Lone Wolf (26 page)

He does. “Peg doesn’t think things were ever really close between James and Timothy, but they got even more distant about a year ago, maybe more. The senior suit in charge of a major TIC subsidiary called”—he leans closer to the screen—“Novalis Optical Technologies jumped ship to join a competitor, leaving the top spot open. Seems Timothy figured the corner office should be his.”

“But daddy surprised him?”

“Big-time,” Argent confirms. “Maybe you could call it nepotism because the slot went to family. But the slag he picked was a real hot prospect, really competent, with a solid track record. One Lynne Telestrian, Timothy’s cousin."

"And Timothy didn’t approve of daddy’s choice?”

Argent chuckles. “You might say he was . . . critical ... of
James’ business acumen. Loudly and publicly critical.
Which, of course, didn’t give James much incentive to change his mind.” He sits back in his chair and smiles. “So Lynne got the corner officer and the stock options and the major perks, and Timothy got slotted off. So he declared war.”

That makes me sit up straight. “Huh?”

“Probably not the way you’re thinking of it,” the runner amends quickly. “No drive-bys or geeked suits or blown-up facilities. No, this was corp warfare—stock manipulation, industrial espionage, and one of the nastiest proxy battles you’ve ever seen.

“Seems young Timothy wasn’t quite the frag-up daddy imagined,” Argent goes on, seeming to warm to the role of storyteller. “As soon as the drek hit the pot, James tried to can Timothy from his position as prez of BioLogic.”

“Tried?” I blurt. “James is head honcho of the whole fragging Teleslrian empire, isn’t he?”

Argent nods. “True, but the various subsidiaries have some degree of autonomy. That’s the way he set them up. They’re under the TIC umbrella, but they’ve got their own boards of directors, their own shareholders, and all that drek. What happened was that James went to the BioLogic board of directors and told them to turf Timothy. The board told James to go frag himself.”

I nod slowly. “Timothy’s got some kind of lock on the BioLogic board.”

“At the very least. It seems that James got a little twitchy at this point, and checked out the . . . the political reliability, I guess you could call it... of other parts of his empire ..."

"Only to find Timothy had the fix in with them, too,” I finish.

“Bingo. Not enough to give Timothy control—not as such—but enough so that daddy didn’t have complete control himself. I understand he was a tad slotted off.”

“Wonder why.” I ponder for a moment, then nod again. “Okay, proxy fight between father and son. Where does cousin Lynne stand?”

“Firmly in James’ camp. In fact, she’s his expediter and honorable hatchet-man. James either has other fish to fry, or he judges Lynne is better than he is at this kind of drek. She’s his Saint Michael, fighting off Timothy’s incursions."

"What kind of incursions?”

Argent shrugs again. “Proxy fights, like I said. Intimidating shareholders, undercutting contracts . ..” He refers to the screen, pointing to a particular paragraph with a metallic finger. “Yeah, here it is. As one of the oldest elves around, James Telestrian has a megahuge rep in the Tir, which he’s managed to parlay into a partial lock on the business community. That means if Timothy wants to increase his market share—and trust me, he does—he’s got to do it outside the Tir.” He looks at me expectantly.

I nod. Yeah, it makes sense, doesn’t it? “And since all's fair in love and war, he’d have no qualms about dealing with the Cutters if it suited him.” Then something eise strikes me. “Got a picture of Lynne?”

He blinks, then rattles in a command on the keyboard. Another image appears in a secondary window. Long blonde hair pulled back behind her ears. Cold green eyes. Aloof, almost arrogant expression. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lynne Telestrian,” I say quietly. “Again.”

“The elf biff?”

“That’s her.” I pause. “Unless it’s someone magically impersonating her ...” Then I shake my head with a snort. “Nah, that’s just getting too complicated, too paranoid.” Argent is scrutinizing the image on the display. “Lynne Telestrian. Interesting.” Now he glances my way again. “So what does that tell us?” he asks.

