Shadowrun: Deiable Assets Read online

  The problem was that he didn’t know what he was going to do about that yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  According to Joaquin, the voyage to Amazonia would take another seven hours. The captain had directed Rachel and Professor Fredericks to a double berth and placed them under guard. Hawke suspected Joaquin would have liked to put him under guard as well, but had stopped short of that because of his friendship with Flicker.

  With nothing to do, he tried to get some sleep, and chose to sack out in the ATV. At least there he had access to an assortment of weapons he could control, and could seal the vehicle off from outsiders if necessary. Not that those things would do any good against the arsenal Scorpionfish sported, but attacking the ATV while it sat inside the submersible would raise Joaquin’s cost.

  Hawke shifted in one of the front seats because the back ones were still wet, trying in vain to find a more comfortable spot. He told himself again how much he hated a long-term op. He preferred to get in and get out, a surgical strike that was over almost as soon as it started.

  So far, this mission had been the exact opposite. Boosting Rachel Gordon was already way more complicated than he wanted to deal with. And he was certain it was only going to get worse.

  After a few minutes, just when Hawke thought he was on the verge of dozing off, someone knocked on the hatch above. He tapped a control for the topside video and watched Flicker’s image sharpen into focus.

  “You know the passcode,” he growled, partly because he wanted to sleep, and partly because he didn’t want to talk about anything until he had his own thoughts on everything properly sorted.

  Flicker entered the password and the hatch hissed open. “I do know the passcode, which by the way, allows me more access to this vehicle than the one you have.” She pulled herself through and swung down into the pilot’s chair, which automatically adjusted for her. “I just didn’t want to get shot entering my own vehicle.”

  Leaning back, she let the neural interface jack into the back of her head. Diagnostics panels lit up on the transplas window, but Hawke knew that was for his benefit. Flicker didn’t need them.

  “I wouldn’t have shot you.”

  Flicker stared at nothing and everything. “Then take your hand off your pistol.”

  Unaware that he’d grabbed the Ares Predator until that moment, he released the weapon and folded his arms. The high-pressure wounds he’d received from the micro-fissures stung as he moved, but he ignored the pain. He didn’t want to fog his senses with pain management meds.

  “You’re not happy here.” Flicker’s voice sounded slightly mechanical, letting him know she was deep into the ATV’s diagnostics. “It’s easy to see. You’re like a tomcat in the territory of another tomcat. You don’t say much about it, but it shows in the way you move.”

  Hawke laced his fingers behind his head and stared through the images on the transplas to the two guards on the railing above. “I guess Joaquin isn’t too happy about me being here either.”

  “No, he’s not. The two of you are a lot alike.”

  “Is this going to be a problem?”

  “You and Joaquin? No. He’s a professional. Like you. Anyway, he’s not doing this for you. He’s doing it for me.”

  Hawke intended to let that go and not comment, but found he couldn’t.

  “I didn’t figure I’d see you again tonight.” He didn’t mean to say that, or to sound accusatory, but he did and the words were.

  “Joaquin and I are friends. We like a lot of the same tech and we think a lot alike, but we don’t have a physical relationship.”

  “That’s none of my biz.” It wasn’t, and he felt slightly guilty for bringing the matter up. Still, he was on a submersible in the Pacific Ocean with a tempo runner he didn’t know. If things got tangled, he wanted to know which side of the line Flicker would come down on.

  “No, it’s not, but I want you to know because I don’t want your wondering about it cluttering up your mind.”

  Hawke didn’t say anything for a moment. “You might have mentioned him earlier.”

  “That we’re friends?”

  “That you knew he’d be out here waiting, and he’d be willing to give us a lift if we needed it.”

  “I was counting on not needing it. I figured you’d have everything on the op wired.” Flicker paused, and while she was silent, several servos within the ATV whined and rumbled to life. Lights chased each other in indecipherable patterns on the transplas. “We got surprised, and we’re lucky to still be alive.”

  No, Hawke told himself, we’re skilled enough to be alive. There was a difference.

  “Besides,” Flicker opened a new diagnostic routine on the transplas and problem areas lit up in red, “there was a fifty-fifty chance he would have been gone by the time we needed him. He’s got his own biz, and he takes care of it.”

  “Running cargo for the Ghost Cartels.” Hawke couldn’t help putting his dissatisfaction with that choice of work in his words. He hadn’t wanted to mention that either, but it was bothering him. He didn’t like the idea that Flicker would traffic in tempo. Pharmaceuticals were worse than BTL chips. At least a chiphead didn’t end up with serious physical problems from his narcotic of choice. “The cartels run tempo.”

  Tempo was a Bioengineered Awakened Drug that had spread around the globe in short order. Rumor had it users could perceive astrally, even if they had no magical abilities. It was instantly addictive, and even the beetle-heads gave up their chips to try it. Frequent usage built up a tolerance, though, and more of the drug had to be used to trip the effect, which compounded the physical damage.

