Anthology - SHADOWRUN - Spells and Chrome

"Shit!" he yelled, as Zurich keeled over. "The bastard must-"

Mute turned around, and kicked her boosted reflexes into high gear so that the world seemed to slow down as if its batteries were running low.

"-beee riii-g"

She flung off her vest and hastily grabbed her spear gun."-tuuunnndddrrruuusss-"

– and dived into the sea, activating the oxygenating spell tattooed on her body in the same instant as Thresher's heatseeker rocket hit the Nightrunner's engine and the explosion blew the stern of the boat to splinters. • • •

Magnusson looked around the hide-an artfully camouflaged tent roughly the size of a small van, with the cameras and other gear leaving just enough floor space for a troll-sized inflated mattress and sleeping bag. It didn't quite have the aura of a happy home, but there was no astral residue from violence or death inside the shelter, suggesting that Thresher probably had never found the place and that Santos had left it voluntarily…and probably not very long before his murder, if Magnusson was any judge. The scientific equipment still had the psychic patina of something often used with great care as well as eagerness, and even a certain degree of love. As he left the shelter, trying to follow the faint astral impressions of Santos's footprints, the professor found himself regretting that he hadn't known the parazoologist better.

He was halfway to the shore when the shock hit his astral body, sending it reeling in pain. • • •

Mute drew her smartlinked Fukubi with her right hand, and scanned the area for a heat trace from Thresher's weapons. She spotted the contrail from the rocket before she saw the well-disguised shape of her human target; Thresher had dropped the launcher tube and swum away from it, then unslung his M24A3 and fired.

A needle-sharp flechette tore through Mute's lightly armored bodysuit and into the flesh of her right shoulder. The rangefinder in her cybereyes told her that the SEAL was nearly fifty metres away, much too far for either of her weapons to be of much use; she returned fire with the Fukubi anyway, in the hope of spoiling his aim, but none of the shots came within a metre of hitting him, and they had lost most of their force before they even came close.

Thresher grinned as Mute swam towards him as fast as she could, weaving through the water like a dolphin and being careful to present the smallest possible target and squeezing off single shots in the hope of distracting him. She knew the carbine's mag held thirty shots, but she could only hope that he didn't have enough ammunition left that he could waste it. If she could just get close enough to fire the speargun… • • •

8-Ball sprayed a bandage onto Zurich's face, sealing the puncture made by the flechette and stopping the blood loss, then hooked the medkit up to his friend's biomonitor before dragging him over to where Magnusson's meatbody was floating. His inflated vest kept him the right way up, but he'd had to ditch his backpack, gunbelt and most of his weapons to keep his face above water. It hadn't been an easy choice.

Unlike Zurich, the magician had been sitting far enough from the explosion that he didn't seem to have been badly wounded-the back of his seat had absorbed most of the fragments, and 8-ball had cut him free of the wreck before it sank. Magnusson was still staring sightlessly at the dark clouds above him when the rain began to fall onto his face and Zurich's, and onto 8-Ball's hairless scalp. The dwarf checked the pulse in his throat yet again, unsure whether there was anything else he could do to help any of them, and sighed with relief when the magician suddenly turned to face him. "What happened?" asked Magnusson.

"He shot Zurich, then blew up the boat," said the dwarf.

"Mute?"

"Went after him. Took the power head and your talisman."

Magnusson nodded. "Can you make it back to shore? We're sitting ducks here."

"I'll try. You?"

"I'll see if Mute needs help." He cast an Oxygenate spell on himself, commanded his bound elemental to sustain it, and slipped out of his lined coat and flotation vest and into the depths.

The magician's astral vision allowed him to see underwater more clearly than even the best cybereyes, though the sea was teeming with life that shone in the astral like fireflies. Thresher, by contrast, was little more than a shadow, so heavily cybered and modified that he barely had a recognizable aura; only the murderous intent he radiated made it clear that he was actually alive. Magnusson cast a stunball spell at him; Thresher, his adrenaline pump having already kicked in, remained utterly unfazed. His next shot hit Mute below the collarbone, but she continued to press on, watching the rangefinder reading superimposed on the crosshairs on her retinal display as she closed the distance between herself and her target. Thirty-eight metres… thirty-seven… thirty-six…

Magnusson cast a levitation spell on Thresher's carbine, trying to wrest it from his grasp. The SEAL managed to retain his hold on the weapon, but the magician did succeed in deflecting the gun upwards so that the next burst missed Mute, and in distracting him while she swam near enough to fire the speargun. Thresher looked towards her an instant too late to dodge the dart, and it slammed into his chest hard enough to detonate the power head. Flechettes ripped into his armored wetsuit and toughened orthoskin at point-blank range, missing his heart but tearing a hole in his left lung.

Thresher released his grip on the rifle and clapped a hand over the bubbling wound, trying to hold it shut. As Mute neared, he drew his underwater pistol and fired the last three rounds, hitting her twice. Then he drew his fighting knife while he waited for her to come within melee range-but instead of returning fire, Mute drifted down towards the sea floor. Thresher watched her until he was convinced she wasn't merely feigning unconsciousness, then activated the jets in his leg and shot up towards Magnusson, spearing him in the stomach. • • •

8-Ball sighed with relief as his flailing feet finally touched wet sand. The inexpert swimmer staggered the last few meters before dropping Zurich on the shore of Battleship Island, then collapsed beside him, staring up at the sky and gasping for breath. A few seconds later, he sat up, checked the medkit screen to see whether there was anything more he could do for Zurich while they waited for DocWagon, then patted himself down in the hope of finding some weapons he hadn't discarded. It didn't take long to discover that all he had was his neck knife and a signal flare. He would have sworn long and loudly, but he didn't have the energy to spare. • • •

The force of the collision lifted both Magnusson and Thresher partly out of the water, and when the SEAL cut the power to his jets, both of their heads remained above the surface. They stared at each other, almost nose to nose, for a few seconds, before Thresher removed the knife and began to laugh. "You should've stayed home. You're way out of your depth-but me, I'm in my element."

"Maybe," Magnusson gasped weakly, "but you're in my elemental."

"Wha-" Thresher drew back his knife for a killing blow, and the water spirit engulfed and bound him, lifting him and spinning him around in a towering vortex far above the magician. Magnusson watched the SEAL struggle for a moment, and realized that he couldn't drown and was protected against cold and possibly even against the great crushing pressure that the powerful elemental could generate. He thought quickly, then ordered the spirit to hurl him towards the island.

The elemental obeyed: like a small but powerful tsunami, it sped across the sea, releasing Thresher just as it reached the shoreline and propelling him into the trunk of a lodgepole pine with damaging force. The SEAL picked himself up, taking two unsteady steps on his finned feet, then fell face-down into the mud. He picked himself up with some difficulty, then turned his head to see a pair of boots less than a meter away. He looked up, and saw 8-Ball standing over him, brandishing a piece of driftwood the approximate size and shape of an executioner's axe. The dwarf grinned, then brought the heavy cudgel down on Thresher's head with all of his strength. • • •