I don’t answer immediately. It tells me a few things, but I’m not sure why the frag I should share them with a fragging shadowrunner. Then I shake off that thought. He’s treated fairly with me—so far, I amend—and there’s no reason—again, so far—why I shouldn’t level with him. His eyes are steady on my face, and it’s not the first time I get the feeling he’s making much too fragging good a guess about what’s going on in my mind. I break eye contact, studiously examining the image of the elf woman. “It tells us we can put more faith in the Timothy Telestrian tie-in,” I muse. “What would Lynne gain from sending us after a Timothy-Seattle connection that doesn’t exist?”

Argent nods brusque agreement. “Anything else?"

"Maybe.” What was it Argent called her? “If she’s James Telestrian’s Saint Michael, it means that the Seattle connection is important—to both sides—otherwise she wouldn’t be wasting her time dancing me around.” I shrug. “That’s about it.”

“There’s something more,” the shadowrunner says quietly.

“
You’re
important, Wolf.”

I snap my head around so fast I almost sprain my neck. “Huh? Bulldrek.” The word’s out of my mouth before I realize it isn’t bulldrek after all.

“It’s the same logic,” Argent says firmly, reinforcing what I just realized myself. “You must be important, or else she wouldn’t be wasting her time dancing you around. She’d ignore you or geek you. But she hasn’t done either.”

“Yeah,” I agree unwillingly. “All right. But why?”

“My guess is you should be putting some serious skull-sweat into figuring that one out,” the runner says. “She must figure you know something—or can do something—that could frag up whatever Timothy’s got happening in the plex. Any ideas?”

What fragging danger could I be to some ambitious elf suit? Unless Timothy were to get caught in the crossfire when the Star and the Cutters try to geek me, I can’t see I’m of any significance to Timothy fragging Telestrian. “Not right at the moment,” I say mildly.

Argent chuckles. “Well, give it some thought, omae. For your own sake, if for no other reason.”

“No drek, Sherlock.” I rub at my eyes. Frag of a thing to have to deal with when you first wake up—trying to figure out how you fit into some elf-corp infighting. “Did Peg dig up anything on Mr. Nemo?”

“Nothing under that name,” Argent says, face twisting wryly. “No fragging surprise. And it’s not as if your description was worth much.”

“It’s not as if there was much to fragging describe,” I snap back, feeling suddenly defensive. “Brown and brown, olive complexion, medium height, medium build, no distinguishing features, age twenty-eight to forty. Not a frag of a lot to go on, you know what I mean?” Translation: I’d like to see you do any better, hotshot . . .

For an instant, Argent’s modified optics narrow and take on a frosty glint. I know he scanned the last message just fine, and I think maybe this time I’ve pushed him too far. But the tension lasts only an instant, then the hard lines of his body relax and he nods. “No kick against you, Wolf."

"None taken,” I lie back, and honor’s satisfied. Frag this Alpha-male,
iQuien es mas macho?
drek. It just gets in the way. “Too bad.”

“Shoganai,” the runner says. “Jap for ‘drek all we can do about it.’”

I’m silent for a moment, then, “You know, sometimes no
distinguishing features can be distinguishing enough. Like,
neither of us qualify. I’m too tall, you’re ...” I don’t finish the thought.

Argent gives a feral grin, and there’s a metallic snick as he clenches both fists. “Point taken.”

“So assume Nemo’s in the TIC empire somewhere,” I go on. The runner nods in acceptance. “Personnel jackets have photos. Could Peg puil up shots of everyone who’s male and plain vanilla, no distinguishing features? I’ll do the mug-shot route and see if I can spot him.”

Argent’s not convinced. “You know how big the TIC empire is, ornae?"

“Then limit it to Timothy’s bloc,” I say impatiently. “Maybe.”

“Can you think of a better way?”

Eventually the shadowrunner shakes his head. “No,” he admits. But he’s not giving up totally. “You figure Nemo’s worth the effort ?”

“Fragged if I know, but he could be. We marked each other, remember?”

“I also remember you don’t know from where or when."

"Frag, I know that, okay?” I bite back on my impatience the best I can. “I don’t know if it’s important. I only know it might be important. Got any better ideas” . . . butthead?

Argent doesn’t say a word, but his steady gaze gets the message across just fine: Yeah, kick your sorry hoop out of here back onto the street, and go back to hoopfragging the corps for major nuyen like a good little shadowrunner.

