Shadowrun 01 - Never Deal With A Dragon (2 page)

'Progress has been slow. We lost so much valuable data when research facilities were destroyed in the chaos that followed the first massive outbreak of
kawaru
. How could dedicated scientists cope with the unnatural and unexpected when all order was crumbling around them, swept away in the hatred, fear, and loathing that engulfed the world as men, women, and even children were warped?

"Those days of chaos are behind us now. In time, we will understand
kawaru
, perhaps even be able to prevent or reverse it. But we will do so scientifically. The ephemera of magic offer no hope."

The doctor was voicing beliefs that Sam had grown up with, but the words had a hollow ring. He felt empty, scoured by despair at what had happened to his sister. Their father had tried to protect his family from the twisting of the Change, but now it was thrust upon them with a violence that tore both Sam's and Janice's lives out of joint. Whatever perverse power fueled goblinization had taken his own sister. How was it possible? Sam fought down a scream of anguish.

"How is she, doctor? Will she be all right?"

The doctor touched his shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. "It is difficult to be sure, Verner-
san
. She is undergoing a lengthy Change. Her vital signs are strong, but the ordeal seems far from over."

"I want to see her."

"That would be ill-advised. She is comatose and would receive no comfort from your presence."

"I don't care. I still want to see her."

"It is not in my hands, Verner-
san
. The Imperial Genetics Board permits only the attending medical teams to enter the
Kawaru
ward. It could be dangerous should a patient suddenly complete the Change and go berserk."

"But you could smuggle me in, couldn't you?" he pleaded. "I could wear an orderly's gown . . . pretend to be a medical student."

"Perhaps. But discovery would be a disaster. For you. For me. Even for your sister. It would almost certainly result in revocation of her relocation funds, should she survive. Her adjustment to the new life she faces will be difficult enough. And you would surely lose whatever status you have left with your corporation."

"I don't care about myself. She'll need me."

"She will need you to be working and bringing in a salary. You can help her best by obeying your superiors. There is nothing you can do here in the hospital."

"You don't understand . . ."

"No, Verner-
san
, you are wrong." The physician shook her head slowly, her eyes wells of sadness. "I understand too well."

Her image swam before his eyes as she spoke. For a moment, Sam thought it was tears for his sister that blurred his vision, then he realized that the doctor must have directed the bed to inject a tranquilizer.

His earlier dream of the ocean returned, and he was dragged down by an irresistible current, down into a yawning darkness where grinning Trolls and Goblins reached for him. Struggle as he might against it, he only continued to tumble deeper down. A new lassitude crept through his limbs and flooded toward his brain. The visions of monsters faded with his awareness, leaving only a bright circle of pain throbbing at the side of his head. Then that too faded, swallowed up in oblivion.

Darkness had covered the land for some hours when the Elf stepped out under the sky to relieve himself. The forest full of soft sounds, its life undisturbed by the presence lone Elf. A slight breeze meandered among the great dark boles of the trees, tickling their leaves into a soft rustle. The same wayward air played with strands of his white hair and caressed his skin, making the Elf smile with pleasure.

Though he did not call this forest his home, as did many of his kind, he always felt its powerful lure. There was great peace among the looming wooden giants, peace even amid nightly games of survival unfolding all around him. Sometimes he even wished to remain here, but that did not happen often. His work was important to him, and it was work he could rarely do here.

He looked up at the sky, rejoicing in the multitude of stars showing through the gaps in the clouds to shed their light him. So many, burning through the cold of space with tantalizing promises of their hoard of universal knowledge. Someday, he promised them, we will come to you.

A slight motion caught the Elf's attention. A falling star, he thought. Changing his focus, the Elf saw it was not a falling star, but a craft moving across the heavens faster than the celestial objects themselves. Time in motion.

Time.

The thought broke his communion trance and returned to the mundane world where seconds passed inexorably, hurrying past the now that was the forest's life. A quick of star positions told him that the others would be already in place, waiting for him. He stepped back under the canopy and knelt by the small, low table.

