec guards. Jesse
  and Jason caught the secmen in a crossfire as Jesse cleared the Bulldog. Jason covered his  brother  from
  the shadows of a nearby building.
  A heartbeat after they reached relative safety, the Bulldog became ground zero for the biggest explosion
  of the night. They'd used most of the boomjelly they'd brought for the shaped charge they'd put under the
  truck, placing it so that the blast would be directed downward. Evidently they'd tapped some of the VaulTek
  security teams' ammo stores during the last couple minutes and added to what they had on hand.
  The blast sent a minor earthquake through the immediate vicinity.
  When the smoke cleared, a gaping hole cut through the street. I didn't have any doubts that it had broken
  through  to  the  mine  tunnel  below.  Using  the  maps  Peg  had  found  in  her  data  searches,  I'd  located  the
  mining tunnel closest to the surface that would be big enough to do what we needed it to do.
  "Summer-trees," I said over the telecom, "you have your go." I didn't bother looking up. I wouldn't have
  been  able  to  see  the  Skytruck  or  the  Devil  Rat  that  came  tumbling  out  of  the  cargo  hold.  Laveau  and
  Summertrees would accompany it down.
  Turning to Archangel, I took the lead and  we  beat  feet  out  of  the  room.  Before  we  made  the  second
  landing, one of Ironaxe's secmen put a grenade through the window, firebombing the room. The heat of the
  blast crawled down over us.
  A small knot of men met us at the door, assault rifles naked in their fists. I covered Archangel with my
  own  body  right  before  they  opened  fire  on  us,  knowing  that  her  reflexes  weren't  quite  back  on-line.
  Whatever she'd faced in the Matrix had taken a lot out of her.
  Bullets smacked against the Espirit armor, but only two of them cored through to flesh beneath. One of
  them did a through-and-through on my right thigh, and the other penetrated but didn't pass through my back
  somewhere over my right kidney.
  I ignored the pain, dropping the Ingram from my free hand and snagging an armor-piercing grenade from
  my equipment vest. Yanking the pin and slipping the spoon, I arced the grenade into the middle of the men.
  "Grenade!" someone yelled, but his voice was lost in the ensuing explosion that robbed the warehouse of
  any other sound.
  Dead men blew in all directions. Even before the dust settled, I had the Ingram back in hand. I went on
  down
  the stairs, firing into two men I saw still moving before they had a chance to bring their weapons up.
  Blood leaked down my back and my leg under the armor, forming a sticky barrier. I paid attention to both
  areas, testing for any weakness that might throw me off later, but both of them were numbing up well and
  stayed responsive to the demands I was putting on them.
  "The Devil Rat is on target," Peg said into my head. "ETA is a minute seven seconds."
  Striding  over  the  dead  men,  I  glanced  out  into  the  street  and  spotted  the  Chrysler-Nissan  Patrol-One
  security vehicle parked in front of the warehouse, the engine idling. The driver saw me coming, bringing up
  the Colt assault rifle at his side. The ruby aiming laser skated across the faceplate of my helmet.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  
  60
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—23:08:22/10-14-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED
  Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later time)
  I put a pair of rounds between the driver's eyes, then reached in through the open door of the Patrol-One
  and  spilled  his  corpse  out  onto  the  street.  I  reached  back  for  Archangel,  helped  her  climb  inside  the
  Patrol-One's forward cab. If there were still men in the rear compartment, we were separated from them
  and they couldn't get to us.
  A quick scan of the controls familiarized me with the vehicle's handling. Patrol-Ones  weren't  just  Lone
  Star or law enforcement vehicles; they were used in security and military ops  around  the  world.  I'd  used
  them myself on occasion.
  Shoving the stick into gear, I put my foot on the accelerator and surged forward. The  four-wheel-drive
  caused all four tires to bite into the street with banshee shrieks. I accessed the commlink. "Laveau."
  Her voice came back, filled with the sound of wind whipping by her helmet as she fell to the earth. "Yes,
  cher." As a voudoun priestess, she didn't go in for cyber-ware because it took away from her Art. But the
  Espirit helmet and BattleTac gear brought her on-line with the rest of us.
  "I  need  to  know  where  those  DNA  samples  are  being  kept."  I  took  the  next  corner  hard  left,
  downshifting  and  pegging  the  accelerator  again  to  fight  for  traction.  The  Patrol-Ones  had  beefed-up
  suspension and handling, but they still behaved like ungainly beasts if they weren't treated properly. And I
  wasn't treating this one close to proper.
  The DNA samples were important to the exfiltration. With them, Ironaxe's mages could still track Sencio
  and her group. Even if we escaped now, it would only be a stay of execution.
  "I have worker loa out looking for them now, cher. We should know in moments."
  "Get back to me," I said. "Andi?"
  "I'm here," she answered, her voice sounding more hopeful than it had before. "What the  drek  are  you
  doing? That hole just marked our position for Ironaxe's fragging sec teams!"
  I heard the suspicion in her  voice,  and  was  only  mildly  surprised.  Andi  had  called  me  because  there'd
  been no one else she could believe in more. She just couldn't believe
  the way she used to. "Transport's on the way," I told her. "Keep your people back until it arrives."
  "There's no way we're going to make it back through the plex. If Ironaxe's people don't get us, there are
  others."
  "Stay  put."  I  cut  the  wheel  hard  right,  avoiding  a  van  full  of  sec  guards  who  figured  out  that  I  didn't
  belong  on  the  team.  Then  I  called  out  to  Dane  and  the  Travers  Twins,  telling  them  to  get  set  for  the
  rendezvous. It was Jesse and Jason's job to keep the street pit clear.
  The van pursued me, closing the distance. I watched it in the side mirror.
  "Give me a machine pistol." Archangel reached out to me.
  I slipped  off  my  right  Ingram  and  passed  it  over.  She  wasn't  chipped  for  the  weapon,  but  with  the
  autofire it was capable of and as close as the target was, she didn't need to be.
  The Ingram chattered in her hands as she hung out the open door, one foot on the running board. Even
  though the van was armored and carried bulletproof glass, the driver pulled over to my side  of  the  street.
  We roared through the vacant warehouses.
  Plucking a high-explosive grenade from my vest, I pulled the pin and slipped the  spoon,  then  ticked  off
  two seconds from the four-second delay fuse on the retina  clock.  I  released  the  grenade  and  watched  it
  bounce from the street behind me. Before it could bounce again, the van was on top of it.
  The resulting explosion ripped the van's chassis to pieces, taking one tire off completely and squirting  it
  across the street. The van slewed, then rolled and turn over, skidding to a spinning stop on its roof.
  I closed on the pit area. If there was no other choice, we'd abandon the idea of getting the DNA samples
  and try for them at another time.
  Then I spotted the Devil Rat sliding through the air in
  front of me, a few blocks from my position but still airborne. The huge black cargo parachute belled above
  
  it. Tracer-fire lit up the night, tracking the APC's descent.
  "Argent, cher," Laveau called.
  I saw her in the air above the Devil Rat, following it down expertly with a paraglider. "Yes."
  "I have found de DNA samples, cher. My worker loa have only just gotten back to me."
  "Where?"
  "I do not know de location, cher," she told me in a strained voice.
  I lost sight of her as she plunged below the roofline of a warehouse in front of him, I had to turn left to
  avoid the  sudden  dead  end.  A  glance  down  at  the  BattleTac  assured  me  that  she  was  still  mobile.  The
  purple  blip  with  the  number  7  beside  it  that  represented  Laveau  moved  across  the  BattleTac  monitor
  screen.
  "You know how dese things work," Laveau went on.
  I didn't  know  for  sure  how  magic  worked,  though  I'd  studied  a  number  of  the  concepts.  While  in  the
  astral, a mage or voudoun houngan can whip around incredible distances and see any number of things, but
  reading is impossible and it's hard to know an exact location without a familiarity with the terrain. "Give me
  something to work with."
  "I was in a round room, cher, on top of dis warehouse. But dere are so many warehouse, I couldn't tell
  you which one."
  "Peg,"  I  said.  Ahead  of  me,  another  sec  van  slammed  crossways  in  the  street,  blocking  any  further
  progress in that direction. A quick glance in the rear view mirror let me know another VaulTek sec vehicle
  was behind me, cutting me off.
  "I'm searching," Peg replied.
  I pinned the Patrol-One's accelerator to the floor, listening to the engine roar in protest. The throb in my
  wounded
  leg picked up the pace along with the acceleration. "Get down," I growled at Archangel as I pulled on the
  wheel and aimed it at the warehouse in front of us.
  UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
  61
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—23:07:59/10-14-60]
  UPLOAD CONTINUED
  Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later time)
  The  plastisteel  sheet  metal  wall  of  the  warehouse  caved  in  when  the  Patrol-One's  reinforced  bumper
  slammed into it. The vehicle was built to be a four-wheel-drive powered battering ram when  it  needed  to
  be. Twisted sheets buckled around the vehicle, and a support strut gave a moment's pause  before  tearing
  away.
  I  sheared  through  two  more  supports  on  my  way  to  the  other  side  of  the  empty  warehouse.  The
  Patrol-One's headlights reflected a sickly green from the eyes of a rat horde clustered around the remains
  of a fresh corpse in the corner. They started to scurry away as I raced through.
  The Patrol-One's reinforced window starred under the repeated  impacts  as  it  battered  its  way  through
  the wall on the other side. A fine web work of cracks covered the panes, blurring vision.
  Once we were safely through, I pulled hard right, my mind racing as I tried to keep everything straight.
  By
  now the Devil Rat would be on the ground, hopefully in one piece.
  "I found the location," Peg called over the commlink. "At least, I believe I did. It's the only building in the
  area with the architecture Laveau described."
  "Light it up for me." I glanced at the BattleTac monitor on my wrist. The Patrol-One handled sluggishly
  for a moment till it cleared the jumbled plastisteel sheets from under its tires.
  A gold hexagon formed on the BattleTac monitor, marking the location Peg had uncovered.  I  tapped  a
  key, bringing up  all  the  street  markings.  I  also  scanned  the  positions  of  the  other  members  of  the  team,
  checking the life signs indicators. Everyone was still alive, still moving.
  But I knew Ironaxe was out there waiting to change that. I accessed  the commlink again, knowing  we
  
