Shadowrun: Spells & Chrome (22 page)

“Even if you could leave—which you can’t, not like this—I need you. This isn’t over.”

“I’m not helping you anymore.”

His expression hardened. “My wife is in danger because of you, and you’re going to help get her out of it.”

“
I
placed her in danger? Who fed that poor excuse for a Trojan to my dog? Who thought transmitting from my apartment directly to Cylestra’s intranet was a good idea?”

“You had me
followed
. Two of Cylestra’s sister corps have people inside SkySec. They must have run a search after sensing the incoming trace.”

“How does that place Allora in danger?”

“Because I went to see her! I’m fortunate I masked myself halfway there, but they’ll find her soon. We have to go to her. You have to show Allora what you do, so she understands completely.”

I took shallow breaths to stave off the dizziness as rage boiled within me. I was angry not because Koorong had fooled me—I’d been fooled before and I’d be fooled again—it was because I’d fallen for such simple bait. I had jumped at the chance to avenge Liam’s death too quickly. You never get what you pay for when the price is too cheap.”

As I gripped the edge of the gurney, my knuckles aching, I found myself thinking less about Liam and more about Allora. She was a woman who had lost her child. Liam and I had never had children, but I was sure that if I had, and I’d lost her to a corp, I’d bloody well be trying to do something about it. And it wasn’t just about Sindara. It was bigger than that. Cylestra was multinational. How many others had found a similar fate to Sindala? Dozens? Hundreds?

Koorong had an expectant look on his face. He knew—or had a good idea—that I would agree to help, even after his duplicity. Was I really that transparent?

I supposed I was. “Where is Allora?” I asked.

“Not far.”

•
•
•

I watched as Koorong melded into the surface of the graffiti-covered wall behind him. He was still there, just camouflaged, but the effect was so successful that standing only a meter away I could hardly detect his outline. He claimed it would work for both of us, and as long as he was able to concentrate, it would be enough to get us inside Blaxland Heights, a massive tenement project on Sydney’s southwest side, without being seen by cameras. Indeed, when I looked down I couldn’t see my own hands, even when while wiggling them.

Ready?
he asked subvocally.

I checked the Blax’s meager security system again. Allora had created several back doors, and Koorong had given me the keys. The path we’d be taking was populated, but by nothing that would cause any alarm.

Ready,
I said.

We padded across the street toward a courtyard that sat below the fifty-story complex. I could still feel the bullet wounds, but barely. The yellow wads had taken a while to kick into full gear, but they had healed my injuries to the point that the skin had closed over with bright pink scar tissue.

Skittles—also covered by Koorong’s spell—followed close behind us. I’d disabled her barking except for the direst of emergencies. I had nearly left her in Koorong’s underground safe house, but had found that I couldn’t. She’d been my most steadfast friend for the last twelve years, and it felt too strange going without her. I would actually think about her
more
if she wasn’t with me, which would only lead to mistakes.

We wove through a steady stream of traffic until finally passing through the entrance. What met us was a gallery that was probably meant to be impressive, but its grandeur was dimmed by the half-filled stores that lined each side and the smells of disinfectant that could not quite mask the scent of decay. As we walked, avoiding the traffic of Blax’s mishmash crowds, the sights and sounds of in-your-face AR marketing clashed with what was once a stark and understated interior.

We headed in nearly two klicks—taking turn after turn and escalator after escalator up through the alternating clusters of strip malls and domicile-hives—until finally reaching a massive atrium whose dirt-caked windows ten stories above served only to make things gloomier. We had gone halfway through the atrium, skirting a group of chipheads sitting in a circle on the synthsteel floor, when an alarm from Blax’s northern end flared within my AR display. I had tweaked Blax’s system to trigger a low-level alarm for anything or anyone that seemed out of the ordinary, and further filtered it to trip a higher-level alarm for corporate-type squads, and finally a third if Cylestra or any of her sister corps were sensed. This alarm was the highest priority.

They’re here.
No sooner had I subvocalized the words than my feed to Blax’s security system was cut off.

