Shadowrun: Spells & Chrome (35 page)

“Are you in the hotel’s system?” Mamba asked her, as the woman stared longingly at the frozen drink stand. When the technomancer nodded, Mamba stood and strode up to the hotel. Pharisee reluctantly followed.

Armed men stood in a line by the front door, wearing snappy blue uniforms with gold pin striping and matching breathers. Even their Ares Alphas were the same bright blue; obviously someone’s idea of a well-coordinated security team. Mamba rolled her eyes as she stepped through the revolving door and into the blessedly cool lobby. Gold-veined marble floors were topped by plush blue carpets, while teak tables held massive urns of star-gazer lilies, their scent almost overpowering. Mamba looked around, didn’t see Medjay anywhere in the main lobby. She glanced casually into the dimly lit lounge to the left, but it was almost completely empty. She didn’t remember him as being the bar-type, anyway.

“What exactly are we doing here?” Pharisee asked.

“Human male, one-point-eight meters tall, black skin, black hair in braids. Red shirt over tan pants, silver breather, black glasses. Just came in a few minutes ago. Can you find him?” Mamba asked, scanning the lobby.

“Um…” Pharisee got that far-off look, the one Mamba associated with her hacking. “Mr. Marius Jay, room 804,” she said, after a few seconds. “Why?”

“Bastard’s the one who narcojected me at the Apep dig, stole the knives, and left me to take the blame,” Mamba muttered.

“The knives you’d just stolen yourself,” Pharisee pointed out, with a raised eyebrow. “After you’d
killed
Dr. Madeira and taken her place at the dig.”

“Details,” Mamba replied, waving her hand. “Let’s go.”

They didn’t have a pass for the elevators, but the doors still slid open when they approached. Normally, Mamba didn’t like working with other people. Still, a hacker—in this case, a technomancer—could be damn useful at times.

Medjay used to take care of the hacking when they’d worked together.

Pharisee directed the elevator to take them up to the eighth floor.

The hall was carpeted, the walls covered with brocaded wallpaper, gilt-edged mirrors reflecting the light from crystal wall sconces. Mamba sneered at the luxurious indulgences of the rich, blocking off any slight longing she might have otherwise felt. Luxury made you soft. Weak. Easy prey.

Room 804 had a wood-paneled door with a maglock. Mamba raised an eyebrow, and Pharisee shook her head.

“
Are you planning on killing this guy
now
?”
the technomancer asked, piping the question over Mamba’s ‘link and into her earpiece.

“
Stop hacking my commlink
,” Mamba replied. “
And stand back when I open the door.”

Pharisee stared at the maglock, concentrating. Mamba tried to imagine Medjay, what he would do. Would he recognize her? With a different skin color and silky straight hair, her eyes hidden behind the dark glasses, most people wouldn’t see anything other than a Native American woman.

The Nubian wasn’t most people, however. Still, Mamba unclipped her breather and popped out her earpiece, then handed both items and her AR glasses over to Pharisee. The technomancer gave her a startled look.

The light on the maglock flicked from red to green. Mamba put her hand on the door knob, took a breath, then slammed the door open.

The Nubian was just coming out of the bathroom, and for one shocked second, he stared at the unfamiliar woman bursting into his room. The shock didn’t last. He had the same lightning quick reflexes she did. Hell, they’d gotten their synaptic boosters at the same clinic, at the same time. By the time Mamba was through the door, Medjay had dropped into a crouch, ready to engage.

She came at him cautiously. She prided herself on fighting with cold calculation, not hot rage. He didn’t have any weapons on him, unless they were hiding under the towel he’d tied around his waist.

Mamba’s own blades were tucked under a bush outside the hotel.

A matched fight, then.

Mamba acted first. She kicked out, spinning, her foot passing a hairsbreadth away from his face. Medjay sprung back, landing on his hands, his feet kicking out and hitting her in the thigh. Mamba took the hit and spun with it, using the momentum to snap a kidney punch at his exposed right side as he sprung forward and back onto his feet. He blocked her shot almost effortlessly, then snapped his left arm up barely in time to block a second jab.