  were about out of time there, too. "Summertrees, what kind of shape is that Rat in?"
  The rigger's voice came on-line almost immediately, sounding resonant and distant, letting me know he'd
  jacked into the APC's  cybersystems. "The gear here is all wiz. We missed the hole, but  I'm  getting  there
  now." The sound of autofire rattled in the background of the comm-link, punctuating the roar of  the  Rat's
  engine.
  "We're also attracting a lot of attention," Dane added.
  I consulted the retina clock, knowing we were going to lose the sat-link in minutes. "Where are you?"
  "Making my way to the exfiltration point. We're running hot on this one, Argent. It's time to slot it and go,
  chummer. If we don't have everything, call it a burn and let's buzz turbo anyway. Live to fight another day."
  But I couldn't and I knew it. Those DNA samples spelled death for Sencio and  her  team.  And  maybe
  they could lead back to the team I'd put together for the run. That was a responsibility I couldn't ignore.
  I put my foot on the brake and pulled into an alley. "Can you make it from here?" I asked Archangel.
  The elven decker gave me a hard look. "What are you doing?"
  "I'm going for DNA samples."
  She hesitated, one hand on the door. "I—"
  "No,"  I  told  her.  "You'd  only  be  in  the  way.  It's  a  one  person  job  if  it  works  at  all.  And  it's  my
  responsibility."
  Color drained from her face as the anger took her. I'd had no right saying that, and we both knew it. But
  I wasn' t going to be responsible forgetting her flatlined. "Damn you, Argent." She dropped my Ingram on
  the seat.
  "Later," I said.
  She  got  out  of  the  Patrol-One  and  jogged  into  the  shadows,  following  the  directions  given  by  the
  BattleTac.
  I started the Patrol-One rolling, picking up a VaulTek security vehicle and three motorcycles that pulled
  onto my back trail. None of them appeared to have seen Archangel getting out. I pulled across the street so
  that the passengerside window looked back the way I'd come. Then I thumbed the window down with the
  electronic keypad and unleashed a burst at the lead motorcyclist to make sure I kept their attention.
  The bullets knocked dust from the bike's front wheel, but it was a runflat tire and didn't deflate. I brought
  the cross hairs up and targeted the slag's helmet. The bullet-proofing kept the rounds from penetrating, but
  didn't take away all the impact. His head danced to the ballistic mambo and he went out of control.
  I didn't wait to see what happened. I put my foot down hard and streaked for the site Peg had lit up. The
  sec vehicle behind me managed to overtake me and ram me, but  the  Patrol-One  shrugged  the  effort  off,
  hardly shuddering at all.
  Since tracing DNA samples was mage work, it was a wiz bet that there'd be one or more spellworms at
  the site. I also knew Laveau hadn't come into the run alone.
  She'd spent most of the last few days creating govis to hold the worker loas who were making the run with
  her.  I  accessed  the  commlink.  "Laveau,  there  are  going  to  be  mageslaves  at  the  site.  Could  you  run
  interference for me?"
  "Dis already be done, cher. Just you keep your head down, and Ogoun be dere in two shakes of a dead
  lamb's tail."
  I didn't respond to that bit of advice. With the sec vehicles on my tail and VaulTek every bit as capable
  of outfitting their people with armor piercing rounds as anyone else, I had no margin for error.
  Then there was nothing left because the sky  lit  up  with  arriving  helos.  My  low-light  vision  marked  the
  aiming lasers of several weapons. I counted at least five of them before I had to bring my attention back to
  the road. Even then, the  Patrol-One  slammed  into  the  side  of  a  warehouse  and  nearly  jerked  out  of  my
  control. "Peg, who the frag are these people?" The sure touch and the strength of my cyberarms helped me
  keep the Patrol-One shiny-side up.
  "I'm checking, but I can't verify. It looks like Nakatomi's and Villiers's people."
  I'd been wondering when they were going to make it in. With Archangel taking out their sat-links, they'd
  had no choice but to chance an on-site visual recon. Both of them were fighting for  the  same  secret,  the
  same edge over Ironaxe. The arriving helos drew groundfire as soon as they were within range, and they
  weren't shy about returning it either.
  A glance at the BattleTac confirmed that I was on top of my destination. Checking ahead, I spotted the
  warehouse ahead and to the left, the second floor round instead of rectangular.
  I reached for the weapons control pad to the left of the wheel, keying up the control menu for the turret
  gun I'd spotted when I checked out the console. Machinery
  whirred  behind  me,  pushing  the  turret  up  to  bare  the  Vigilant  rotary  cannon  mounted  there.  Cross  hairs
  
  pulsed through the Patrol-One's webbed windshield and I used the thumb toggle to line up the shot on the
  target. When it was there, I fired.
  The cannon round smashed against the warehouse's front wall. I'd expected it to be blown apart. Instead,
  it held up under the explosion, the incendiary force spending itself in a flaming wave meters from the wall. I
  almost pulled my foot from the accelerator and hit the brake, thinking I'd pile the Patrol-One up against that
  wall as well.
  Then I heard Laveau over the commlink, her voice sounding strange and  distant.  "It's  okay,  cher.  You
  ain't alone, you."
  Without warning, Laveau levitated in front of me, approaching the building faster than the Patrol-One. I
  barely made her out as she  moved,  but  noted  the  strange  stiffness  to  her  movements  that  told  me  she'd
  been mounted by one of the loas.
  She drew back a hand and a huge fireball made up of massed coals formed in her palm. She threw the
  fireball against the front of the building. Green sparks raced like lightning. For a moment, the fireball hung in
  the air several centimeters from the building. Then, all at once, the fireball  crunched  into  the  building  and
  punched on through.
  "Dere, cher," Laveau said over the commlink. "Now de way is made clear. You be—"
  Her voice cut off and the silence inside my head told me we'd just lost the sat-link Peg had arranged. I
  was alone, with only the living or dying to do.
  END UPLOAD
  62
  Argent drove the Patrol-One into the weakened side of the building, exploding through the wall and skidding
  across the open expanse of plasticrete floor. His move-by-wire systems caused reaction problems because
  his body kept trying to move independently of the vehicle. He maintained control with difficulty, fighting the
  Patrol-One as well as his own body. He scanned the interior of the building.
  Stairs to his left led up to the second floor. Laid out in a half-moon cut-out, the second floor overlooked
  the first, leaving a lot of open space. A dozen men  occupied  the  second  floor,  surrounding  tactical  decks
  and equipment.
  Argent slipped the transmission into first gear again and powered toward the stairs.  Before  he  reached
  them, one of the sec vehicles and two of the surviving motorcycles roared through the opening he'd torn in
  the building's side. Autofire rattled the rear of the Patrol-One, and some of the armor-piercing rounds cored
  through.
  Less  than  three  meters  away  from  the  stairs,  the  plasticrete  floor  and  a  section  of  it  surged  up  as  a
  mound of earth broke through to the surface. It was proof enough that  some  of  the  people  present  were
  mages. Argent had no time for evasion.
  The  Patrol-One  shuddered  to  a  stop  when  it  hit  the  earthen  barrier.  The  front  end  collapsed  and  the
  engine dropped out onto the  ground  as  the  collision  safety  features  took  over.  In  the  next  heartbeat,  the
  pursuing sec vehicle
  slammed into Argent, barring escape in that direction even if the Patrol-One had still remained operational.
  The  Vigilance  rotary  cannon,  though,  was  still  working.  Argent  thumbed  the  keypad,  watching  the
  gunsight trying to manifest itself on the shattered remnants of the windshield. The cross hairs never locked
  in. Flipping another toggle, Argent shifted the cannon over to manual control.
  He lined up the shot from sight judgment. The distance made the target even more accessible. A few of
  the men on the second floor noticed the cannon turret turning in their direction and yelled out warnings  to
  the others. They started to clear from the tables.
  Without hesitation, Argent thumbed the FIRE button. The Patrol-One shuddered as the  cannon  belched
  out a deadly round. The resulting explosion was almost instantaneous, whipping across the second floor and
  dropping flaming sections of it free. Before he could fire again, an incendiary  force  hammered  the  turret,
  twisting it out of shape.
  The  crash  against  the  earthen  wall  had  jammed  the  door  and  Argent  wasn't  able  to  open  it  easily.
  Ramming his shoulder into the door, he knocked it off its hinges and dropped out onto the plasticrete floor
  with the In-grams in his hands.
  A semicircle of secmen fanned out behind the Patrol-One, firing at him. Argent squeezed the triggers of
  his  weapons,  rattling  off  short,  telling  bursts  that  knocked  his  opponents  off  their  feet.  Their  return  fire
  smacked  against  the  light  military  armor,  gouging  it  and  slapping  pieces  from  it.  He  felt  another  armor
  
