Night's Pawn (25 page)

They were playing an obvious game, and Chase decided he was willing to play by those rules.

Chase parked the Hummer just out of sight of the watchers. He got out, leaving the credstick inserted and the vehicle running. It was worth the risk. Pulling his Colt Manhunter from its shoulder holster, he began to walk back toward the hotel. The silencer, normally kept safe in its own little sheath on the holster, snapped cleanly onto the barrel of the weapon. He felt the gun's growing warmth as status messages flashed across his eye. It was ready. As he rounded the corner, he kept the weapon tight against his side, where it was buried in the folds of his coat. There was still a chance the two watchers weren't connected to him at all, but Chase doubted it. This was a situation he should have expected, been prepared for.

Sloppy, he thought. He was around the corner, halfway to the hotel steps, when one of the two noticed him. The goon's body stiffened, and he turned toward his partner. Chase continued on. The first looked back toward him as the second began to speak into something in his hand. A weapon, an Uzi III, street-drek hardware, cleared the first goon's long coat. The flash of a laser sight caught Chase's eye. The rest of Chase's body caught up with his cybernetic reflexes.

Chase pivoted the pistol at his side and brought the barrel up. The bright red targeting dot whipped across his vision and settled on the second goon. His mouth opened to speak, and Chase put a bullet in it. The man's head snapped back in a quick cloud of blood, and Chase kept the target dot on him and fired a second bullet through his chin.

Not sure what had happened, the first goon turned to glance at his partner. While he did Chase was walking toward him, putting rounds into either side of the man's chest.

The hotel's glass front doors opened, and four figures stepped out: Victor and Roja, the human man and woman from Manhattan, another man, and a stunned, will-less Cara Villiers. Seeing the second goon fall, Victor's eyes widened, scanning the street. Ducking below the line of cars, Chase reached for the first goon's Uzi, which had clattered to the ground.

He heard movement, people beginning to run, and Cara begin to scream "Nooooo…" Then came the sound of a punch, hard and expert, and the whoosh of suddenly expelled air.

Roja came around the car directly in front of the building, firing her submachine gun, but Chase had already rolled back toward the curb. Her rounds hit the first goon's body and she began to turn toward him, keeping the trigger down. Chase fired, the gun low to the ground but angled up, catching her in the thigh. She yelled, and her gun jerked up from the recoil and sprayed high over him. She fell and glanced off the hood of the car as her leg collapsed under her.

Chase stood, the Uzi in one hand, his own pistol in the other. Cara was free and running toward him, wild panic on her face. Her two kidnappers were moving to either side, Victor to Chase's left and the unknown man to the right. They had their guns up and aimed at him, but they didn't shoot. They were afraid of hitting Cara.

Chase fired both weapons. The Uzi fired blindly, his arm jerking uncontrollably from the recoil. But Victor ducked. The unknown man took a round in the chest from the pistol linked to Chase's brain, and staggered back against the glass. Behind him, seen dimly through that darkened glass, Chase made out a running figure, his arms rising above him. The elf mage. Chase fired at him through the glass. The heavy rounds pierced the glass, creating a huge spiderweb of cracks that filled the window. Chase couldn't see if he'd hit the mage, but an alarm began to sound in the hotel. For once he thanked corporate security.

Cara reached him and slammed against him, gasping, but he was braced for her. "Freid?" he said, watching the front of the building for signs of the elf mage. When Cara didn't answer, he looked at her and saw the answer burning in her eyes. He understood, and he felt it settle in him.

"Go!" he said, pushing her in the direction of the corner. At first he thought Cara wasn't going to obey, but then she began to run. A noise and a motion caught Chase's attention, and he turned to see Victor rising from behind a car, heavy pistol held before him combat-style. Chase fired the Uzi blindly again, putting more rounds in the car than anywhere near Victor, but again Victor ducked. Roja moved, and Chase pointed the weapon toward her, but did not fire as she crawled to the curb, her gun left abandoned.

He began to run, following Cara, but keeping the Uzi pointed back toward the hotel. Suddenly, Victor rolled out onto the street and came up firing. Two rounds passed close by Chase, one scoring his coat. He returned fire with the Uzi, but only one round spit out before the clip emptied. Chase darted into the row of parked cars and heard at least two more rounds impact against them. Cara was just ahead of him as he reached the corner. She looked back, still panicked.

"The Hummer!"

She dashed to it and opened the door on the driver's side, throwing herself into the truck. Chase reached it just as her feet slid clear, and he turned, expecting Victor to be close behind. He was, almost. Chase spotted him running on the far side of the parked cars, almost to the corner. Seeing Chase standing there, weapon raised and waiting, Victor threw himself to the ground. Chase's two rounds shattered a car and a store window beyond him.

Chase jumped into the Hummer and slammed his foot down hard against the accelerator. The light truck leaped forward, smashing and scraping against a parked car before Chase got a hand on the wheel.

Through the rearview mirror Chase saw Victor stand and aim his pistol at the back of the truck.

Before he could fire, Chase had turned the corner, and the Hummer was no longer in sight.

Cara was curled into a ball next to him, weeping, but right now Chase was more concerned with getting clear of the hotel. He took the Hummer as far north in Denver as he dared before hitting the Sioux Council border. He'd considered going northwest into Boulder and then crossing into Pueblo Corporate Council territory, but the Pueblo border crossings were tighter and more likely to pick up on their forged credsticks.