For maybe fifteen seconds we sit like that, giving each other the old stare-down, and the wire starts really wanting to scrag Argent. But it’s the shadowrunner who looks away first, with a minuscule nod. “Okay, it’s another possible lead,” he says quietly. “I’ll pass it on to Peg.”

And I realize I’ve just won an argument with a shadowrunner.

20

Which leaves me with the question, just what the frag am I supposed to do next? I’m a nullhead, so I can’t do squat to help the datasearch. And with a death-mark on me—courtesy of the Cutters and the Star and who knows who else (Timothy fragging Telestrian, maybe?), going out to work the streets is an invitation to get myself geeked. And where would I go and what streets would I work anyway? I feel about as useless as tits on a fragging bull, and I don’t like it.

The moment Argent leaves to go relay the Nemo lead to Peg the decker, I feel like a caged fragging animal. I have to do something—anything. I jander on down the stairs that lead into one of the back rooms of the Hole in the Wall and I look around for something to occupy my time and my mind. I’m still looking for it in the office where I first met Argent, when I hear the door open behind me.

Pull the H & K, spin and drop into a crouch . . .

And wind up looking over the sights at the crabby old cow of an ork-woman who was tending bar yesterday. Jean Trudel, the owner of this place, according to Argent.

If staring down the muzzle of an SMG fazes Trudel in the slightest, she’s too hard-bitten to show it. She just glares at me out of her mismatched eyes, and snorts. I don’t know whether the sound is one of disgust, amusement, or both, and don’t really want to know.

Trying not to show my chagrin, I make a production of safing and returning the weapon to its holster and standing back up. “You startled me,” I say mildly.

She makes a disgusting phlegmy noise I tentatively identify as a laugh. “Big man with his little gun,” she chortles. “Lone Wolf, hah?”

I don’t need to put up with this drek. I head right past her for the door without giving her so much as a glance. I’m just about out of the office when she says, “You want a car?”

That stops me, just like she knew it would. I turn slowly. She’s smiling, giving me a better look at her chipped tusks than I really want at the moment.

“Argent said you’d want a car,” she says again, as unfazed by my hard-eyed appraisal as she was by the H & K. Tough old bat—either that or too dumb to know when it’s smart to be scared.

“He did. huh?”

“Surprised it took you so fragging long.”

I decide to leave that the frag alone, and go along with the game. “Where?” I ask.

She’s got one hand deep in a pocket of her baggy jumpsuit, and now it comes out. I have to overrule the wire to keep from dragging out my weapon. I look down at her hand. Hanging from a stained and callused forefinger is a keyring with an electronic codekey hanging from it. “Parked out front,” she says.

I snag the key as I brush past her. She chuckles, and my stomach twists at the sound. “It’s red,” she says helpfully to my retreating back.

“To match your fragging eyes,” I mutter under my breath. Her hearing’s better than it has any right to be, because she barks with laughter. Frag her and the hog she rode in on. And frag Argent too for knowing I’d want to hit the streets and for letting Trudel in on it. Serve them both fragging right if I took their car, slipped the border heading north— I’ve always liked north—and sold the pecker for a starting stake in, say, Vancouver. Let Lone Star, Timothy Telestrian, cousin Lynne, the Cutters, and the shadowrunners of Seattle frag each other’s hoops till they bleed, and good riddance say I. Pleasant daydream, but everyone knows I’m not going to put it into practice.

Trudel-hag spoke truly: the car is red, and it’s parked out front. Right out front, in a taxi-only zone. Either somebody’s
got a much better handle on predicting my actions than i’d
really like—all odds say it’s Argent—or I’m under surveillance, electronic, meat, magical—or all three. Can’t say I like either option worth drek. The car, however, is enough to make me feel marginally better. It's a Eurocar Westwind 2000, the 2054 model. A rag-top, which means it’s got the turbo engine and performance suspension package. Just short of 150-K nuyen worth of high speed and high performance—and somehow I get the feeling Argent bought the fragging thing instead of boosting it. Once again I find my image of shadowrunners isn’t exactly on the money.