  piercing  round  core  through  the  flesh  and  blood  part  of  his  shoulder  where  his  right  cyberarm  was
  connected, dangerously close to the control module that kept it working. Another pair of bullets cut through
  his cyberarm, leaving a buzzing sensation that signaled damage in their wake.
  He aimed for feet and hands, areas where the secguards'
  armor didn't fully cover.  And  he  geeked  them  when  he  could.  In  seconds,  he  was  out  of  ammo  for  the
  Ingrams, and had broken the advancing line of VaulTek secguards.
  Turning, gliding on legs powered by the move-by-wire systems and his own adrenaline, he let the Ingrams
  drop to the ends of the Whipit slings. As he started up the stairs behind him, he drew the Savalette Guardian
  and a Cougar Fine Blade fighting knife with a 30-centimeter blade.
  A secman ran to the top of the stairs in front of the big shadowrunner, thinking to cut him off.
  Argent raised the Guardian and put a pair of armor-piercing rounds into the man's face.  The corpse fell
  backward.
  By the time Argent reached the top of the stairs, smoke from the pools of fire left behind by the cannon
  round  obscured  some  of  the  area.  He  scanned  the  floor,  taking  in  the  damage,  listening  to  the  gunfire
  coming from below as the secguards on the first floor tried to mount an offensive.
  A mage stepped out of the smoke, hands working frantically in front of him.
  Argent tried to bring the Guardian up, but suddenly it felt too fragging heavy at the end of his arm. Then
  he stopped moving entirely as the spell paralyzed him.
  The mage slave grinned, then slammed across the room with crushing force and dropped to the floor.
  The paralysis left Argent immediately. Turning, he spotted Laveau levitating on a level  with  the  second
  floor. Her posture  was  ramrod  stiff,  letting  him  know  that  she'  d  been  mounted  by  one  of  the  loa  she'd
  called in to help during the run.  She  carried  a  short  sword  in  one  hand.  Her  eyes  looked  like  they  were
  rolled up in her head, but he had no doubts that she could see him.
  "You are free again, human," a deep, cold voice said from Laveau's lips. "Mambo Laveau says you are
  to come immediately. They await you."
  The address let Argent know Laveau had been fully possessed by the loa she had named as Ogoun. He
  reloaded the Ingrams, staying out of sight from the gunners  below.  The  slap  of  leather  against  plastisteel
  warned him of secguards racing up the stairs. "Can you get a message back to her?" he asked the towering
  loa.
  "She hears you now."
  "Laveau, get back to the team and get them moving," Argent said. "I'll catch up."
  "That  is  not  acceptable."  Laveau's  loa  suddenly  blazed  flames,  creating  a  fiery  halo.  It  threw  an  arm
  toward the group of men racing up the stairs. A huge fireball formed in the air, growing five meters across
  before it slammed into the secguards and scattered their flaming bodies.
  "It's going to have to be," Argent growled. "Even if I started back now, it would hold them up too long.
  They need to buzz turbo now."
  The loa-mounted mambo reached for him, levitating closer. "Not acceptable."
  Knowing he could fight the loa on a physical level since it  had  manifested  itself,  the  big  shadowrunner
  slapped the hand way. Even then, the force only  moved  the  hand  a  few  centimeters.  "Fight  me  and  you
  may get me geeked because I'm not going till I'm ready. And if you fail to get Laveau back soon enough,
  you may get her geeked as well."
  The loa snarled in anger, then levitated for the nearest window filled with broken panes of plastiglass.
  Lungs burning from sucking down the smoke-laden air, trying to meet the need for oxygen in his system,
  Argent scanned the floor. The loa's  fireball  had  not  only  taken  out  the  secguards,  but  it  had  slagged  the
  stairs as well. Moving forward, he found a wagemage, knowing the man for what he was by the fetishes he
  wore and the cut of his clothing.
  Argent pressed the snout of an Ingram into the wage-
  mage's face. "Tell me where the DNA samples of the runners are or I'll geek you right here."
  The wagemage  was  young  and  scared.  A  trickle  of  blood  wormed  from  his  nose  and  across  his  lips.
  "Portable freezer unit."
  "Where?"
  The wagemage pointed.
  Glancing  through  the  smoke,  Argent  spotted  the  wheeled  portable  freezer.  It  canted  back  against  the
  wall,  obviously  blown  there  from  the  cannon  round,  the  door  not  fully  closed  anymore.  He  left  the
  wagemage laying on the floor and crossed the room.
  Before he reached it, the window nearby exploded inward, shattered by withering machine gun fire.
  
  63
  Argent  dove  to  safety,  narrowly  avoiding  the  stream  of  machine  gun  fire  that  tore  chunks  from  the
  plasticrete floor. Vibrations moved throughout the floor with the crescendo  of  impacts.  He  came  up  with
  the Ingrams firing, both of them locked onto the helo hovering outside the window.
  His initial bursts cut holes in the helo's tail, then swept across the door gunner mounted in the cargo hold.
  The gunner's body shivered as the bullets hit him, and he sprawled in the grip of the door gunner safety rig.
  Then the ceiling window above Argent's head came apart. The big shadowrunner  whirled,  still  lying  on
  the  ground,  and  raised  the  machine  pistols  to  the  latest  threat.  His  mind  raced,  seeking  the  possibilities,
  selecting the greatest likelihood as a cybered man from the helo had
  leaped onto the top of the building and come crashing through the plastiglass.
  He recognized the armored form in front of him, the face barely discernible  through  the  helmet.  Aaron
  Bear-stalker was the number two man in Ironaxe's corporation, and was almost as heavily cybered as the
  VaulTek CEO.
  Moving inhumanly fast, Bearstalker chopped at Argent with a short sword. Argent caught a glimmer of
  light as the sword streaked for his hands, realizing that the sword carried a monofilament  edge  that  could
  shear through his cyberlimbs like butter. There was no time to shoot and save his hands at the same time.
  He tried to pull his hands back, but the sword whistled through the Ingrams, lopping them off just short of
  his knuckles.
  Argent dropped the useless machine pistols and rolled to one side as the sword came at him again. The
  mono-filament edge bit deeply into the floor.
  "Hola, motherfragger!" Bearstalker yelled. "I'm going to cut your slotting arms and legs off." He swung
  again as Argent pushed up to his feet, cleaving the air less than a centimeter from Argent's left  shoulder.
  "Then I'm going to find out who you're working for." The blade picked up speed as  the  Amerind  samurai
  launched himself into his kata.
  Argent reacted to the martial arts moves, not bothering with trying for the Guardian  in  its  thigh  holster.
  Going for the pistol would have thrown his reactions off, split his attention. And Bearstalker was too good
  with the sword to allow that to happen.
  Bobbing and weaving, keeping his hands out in front of himself and looking for an opening, Argent stayed
  almost toe-to-toe with the bigger man. Trying to run, trying to open up  more  space  between  them,  would
  have only gotten him flat-lined. Staying in close eliminated some of the moves Bearstalker had open to him.
  "You're good, browncone," the Amerind said. "I'll
  give you that. Never figured on you dropping a vehicle down  inside  the  mine  shafts  to  use  to  bug  out  of
  here."
  Argent didn't respond to the conversation. He kept his mind loose, relaxed, concentrating on the give and
  take of the sword. The latest blow came at his shoulder again, but this time he'd anticipated it well enough
  that he was able to slap it along the flat of the blade and push it further away.
  Bearstalker brought the weapon back around even more fiercely, but the damage at been done. His kata
  style was looser now, in danger of deteriorating. "But now they're gone, Argent, and there's no way out for
  you."
  The blade licked in at Argent's throat. He dodged it, then put his hands together and pulled his left thumb
  out of his hand with a slight twist. A monofilament garrote followed the thumb out, glowing slightly.
  A  monofilament  whip  and  garrote  were  dangerous  usually  even  to  the  joker  who  used  them,  Argent
  knew. A chummer had to be slotting good to use one effectively because even a loose swipe of the whip
  around a limb would amputate it in a heartbeat.
  Argent  kept  his  arms  apart,  out  of  harm's  way,  expanding  the  monofilament  garrote  between  them.
  Before Bearstalker could pull his sword back around in another slash, Argent trapped it  in  the  coil  of  the
  garrote. The monofilament edges, molecule thin, canceled each other out in a haze of sparks.
  Setting himself, knowing Bearstalker was caught off-guard, Argent yanked on the garrote and tugged the
  sword free. He flipped it away, out of reach, then tugged on the garrote and sent  his  thumb  zipping  back
  into place.
  Recovering, Bearstalker launched a roundhouse kick at Argent. The big shadowrunner blocked the effort
  with  an  arm,  but  the  impact  rocked  him  back  on  his  heels.  Bearstalker  brought  a  heavy  hand  against
  
