Anthology: SHADOWRUN: Spells and Chrome

Gemmel didn't make him wait. He plopped down net to him on a stool, easily climbing up on it even though it was almost as tall as he was. Vitriol glared at the bartender to let him know he should stay away for a time. The bartender, who did not seem anxious to move from his padded stool at the other end of the bar, looked away from Vitriol and Gemmel.

"Hey, hey, Vitriol, did you hear?" Gemmel said, brown beard bobbing. "Did you hear about the nun?"

"What?"

"The nun, the nun. Blood Sister. Sold out. Went corporate."

So that was their game, Vitriol thought. "What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? She got a steady gig, shadow ops for Prometheus. They might even put her on the official payroll someday."

"Wow. Never thought she was the type to go corporate."

"So why do you think she did it?"

"Don't know," Gemmel said, scratching his head. "How does anyone ever get anyone to do anything they don't want to do? They had something on her, I guess."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Maybe that's what was bothering her. She seemed like she was kind of in a bad mood, don't you think."

"Yeah. For about the last five years."

"No, I mean recently. Recently she was in an even worse mood. You saw it, didn't you? That night at the sphinx party? Didn't she seem like she was in a really bad mood that night?"

"Yeah."

"So what did you talk about?"

"Nothing," Vitriol said. "Nothing at all." Then he smiled and walked out.

The Manhattan streets were shiny in the night, almost like they were wet. The air was heavy, and the scent of rotting garbage never really went away on days like this.

Vitriol wasn't paying much attention to the street, though. He was playing around with the twin images, twin memories in his mind. In each of them, he was talking to Blood Sister at the sphinx party. In one of the images, they had briefly exchanged hostile words while the nun's church collapsed on him, which is what really happened. In the other, they had a brief exchange that strongly indicated that Blood Sister was behind the Prometheus Engineering break-in.

It was a ludicrous image. Anyone who really knew Blood Sister would know she wouldn't ever work with Vitriol, and she wasn't the type to organize a run on her own. But the people at Prometheus didn't know that. Vitriol had talked to Blood Sister so he could put a memory in his head, and then he played with the memory so it would give out the information he wanted it to provide. When the Prometheus people had found the custom-designed memory in Vitriol's head, they had believed it. Especially since they had heard about the conversation and wanted to know what it was about.

So they had brought Blood Sister in, and they had apparently gotten what they wanted from her. And Vitriol was quietly let go-the people who hired him apparently saw to that, and although Vitriol couldn't know for sure how that happened, he believed they could order around his former captors because they were their superiors.

It was a shame about Harpy. She was the sacrifice the run needed to look right. Lochinvar hadn't been seen for a while, and possibly only Carruthers knew of his fate.

Prometheus would move forward, thinking they had gotten what they wanted-not only did they have Blood Sister's identity, but they seemingly had proof that their memory retrieval nanites worked. Never mind that Vitriol had forced them to work, pretty much waving his fake memory in front of them as hard as he could, so they didn't have a choice but to find it.

Vitriol's employers had lied to him about who they were, he had lied about what Blood Sister had said, then his employers had lied to the rest of the Prometheus Engineering corporation about the capabilities of their nanotech program. And the world continued spinning 'round. Vitriol knew that there was only one secret to survival in this world-stay at least one lie ahead of everyone else.

2070… somewhere south of London

They'd gone to ground in the Barrens.

Deke blinked his cybereye's overlay off and inhaled slowly. His eyes-normal vision now, no AR-tracked slowly right-to-left, mostly unfocused. He was watching for movement, for telltales, for things that might not be tagged with an RFID or broadcasting a mesh signal. The sun was nearly down, anyway. If one of the 'nappers was stupid enough to light a stick, he'd see it. Or smell it. The doxy buggers.

"Deke," a bud in his ear whispered. "No signs."

Deke twisted his head. Lincoln was nestled in a gully a hundred meters to his left, rifle presented but protected by a ghillie suit. A blink brought his AR back up, scattering icons across his vision, but Lincoln wasn't broadcasting. The subvocal they were using was burst-transmit-if one of the 'nappers caught the signal, they'd think it was background noise. Unless they were good.

But they're not good, Deke reminded himself. Good kidnappers wouldn't have grabbed the daughter of the local oyabun. He thought-clicked a reply to Lincoln and went back to studying the building he thought they were hiding in. It had been a restaurant, once upon a time. Now it was a ganger hideout.

In the Barrens.

Deke blinked the overlay away and sighed. He'd sworn to never come back here. And if he didn't need the nuyen the bunnie had promised so bad, he never would have. But a samurai has expenses. And so here he was, a half-klick from the shack his mother had birthed him in, sitting the near-misting rain and trying not to think about his childhood. And one job away from getting off this bloody rock for good. There was good money to be made in Europe for a man who was good with his hands.

"Deke," Lincoln whispered.

"Shut up," Deke snarled.

"The lackey is back."

Bollocks. Deke twisted around and watched the yakuza mage low-crawl forward. He was wearing a black skinsuit, no armor, and he carried no weapons. He was the weapon, of course. And ink. Lots and lots of ink. Deke had seen him without his shirt back at the meet. He was covered in tats. A good little yak. The bloody hell am I doing working for yaks in London?

"It is time," the mage whispered.

"It's not," Deke whispered back.

"They will soon detect us," he said.

"If you keep talking and moving around, you're right." Deke ground his teeth and turned back to the ganger shack. AR showed him old dots, tags from the restaurant days that were still powered. The detectors, for example, were still up. So if they approached from the drive-thru side there'd probably be a chime announcing the arrival of the next consumer-drone sucker to purchase his ration of trans-fat and obesity. The gangers had probably left that there-it was cheap security for them. A gang that could swipe the bunny's daughter had some sophistication. Not smarts, of course. But sophistication. And maybe… Deke ducked his chin to whisper to the mage behind him.

"Any like you in there?"

"Like me?"

"Spooks? Magickers? Seers-through-walls?"

"Let me see." There was a still moment, where Deke had the uncomfortable feeling someone was walking on his soul, and then the yak mage spoke. "One of them has some small talent, but he isn't trained. There are nine, by the way."

"Where?" The yak shook his head. "Armed?"

"I could not tell."

Deke sucked air through his teeth. "Guards?"

"I could not tell."

"You're not helping, you know."

"Nor am I hindering," the yak said. "The oyabun sent me to make sure his interests are looked after, and that his daughter survives this ordeal." Deke heard something in the man's-well, the ork's-voice. He looked back, but the sun had set too far for him to see the man's face without calling up his cybereye's thermal settings. "You are being paid. I am to watch, and assist as necessary."