Anthology - From the Street

– Any info on the corp suit?

– Not much. Young, a slight Yankee accent…

– Ares?

– Maybe, I… He! Nom de…?!

– Celine? Celine?!

The comm had been shut down.

– Kern, go see what happened!

He switched to Nolwenn.

– Are you OK? What's up?

– She's down, Laurent. Her cam is aimed at the ceiling. On est mal. What are we doing now, for frag's sake? I've decrypted the file and I'm downloading it.

– Try to complete the d-load if you can, but prepare for possible dumpshock if someone pulls the plug. Is she…?

– Don't know, sorry Laurent. Kern is back in astral to check what happened to her.

Struggling to keep his calm, Artaud was crossing the hall of the Casino, moving for the door. Someone clasped him on the shoulder. He stopped, his heart missing a beat. Then he turned back.

Dabrowski was smiling. As usual.

"You don't really think you are going to leave me like this, Tusky Trog?"

"We are no longer in Vienna or in Prague, Piotr. Leave me alone."

"You are right. But I know you are here for business… "

Nolwenn's voice anounced in his head: Deleting clues of my intrusion… Chie, Laurent, security is zeroing on you…

"… and I'm here for business, too," Dabrowski said. "Nothing personal, you know. But you are not leaving this time."

– Keep a low profile and do whatever you can. Prepare to get into gear with the van if anything turns ugly for you.

– Okay. I'm jacking out, Nolwenn said.

Three humans and an ork dressed in black suits, dark glasses covering their eyes, surrounded him and invited him to follow them without resistance. They led him out of the hall through the Euro-elite crowd and into a deserted corridor. Dabrowski was following them.

"You know, I couldn't let you steal those files. Richard doesn't like when someone messes with his collection, even on this side of the Atlantic. You didn't choose the right sheep to shave, Laurent. He's got many connections in this country," he said.

Artaud didn't answer. Suddenly, the leading guard stopped and turned back, startled.

"Astral assault! Jean-Pierre warns me the elementals have been disrupted!"

Then two ethereal forms, small humans in hooded dark robes, each of them wielding a staff, appeared and immediately attacked the guards. A third spirit was standing in front of Artaud, his scary, piercing red eyes looking directly in his.

– Run, Mann. My spirit is concealing you. Behind the spirit materialized a fourth entity, the manifested astral form of Kern, pale and clad in dark robes too. I'll keep them busy while you get away.

Before he really knew what he was doing, Artaud found himself running in another corridor, the spirit beside him. He looked back, saw the guards struggling with the apparitions, and heard Dabrowski shouting orders. For thirty frightening seconds he ran, and eventually found a door that according to the signs on the richly decorated walls lead outside. Praying for it not to be locked, he pushed it. The door opened, and he was out in the gardens and the hot summer night. Breathing heavily, he forced himself to calm down. The spirit was gone.

– Laurent? Nolwenn's tense voice asked over the phone line. There are men with SMGs outside the van! They are going to break in, and Kern's still unconscious.

Oh, yes that was botched.

– Get away, as fragging quick as you can, and leave me on my own. He didn't want to lose a second teammate through his fault. And what about the magician? What if his meat body was hurt, or worse? But he could not do anything for now, just try to escape and save his skin. He walked towards the edge of the garden, spotting a small gate in the outer fence opening on the street. A young man wearing the uniform of the Police de Monaco guarded it. He breathed in, and drew a small cell phone from his pocket. Then he strode towards the gate.

"No, just tell him I want to talk to him about Haneda," he said in the phone, with a menacing tone. "I-don't-give-a-fragging-clusterfrag he's with the Wuxing representative, Morris!"

The young cop gestured hesitantly towards him to block his way. Artaud took a scornful look at him, still talking in the phone.

"You call your boss, chummer, or Fextron Cybertronics' future in Europe is sealed and… wait a minute." He looked at the young man with as much contempt as he could muster. "So what, kid, I'm not going out this way? I must go round? Don't waste my time, I really could take it very bad."

The cop stepped back before the ork's expression and teeth.

"N… No, sir, naturally there is no problem sir please go this way… " he said, puzzled.

Artaud ignored him and went forward through the gate, still shouting in his phone. "Ah, now this is better. Yeah. And tell him to move his butt or I'm selling my shares to Cross."

He was out of the gardens, out of the casino and back to the streets.

Artaud drove his Westwind to a small neighborhood in the north of Marseille, called La Carrere. It was poor, but hadn't fallen in the same state of decay and anarchy as other parts of the Quartiers Nord. Still, litter covered the streets and the sidewalks, and small-time gangers were roaming. Nothing to be really afraid of, and at least the police never went to those parts of the metroplex. Dodging obstacles, he headed towards his secure parking lot.

He could reach neither Celine, nor Nolwenn or Kern. Unsure, he walked rapidly a few blocks deeper in New Monaco towards the underground parking where he had left his Westwind. He had parked it there the week before, in case they would have needed a quick getaway. Since all of them had come to Monaco tonight with the Eurovan, he could reasonably believe Dabrowski's men weren't informed about the Westwind. Still, he was frightened. He reached his car and left the parking without noticing anything unusual or threatening. Less than five minutes later he had left Monaco, quickly reaching the highway. East towards Italy, or west towards Nice and Marseille?

He chose the second solution. He wouldn't stop in Nice, which was a reactionary and racist free city since conservative aristos had taken over after the '43 quakes, and where he had no connections. It was different in Marseille, where he could use contacts in the Milieu.

And there he was, crossing the street at 4 AM to enter his run-down building. There were several people outside tonight. Most of them young, most of them of North African origin. One of them was a changeling. That was one of the things that helped him to hide: he just had to change his clothes and his speaking mannerisms to seem like a guttertrog. It was funny to see how a thug or a squatter in Marseille was so similar to one in Seattle, Berlin or Hong Kong. Misery was probably the thing most commonly shared among metahumanity.

He went up the concrete stairs, opened his door on the third floor and locked it behind him.

He turned the trid on and fell on the sofa. Nothing about New Monaco on the news channels besides the regular Grand Tour coverage, and nothing on him or his team.

Artaud was starting to drift towards sleep, when he remembered that he had left his gun in the car. He forced himself to get up to go and retrieve it; it would help him feel safer. He left his flat and crossed the street once again. The night was clearer, and in one hour dawn would arrive. The ork was about to enter the parking lot, when he spotted a black van rolling down the street, all lights out. He swiped his passkey in the cardreader and slipped inside, looking through the small window at the top of the door. The van stopped across the street in front of his building, and four men in long coats stepped out of the vehicle.