Jak Koke - Stranger souls

Then one day, his edge had dulled. He was a step too slow.

He'd gotten some cyberware installed to compensate. Mistake. Slowed his magic even more. The after-spell drain started taking its toll, and soon he found himself spending a week recovering from a two-hour run. That wasn't for him; he never took a back seat. He'd always been the best of the best, and so he got more and more cyber. He got training, learned how to kill people. He became a street samurai, one of the best. Until the Azzies gladly accepted his indentured servitude in exchange for state-of-the-art cyberware and top-of-the-line training. A career in killing in exchange for his soul. And finally, ultimately, that's what they took. His soul.

He couldn't remember when his past died and he became this incarnation. Two months earlier? Two years? His internal calendar would show it, but he didn't care. Now he was more machine than man; he was like a rigger for his own body. It was a thing of terrifying beauty.

He couldn't stand to see his own reflection. And the awful thing was that he still loved the magic, and he could sense it when it was near, like the smell of good food-subtle and alluring. He was drawn to it instinctively.

That was why he put up with the heaps of drek Slaver

piled on him. He hated Slaver, and one day the human mage would push him too far. One day Slaver would go the way of all Burnout's opponents-straight to Hell.

Burnout finally managed to snap his concentration back to the conversation. The human with the black hair and beard spoke to Slaver in a commanding tone. "Mercury is alive," he said. "My sources in Lake Louise report that he's there. You will find him and destroy him. Is that perfectly clear?"

Slaver bowed obsequiously. "Of course, Senor Oscuro."

"I have provided a rigger and a diplomatic Aztechnology rotorcraft to use as you need."

"Thank you, Senor."

The other being, which stood next to Slaver on the opposite side from Burnout, was not metahuman even though it looked vaguely like an elf. It had skin the color of dried blood, covered with large black pock marks that moved across the surface. Its head was bald, and the cartilage of its nostrils had been flayed into strips and peeled back where Slaver drew blood from it for some of his spells. Very gory, though Burnout was not affected by that. Its name was La Sangre, and it was a blood spirit. Bound and allied to Slaver. Like Burnout, the spirit was not allowed to speak.

Then the conversation was over and Burnout had missed most of it. Not that he cared one way or the other. He'd recorded it on his cybercamera so he could replay or search any section of it if necessary.

"Let's go," Slaver said, then muttered silently, "Imbecile."

Slaver must have thought that Burnout couldn't hear his fragmented whisper. Or maybe he didn't care. But Burnout cared; he was no imbecile. He was merely distracted. It was a condition that went along with the fragging territory. If Slaver couldn yt handle it, then Slaver could…

Burnout let the thought trail off as a rush of warmth filled him as an injection of his happy drug hit him. The chemical substance that kept him in line. Hatred was a good thing. The docs said it helped keep him alive, helped to keep his willpower up. But they didn't want him to overdo it. Thus they put the drug on an automatic injector. Measured his adrenaline or some such drek, and if he wasn't in a combat situation, it kept him from going off and massacring innocents.

Took some of the fun out of being such an awesome killing machine, but the rush was pretty nice.

Burnout moved to join Slaver and La Sangre as they walked outside to stand on the shore of the lake. The excavation was in full swing. Burnout could see that they'd almost completely unearthed the huge black stone.

Burnout knew the rock was magical, and the arcane glow of it was like a beacon to him, drawing him in like a cybernetic moth to a blow torch. He couldn't move; he must have it. Frag everything else. The rock held his future. It could restore his magic with its power.

The hypnotic rippling of the black surface drew him in, until he realized that he'd left the other two standing on the shore. He was chest-deep in water, walking further in.

A memory came to him then. They always came when he lost control. They wanted him to stay anchored in his new body, this horrid amalgamation of wires and fibers and metal. He thought of his mother, her face bright, smiling as she patted his head. He was eight years old, or maybe nine. She turned to him and said, "I'm so proud of you. Highest score again. You're always the best at whatever you do…"

The warm rush he felt in his memory was barely discernible from the drug in his system. Getting high on praise.

"Get back here, you idiot!" Slaver yelled. "We've got to go."

And by the time Burnout had come back to the present, there was a magic barrier of some kind between him and the stone. The allure of it was lessened by the barrier, but the stone's power was immense and the barrier couldn't completely mask it. Still, Burnout tried to focus, tried to ignore it and join the others.

A half-hour later, when they were in the helicopter, flying north toward Canadian American States territory, Burnout asked what they were going to do.

"You'll like this mission," Slaver told him. "We get to kill someone. Someone named Ryan Mercury."

14 August 2057

It was mid-morning when Ryan climbed into the Lear-Cessna Platinum III jet with Nadja, her aide Gordon Wu, Carta Brooks, and some security. They were headed to Washington.

The ride was smooth and relatively quiet, so Ryan decided to try to get some sleep during the flight since Nadja was dictating instructions to Gordon Wu. Busy working. This was a working trip for everyone on board except perhaps Ryan. Since Dunkelzahn's death, their work load had increased exponentially.

Ryan reclined his chair as the jet took off, noting that the wide leather seats were much more comfortable than the hard plastic of the T-bird's seats. It seemed so long ago that he'd been asleep in the clinic bed, a prisoner without knowing it. And now…

Now he was another kind of prisoner-a prisoner to Dunkelzahn's mission. Something wouldn't let him give it up completely even though that is what he most wanted. If I get things moving, he thought, I'll at least have tried.

Ryan activated his wristphone, placing a secure call to the LTG that Nadja had given him for Jane-in-the-box. It took a few moments until encryption and decryption protocols synched, then he was looking at Jane's persona on the screen.

She looked like a blonde corporate bimbo in red leather. Very stylized and unrealistic, but attractive in an absurd car-toony way. "Quicksilver," she said. "I trust you're well?"

Ryan smiled. "Thanks to you," he said. "I'm alive at least. Though my problems seem to have just begun."

Jane nodded, shifting to biz mode as she realized that this

wasn't intended to be a social call. "So, what can I do for you?"

"Do you know of the item called the Dragon Heart, which was taken from the lair yesterday?"

"I have followed the report of its theft," Jane said. "That's all I know."

"I must track down who took it and where it is. It's urgent, and I don't know who else to ask."

Jane's persona smiled. "I'm flattered," she said, then gave a little giggle.

Ryan winced. He didn't remember ever meeting Jane, though Axler said that he was one of the few people who had actually met the decker. He had the feeling that in the real world, she wasn't at all like this image. She was very intelligent, very savvy and smart. Cunning. This persona must be a front, an image designed to trick people into underestimating her.

Ryan's assessment of Jane was based on his conversations with Axler and later with Nadja. The decker seemed to be an invisible entity in the Matrix. Even though she was extremely accomplished, few in the Matrix knew who she was because she never posted as herself. Nadja had told Ryan that Jane had been doing Dunkelzahn's decking for many years, and she had acted as sort of an iiber-fixer. She had done a good deal of the management of the dragon's shadow ops, tracking the activities of other fixers, who never realized that they were working for Dunkelzahn.