He snugged the surgical steel jack into the socket at his temple and his fingers flew across the keyboard of his Fuchi 7 cyberdeck, launching him into the Matrix. His vision shifted to that dazzling electronic world of analog space where cybernetic functions took on an almost palpable reality. He ran the electron paths of cyberspace up the satellite link and down again into the Seattle Regional Telecommunications Grid. Within seconds, he was well on his way to the rendezvous with his companions inside the Renraku arcology.

The lights of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport vanished behind the craft, only to appear again in front of it. The plane was circling. Sam briefly wondered why, but dismissed his concern, sure that the pilot would inform the passengers of any problem. His own life seemed to be circling, too, returning him to the country he had so willingly left for a scholarship to Tokyo University. Around and around he went, chasing his own tail and getting nowhere.

Three hours ago, he had gone through the latest in a week-long series of brush-offs of his efforts to learn the state of his sister's health. They wouldn't even tell him exactly where she was being treated. He had lost his temper when his Renraku escorts began to hustle him away from the telecom and along a boarding corridor to the waiting JSA space-plane. It was only the fear that, once away from Japan, he would lose all contact with Janice that allowed him to give in to his anger. His escorts, members of the famed Red Samurai security force, had simply taken his histrionics in stride and deposited him, per their orders, on the aircraft.

Two hours later, Sam was on the ground at his destination, being greeted by a Renraku employee in a fringed synth-leather jacket, floppy pilot's cap, and pointy sequined boots. The clothing was no less outrageous than the woman's overly familiar forms of address and rude jokes. First she led Sam through the intricacies of Seattle customs and security checks, then she took him onto the field to a waiting Federated Boeing Commuter marked with the Renraku logo. The woman assured him that the tilt-wing shuttle plane would take them to the arcology in the most expeditious manner. When Sam had boarded and taken his seat in the luxurious passenger cabin, his escort vanished through the forward door to the cockpit. A few moments later, the craft lifted from the ground. Take-off was accompanied by the pilot's commentary on minor faults in the lower control's procedure.

Sam decided for the twentieth—or was it fortieth?—time that there was little he could do at the moment. To distract himself, he turned his attention to his fellow passengers. Like him, all were bound for the Renraku arcology.

Seated at the bar was Alice Crenshaw. She had sat next to him during the trip from Japan, but had said little, which suited Sam's dark mood just fine. What Crenshaw did tell him was that she, too, was being transferred to the arcology project. She was equally unhappy about it, insulting the steward who politely inquired about the reason for her transfer.

Crenshaw had boarded the Commuter a moment after Sam, saying nothing to the others already aboard the VTOL transfer shuttle and ignoring their friendly attempts at conversation. Instead, she had busied herself almost immediately with a bourbon and water.

Chatting quietly on a broad bench seat were a couple who I introduced themselves to Sam as Jiro and Betty Tanaka. He was Nisei, a second-generation Japanese born in the Americas, and she was from the California Free State. Sam envied the simple hopes and fears of the salaryman and his wife. For the young Jiro, an assignment to work as a computer specialist in the Renraku arcology would actually be a step up in his career.

The only other passenger was a Mr. Toragama. Put off by Sam's distraction and Crenshaw's disdain, he had buried himself in his middle-manager concerns, alternately tapping the keys and studying the screen of his lap computer.

Sam turned his head to gaze out the window again. The Commuter had left its holding pattern and was moving across Seattle toward the glitter of lights that marked the heart of the metroplex.

There, looming ahead was the Renraku arcology, its massive presence dwarfing the tall office buildings of the nearby central business district. Even though portions were still under construction, the arcology already enclosed a dozen city blocks. Beyond it in the distance, Sam saw the garish neon of the Aztechnology pyramid proclaiming the arrogance of the corporation's Atzlan owners.

The Commuter banked, gliding past the sloped southern face of the arcology. Diamond reflections of the aircraft's landing lights glittered from the banks of solar concentrators sheathing the surface and again from the dark waters as the plane moved out over the Sound. Though the noise was muffled by the cabin's superb sound-proofing, the vibration of the shift from horizontal to vertical flight mode permeated the cabin. The craft dropped a little altitude as it moved over the Renraku-owned docks and warehouses skirting the water-face of the arcology. The VTOL tilted in toward one of the many landing pads.