My heartbeat quickened. Of the seven hired samurai we had spaced around the complex, I triggered four to go after the pair of trolls and half-dozen men that had entered Blax’s northern end. The others I kept in reserve in case Cylestra had sent in more than one team.

We continued to the edge of the atrium and took the lift to the thirty-seventh floor, our camouflage finally fading away on the ride up. When we exited, Skittles began barking fiercely. Before I could shush her, the rattle of gunfire broke out somewhere far below. We turned a corner and rushed down a dimly lit hall to an apartment as screams and a small explosion shook the air.

Skittles, sticking her head out between two of the nicked bars of the atrium railing, picked up three of our samurai beating a quick retreat into the open space below.

Things had gotten worse much faster than I’d anticipated. I summoned the remaining samurai to assist, hoping they could catch Cylestra’s men off guard—though with the amount of preparation the enemy had already shown, I knew that hope to be slim.

We ducked inside the apartment, and Koorong immediately tapped a sequence on a holopad inside the door. The space was very cramped, but it otherwise looked like it belonged somewhere far, far away from the sprawl. The walls were a rich, earthy gold, and the room had been decorated with Aboriginal masks and pottery and ornate, dried flower wreaths. And it smelled … like nature. It was jarringly attractive after the stark, gray labyrinth of Blaxland Heights.

We rushed down a hallway to a bedroom, and there, lying on a gurney not unlike the one I had found myself on only hours before, was Allora. I knew that she was two years younger than Koorong, but she looked at least a decade older. Her cheeks were sunken, and her skin was a sickly shade of brown. Her eyes rested deep in their sockets, and though the pictures I had found of her on the net had shown a healthy young woman,
this
Allora was grossly thin.

Hurry,
Koorong said as he pulled a heavy, rolling tripod from the closet. Mounted upon the tripod was a heavy machine gun. He locked the wheels and lowered the gun until it was horizontal, and then he nodded toward Allora meaningfully, almost angrily.

I searched for her PAN, but found nothing. I scanned her form and found a wired connection leading to an old, reliable Renraku hub.

She’s hardwired?

Koorong looked at me, confused for a moment, but then a look of horror and understanding came over him.

I’ll have to go through Blax’s WAN.

His eyes widened, and his gaze darted between me and Allora several times.
You said it yourself, they have control over it now.

I sat down in a synth-leather chair with permanent depressions in the cushions.
Can’t be helped.

Another explosion sounded, much closer than I would have thought.

“Go!” Koorong said out loud as he trained the barrel of the machine gun on the door.

I leaned back and connected to the WAN.

I was immediately assaulted by a prehensile arm emanating from a massive, floating piece of IC. The thing was like a god of the seas from eons ago, black with hundreds of tendrils wavering in an unseen wind, all of them ready to strike. It lashed out again and again, but I had learned more than a few tricks in my time and wouldn’t be caught so easily.

I sent out several paladin sprites in the next few milliseconds, and while the IC was deciding which of those to attack, I tethered several of its arms to the one of the paladins, forcing it into a regressive loop that would take precious seconds to unravel.

At the same time, I activated the encrypted tunnel to Allora. Immediately, and for the first time, I could feel her. She was indeed hidden deep within the maze of Cylestra’s net, and she was fighting to remain hidden, for it was clear that Cylestra was now digging recklessly in order to find her.

I probed, hoping to create a stronger connection with Allora, but every time I did Cylestra’s IC whipped its arms toward me. Only by feinting and launching more paladins was I able to keep them from striking home.

But then something changed. An alarm had been raised, and all proximal firewalls flared red, limiting traffic to secure channels only. I’d anticipated that, but the IC had activated an enhanced sniffer subroutine. The IC—even with the sniffer—wasn’t good enough to catch me if I was careful, but it was more than adequate to make sure I remained separated from Allora.

I was growing desperate. The squad Cylestra had sent would reach the door any moment, and if I reached out to Allora in any significant way, the sniffer would find us both. I tried again and again, using all the complex forms I had learned over the years, but none of it was working.