“Dr. Madeira?” he said, puzzled, and Mamba felt her rage kick up, infuriated that he didn’t recognize her, hatred of her assumed face pouring out as she attacked him. Her cold calculation dissolved under her fury and impotence. She made a quick jab to his throat, which he blocked, using the motion to slam her shoulder. She fell back with the hit, using the energy to spin around him, punching at his face. He dodged left and back, coming up against the wall. Mamba’s momentum had her fist blowing past his face and into the wall, hard enough she felt the plaster crack. Her body slammed against his.

Pressed together for one startled moment, she felt Medjay tense, knew the moment he realized it was
her
.

She followed the revelation with a solid punch to the gut, but pressed so close, there was no real energy behind the blow. He slid out and away, spinning and swinging out a foot to crush her knee. She foiled him by throwing herself to the right almost too fast to see.

He countered with a lightning quick blow to her face. She jerked her head to the side, not quite quick enough, and his fist connected with her cheekbone, a burning sting of pain. She punched him solidly in the shoulder, but he turned with the blow, using the motion to twist her arm up and behind her, sliding his other hand down her free arm and pinning it, too. He jerked her close to him, her back pressed against his chest. His breath was hot against her aching cheek. For a heartbeat, two, they held the close embrace.

“Sweet Mamba,” he said in his rich whiskey and cream voice, just a trace of London accent left after all these years. “The face is new, but the moves are the same.”

“Asshole,” she spat at him, as she strained to break the hold. “You poached, stole my score, and left me stuck with this face.”

“Just a job,” he said, taking a kick to the shin that would’ve crippled an unaugmented man. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

In answer, Mamba slammed her head back, cracking it against his collarbone, felt the old injury give a little. Surprisingly, Medjay dropped.

Mamba spun to finish the fight, but Medjay was sprawled on his back, his brown cybereyes glazed over, limbs limp. She looked up to see Pharisee standing with her back to the closed door, a small pistol in her hand.

“Gamma-scopaline,” the technomancer said, as Mamba shot her a murderous glare. “Sorry. You two were starting to embarrass me. Maybe I should’ve just gone out and put up the ‘do not disturb’ sign?”

Mamba was still flushed with hot, bubbling anger. She hoped it was anger. “Shut up,” she managed.

Pharisee just raised an eyebrow. “
Sweet
Mamba?” She waited a second, to see if Mamba would rise to the bait. “I take it you know each other?”

Mamba shook her head, attempting to clear out the heat, to find her cold, rational center.

“He’s the one who stole those knives. If he doesn’t have them in here, then we’ll just wait, ask him who he gave them too,” Mamba said. “And hope they weren’t for his master,” she added under her breath.

Mamba began to search the room, methodically going through the Nubian’s things. The technomancer stood over his limp body.

“He smells nice,” she said, as she fastidiously draped the towel—which had fallen off in the fight—back over his hips. “Easy on the eyes, too. What’s the story?”

“No story. We worked together a while back. On a job. After the job, we went our separate ways,” Mamba said, dumping out his small valise and ripping through the lining.

“What’s his name?” Pharisee asked, curious. Mamba hated how curious the damn woman could be.

Mamba shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

“Mm-hm,” Pharisee replied. “Right.”

Mamba looked at the Egyptian woman, her eyes cold. “He’s a Knight of Rage. Heard the term?” Pharisee narrowed her eyes, looking down at the unconscious man. “Exactly. He’s loyal to his master, and no one else. I wasn’t willing to be recruited,” Mamba sneered. “Didn’t want to be a bitch on Celedyr’s leash,” she said.

Pharisee didn’t reply to that. Mamba turned her back on her partner to search through the hotel room. After Mamba had finished ransacking the room, she stood, her hands on her hips.

“Nothing. Damn it,” she said.

Pharisee was relaxing in a chair, legs crossed. She looked around the trashed room. “Feel better?”

Mamba shot an annoyed glance to the technomancer. “I was doing my
job
,” she said through gritted teeth. “Looking for the
knives
. Remember those?”

“Oh, is that why we’re here?” Pharisee asked snidely, looking back down at where the man lay, paralyzed and barely conscious, his black skin stretched taut over his muscles. At the look Mamba shot her, she cleared her throat. “Then why didn’t you check the safe first?”

“Safe?” Mamba asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Oops. Did I forget to mention the safe?” Pharisee pointed to a flat section of the wall, where a small mirror hung. Mamba went to it, stared for a moment, then saw the tiny switch. Physical, not wireless. Only in Lagos.

