Robert Charette - Never deal with a Dragon

Those chips held the persona programs from his cyberterminal. To take them was, technically, a theft, but the programs had been tailored for him and they would be destroyed before someone else took over his terminal. It was actually cheaper to burn a new set for the new man or woman. The chips contained no data, and he was sure his new employer would supply fresh persona chips suited to their own systems. Taking these was symbolic. His Matrix presence would leave along with his physical body.

Maybe that was why he had decided to take the flight manual. Perhaps it was a symbolic statement of his flight from psychological bondage. Or maybe it had to do with the flight he took with those shadowrunners a year ago. He was about to embark on another dangerous experience whose outcome he could not entirely predict.

He checked his watch.

“Almost time,” he called to Hanae, who was still puttering in the bathroom.

“Just a minute.”

He hoped it wasn’t one of her fifteen-minute “minutes.” He paced, unconsciously following the track Kiniru used when waiting for Sam to take her for a walk.

Hanae emerged a few minutes later, dressed far more sensibly than Sam had feared. Though she wore a loose, flowing dress, the material was sturdy and the cut unrestrictive. She had a bulging satchel slung over one shoulder.

“Isn’t that bag a little large for a trip to a club?”

“It is big,” she said hesitantly, “but it should be all right. It’s part of the latest look. Lots of leather, beads, and fringe.”

“I hope it’s not too heavy. We’ll have to cross the club’s landing pad to the aircraft in a hurry.”

“If they cancel out the signal on the screamer, we should be able to stroll out to the plane. After all, people leave that way all the time.”

“Not in DocWagon aerial ambulances.”

She shrugged. “If it’s too heavy, you’ll help me. We’ll be fine.”

He prayed that they would. He didn’t want anything to slow them down now that the time had come.

Despite Sam’s misgivings, they reached the Club Quarter on Level 6 without incident. No one seemed interested in a couple out for a night on the arcology. The halls of the quarter were already crowded, though it was still early. Music of all kinds bled from the sound-insulated clubs to blend into a puddle of unintelligible sound. The revelers didn’t seem to care. Many danced in the halls, moving to music in their heads. Some danced to their imaginations; others wore chipsticks in skull-mounted jacks or carried simsense players that fed the music to their brains.

It wasn’t too difficult to find Rumplestiltskin’s. Roe wasn’t there yet, but hundreds of other hopefuls were already queued up in the vain hope of entry into the fashionable club.

“I had no idea,” Hanae said when she saw the line.

“I wonder if Roe did.”

“If she did, it must be part of the plan.” The quaver in Hanae’s voice didn’t match her confident words.

“I guess we get in line.”

Ten minutes later, Hanae took Sam’s arm and pulled herself close. “Maybe she’s already inside. Maybe she left without us.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam assured her, hiding his own growing doubt. “She’ll keep her part of the deal.”

Thirty minutes later, they were still in line. The club doorway had come into view and they caught their first sight of the doorman. Like many clubs, Rumplestiltskin’s employed a Troll to handle the lines of hopefuls. Too well-dressed to be called a bouncer, his size and demeanor left no doubt that he could fulfill that function. Almost three meters of muscle and thick hide was more than enough to intimidate all but the rowdiest partyboy. They were still ten meters from the front of the line when Roe suddenly appeared.

“This will never do,” she said. Taking each one by the arm, she led them directly up to the doorman. She twirled a shiny credstick in her right hand. The four dark bands on the end of the cylinder marked it as certified for at least one hundred nuyen. She tossed it to the man. “My friends here are late for their table.”

She tinted back to them. “Giacomo will take care of you, so there’s no worry. Everything’s wiz, but I’ve got to make a call to check up on the other member of our party. See you in about half an hour. Have fun.”

Sam watched her walk back along the line to converse with a quartet of scruffy men and women. Even at this distance, he could tell that the biggest was an Ork. Her tusks were capped with silver and glinted coldly in the hallway lights. She carried a large case with a casual ease born of enormous strength.

Roe’s companions were surely shadowrunners, her team for the extraction. They had a hard, used took about them. Maybe even overused, Sam thought. He had little experience in these matters, but he had expected Roe to show up with a team that was more… more what? Imposing? Dangerous? At ease in the Club Quarter? More like Tsung and her runners? It didn’t help his state of mind to wonder about their competence.

Roe and the runners walked toward the head of the line for a block, then turned into a corridor that took them away from Rumplestiltskin’s They passed Sam and Hanae, and getting a closer look only fueled Sam’s fears. As Roe’s team moved in and out of the hall’s pools of illumination, the play of light and shadow focused Sam’s attention on the person in the middle of the group. That one maintained a steady, if oddly gaited, walk while the others shifted around. They seemed to be running interference, keeping the crowd from jostling the dark-clothed figure.

The person’s long overcoat effectively concealed gender along with almost everything else. All Sam could glimpse was a pallid face showing between the turned-up collar and the slouch hat. The skin looked soft and unlined as a baby’s. The eyes were hidden behind some kind of heavy goggles. The face turned briefly, and Sam had the distinct impression he was the object of that stare. Then the face was gone, masked by the crowd. No look of recognition, antipathy, concern, or any other emotion marred the sexless smoothness. Whoever that person was, Sam found the appearance of the dark-coated albino unsettling.

“Sam, you’re staring,” Hanae whispered. Louder, she said, “Come on, darling. This nice Mr. Giacomo has found our reservation.”

“Thought I saw someone I knew,” he mumbled as he allowed himself to be led into the club.

The pickup had taken less time than she had expected. Mr. Target-she found it easiest to think of him that way-had been waiting in the quiet little bar, as arranged. Her tardiness must have made him think she wouldn’t come and he had begun drinking. He had gotten a good start. When she arrived his face was already flushed, making the silver metal of the datajack in his temple stand out starkly.

Between his relief that she had not forsaken him and his nervousness about their rendezvous, it was easy to persuade him to a few more rounds. The more alcohol a target had in his system, the less likely he would notice any anomalies in the world around him. She had only toyed with her own drink, waiting for the chance to suggest that they go on up to the executive suite. It was child’s play overcoming his propriety and natural caution. So many brains cells, she thought, so easily overruled by hormones and the animal need for comfort.

“Hope I don’t have this much trouble with you, Kathy,” he said with a leer as he tried a second time to get his credstick into the slot. His corporate rank would open the door as soon as the maglock read the ID encoded on his stick. But he had to get it into the hole first.

“Here. Let me.” She kissed the hand from which she took the credstick, then smoothly slotted the stick home. “I can usually put things where they belong.”