He stopped at the northern edge of Commerce City, a bare kilometer from the border crossing. Cara was still crying, but she'd begun to regain control of herself during the drive. When Chase reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder, she turned suddenly and grabbed it, pulling herself across and against him. She began to cry harder. He wasn't sure what to do and so just let her cry. "It's okay," he said softly again and again, brushing back her hair with fingers that smelled of gunpowder.

After a time, she quieted and pushed carefully away from him. Her eyes were red and swollen and her hair matted where it had picked up her tears. She tried to untangle the strands and he helped.

Finally, she looked at him. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded, but didn't look too sure.

"I'm sorry, Cara, but I must know what happened."

Looking away, it was a few moments before she spoke. "I was asleep, but somebody pulling on me woke me up. Whoever it was knocked me onto the floor and put his foot on the back of my neck. Somebody, the woman, said, 'Don't move. We're not going to kill you.'

"I looked across the floor, and Freid was there. She looked hurt, there was some blood or something…

"I… she was… They'd pulled a pillowcase over her head, I don't know why. The elf was cursing, yelling, he kicked her. The man, the one who was standing on me wanted to know where you were. I couldn't tell him; I couldn't breathe." She was crying again.

"The elf shot her. He pulled out a gun and shot her. I… they made me get dressed. They took me downstairs, they said a car was waiting. I couldn't…"

Chase reached out and pulled her close again. "It's all right. You did what you could, what you were supposed to do."

"I couldn't stop them."

"I know, I know," he said. "I understand." She finally calmed again, and under their forged identities as father and daughter, Chase and Cara crossed from Denver into the lands of the Sioux Nation. Driving tirelessly day and night, the Hummer's autopilot brought them within sight of Seattle a few days later.

PART 3

SEATTLE, 2053

Though no longer the fair playground it was in the twentieth century, Seattle is a vital and vigorous city. Today's Seattle sprawls from Everett to Tacoma, encompassing sixteen hundred square kilometers along the coast of Puget Sound. It remains an outpost of the United and Canadian American States. Hemmed in by the Salish-Shidhe Council nation on three sides and the Pacific Ocean on the fourth, Seattle is an active port city and still very much an important gateway to the Orient.

—Excerpt from
Fromor's Guide to the Northwestern American Continent: 2051
. Reprinted with permission.

"We don't have any social problems here that a few thousand troops won't solve. Know where I can find some?"

—Marilyn Schultz, Governor of Seattle, during an interview on the local news program "Sound Bites"

21

He'd been staring at what little of the Renraku Arcology he could see out the restaurant's south windows. Some of the structure was blocked by intervening buildings, but there was virtually nothing in Seattle that could completely hide the arcology's 320 floors. The giant building, ninth largest in the world, had been constructed over an area once known as Pioneer Square, a centerpiece of Seattle's former life.

Now, it was the site of a building more than a kilometer tall that commanded the attention of all, its base covering some fifty-six square blocks. Some parts took their influence from the macroglass and chrome school of modern architecture, while others seemed to hearken more toward the master builders of ancient Egypt.

Chase, though, cared about none of that. His eyes and his thoughts were focused on the slow, precise shifting of the green-gray glass on one side of the building. Many of the arcology's windows contained special light collectors that channeled sunlight into the deeper, almost city-like reaches of the building, and then out the far side to illuminate the part of the city that would otherwise have been in the arcology's literal shadow. From that side it was impossible to look at the building, and Chase often wondered if many of Seattle's citizens had picked up the habit of averting their eyes out of almost religious awe. For Seattle, the arcology and her owner, Renraku Computer Systems, were a kind of economic god.

He'd almost achieved the level of attention he needed to perceive the minute shifting of the glass panels when the maitre d' appeared at his side.

"Sir."

Chase blinked a few times and returned his attention to the restaurant. It was high tide, and a sea otter made faces at patrons through the restaurant's rear wall, which was entirely of glass. The patrons tried to ignore it.

"Sir."

Chase looked up, and then down, into the face of the dwarf. Though sans the customary beard, the man nevertheless showed the rounded, pouty features of his metahuman ancestry.

"I'm sorry to disturb your thoughts, sir, but there is a young lady at the door who says she is here to meet you. A Miss Janet Jane."

Chase smiled. "Yes, I've been waiting for her."

The maitre d' nodded, but then shifted uncomfortably.

"A problem?" asked Chase.

"Well, yes, sir. You see, it's her appearance…"

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"She, um… Well, sir, you see, we have a dress code."

"Ah," said Chase. "And she doesn't meet your standards."

"That's correct. I'm sorry to cause this—"

Chase held up a hand. "I understand. In this case, however, you're going to have to make an exception."

The dwarf stiffened slightly. "I'm afraid, sir, that our policies cannot simply be—"

Chase cut him off again. "Is Mr. Bjeland in?"

"The owner?" said the maitre d', suddenly realizing what was happening. "I'm afraid he is not here at the moment."

Chase nodded, pulled a pen and small notebook from his pocket and scribbled down some numbers. "Here is Mr. Bjeland's portable telecom number. He's never without his phone. Call him and ask him about your dress code. Tell him also that Mister Michael Dengeo says hello."

The dwarf stared at the paper and seemed to recognize the number. Chase saw his already wrinkled brow furrow as he considered his options. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry, sir. I did not realize you were a friend of Mr. Bjeland's. I will escort the young lady in immediately. I do apologize."