  Argent's  helmet.  Meant  to  withstand  gunfire  and  light  explosions,  the  helmet  came  apart  under  the
  cyberarm's attack.
  Bare-headed,  Argent  backed  off  a  half-step  to  recover  his  balance.  He  went  into  his  defensive  kata
  automatically, blocking most of Bearstalker's blows and connecting with a  few  of  his  own.  He  tasted  his
  own  blood  when  Bearstalker  hit  him  a  glancing  blow  in  the  mouth.  Even  reinforced  as  his  skull  was,  it
  wouldn't have handled the punishment the Amerind samurai was handing out.
  Argent blocked another blow, pushing his opponent's arm up,  leaving  him  open  for  the  short  jab  to  the
  face. Bearstalker's skin split under the  impact,  showing  the  white  flash  of  bone  and  cesium  underplating
  that had been used to reinforce his skull.
  The Amerind staggered back, bleeding  profusely.  Mercilessly,  Argent  took  the  fight  to  him,  blocking  a
  weakly  returned  blow  and  smashing  a  hard  right  to  Bearstalker's  temple.  Bone  and  subdermal  plating
  crushed inward, cutting into the vulnerable brain tissue beneath. Instinct alone made Bearstalker bring  the
  attack  to  Argent  again.  Executing  a  spinning  back  fist,  taking  full  advantage  of  his  cyberarms,  Argent
  slammed his knuckles into Bear-stalker's cheek.
  Bearstalker's head turned violently to the side, and the crack of his spine shattering at the base of his skull
  filled the room. Dead on his feet, his cyberware systems finally catching up to what his meat body already
  knew, Bear-stalker collapsed face down on the floor.
  Staggering, winded from the pain of his wounds and the beating he'd taken, Argent crossed the room to
  the portable freezer. He looked inside long  enough  to  ascertain  the  existence  of  the  DNA  samples,  then
  plucked a high-explosive grenade from his combat vest. He armed it and dropped it into the freezer.
  Then he ran toward the edge of the second floor looking down over the first. He didn't pause  when  he
  reached it, leaping downward. The HE grenade went off before he touched the floor, destroying the DNA
  samples and throwing a gust of super-heated air over him.
  He landed off-balance and tucked himself into a paratrooper's roll. As he came back up to his  feet,  he
  spotted movement ahead of him. His hand swept down for the Savalette Guardian in the  counter-terrorist
  drop holster on his thigh. Pulling it up in front of him, the smartlink flaring through his synapses and putting
  the cross hairs in his vision, he leveled it and killed the two secguards firing at him from the shadows.
  Nothing else appeared to be moving inside the building.
  Knowing that there was no way he'd make it out of Pueblo on foot, and that there was no way he'd be
  able to catch the Rat without wheels, he spotted one of the motorcycles laying abandoned on the building's
  floor. He crossed over to it and lifted it, not noticing any damage that would keep it from running.
  The motorcycle was a Harley Electraglide-1000, a model that he was familiar with. He straddled it, then
  thumbed the engine to vibrant life. More of the VaulTek security people closed in from outside, their lights
  slashing through the shadows and smoke that filled the warehouse.
  Argent  gunned  the  engine  and  popped  the  clutch,  squirting  the  big  bike  through  the  hole  he'd  made
  entering the building. He stayed low over the handlebars as gunfire slashed through the air around him. The
  BattleTac monitor was blank on his wrist, cut off from the sat-link Peg had provided earlier.
  But he knew where he was.
  Riding squealing tires around the next corner, avoiding the glaring headlights of the sec vehicle coming at
  him, Argent headed for the street where the Travers twins  had  blown  through  to  the  mine  shafts  below.
  There was only one way to attempt to catch the Rat running through the plex's underbelly.
  64
  "Sir, I have a confirmation on that report: Aaron Bear-stalker has been geeked." "
  Clay Ironaxe stood at the edge of the pit that had been blown into one of the mining shafts under the plex,
  glaring  down  into  the  darkness.  A  few  of  his  men  moved  below,  hanging  from  ropes  and  playing  lights
  around. The news of Bearstalker's death hit him like a hammerblow. The loss was more than just a valued
  and trusted employee; he'd been the best friend Ironaxe had ever had. "Who did it?"
  "Argent, sir," the sec guard answered over the limited radio contact they had established after the sat-link
  had been blasted out of existence.
  "Where is he now?" Ironaxe demanded.
  The sec guard answered hesitantly. "He got away, sir."
  "I want that man found, and I want him flat-lined," Ironaxe shouted. "Do you understand me?"
  "Yes, sir."
  Ironaxe let his breath out through his nose, hoping to expel all the anger and fear trapped  inside  him  as
  
  well. Failing to trap the runners, watching them virtually slip through his fingers in the last few minutes had
  been intolerable. The helpless feeling surging through him reminded him too much of the way he'd felt while
  in the hospital waiting to have his body cybered so he could move again.
  Ray Hawksclaw came up beside him with a coyote skin
  over  his  head  and  shoulders  and  wearing  true  leathers,  dressed  in  the  more  traditional  clothing  of  the
  People. Fetishes hung from a rawhide necklace, his belt, bands around his biceps, elbows, and wrists.
  Ironaxe pointed into the hole. "Get a road built leading down into there now. It doesn't have to be fancy,
  just something I can get some vehicles down."
  The shaman nodded, then selected a fetish and began to sing.
  Ironaxe watched as the earth below rose and breathed, cracking and splitting as it formed a steep incline
  that  linked  the  broken  street  to  the  mine  shaft  floor  below.  He  accessed  the  radio.  "Where  are  those
  fragging vehicles?"
  "Here now, sir."
  Lights from the approaching GMC Multi-Purpose Utility Vehicle played over the area, chasing away the
  night with their foglights and searchlights. The MPUVs  held a favored world opinion  as  the  most  popular
  combat vehicle. Armored and fast, on road and off, they stood the test of working as personnel transport to
  light scout. Tonight, Ironaxe intended to use them as attack craft.
  The Devil Rat the shadowrunners had dropped from the sky had been a fragging surprise. And taking his
  sat-link out the way they  had  allowed  the  APC  to  get  to  ground  intact.  When  the  rigger  handling  it  had
  driven  it  off  into  the  hole,  dropping  nearly  twelve  meters,  the  Devil  Rat  had  even  survived  that  when
  Ironaxe felt certain it wouldn't.
  Still, the  APC  only  had  a  few  minutes'  headstart.  The  Devil  Rat's  top  speed  off-road  was  45  kph.
  Ironaxe knew because he'd had a dataslave check out the specs when he'd first learned of it. The MPUVs
  could do almost twice that. They wouldn't get away.
  When the shaman stumbled away, finished with the task given him, Ironaxe waved the MPUVs  forward.
  He ousted the man in the shotgun seat of the lead vehicle,
  then belted himself in and ordered the driver down the newly erected incline.
  Before they'd rolled more than a few meters, multiple hits from an  airborne  autocannon  left  pits  in  the
  street and blew chunks out of the nearby buildings. The MPUV driver froze into place.
  Ironaxe looked up to see the unmarked helos in  the  sky  above  him.  It  didn't  take  much  skull-sweat  to
  figure that mercs working for Villiers and for Nakatomi occupied those machines. If they'd belonged to the
  team of shadow-runners there to take Andi Sencio and her group from the Underground Awakened, they'd
  have put in an appearance much earlier.
  But they were there now.
  Slapping the console in front of him, Ironaxe said, "Go."
  The  driver  engaged  the  transmission  again  and  started  down  into  the  yawning  mouth  of  the  cavern
  below. Jerking and bouncing, the suspension taking a beating, the MPUV made the incline and pulled onto
  the uneven mine shaft floor.
  The  headlights  and  foglights  lit  up  the  cracked  walls  of  the  mine  shaft.  Mounds  of  debris,  some  of  it
  decades old or older, some of it freshly dropped from the ruined street above, lay scattered over the tunnel.
  The shaft was nearly ten meters wide, allowing plenty of room for the APC to maneuver.
  They had room to move, Ironaxe silently agreed as he freed a Colt assault rifle from between the  seat,
  but the people aboard that APC weren't going anywhere. He was going to see to it personally.
  65
  Argent cut the Harley Electraglide hard right to avoid the sudden blistering hail of heavy machine gun fire
  that tracked across the street toward him. The motorcycle's front tire hit the curb leading up to the sidewalk
  at  less  than  optimum  incline,  causing  the  handlebars  to  shiver  and  almost  tear  free  from  the  big
  shadowrunner 's grip. If his hands and arms had been normal flesh and blood and unaugmented, he would
  have lost the Harley. As it was, he had to make  sure  he  didn't  pull  the  handlebars  free  in  his  attempt  to
  maintain control of the bike.
  On top of the curb, he rode in close to the building, staying with the sidewalk. The stream of bullets from
  the attack helo overhead swept the sidewalk, chipping huge holes in the plasticrete surface, then raking up
  onto the buildings only centimeters behind Argent.
  Shifting  up  again,  Argent  twisted  the  accelerator  tighter.  The  Harley's  high-performance  engine
  
