Lisa Smedman - The Lucifer desk

“He apparently summoned up a kind of spirit. I don’t know how or why, but apparently it killed him. The spell Farazad used was recorded on a datachip, which an eyewitness to his death found in his pocket.”

“I remember now,” Euzo said. “The exec who died in the alley. I saw your story on it. So what’s the link? Why do you think what went down tonight was an attempted extraction?”

“The two runners who died tonight ah… contacted me… the day after our story on Farazad aired,” Carla said. She decided to blend truth with fiction. “They tried to talk us into turning over our copy of the spell formula, presumably so they could sell it to someone else. There’s a chance the spell was developed in the Mitsuhama lab, and that another corporation would pay big nuyen for it. But KKRU refused to deal with them.

“Raven and his elf pal seemed to want that spell formula pretty bad,” Carla continued. “Maybe they thought they could get it out of Miyuki. When you come right down to it, my conclusion that this was a corporate extraction is just a guess, really.”

Enzo stared at her in silence. She couldn’t tell if he was buying her story.

“Listen,” she added. “I’ll give you something if you agree not to ask where I got it-and not to tell your sergeant who your source was. Something that could help Homicide crack tonight’s case. If I give it to you, will you let me walk away without having to answer any more questions?”

Enzo folded his aims, considered a moment, then nodded. “All right,” he said at last. “But it better pan out. I know where to find you if it doesn’t.”

“It will.” Carla took a deep breath, then plunged on. It wouldn’t hurt to have the cops do a little investigative work for her. It just might shake something loose. “I have it from a reliable source that the two dead shadowrunners were working for Renraku. Assuming this corporation has other shadowrunners on tap-and in this city, where runners are easy to come by, that’s a given-there may be an attempt to extract another Mitsuhama wage mage. There are two more who worked in the lab with Farazad and Miyuki, Their names are Evelyn Belanger and Rolf Hosfeld.”

Enzo’s eyes widened. “You’re saying they could get hit next.” He reached for the portable radio at his hip. “I’d better call this in. Mitsuhama may want to contract for extra security for those two.”

Carla lifted the crime tape and prepared to duck back under it. “Promise you’ll keep my name out of it?” she asked. She shot a meaningful look at the two burly men in suits. “Since one of your victims is yakuza, there’s bound to be a little heat on this one. And I don’t want the yaks breathing down my neck. I don’t think it would be healthy.”

“All right,” Enzo answered. “As long as you keep quiet about me giving you the names of the victims.” He glanced at the two yaks. “For the same reason.”

“It’s a deal. And we’re still on for that after-hours interview. Call me in a day or two, O.K.?” Carla blew him a kiss and hurried back to her car.

Pita watched through the grimy, wire-renforced window of the Lone Star transport van as the vehicle backed up against a building with gray concrete walls and a large, metal-plated door. She swayed as the van bumped to a stop with its rear doors flush against the door in the building’s wall. Slowly, with a loud squealing noise, the building’s armored door slid up. Then heavy mechanical locks in the van’s rear doors clicked. The doors popped open a crack, letting in a slant of flickering fluorescent light.

A speaker in the prisoner transport section of the van crackled to life. A pleasant, well-modulated female voice emerged from it. “You have arrived at the Lone Star pretrial containment facility in downtown Seattle. Please exit from the rear of the vehicle in a quiet and orderly fash-”

One of the dozen orks who shared the back of the van with Pita roared, drowning out the rest of the instructions. Rearing up from the bench seat that lined the wall he aimed a booted foot at the speaker. The ork was extraordinarily flexible, able to keep his balance and kick high above his head despite the fact that his hands were firmly cinched together behind his back. But his foot just bounced off the thick, perforated plexiglass that protected the speaker, leaving only a dirty smudge.

“… will be admitted, one at a time, into the station’s booking room, where you will be processed before moving on to detention cells. Please proceed now into the arrivals bay.”

An ork in her twenties with a bioluminescent tattoo of a golden spiderweb decorating her bald head pushed the doors open with her shoulder and jumped out. “This is it, chummers. First floor: cyberware scans, retinal scans, blood tests, and DNA typing. A bargain at zero nuyen down, zero per month.”

The others broke into tired laughter, then shuffled forward with heads slightly bent to avoid the van’s low ceiling. One by one, they jumped down onto the cement floor of the tubelike arrivals bay. Pita, still a little woozy from the effects of the stun baton, stumbled. The woman with the biolum tattoo caught her and propped her up with a shoulder.

“You all right, kid?” the woman asked.

Pita nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Never been arrested before, huh?” the woman continued. “Well, don’t try taking a poke at a cop when your cuffs come off or tossing magic around. If you do, they’ll slap you into pulse cuffs or pull a magemask over your head.”

As the last of the prisoners clambered out of the back of the van, a voice came from an overhead speaker. This time it was male, but equally mechanical. “The outer door is about to close. Please stay well clear of the yellow line.” On the wall beside the door, a red light began to flash. A buzzer beeped softly in time with it. “The door will be closing in five, four, three, two, one…”

With the same ear-splitting squeak that it had given upon opening, the outer door slid down, sealing one end of the arrivals bay and hiding the back of the police van from view. Over the noise, the prisoners began to chant. “Hell, no, we won’t go. Tell Lone Star to let us go! Hell no…”

Their voices reverberated in the enclosed space, echoing back and forth. The orks stamped their feet in time with the chant, increasing the noise volume further. After a moment, Pita joined in, thumping one heel on the floor. Even though it wouldn’t get her out of here, shouting slogans with the other prisoners made her feel better. She felt protected by the small mob around her, defiant. It didn’t matter that one of the prisoners was bleeding profusely from a gash on his cheek and another was hobbling along on what was probably a broken foot. If they stuck together, fought back against the cops…

Pita suddenly felt a low vibration deep in her bones. All of a sudden her stomach felt as if it were being twisted by a pair of invisible hands. She doubled over, fighting the urge to be sick. She heard someone next to her heaving and then the pungent smell of vomit filled the air. Beside her, the woman with the bio-lum tattoo gritted something through clenched teeth: “Bastards. They’re pumping in low-frequency noise.” Then Pita lost her supper. Now she had to concentrate on her bowels, which felt as if they were full of ice water.

Mercifully, the vibrations stopped just before she lost control. The orks in the arrival bay straightened slowly, hands still clutching their stomachs. One or two were crying-either with fear or frustration-as they wiped vomit from their lips.

Pita spat on the floor, trying to get the taste of partially digested Growlie bars out of her mouth. The air in the tunnel was foul. She breathed as shallowly as she could; her stomach was still heaving. Given the fact that the floor had been clean when they entered the arrivals bay and now was slick with vomit, Pita’s group must have been the first of those arrested at the demonstration to arrive here. Or perhaps they were just the most vocal. She decided to be as quiet and non-confrontational as possible. Maybe the cops wouldn’t notice her.