Jak Koke - Stranger souls

But this is just a fragging dog. He was on the hound before it could even yelp. Ryan grabbed its nose and clamped down, closing its jaw and twisting it off its feet in one motion. Taking no chances. The animal had no time to react; Ryan was too fast, too strong. He jammed the second dart into the creature's neck and it passed out. The whole thing took less than a minute.

Then he was pulling the hound's body off the worn track before following Axler up the rope and over the wall. They dropped down into a grassy courtyard scattered with tables and benches. So far, so fragging excellent. The target room was through the double glass doors, and up one level in a

sealed room. But when Ryan and Axler crossed the grass and tried the doors, they found them locked.

Drek! Grind and McFaren are supposed to be here to unlock this door. What could have happened to them?

Axler shrugged, then moved aside as Ryan switched to the backup plan-he would pick the lock. That would take time, however, and time was a luxury they just didn't have. He examined the lock-simple dead bolt operated by an ID scanner. The best option would be to use acid paste on the bolt.

"Jane," Axler subvocalized. "The doors are locked. Can you help us out?"

Through the darkened glass, Ryan caught a glimpse of something inside. People coming. Guards? He bolted to the side of the door, pulling Axler with him, pressing himself against the wall. He focused, listening to the sound of the approaching footsteps. The harsh blue-white light on the wall shone through the trees, casting twisted skeletal shadows over the tables and chairs in the courtyard. Perfect cover.

Ryan pulled a small mirror from his webbing and carefully held it out in front of him, angling so that he could see the approaching figures. There were four of them, uniformed in black and crimson, carrying automatic weapons of some kind. They were headed straight for the double doors.

"Put-up or shut-up time, Axler," Ryan said. "Four sec guards. SMGs, light body armor, swords. Possibly a mage or a shaman. Ready?"

Axler sighed, drawing her Ares Cascade and dialing the nozzle to wide spray. She nodded.

"Okay, chummer," she said, "let's grind some hoop."

In her virtual steel box, Jane tried to shake off the lingering sensation of Wonderland City and focus tightly on Grind's feed. Alice's request had been simple, and could easily wait until after the run, but what gave Jane the shivers was what she'd learned about Alice from her research into the Crash of '29.

The only Alice who'd been part of Echo Mirage was Alice Haeffner. There were two things that spooked Jane about that. The first was her last name. Alice Haeffner turned out to be the ex-wife of Dunkelzahn's running mate and current president of the UCAS, Kyle Haeffner. The second thing was even more creepy: Alice Haeffner was dead. She had been killed in cybercombat against the virus that had caused the worldwide computer crash forty years ago.

Jane took a deep breath and shook away the virtual goose pimples. It was time to put all that out of her mind and deal with the here and now. Right now, Grind and McFaren, under the cloak of invisibility, were stealing along the corridor a safe distance behind the four security personnel who stood between them and the doors where Axler and Ryan waited. There were three women and one man, all of the elven metatype. They were not the same four who'd stolen the Dragon Heart, but she had no doubt that they belonged to the Mystic Crusaders.

They wore similar uniforms, except that one of the women wore a dog skin draped like a headdress. Must be a shaman, Jane thought. The others were most likely samurai or physical adepts like Quicksilver. The datajack in the temple of one of them said he could be a rigger or a decker, but the man also carried an array of knives and at least three guns that Jane cold see through Grind's eyes.

Luckily, none of them had looked back astrally. In fact their posture seemed overly casual to Jane, as though they were taking a break. They chatted among themselves in Sperethiel.

Earlier, back in the hermetic circle chamber, Grind and McFaren had taken out the two guards with a combination of magic and precise shots to their skulls. At that exact moment, Lethe had trapped the astral projecting forms of the three mages who had been examining the African sculpture. Then McFaren had cast a physical masking spell in the room to make it look to the cameras as though nothing had happened, calling on one of his elementals to sustain the spell.

Now, hiding in the corridor behind the four Mystic Crusaders, Grind subvocalized, "Jane, any suggestions on how to get rid of these guys?"

"Let those guards open the door," Jane said. "Then hope they don't see Quicksilver and Axler passing through."

"I don't like that idea. They're off duty, I think, probably going outside for a pipe or a tea or whatever the frag dandelion-eaters do on break."

"I don't think we should try to take them down," Jane said. "Too risky. Too much noise if they fire their weapons."

"I can sustain a silence spell on them," McFaren said, "but we might become visible. The high background in here is making my magic a little unpredictable."

Axler's voice came through. "Jane, give me something. They're almost to the door."

Drek, drek, drek. Not enough time to plan it out right.

"Okay," she said. "McFaren, silence spell as they open the door. Not before. Axler, you-"

"Too late," Axler said. "They've just popped the door." Axler turned, and through her eyes, Jane saw the Cascade come up.

One of the samurai called out a warning, but her cries made no sound. And by the time she'd drawn her gun, and was starting to jump out of the way, she was doused by the spray from the Cascade. The gun was on wide disbursement and all the guards got drenched.

Next to Axler, Ryan was firing his silenced pistol. Gel rounds, Jane remembered, to stun them. Trying to keep casualties low. First the dog shaman went down with a jerk as the bullet slammed into her neck.

The male samurai dove backward, and brought his weapon up with inhuman quickness. The laser sight flicked across Axler's chest for a second before Ryan's second shot hit the man's hand and made the shot fly wide. Fine and good, but Jane wondered how much sound that bullet would make when it hit the wall.

The whole scene was like a strange simsense game with the sound turned off. And in real life, the action was over in a less than a minute. And then only another two minutes more before Ryan had taken a passcard from the paralyzed body of the dog shaman and had hidden her in the bushes with the other bodies.

Jane's chess pieces were back in position. Inside the building and prowling along the hall under a newly cast mantle of invisibility. Headed toward the chamber where the Dragon Heart was kept.

Ryan spoke then. "Lethe says we've got to hurry. Some spirits saw us."

As Ryan moved silently down the corridor, he shifted his perception to see into the astral. He caught the near transparent ripple that was Lethe, but there was no sign of any hostile spirits. "Where are they?" he asked.

"I banished them to their home planes," Lethe said. "They will be happier there anyway."

Jane's voice sounded in Ryan's ear. "What's the scan?" she asked.

"Lethe was able to banish the spirits," he subvocalized. "But their absence will alert their masters."

The group increased its pace, moving quickly and quietly along the corridor. Though not as quietly as Ryan would have liked. He realized that these runners were good, but they did not follow the Silent Way as he did. The mage, McFaren, was marginally adept at stealth, and Grind was more of a combat expert than a thief. Without the invisibility spell, those two would be dead by now. And Ryan wasn't about to let that happen. He needed the mage to get through the ward around the Dragon Heart.