She flicked the switch and the mirror slid aside. A small biometric palm print reader made her swear. She glanced back at Pharisee.

“It’s not wireless,” the technomancer said. “And I don’t have my electronics kit here. You
sold
it, remember?”

Mamba looked back to where Medjay was stretched out on the floor. She’d already tucked one of his knives—conveniently stored beside his bed—through her belt. Mamba walked back over to the man. His hands were long-fingered, elegant. Like an artist’s, she’d thought once, not like the fat fingered hands of the men she remembered from her broken childhood. She knelt beside him.

Pharisee watched in mute horror.

Mamba picked his left hand up, slid the knife out of the sheath, and set it against his skin. His hand was warm, the fingers callused. She had a brief flashback, a memory of his clever fingers stroking her cheek, of her turning her head to place a kiss on his palm. The memory came with a stab of some unexpected emotion. Guilt was an uncomfortable feeling, longing even more so. Black Mamba dropped Medjay’s hand as though it had burned her, singed her with things she didn’t want to face. She scowled up at Pharisee.

“I swear, if you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you,” she said, setting down the knife and awkwardly grabbing the man, grunting as she lifted his limp weight. She supported his weight and shoved his hand against the palm reader, then dropped him unceremoniously to the floor. The safe popped open with a little click.

Inside, the small plastic case was waiting for her. She slipped it out, opened it. The two ancient knives were snug inside, nestled in the soft velvet lining. Mamba snapped the case closed again, slid it under her shirt, against her back.

“Let’s go,” Mamba said to Pharisee.

“What about—”

“Let’s hope we can get off this damn island before he wakes up,” Mamba replied, curt. Without a backward glance, she left the room. Another minute to wait for the elevator, then down to the wide lobby. Before they went through the doors, Mamba looked over at Pharisee. “How’d you get your little gun through the MAD scanner?” she asked, curious.

Pharisee just raised an eyebrow, then walked through the scanners and back out into the harsh December winds.

Mamba followed. “Stay here,” she ordered the technomancer, pointing to the bench outside the hotel. Mamba took back her breather, earpiece, and AR glasses. “My blades are under that bush. If things get ugly, bring them to me. Otherwise—”

“I know, I know, don’t hack your ‘link,” Pharisee muttered, “As if you could stop me,” she said under her breath as she went towards the iced drink vendor.

Mamba shook her head at the technomancer’s back. Pragmatically, she snapped her breather on and retraced her steps back to Adua Street and Olabode Lekan’s well-guarded mansion.

The drug would last an hour, maybe two at the best. She planned on being off Victoria Island well before then. She was already regretting the impulse that prevented her from killing Medjay, or at least maiming him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
, she told herself. She shied away from thinking about
why
she’d left him alive and whole in his hotel, and as a result, was feeling more than a little pissed when she stopped in front of the guards at number 12 Adua Street.

“I’m hear to see Lekan,” she said, curtly, to the man closest to the gate. He was Yoruba, so she repeated herself in his language. Sometimes playing the foreigner card worked, sometimes it didn’t. In her current mood, she’d be just as happy taking his gun and mowing all them down before they could react. Carefully, she tamped down the anger. Emotion got you killed in this line of work. There was no room for
moods
.

The guard just stared at her.

“Tell him Dr. Sierra Madeira is here,” she said. “He’ll want to see me.”

The guard didn’t speak, but Mamba bet he was sending a message via his ‘link. After a moment, he nodded to her, his expression slightly more polite. A clever, meta-human sized door swung open in the center of the vine-covered gate. The guard in front of it stepped to the side, and with a jerk of his head, motioned her through.

She went in.

The courtyard was laid out in muted red bricks, in a concentric circle around a large reflecting pool. Trees cast some shade, but there was little in the way of gardens or bushes.
Nowhere to find cover
, a portion of her mind observed. More armed guards, decked out in full security armor, stood around the courtyard. The mansion was set back, a square building that glowed white in the harsh sunlight. Windows glinted, like crystals, and the entire building was sparkling clean. That, more than the size of the building or the small army of men, spoke of real wealth in Lagos. A human man in dun-colored robes approached her, followed by two heavy-set orks in military grade armor.