  responded  without  fail,  making  him  feel  like  he  was  holding  onto  a  rocket  running  a  nape-of-the-earth
  course. He pulled ahead of the helo, pushing past the pilot's estimation of his speed.
  He flashed past three streets, ramping over the curbs on the opposite side. By now the helo pilot would
  have  had  time  to  call  in  for  reinforcements.  Argent  didn't  have  a  clue  whether  the  helo  belonged  to
  Nakatomi or Villiers. In the end it didn't matter because he was sure either CEO wanted him geeked.
  Headlights gleamed at the other end of the street, letting him know the search pattern had grown tighter.
  A glance in his side mirror showed more ground vehicles racing up behind him. Without warning, the  two
  groups opened up on each other. Heavy machine gun fire and cannonfire from firmpoints  on  the  vehicles
  slagged the center of the street, the buildings around it, and each other.
  A  flying  piece  of  plasticrete  debris  smashed  into  Argent's  side  with  bruising  force  despite  the  Espirit
  armor, nearly toppling him from the Harley. He fought for control and remained upright, then geared down
  as he approached Naylor Street.
  The  motorcycle  still  carried  enough  momentum  and  weight  that  it  slewed  widely  around  the  corner.
  Argent leaned deeply into the turn, dragging his knee twice against the street. Stubbornly, the runflat  tires
  held traction, shrilling in protest.
  Lights  from  an  approaching  van  blazed  across  Argent,  momentarily  blinding  him  till  his  cybereyes
  adjusted. He fought the motorcycle, careening out of the way of the van. The van's bumper missed his head
  by centimeters, whisking hot air across  his  face.  The  curb  came  up  suddenly  and  the  Harley's  back  tire
  smashed into it.
  The motorcycle bucked violently, plunging up into the air and fishtailing as Argent threw his weight back
  to pull the front end up. He came down hard, but he came down on the Harley, still rolling. Gearing down,
  he  got  the  transmission  tight  again,  then  twisted  the  accelerator  to  pull  it  more  under  control.  The  van
  wrenched around behind him, the driver trying to follow. Instead, a sudden salvo of cannonfire reduced it to
  a flaming heap that smashed against a nearby wall.
  Argent raced through the streets, winding the Harley's engine out. He scanned the band of vehicles and
  secmen ahead of him ringing the pit in the street, digging into their positions as they were attacked by a pair
  of helos in
  the sky. Some of them started to turn toward him, realizing he wasn't stopping. He aimed the Harley at the
  flesh-and-blood spectators.
  Bullets ripped into the broken street, tracers smashing like fireworks against the plasticrete  surface  and
  leaving pitted areas  behind.  Most  of  the  secmen  scattered  before  the  approaching  motorcycle,  but  a  big
  man in armor with obvious cyberware reached out with big synthferrous hands hooked like claws.
  Argent didn't hesitate, letting off on the accelerator for a moment while  he  downshifted.  Bullets  struck
  his armor and the motorcycle, leaving vibrations in their  wake.  The  big  shadowrunner  downshifted  again,
  losing a little speed, then red-lined the acceleration and popped the clutch. The Harley's gears protested the
  mistreatment with a metallic howling and racheting that made Argent certain he was going to leave engine
  parts scattered behind him.
  Instead, the front end of the Harley came up in a wheelie. The heavy metal boy before him reached out,
  confident of his cyberware systems.
  It was one thing, Argent knew from personal experience, to be braced properly and have the strength to
  lift a motorcycle. It was another to have that motorcycle in motion. The Harley slammed into the secman,
  driving him backward even as his hands seized the front tire.
  They went over the edge of the pit, airborne, the engine screaming as the rear tire tore free of traction.
  The secman's weight pulled the front of the Harley down. In the brief time he was airborne, Argent spotted
  the inclined trail that someone had built to allow vehicles into the mine shaft. The Devil Rat was running, but
  pursuit was closing in on it somewhere. Even if  the  pursuers  weren't  able  to  take  the  Rat  down,  Argent
  knew, they might be able to track it.
  Then the Harley started falling, the heavy metal boy
  pulling at the wheel and slamming a big hand up to grab the center of the handlebars. The secman smiled,
  baring augmented teeth that he'd chosen to deliberately leave looking like edged steel.
  66
  Arm  burning  with  the  effort,  Argent  drew  the  Guardian  from  its  holster  and  fired  pointblank  into  the
  
  secman's face. He didn't stop until the pistol was empty. Even then, the corpse didn't drop away before the
  motorcycle slammed into the mine shaft floor.
  Argent came off the motorcycle with the impact, feeling it roll forward under him. He twisted in the air,
  struggling  to  find  his  balance  and  go  limp  at  the  same  time.  His  augmented  balance,  improved  by  the
  move-by-wire systems, allowed him to start coming around. If  there'd  been  enough  time,  he'd  have  been
  able to land on his feet.
  Instead, he came down hard on his side, losing his breath to the impact. He moved immediately, using the
  cyberware that kept him ambulatory in spite of the shock to his flesh and blood nervous system. On his feet,
  using  the  low-light  capabilities  of  his  cybereyes,  he  spotted  the  motorcycle  draped  across  the  nearly
  headless corpse of his opponent.
  Autofire ripped into being from above, chiseling rock from the mine shaft walls and ricocheting from the
  stone surfaces. A couple slammed into the Espirit armor.
  Argent  had  lost  the  Guardian  during  the  fall,  his  hands  opening  automatically  to  try  to  save  himself.
  Unable to find it in the time allowed him, he grabbed the Harley and righted it, satisfied that the motorcycle
  had only accumulated a few more dings. He straddled it and thumbed
  the ignition, listening as the big engine turned over a few times before catching.
  Dropping his foot on the gear shift, he put it in low and shot across the mine shaft  in  the  direction  he'd
  known Summertrees would head. Bullets erupted into the spot he'd just left, tearing into the dead man.
  He switched off the motorcycle's headbeam and depended on his low-light  vision  to  guide  him  through
  the shaft. The light would have announced his presence  behind  Ironaxe's  pursuit  crew  before  he  wanted
  them to know he was there.
  He drove hard, manhandling the Harley. His team was up ahead, riding guard on Sencio and her people,
  laying their hoops on the line, trapped between the secrets of three corps at war with each other. As long
  as he breathed, his place was with the team.
  The  mine  shaft  walls  flashed  by,  a  constant  panorama  of  cracked  stone  scarred  by  machines  and
  pickaxes. Rubble littered the mine shaft floor, some of it big enough to be dangerous. He accelerated in the
  long runs of the shaft, then tapped the brakes when he had to go around a corner. Dust and grit clung to his
  face, masking it. He tasted blood and earth, felt the heat of his wounds pounding through him, the buzz of
  the holes in his arm.
  His  commlink  twitched  for  attention  and  he  knew  he'd  pulled  back  within  the  range  offered  by  the
  on-armor units used by the BattleTac systems. The sat-link was no longer operable, so he didn't have  the
  mapping utilities and locations of his team, but communications were a definite improvement.
  He accessed the commlink. "Summertrees, this is Argent."
  "I hear you." Summertrees still sounded distant and far away.
  "You've got a pursuit team on your hoop." Argent rocked to the side to avoid a patch of loose rock that
  would have been treacherous under the Harley's tires.
  "I don't see them."
  "Have you got a drone out?" The rigger had outfitted the Devil Rat with two Sikorsky-Bell Microskimmer
  Us capable of transmitting aud and vid back to the LAV-98. He was also able to control the drones from
  the APC.
  "I've  got  one  out  front  to  vid  and  transmit  everything  back  to  me  so  we  don't  run  into  any  nasty
  surprises," Summertrees said. "I was saving the other one in case the first one got fragged."
  "You need it," Argent said.
  "The drone's been popped," the rigger said a moment later. "Frag, but keeping track  of  two  drones  and
  the Rat isn't fun at all in this enclosed space."
  Riggers  accomplished  miracles,  Argent  knew,  but  the  run  through  the  mine  shaft  was  pushing  the
  envelope. They were speeding through the tunnels faster than a south-of-the-border inspired enema.
  "Got them," Summertrees said. "Looks like two, no, three units. MPUVs.  I've don't have any whammies
  packed on-board the Microskimmers."
  "Dane," Argent said, "if you've got some armor-piercing rounds left for the Barrett, you can shake them
  up."
  "Can do," Dane replied tightly.
  "And I have yet one more trick up dis old sleeve," Laveau said.
  "Where are you, Argent?" Archangel asked.
  "Coming up fast. I've liberated a Harley as my transport." Argent accelerated again, this time picking up
  