Sam could see the landing lights getting closer, but the pad seemed deserted. No official greeting party waited, not even the usual scurrying ground crew. As they neared touchdown, the aircraft gave a slight lurch before steadying itself and settling slowly to the pad.

No word came from the pilot's compartment as the passengers waited. The Tanakas pointed out sights to one another through their window overlooking the Sound. Mr. Toragama stowed away his computer to the accompaniment of tinkling ice as Crenshaw mixed herself a last drink. Unwilling to move, Sam sat staring at the still-spinning rotors, A sharp clack resounded in the cabin as the outer hatchway latch turned.

"About time," Crenshaw groused.

The hatch eased open and the gangway rattled into position. The noise level in the cabin suddenly increased as the sound of the Commuter's idling engines swept in. Smells came in, too, the tang of the ocean permeating the harsh odors of aviation fuel and heated metal and plastic.

Then all ordinariness died in a thunder of gunshots and automatic weapons fire. Crenshaw dropped her drink and started to reach into her suit jacket but stopped in mid-motion as a massive figure dove through the hatch and rolled quickly to his feet. Bulky with muscle and armor, the intruder was an Ork. The cabin lights glinted off his yellowed tusks and blood-shot eyes, but the blue steel of his HK227 automatic rifle gleamed with cold perfection.

"Move and die," the Ork snarled in barely understandable English.

His words were garbled, but the yawning muzzle of his rifle spoke clearly. Crenshaw eased her hand out of her jacket, but no one else moved. Betty Tanaka began to hiccup softly, and Jiro, shivering fearfully, did nothing to comfort her.

Satisfied that he had cowed them, the Ork moved cautiously into the plane. A swift sidestep took him past the closed door of the pilot compartment. His movement made room in the doorway and two more invaders quickly filled it. The one in the fringed leather duster was a woman. The other, ragged in surplus military gear, was an Amerindian male. Sam barely had time to register all that before an eerie howling filled the air.

Frozen with unreasoning fear, Sam stared in horror at the massive shape bounding into the cabin. The huge, hound-like beast shouldered aside the Amerindian to land with snarl at the feet of the female invader.

Yellow teeth snapped at her, catching the fringe on the left arm of her coat. She shoved that arm straight into the beast's mouth, jamming it back into the hinge of the animal's jaws. The beast backpedaled, seeking to disengage, but the woman's free hand whipped around to grasp the studded collar around its neck. The hound reared on its hind legs, lifting the woman off the floor.

Suddenly the animal arched violently as a yellow, sparking glow ran along its collar, the light revealing the Renraku logo etched in the band. Throwing itself away from its antagonist, the beast slammed against the bulkhead with a yelp of pain, then twisted and bit at itself as though trying to fend off its agony. The animal howled again, but this was not the bone-freezing sound that had paralyzed Sam and the others. Only pain and the animal's own uncomprehending fear remained. It crashed to the floor and whimpered once as it died. The stench of singed fur was overpowering.

Had the woman dispatched the beast with magic? Sam couldn't be sure, never having seen a magician in action, but he could think of no other explanation.

Hollow-eyed and panting, the woman spoke softly, almost to herself. "Damned Barghests. Why don't they ever go for the muscle first?"

Weapons sounded outside the aircraft again, filling the cabin with sudden death. The woman threw herself to the cabin floor and the man dodged back against the Commuter's bulkhead. The Renraku employees were slower to move, Betty Tanaka jerked and tumbled backward as slugs ripped into her. Jiro spun, blood spraying from his shoulder, and crashed into Toragama before the two of them pitched to the floor. Sam dropped behind his seat just as bullets chewed through the padding and light aluminum frame over his head. Crenshaw, out of the line of fire, stood still and eyed the Ork, who also remained standing, saved from the fire by a kink in the bulkhead.

The male invader made a sudden jump and snatched the hatch handle, tugging it closed. By the almost superhuman speed of the man's movement, Sam realized it had to be cyberware enhancing his reactions.