Robert Charette - Never deal with a Dragon

“ ’Kay, paleface. We’re on the number one west-face dock, just seaside of Fast Freddie’s Surgery. It’s your lead now.”

Sam didn’t know where Fast Freddie’s was, but he recognized the dock designation from the maps of the arcology he had seen. He led the runners onto the street and up the dock toward the arcology. A bare thirty meters from the circumference road that ran along the walls of the structure, he indicated the gate to a construction site. Before Ghost could put his tool to work, Kham shouldered into the wire gate, snapping the thin chain and dropping the padlock to the ground.

“We’re in a hurry, ain’t we?” he said in defense of this lack of subtlety.

Leading them past the quiet machinery, Sam took them into the basement of the skeletal structure. A few minutes’ search located what he was seeking.

“This is a tap shaft to the heat-exchanger pipes that run under the arcology. We should be able to move along it and into the arcology through an uncompleted maintenance station.”

“You’d better be right, chummer. Dat don’t look like a comfy squirm.”

Sam hoped he was right, too. His plan to enter this way was based on a three-week-old construction schedule. That document had called for the station to be completed and secured by now. He was counting on the fact that just about everything at the arcology project was behind schedule. If the workers had been uncharacteristically efficient, they would be denied access.

The crawl proved every bit as “squirmy” as the Ork had feared. Twice the bulky metahuman got wedged trying to cross junctions without divesting himself of his equipment first:

Two sweaty hours later, they had worked their way through the steamy tunnel to the station. Faint worklights gleamed from a barrier-free opening.

Sam wiped his brow with a grimy hand. At least now he didn’t have to worry about what the runners would do to him if the way had been blocked. Per plan, they located the station’s terminal. Without jacking in, Sam turned it on and entered the code that would tell Dodger they had gotten inside the arcology’s boundaries.

Almost instantly, the Elf responded through the terminal’s speaker.

“You are late.”

Sally’s headshake forestalled any assorted retorts. “Are we all set for the next phase?”

“Assuredly, my lady. The bravoes manning the check points along your route have been instructed to expect a repair party. There are temporary access cards waiting for you at the main desk on alpha level, but you will need your special talents to pick them up. Unfortunately I don’t have the necessary codes to activate them and haven’t had time to make counterfeits, it really is quite a remarkable system they have here. Very sophisticated.”

“Save the admiration for later, Elf,” Ghost snapped. “What are we going to do about those codes?”

“No need to get testy, Sir Razorguy. I think there may be a solution. If the noble Sir Corp will enter his own code, I can copy it onto all the cards. I believe I can hide the multiple entries in the guise of a system hiccup.”

The runners looked expectantly at Sam. His mouth was dry. If Renraku had deactivated his access code when he disappeared, the plan was destined for failure. At worse, it would set off alarms. Either way, he would be compromising his confidentiality agreement with the corporation. As if he hadn’t already done that by leading these people here.

“Dodger?”

“Aye, Sir Corp.”

“If I put in my code, can you read it, or are you blind-copying it?”

“Have you so little faith? Am I not The Dodger, wizard of the Matrix? Once it is data, it is mine to do with as I please.”

No, Sam thought, I am demonstrating a remarkable amount of faith. Your feathers only seem to get ruffled when you’re bluffing about how good you are. “You’ll not keep a copy to use on another run?”

“Sir Corp. you wound me. Of course not. Expediency is the goad that forced me to this pass. A decker of my skill opens what he will, at will.”

“Glad to hear it, Dodger,” Sam answered. That probably means you can’t do it. “I’ll put it in.”

While Sam entered his code into the datastation, Kham pulled Sally aside. They returned with four pairs of Renraku work coveralls and matching hardhats from the locker room. As the runners started to put them on, Sam just stood there, holding the set Sally had handed him.

“This isn’t going to work, you know,” he told them. “Sally and I might pass, but you two are obviously not Renraku.”

“S’matter, Raku not an equal opportunity employer?” the Ork rumbled.

“Not if they can avoid it.”

“Just put the stuff on, paleface. Sally’ll take care of it.”

With little other choice, Sam complied. “What do you means Sally will take care of it?” he asked, sealing the white suit over the black one they had given him.

“An illusion spell,” she said. “The guards will see what they expect to see.”

“If you can do that, why bother with the coveralls?”

“It’s easier this way. The less I have to twist to make them see what I want them to see, the easier it is to make them see it.”

“If you could do this, why didn’t we just walk in the front door?”

“Trid,” she said. “Now be quiet for a minute and let me concentrate.”

She closed her eyes and put her left hand on the hilt of her magesword where it poked through the slit pocket. Her right hand contorted through a series of gestures as she moved it slowly back and forth in front of her. Sam saw, or thought he saw, a vague glow shimmer briefly into existence, trailing the path of her mystic passes.

It was too strange. He turned away in time to catch an expression of nervousness on Ghost’s face. Was something going wrong? He turned to the Ork and found Kham staring in fascination at Sally. His ugly face showed a mixture of awe and lust. The Ork’s elbow gouged Sam in the chest.

“I love it when she does that,” he whispered.

Sally’s eyes snapped open and the spell was done. She directed them to gather tool boxes to hide their weapons. That accomplished, they boarded a shuttle cart and rode to the elevators.

The guard at alpha level received them incuriously. Handing over the passcards, he barely looked at the little group. Sam thought it just as well because Kham stuck his thumb up one nostril and waggled his fingers at the guard as he stuck out his paw to receive the card supposed to be his. Unbelievably, the guard failed to react.

As soon as they were safely inside another elevator car for the ride to higher levels, Sam leaned over and whispered

in Sally’s ear.

“Kham’s antics were hardly the expected behavior of a workman. Why didn’t the guard react?”

She chuckled softly. “I’m used to Kham. I just work extra hard on his part of the spell.”

When the car sighed to a halt, they exited onto a promenade. It was mostly empty. The few late-night strollers ignored them, just as they would a legitimate work crew. The same way, Sam realized, that he had always ignored work crews. He wondered if Sally’s spell was even necessary here. They soon came to another guard station, and Sam was glad of the spell’s effectiveness as Kham stuck out a deep purple tongue in the direction of the woman behind the counter. She only wished them good luck in an uninterested way before returning her attention back to the trid set squawking softly from below eye level.

Three more elevators and two guard stations later, they reached the Computer Systems Research office. They passed the guard there with no more trouble than before. Once inside, a quick check with the Elf got an all-quiet signal.

“It’s been too smooth,” Ghost declared. He pulled his Ingrams out of the toolbox, slipping one into his belt and keeping the other ready in his hand. Kham and Sally grabbed their own guns. They seemed to trust the samurai’s intuition more readily than the Elf’s report on the security conditions.