  a ghost of a dust haze from the vehicles ahead of him. In another heart beat, he saw the red lights of the
  MPUVs.  He reached to his vest and removed an HE grenade, pulling the pin  and  slipping  the  spoon.  He
  kept a thumb locked over the plunger to keep the fuse from igniting and twisted the accelerator again.
  The first MPUV had a heavy machine gun mounted on its rear deck, the tarp pulled down so the weapon
  pointed across the vehicle's hard top. The gunner blasted the frag
  out of the Devil Rat. A Vanquisher mini-cannon mounted on the last MPUV's rear deck belched flame as it
  fired a round at the APC.  The cannon round slammed against the Rat's ablative armor in  a  crescendo  of
  flame. The wrecked section of armor peeled away from the  APC  and  whizzed  through  the  air  to  collide
  with the tunnel wall.
  The Rat's tracks dug into the stone floor with renewed zeal, tearing drek out of the floor as Summertrees
  weaved back and forth in the room available to become a harder target.
  Argent roared up beside the last MPUV before the driver or the crew knew he was there. He tossed the
  HE grenade into the MPUV's interior and accelerated again, jockeying around the vehicle.
  They  saw  him  for  a  split  second,  and  the  machine  gunner  twisted  his  weapon  toward  the  speeding
  Harley. Then the grenade went off, unleashing a fireball of orange and black flames inside the MPUV.  The
  vehicle swerved left suddenly and impacted against the wall. In the next moment it flipped end over end, the
  flames continuing to cling to it.
  The Rat cut to the right without warning, blocking off the lead MPUV's  attempt to come up along side.
  Then  Argent  got  a  brief  glimpse  of  Harrison  Dane  popping  up  from  the  Rat's  rear  hatch.  The  Barrett
  sniping rifle was in his hands.
  The lead MPUV slewed out of control and went turtle, flipping upside down.
  The second MPUV sped around it, swerving to barely miss it.
  Leaning  into  the  Harley,  controlling  it  as  much  with  his  weight  distribution  as  the  controls,  Argent
  whipped around the wreck as well.
  Heavy machine gun fire lanced from the second  MPUV,  streaking  across  Dane's  position  in  the  open
  hatch. Dane jerked back, bleeding profusely from the head. His body
  draped loosely across the Rat's back, starting a downward slide toward the ground.
  One of the Travers twins reached out of the APC and seized Dane by the vest with a big hand. Straining,
  he managed to get Dane back inside just as the heavy machine gun fire cut through the space  where  the
  elven sniper had been.
  "Dane?" Argent said, and felt as cold inside as he had the day Toshi and Hawk had died.
  "He's breathing," Jesse Travers replied over the comm-link. "Hurt bad, but he's breathing."
  Argent closed  on  the  remaining  MPUV,  spotting  Iron-axe  in  the  passenger  seat  at  the  same  time  the
  VaulTek CEO saw him. Ironaxe waved, yelling to the driver. Immediately, the MPUV came across to the
  right, cutting off Argent's path to the Rat. The gunner on the rear deck brought the machine gun around.
  67
  Knowing that if he attempted to back off he'd only remain a target, and that getting around the MPUV in
  the narrow confines of the tunnel was impossible, Argent sped toward the rear of the vehicle. The machine
  gun blasted flame and rounds over his head, filling his cyber-ears with the thunderous roar.
  Before the gunner could shoot again, Argent grabbed the weapon by the barrel and stepped onto the rear
  of the MPUV. The Harley dropped away, out of control, turning quickly into a pile of twisted wreckage.
  The sensor feedback in Argent's cyberhand let him know the  weapon's  barrel  was  hot  enough  to  burn
  normal flesh and blood. He kept it away from the rest of his body
  and straight-armed the gunner with his free hand, hitting the man in the chest.
  The secman flew from the MPUV's rear deck with a yowl of pain.
  Bullets chopped into Argent's  armor  as  he  turned  his  attention  back  to  Ironaxe.  He  couldn't  bring  the
  captured machine gun up because the area was too confined. Reaching out before Ironaxe could train the
  assault rifle on his unprotected head, the big shadowrunner bent the barrel.
  Trapped, the next half-dozen  rounds  exploded,  turning  the  rifle  barrel  into  a  collection  of  shrapnel  that
  thudded into Argent's armor and razored his face.  Blood streamed down over his left eye, partially blinding
  him.
  Ironaxe  erupted  from  his  seat,  using  his  cyberware  to  rip  through  the  MPUV's  hardtop  and  knock  it
  
  away.  Panicked,  the  driver  swerved  to  the  left  and  right,  striking  both  sides  of  the  mine  shaft,  seeking
  desperately to dislodge Argent.
  Setting himself as best as he could, Argent met Iron-axe's fist with a blocking arm. It wasn't enough to
  completely shrug off the blow, though, and the VaulTek CEO' s fist grazed Argent's chin.
  The big shadowrunner drew back, staggered, his senses reeling. Instinctively, he blocked Ironaxe's next
  attempt to crush his head with a punch.
  "Who are you working for?" the VaulTek CEO roared.
  Argent slapped another blow away, his vision and senses clearing.
  "Who sent you here?" Ironaxe grabbed the remaining support struts for the MPUV's missing hardtop and
  braced himself to kick at Argent's chest.
  The  man  had  been  trained  in  the  martial  arts  as  well,  or  chipped  for  it,  Argent  knew  from  the  skill
  displayed.  Ironaxe's  foot  slammed  into  the  center  of  his  chest,  enough  strength  and  weight  behind  it  to
  knock the big shadowrunner off his feet. He fell backward, rolling
  over the edge of the MPUV's deck, dropping toward the ground.
  He  flailed  with  a  hand  and  caught  the  edge  of  the  vehicle's  rear  deck.  His  legs  slammed  against  the
  ground, dragging hard along the rough stone. Pain flooded his synapses as the armor buckled in spots. He
  knew from experience when his shinbone broke over a large rock. His leg started going numb and swelling
  almost immediately. Blood started filling his boot.
  Ironaxe stepped into the MPUV's rear deck as Argent tried to crawl back onto the vehicle. The VaulTek
  CEO leered down at the big shadowrunner. "Did  your  hands  lock  up  on  you?"  Ironaxe  shouted  over  the
  noise of the racing combat vehicle. "Are they going to hang on while the rest of your body falls to pieces?"
  Argent struggled to keep his body limp, to keep from taking any more damage than he  had  to.  But  the
  beating he was being given shuddered through his whole body. Thankfully, the pain had already progressed
  past the point of cognizance. He was operating on adrenaline and stubbornness.
  But a part of him briefly considered giving in. His body was battered and torn more than at any time he
  could remember. Escape seemed a million klicks away. And the light blossoming behind him revealed that
  more of Iron-axe's people had driven down into the mine shaft.
  Death had been such a constant companion for so long, and he'd kept his life so small  since  Toshi  and
  Hawk had been flat-lined, that it wasn't unsettling to think about at all. And to die, all he had to do was let
  go or hang oh. It would be simple.
  "Who betrayed me?" Ironaxe demanded. "Tell me who hired you and I'll let you live."
  Death  would  be  easy.  Only  Argent  knew  he  couldn't  take  the  easy  way  out.  He'd  never  been  given
  anything easy. Working for Brynnmawr, being brought up with all the lies, finding the few truths he actually
  knew to be
  deep within himself and recognizing that he'd never be able to walk away from them without losing himself
  had been hard. So had walking away from  Brynnmawr  and  Sencio  when  that  had  become  impossible  to
  avoid.
  But those were the fundamentals that had built him.
  Argent was a crucible, and he'd been in fires that had shaped him to be more than  a  man.  He  couldn't
  take  the  easy  way  out;  he  would  never  be  able  to.  He'd  been  born  to  go  down  fighting,  his  battle  or
  someone else's. Maybe that was one of the things Brynnmawr had seen in him all those years ago as well:
  that inability to give up or admit defeat.
  "Mr. Johnson hired me," Argent  said,  shouting  to  be  heard  over  the  MPUV.  Moving  swiftly,  wringing
  everything out of his cybersystems that he could muster, he grabbed the front of Ironaxe's protective vest
  and yanked.
  68
  Off-balance  from  the  swaying  combat  vehicle,  the  Vaul-Tek  CEO  tumbled  from  the  rear  deck.  Argent
  released  his  hold  on  the  combat  vehicle  and  fell  on  top  of  Ironaxe.  He  guessed  the  MPUV  was  doing
  somewhere near sixty or seventy kph, fast enough to do a lot of damage even to someone who'd been as
  heavily cybered as Ironaxe.
  Argent stayed on top of his opponent, using the man as a buffer against the harsh  surface  of  the  mine
  shaft floor, riding him like a sled. Ironaxe screamed in agony as the rocks smashed against him and ripped
  