At the back of my mind, I sensed an alarm from Skittles. The squad had broken through the door. I released the inhibitors that prevented her from launching tranq darts without my approval, hoping it would help Koorong, if only to a small degree. When I did so, I felt the telltale remains of Koorong’s virus.

And that’s when it struck me. The solution was crystal clear. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was whether I had the time to do it.

Using Koorong’s virus—a truly masterful piece of ware—as a model, I altered the sprites I’d used earlier. It was rushed, and I knew there were holes, but I only needed several good seconds. After adding some tracerouting, I released the paladins, moving as close to Cylestra as I dared. I could tell they’d found Allora, but had not yet been able to purge her from their systems. I commanded the paladins to ping loudly, forcing the IC to split its attention.

The dark and deadly arms turned and attacked. I nearly got caught in the initial onslaught, but was able to slip away as they fell upon the duplicates. Immediately I spread my awareness among the sprawl, pulling together the previous data I had earmarked regarding Sindara. I had not gone further at the time, thinking the other patients irrelevant, but I found more and more participants, building a case of circumstantial data that, when viewed as a whole, would paint a very uncomfortable picture of Cylestra’s medical practices.

As I continued, I felt the data stream from me, through the paladins, and all the way to Allora. She was feeling everything I was.

I hoped it was enough. It would have to be, because the IC—even though it had nearly succumbed to Koorong’s virus—had finally traced the signals back to me. It began boring through my defenses. The pain was worse than the bullet wound, for I felt it everywhere. It was nearly impossible to think, but I couldn’t leave. Not yet.

I sent the information to all of the district attorneys that were responsible for the patients in Cylestra’s kidney trials, and several more copies to the most independent news outlets I knew.

And then I dropped out.

I woke to the sound of rapid, heavy gunfire.

In front of me, a chromed up troll lay unconscious in the hallway, two darts sticking out of his neck, another from his right cheek.

Next to me, the rotating barrel of the machine gun stopped as the bullets ran out. Koorong glanced over at me, realizing I was back. “Is it done?” he asked while feeding another belt of bullets into the gun.

“I—”

My words were cut off as a stream of bullets tore into the room. Koorong’s shoulder blossomed red, and he howled in pain. The gypsum board above me crumbled as I dove to the floor. The bullets stopped a moment later, and in the following silence I heard a series of sharp puffs as Skittles’ dart gun fired.

The short burst of gunfire that followed ended with a horrible, high-pitched yelp. Moments later, there came the sound of a body falling heavily to the floor.

Koorong was silent. Unconscious. I searched for Skittles’ signal, but the only response I received was a simple readout showing that nearly all of her systems had been destroyed but that the one of last resort—the thermite grenade tucked into her chest cavity—was active and waiting for the signal to detonate.

Two more sets of footsteps approached the entrance. They stepped into the forward room a moment later, their boots scraping noisily over the detritus of battle. There was a moment of silence: the men taking caution after so many had unexpectedly died.

The grenade’s active status blinked in my readout, but I didn’t think I could do it—didn’t know if I could kill her, even to save myself—but the moment I saw the shadow of the first of them stepping into the short hallway leading to the bedroom, a fear so expansive welled up in my chest that I gladly grabbed for the chance Skittles was offering me.

I crab-walked into the corner, curled up into a ball, and gave Skittles the affirmative.

The grenade detonated a split-second later.

Even with my eyes shut tight, everything went white. The explosion was deafening. The shockwave pounded every part of me at once. Debris blew into the room and rained down for long moments, and I swear I felt the section of the building we were in sway back and forth.

As the sound of pattering debris filled the room, I slowly got to my feet and brushed away the powdery white bits of wall that had fallen over me. I coughed as I waded through the cloud, looking for Koorong.

I found him lying in the closet, dead, three bullets—red on white—stitched across his chest. I turned away immediately, unable to look upon him like that.

I turned to the gurney. Allora was still there, but when I touched her neck to find a pulse, I found nothing. I stared at her for long moments, feeling like a sister—in cause, if not in blood. Sadness welled up inside me and begged to be let out, but it was not something I could allow to happen. Not now. Not here.