  “I don’t like tempo or the other cascade of BAD brands either, but I don’t get to decide what hits the streets. Neither do you.” Flicker’s tone sharpened a bit. “I also don’t get to tell Joaquin how to make his cred. Scorpionfish is his masterpiece, and the overhead on this beast is voracious. He takes the work he can get.”

  “Point taken.”

  “And whether I told you about him before we came out here is not the problem eating your guts now.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. I saw you watching Rachel Gordon over dinner tonight. You’re wondering what you’re supposed to do with her.”

  Hawke made his voice flat, the way he did when he was talking biz. “I’m taking her to Mr. Johnson in Santa Fe just like I agreed.”

  Flicker hesitated. “Maybe you should reconsider that.”

  “I don’t back out on deals. You know that. My word is what keeps me in biz.”

  “You were lied to about this run. We were lied to about this run. Mr. Johnson didn’t mention there would be any interference from Aztechnology, and we nearly got hosed because we weren’t informed of that. If we’d known, you would have turned him down flat or increased the crew. At the least we need a bump on the payout.”

  “Agreed.” Hawke didn’t like getting lied to. It was just one of the downsides of the biz, however. There was also the possibility that Mr. Johnson really hadn’t known Aztechnology would be so interested in the dig or what was found there. Secrets always got so complicated and twisted there was no way to know who really knew what.

  Then he wrapped his brain around something else. “Mr. Johnson didn’t contract for the artifact. He contracted for Rachel Gordon. Seems to me like Mr. Johnson would have wanted the professor because he would know more. He’s the one calling on the shots on the dig. I don’t know why Rachel’s so important.”

  “That jewel, whatever it is, seems almost—possessive of her.”

  “You talk like it’s alive.” That thought had slid through Hawke’s mind too, and he hadn’t liked it, either. Magic on its own was bad enough—this, whatever it was, though, made him uneasier by the minute.

  “Maybe it is alive. You and I have both run the shadows long enough to see even more unlikely things. You should have brought a mage.”

  “Maybe Joaquin has someone onboard we could use.”

&nbs
p; Flicker’s image appeared on the transplas, cocking a disparaging eyebrow at him. “Do you really want to pull Joaquin into our biz so deeply, omae?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. And I’m going to chalk that suggestion up to fatigue and not assume you were testing me.”

  “I wasn’t.” But Hawke knew some part of him had chosen that possibility as a loyalty check, and he felt guilty about it.

  “What do you know about NeoNET?”

  The query caught Hawke off guard. “It’s located in Boston, in the UCAS.” He didn’t do much biz in the United Canadian and American States, preferring to stay west of the Mississippi River or in Asia and Europe. “It formed after the Matrix Crash in 2064.” He frowned. “You think they’re interested in Rachel? Doesn’t scan to me. They’re hardcore tech-based. Besides that, they already had her. They could have picked her up at the university.”

  “Then she’s only part of the target.”

  “Mr. Johnson didn’t mention that.”

  “It could have come up later.”

  “Why would NeoNET fund the dig? I didn’t see anything at the site that screamed tech at me.”

  “I’m still digging into that. The TransAsia branch has a lot of big players behind the scenes, but I’ve scanned one of them: Ayuni Sukenobu.”

  “I don’t recognize the name.”

  “I’d be surprised if you did. She’s one of the chief software designers. Her grandfather helped found the corp, so she’s got a lot of blue-chip stock. She also has a serious jones for archeology. According to the intel I got from the blackboards, she owns four dinosaur skeletons worth millions of nuyen, and those are just the big items in her collection.”

  “She buys bones?”

  “That’s what skeletons are, Hawke.” Flicker could sound incredibly snarky when she wanted.

  “There weren’t any dinosaur bones at the dig.”

  “There were lots of statues. I captured footage of them from the drones and from when I broke through to the river. Maybe there’s something there she likes.”

  “Doesn’t scan. I got the contract on Rachel before she found her artifact.”

  “That young woman and the weird glowie could be tied in somehow.”

  “There’s no mention of magic in her background.”

  “No, but how else are you going to explain the relationship she and that thing have? Because those sparks and the way it won’t let anyone but her touch it tells me they do have a relationship.”

  “I don’t know.” Hawke’s head hurt from chasing all the angles of the run. He didn’t know enough to put everything properly into context.

  “You don’t know what’s at stake in this run, and you don’t know what you’re going to do with Rachel Gordon,” Flicker said. “My suggestion is to go talk to her. Get to know her a little better. Then skull it out. You do people better than I do.”

  Hawke silently disagreed with that; Flicker was social engineering him right now, and both of them knew he was letting her. “I’ll talk to her in the morning. I got the impression she’s not in the mood for conversation now, and I’m running on vapor.”

  “Early morning. We’ll be hitting Amazonia shortly after noon. We need to have a game plan in place by then.”

  “Agreed.” Hawke might have said more, but he wasn’t sure. With Flicker there watching over the ATV, knowing he was locked securely away in what might be hostile territory, not knowing what he’d claimed a piece of, sleep took him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Rachel woke, surprised she’d been able to sleep. She lay on the bed in the prison ship—there was no other way to think of the submersible, even after the fancy dinner last night—still dressed in her mud-spattered clothing.