  his flesh.
  They came to a stop in a tangle of arms and legs, smashing up hard against a boulder. Dust plumed  up
  around them in a cloud, interfering somewhat with Argent's low-light vision.
  The shadowrunner rolled from his opponent and took a deep breath, amazed at all the places that hurt. It
  was suddenly incredibly easy to tell where the cybersystems began and ended.
  Silent, moving quicker than Argent would  have  given  the  man  credit  for,  Ironaxe  rose  to  his  feet.  He
  cocked and twisted both hands, unleashing forearm blades that jutted well out from his wrists.
  Favoring his broken leg, aware  of the  headlights  closing  from  the  other  end  of  the  mine  shaft,  Argent
  forced himself to his feet, ignoring the explosion of pain that accompanied the movement.
  Blood ran  down  Ironaxe's  neck.  His  face  on  the  right  side  had  been  torn  away,  revealing  the  dermal
  plating and synthferrous reconstruction work that had been done. His cybereye peered pure hatred, moving
  in the bared orbital compartment that housed it. "Going to die, you son of a slitch." Even his voice had been
  damaged, coming out hollow and inhuman.
  Unable  to  move  well  because  of  the  injured  leg,  Argent  stood  his  ground  as  the  man  attacked.  He
  twisted, avoiding Ironaxe's left-hand thrust, then blocked the right-hand-thrust, knowing he was only going
  to get one shot. His left hand smashed into Ironaxe's torn and bloodied face, caving it in to the back of his
  skull.
  Even with the cyberware, Ironaxe's neural systems shut down, sending his corpse into spasms. The dead
  man dropped at Argent's feet.
  Breath rasping hard, burning against the back of his throat in spite of the improved circulatory respiration
  provided  by  not  needing  to  provide  for  the  flesh  replacements,  Argent  limped  to  one  side.  The  MPUV
  Ironaxe  had  been  riding  in  streaked  back  toward  him.  Beyond  it,  the  Devil  Rat  had  come  to  a  stop  a
  hundred meters away, dust boiling around the tracks.
  "What the frag are you doing?" Argent demanded over the commlink. "Get out of here."
  As he watched, the Travers twins bolted from the rear hatch and raced toward him. "Not leaving without
  you, omae," Jesse said.
  "Depending on you to help us finance the bar with some more wiz work in the future," Jason said. "That
  would be hard—"
  "—if you were dead or got noosed tonight."
  Argent looked around as the MPUV bore down on him at 30 kph at least  and  rising,  but  there  was  no
  place to run. He braced himself, depending on his cyberware and move-by-wire  systems.  As  the  combat
  vehicle closed, he took a couple limping steps directly at it. Senses alert, the move-by-wire thrumming inside
  him, he placed both hands palm down on the MPUV's front end and vaulted over it.
  There was a moment of vertigo as even his cyber-systems struggled  to  keep  the  pace.  Argent  flipped,
  barely clearing the top of the vehicle. He came down fast, the MPUV already past him. If he hadn't been
  injured as badly as he had, he could have landed on his feet. He'd managed it before at other times. But he
  knew  the  broken  leg  wouldn't  support  him,  and  any  serious  attempt  at  a  standing  landing  would  have
  aggravated the injury even more.
  He came down in an undignified sprawl, but managed to control the fall well enough to roll and come up
  on his good leg. As he limped around to look back at the opposite end of the tunnel, he saw a  phalanx  of
  approaching vehicles. Ruby laser sights were starting to lock onto his position as well as the Rat's.
  "Fraggit, Summertrees, clear the Rat from the LZ," Argent ordered.
  "A moment more, cher," Laveau said calmly over the commlink, "and we shall all be on our way."
  "I can't make that far quick enough even with help from the Twins," Argent said. He tore a grenade free
  from his vest, knowing he was too close to Ironaxe's MPUV
  to use it safely, but knowing too there was no choice. "Get clear."
  "Patience,  cher,"  the  mambo  said.  "You  forget  dat  you  are  not  alone  in  dis.  You  chose  good  people.
  Believe in dem."
  As Argent watched, Laveau levitated up from the darkness around the Devil Rat. Her body ramrod stiff
  and showing signs of the Ogoun loa possessing her, she made a series of intricate gestures.
  The MPUV in front of Argent came around, gaining speed. The driver lifted an assault rifle this time, the
  laser aiming sight glowing ruby.
  Before Argent could use  the  grenade,  the  ground  opened  up  in  front  of  the  MPUV  and  swallowed  it
  down whole. In seconds, only a weak glow shone through the thin layer of mud covering the red taillights.
  Then that was gone.
  Autofire opened up from the approaching line of Vaul-Tek sec forces. But they were quickly erased by
  the avalanche from the roof of the cavern that pulled a wall of rock and earth down in front of Argent. A
  
  few pebbles and a handful of dirt spilled across the shadowrunner's boots.
  "Come on, cher," Laveau called weakly. "It is time logo."
  Bending quickly, the sound of cannonfire echoing from the other side of the earthen wall, Argent rigged a
  quick leg brace out of his combat vest using straps. The leg still hurt like bloody  frag,  but  he  used  it  long
  enough to jog back to the Rat.
  Sencio stood in the rear hatch, looking worriedly at him. She offered him a hand up and he took it. Her
  strength wasn't enough to aid that much in getting his heavily cy-bered body onto the Rat, but the gesture
  meant a lot.
  Once  on  top,  he  peered  down  into  the  Rat  and  saw  the  rest  of  his  team  and  Sencio's  people.  And
  Harrison Dane, bloody and small, lay sprawled on several of them. Crim-
  son  pooled  from  a  wound  at  his  temple,  but  Archangel  placed  a  fresh  compress  on  it  from  the  APC's
  medkit.
  "He's wiz," Archangel told Argent.
  "Like  fragging  hell,"  the  elven  sniper  snarled.  "My  head's  pounding  like  a  sybaritic  troll's  whanger  in
  rutting season. And I've got sweeps coming up during the shows I'm going to be  making  in  the  next  few
  weeks. You owe me, Argent."
  "I'll be there," Argent promised. "I always pay my debts." He laid back across the rear deck of the Rat
  and tried in vain to find a comfortable position for his broken leg. He left the boot on so it would contain the
  swelling spreading down to his foot. It was still a long ride to where Summertrees had stashed  the  T-bird
  that would take them back to Denver.
  "I'm glad you came," Sencio said low enough that only they could hear.
  Argent remained seated on the outside of the APC  along with the Travers Twins. "Null sweat," he told
  her. And he reached out to take her hand, surprised to see the tears that gleamed in her eyes.
  "Argent," she said softly. "I had to call. I didn't have a choice. I just don't want you—" Then her  voice
  failed.
  "It's okay," he told her. "I understand." And with his gaze, based on all the years they'd had together, he
  let her know that his understanding wasn't just about the exfil-tration. She wanted him to know that calling
  out to him didn't mean she was changing her  mind  about  why  they  were  apart.  But  he  was  comfortable
  with that. This way, his life remained intact as well, without compromise. It was the only way he could live
  it.
  Epilogue
  [Chip file: Argent
  Security access: ******—12:16:57/10-20-60]
  BEGIN UPLOAD Location: Denver Safehouse
  "So what happened?"
  I looked at Archangel sitting across the table from me in the UCAS district in Denver. We were having
  lunch at the Cafe Giovanni on Market Street. The restaurant was  small,  dark,  and  intimate,  which  fit  my
  mood at the moment because I was worn out and feeling empty and wanted quiet around me.
  She was the last one of the team remaining in Denver. Laveau  had  shipped  out  first,  headed  back  for
  New  Orleans.  Summertrees  headed  back  into  the  T-bird  crowd  after  we  negotiated  the  sale  of  the
  Banshee. The Travers Twins had gone back to Atlanta three days ago, and Harrison Dane, patched up at a
  street doc who specialized in plastic surgery  reconstruction,  went  back  to  Dallas.  I  knew  Archangel  had
  stuck around for her own reasons.
  She  looked  classy,  like  she  had  just  walked  out  of  the  pages  of  a  glamour  screamsheet.  I  was  still
  carrying a lot of bruises even six days after the run, and I wore a hideaway cast  on  my  shin,  holding  the
  break together.
  Normally, I wouldn't have answered the questions Archangel was asking me unless Peg had asked them.
  Which Peg had asked, and I had answered, so I was already somewhat practiced. It had helped that Peg
  had stayed out of my biz until after I put Andi on the jet to Boston that morning.
  "Villiers offered her a chance to come back into the corp," I said. I'd put a white noise generator on the
  table to keep our conversation private.
  "And she did?"
  "Yes. She had some paydata that Villiers hadn't gotten in an earlier download."
  Archangel's eyes remained hidden behind the White-laws sunglasses she wore. "And you just let her go?"
  
  "I couldn't hold her."
  "She might have stayed if you'd asked."
  I looked at her then, knowing the questions she  was  asking  me  were  coming  out  of  her  own  situation,
  three years unsettled and still fresh in her mind. "I didn't want to ask."
  "All the love was gone?" She sounded sarcastic or bitter. I didn't know which and I didn't try to figure it
  out because I knew both emotions came out of the same place.
  "No. That's what made putting her on the plane this morning so hard."
  "Then why let her go?"
  "Because she couldn't stay," I replied.
  She understood then. "Because of you, or because of her?"
  I started to say both, because it was in me to protect Andi  if  I  could.  I'd  protected  her  somewhat  that
  morning by calling Villiers after I'd put her on the plane. The conversation was short. He'd offered me a job
  with NovaTech at an obscene salary. I'd turned it down, then offered him advice to the effect that I didn't
  want to hear of anything bad happening to Andi at his hands while she was in his employ. Or anything that
  might be construed as happening at his hands. He'd told me he'd take
  that under advisement. But my advice had rankled, as well  as  my  turning  down  the  offer.  Villiers  was  a
  man who was used to getting what he wanted. For the moment, I knew I had a powerful enemy if he chose
  to handle it that way.
  With Archangel and the prying I'd already done, I remained honest. "Because of me," I said.
  "You didn't want her to stay?" She looked surprised. "But the two of you stayed in a hotel room together
  for the last five nights."
  "I  slept  on  the  couch,"  I  said.  Sencio  had  needed  me  there  while  she  put  herself  back  together,
  reassembled that tough armor that  she  needed  to  make  Villiers  come  around  to  her  way  of  thinking.  I'd
  made her feel safe, and I'd taken some comfort in that as I worked on healing myself.
  "Why?"
  "Because I think more clearly when sex isn't involved."
  "Sex doesn't necessarily have to mean love."
  "No. I'm not a prude. But with someone like Andi, with the history we'd shared together, it would have
  been too confusing."
  "For her or you?"
  "For me," I answered. "I can't say how she'd feel."
  Archangel sipped her soykaf, thinking. I could see it in the way she held herself. "Do you think she would
  have stayed if you'd asked?"
  "I don't know."
  Archangel fixed me with her stare, her eyes and deeper emotions still invisible to me. "I think she would
  have."
  "Why?" I asked. "Would you have stayed if you'd been asked?"
  She gazed at me, and for a moment I thought I'd gone too far. She'd been treading around the real issues
  at hand and I'd deliberately stepped on them. "I don't know," she said finally.
  "You bailed before the issue even came up," I pointed out.
  "It  would  have  interfered  with  my  work.  After  everything  I've  been  through,  I  don't  need  all  the
  insecurity that comes with a relationship. All I've got in this life is me. I had to work hard to get that. And I
  don't want to lose it."
  I heard the brittleness in her voice, saw the glimmer of moisture on one of her cheeks. She was hurting
  and we both knew it. "Sometimes," I told her, "you have to face your greatest fears by looking them in the
  eye, not just beating  them  into  submission.  You  didn't  look  your  situation  in  the  eye.  You  picked  up  and
  moved on, beat it on one hand, and that may have been harder on you  than  staying  and  dealing  with  any
  potential problems on your team." I thought about Toshi and Hawk. "People in  the  shadows  that  you  can
  trust, they're far and few between. And the ones you can love? They're priceless."
  She looked away from me. "I've got to be going."
  "If you really want my advice," I told her, "go see this guy Jack that you've been thinking about. Face him
  and face yourself, then let the chips fall wherever they may. It's been three years for you, and it's still like
  yesterday."
  "It's not that easy."
  "I didn't say anything about it being easy. I've got some issues of my own I have to face." I was thinking
  about Brynnmawr, remembering that dead planet construct in the Matrix what was left of  him  was  stuck
  on, surrounded by graves that he'd helped fill. "Even this thing with Andi might not be over with. But I know
  
  what it is right now. You can't say the same thing."
  She stood up from the table and smiled down at me. "I'll think about it, Argent. I appreciate your time. I
  know you didn't have to answer these questions." She offered her hand and I took it. "If you ever need a
  decker
  for another run and Peg can't cover for you, give me a call."
  "I will," I said.
  She turned and walked away. I  watched  her  for  awhile,  wondering  how  she  was  going  to  handle  her
  situation, knowing she was going to have to deal with it because it wasn't going to go away.  The  feelings
  ran too deep. But so did the fear that I saw inside her.
  Back in the hotel that afternoon, I had Peg jack me back into the Matrix and take me to Brynnmawr.
  "Are you sure this is something you want to do?" she asked as we stepped down into the desolate world
  where he'd been confined. The eternal night draped shadows over the cemetery around us.
  I gazed around at  the  row  of  tombstones,  looking  for  him.  "It's  something  I  have  to  do,"  I  told  Peg.  I
  spotted him walking toward us. Peg had changed her persona to look like me. In the Matrix I couldn't feel
  the pain from the broken leg or the bullet wounds quite so bad.
  "Argent, my boy, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?" He sounded genuinely concerned, his
  eyes raking me from head to toe.
  "No sir," I responded. "Everything is fine."
  "You're moving different."
  I guessed that some of the gingerly way I'd been moving while recovering from the run had bled over into
  my mannerisms. Peg had looped a feedback into the program to allow her to read my stored body language.
  "I was wounded, sir."
  "Of course you were. But are you well now?"
  "I'm getting there, sir. Thank you for asking."
  Brynnmawr reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the pecans that he gathered from the trees over
  the graves. He cracked it between his fingers, dropping bits of the hull onto the ground.
  "I brought you something, sir." I held up a plain white box with Peg's help. She was still in control of the
  persona.
  A  wary  look  entered  his  eyes  and  he  drew  away  slightly.  That  was  the  first  time  I'd  ever  seen  him
  appear frightened, and seeing that reaction hurt me.
  "What is it?" he asked.
  "A gift, sir." I flipped open the top, revealing the dozen bagels inside. "Something to offer a change to the
  palate." I'd asked Peg to design a program  that  would  replace  the  pecans  the  construct  Brynnmawr  had
  been imprisoned in forced him to eat. She'd told me that she guessed the pecan data was a small  support
  program designed to help keep the integrity of the construct attuned to Brynnmawr's needs.
  "I've always had a fondness for bagels." He tossed the pecan away and reached in for one.
  Peg's programming was good. The bagels still gave offbeat, and I could tell how soft they were from the
  way Brynnmawr tore them in his hands. "There's something special about the box too, sir." I closed the lid,
  then opened it again. Once more, there were twelve bagels inside. "As long as you don't completely empty
  the box, it will refill." The program was also designed to replicate itself if it wasn't totally used up.
  "Ingenious." Brynnmawr graciously took the box. "I thank you for the gift, my boy, but why?" His  face
  got suddenly stern. "If this is given out of pity, I'll have none of it."
  "No sir," I said. "It's just a gift. Maybe you can even consider it as a down payment."
  "A down payment for what?"
  "I've come to realize something lately, sir," I said. "You taught  me  everything  I  knew  in  the  beginning.
  And I've gone on to teach myself several other  things.  But  you've  never  once  taught  me  everything  you
  know."
  Brynnmawr smiled. "So the prodigal has returned."
  "There are some things I'd like to talk over with you sir. Some things I need to understand."
  "Sencio didn't stay with you?"
  I shook my head.
  "I'm not surprised," Brynnmawr said. "She was never as disciplined as you were."
  "I don't feel very disciplined, sir. Frankly, these past few years, I've kind of felt all over the place."
  "Because of your lost team mates?"
  "I think that brought things to a head, sir," I told him. "There's more left over from my time with you than
  I'd thought. I need a clearer understanding of you to put it all into perspective."
  
  "Introspection is never a  good  thing  for  a  field  agent,"  he  told  me.  "But  as  for  becoming  a  man,  truly
  becoming the man you were born to be, there's no harsher teacher than one's own self. And  it's  the  only
  thing that will allow you to be what you most need to be." He smiled and clutched my upper arm, pulling me
  into motion, guiding me again like he had all those years ago.
  I  went  willingly,  following  him  into  the  gravekeeper's  house  in  the  middle  of  that  virtual  cemetery,
  surrounded by the dead of his life. I wondered what the house would look like on the inside, what kind of
  comforts or tortures his captors would have dreamed up and programmed for him.
  "You and I talking," Brynnmawr said, "it's not going to be the same. We've both grown."
  And I wasn't as young or as idealistic, or as sure of myself. He knew that.
  "I know how you feel, my boy," he told me in a low, compassionate voice that surprised me. "Broken up
  and  busted  inside.  It  hurts  having  to  look  at  your  own  mortality  and  your  own  capability  for  making
  mistakes."
  "Yes sir."
  "But those things are truths, my boy, and the truth shall set you free."
  I went with him into the house, to learn the things that only an adult son could learn from a father. And I
  was already feeling freer than I had in a long time.
  END UPLOAD
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Mel  Odom  is  the  author  of  over  60  books  in  the  science  fiction,  computer  gaming,  action-adventure,
  horror, young adult, and juvenile fields and makes his home in Moore, Oklahoma. Besides writing books, he
  coaches  his  nine-year-old's  and  fifteen-year-old's  basketball  teams,  a  Little  League  baseball  team,  and
  teaches.
  In addition to being a contributor  to  the  Shadowrun®  universe,  he's  writing  books  for  TSR's  Forgotten
  Realms setting, for Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Alex Mack, and a popular  on-going  adventure  series.
  He's also done the recent Blade movie novelization starring Wesley Snipes. His books have been translated
  into Russian and German, and he is an inductee of Oklahoma's Professional  Writers'  Hall  of  Fame.  At  a
  young age.
  He shares his life  with  wife,  Sherry,  and  their  five  children,  Matthew  Lane,  Matthew  Dain,  Montana,
  Shiloh, and baby Chandler. And a lot of friends and ball teams.
  He can be reached by e-mail at denimbyte@aol.com and welcomes comments.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/Shadowrun Novels/Run Hard, Die Fast [FASA 5741].pdf