  A twinge of guilt over not being a proper guest ached within her when she noticed the bedding she’d tracked mud over, but the feeling quickly passed when she recalled the circumstances under which she’d been housed there. She also needed a shower. It was one thing to be a woolly beast on a dig site, but being in the company of people who bathed regularly promoted attention to cleanliness. Last night she’d crashed after dinner, and maybe she’d thought about a shower and clean clothes for a few seconds before that.

  Since there were no windows in the room, it was full dark except for the light from Professor Fredericks’s deck. The holo projector was broadcasting a shimmering blue screen with Mayan pictographs moving across it.

  She had no idea where she was within the vessel. She knew the room probably had another name than simply “room,” but she didn’t have enough experience with submarines to know for sure.

  She also didn’t like the thought that dozens, perhaps hundreds of meters of water separated her from the surface. Being in the submersible was somehow worse than being trapped underground yesterday, or running the river channel. Drowning had always been a big fear of hers.

  Yesterday. It was hard to believe her life had changed so much in one day. And it was even harder to acknowledge that she might not be able to go back to that life again.

  She still had no idea what her captors intended for her, or who they were working for. Who wanted her so badly that they were willing to have her practically kidnapped? Why would she be valuable to anyone? She’d been an orphan all of her life, unclaimed by anyone.

  Breathing out, she pushed away the tension and anger coursing through her. She couldn’t dwell on the past. She had to be on the lookout for an opportunity to escape.

  But to where? Thinking about that made her want to scream. She couldn’t go to the authorities, and disappearing into the underground in some third- or fourth-world country didn’t appeal to her. But she knew she could do it. All she had was herself. And she had skills and knowledge she could barter into something.

  She glanced over at Professor Fredericks, who was still sleeping. At the dig, they’d had separate tents. The present accommodations felt invasive, but he hadn’t shown any signs of it bothering him. Even though their “host” hadn’t granted them access to the Matrix, and they were cut off from the outside world, the professor had been working on his rebuttal to the media stories. She’d heard him reading his words aloud until she’d gone to sleep. Rachel didn’t know what he could possibly have to say, and she didn’t know if he would ever get the chance to say it.

  Still, this morning—if it was morning—she felt surprisingly rejuvenated. She wondered what time it was and peeked at the professor’s deck, where the glowing time/date stamp read 0702 hours. She’d slept longer than she’d anticipated, but not as long as she’d thought.

  The deck’s screen page showed a bas-relief cut of a Mayan artifact that had been discovered in 2012. On the stone, a Mayan warrior in a feathered headpiece, thick necklace, wide belt, and loincloth sat on the ground. More decorative pieces made irregular columns around him.

  Rachel remembered the piece. As an archeology student, Professor Fredericks had been on the dig that had discovered it. It had been, until now, the highlight of his career.

  At least, as far as she knew. Despite her determination not to give into suspicion, she couldn’t help wondering if the stories about his thievery were true. A number of archaeologists, when they found something important—or valuable—succumbed to greed, or covetousness at the least.

  During her time with the professor, she hadn’t exactly put him up on a pedestal. After all, he had insisted on keeping her “feelings” about the artifacts secret. His reasoning had been logical: if they’d gone to an outside source, they wouldn’t have had control over the dig. So he’d fabricated some research and presented a proposal to potential endowment prospects. She still didn’t know why NeoNET had agreed to fund the dig.

  Just like she didn’t know why Aztechnology had shown up at the site and started shooting. All of that had taken place right after the discovery of the artifact. She couldn’t discount that the unearthing of the jewel was possibly the catalyst for all of the death and destruction. That was the only thing that had happened since
the beginning of the excavation.

  Guilt cut into her when she wondered if simply surrendering the jewel would have stopped the bloodshed. She hadn’t considered that at the time. She’d just taken the artifact and run. She couldn’t imagine giving it up now, however. At least not until after she’d divined its secrets.

  Not even to Professor Fredericks.

  Thinking of the jewel, she glanced at the other side of the bed and spotted it floating in the air a full meter above the floor, slowly revolving on an invisible axis. It’s soft, blue glow illuminated that side of the small room

  Surprised, Rachel stared at the artifact. Then, she sensed the mysterious presence come alive inside it. Slowly, she approached the jewel. She reached out her hand and the artifact floated to her, coming to her like a pet.

  The awareness of the creature inside transmitted through the jewel directly into her mind. It knew she was there. She was certain of that. At the same time she stared at the artifact in fascinated wonder, fear trickled through her too, eating away at the foundation of curiosity that pushed her to open up to its wants.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  For a moment, the artifact glowed more brightly. Embers orbited only centimeters away from the multi-faceted surface. Then the glow extinguished and the artifact settled heavily into her hand.

  The knock repeated. “Rachel. We need to talk.”

  She recognized Hawke’s voice. Her first instinct was to ignore him or refuse him, but doing either wouldn’t help her figure out what was going to happen to her. She wanted to know. Besides, she couldn’t lock the door anyway. The man could just walk in if he wanted.

  “Give me a minute.” She retreated to her backpack and put the jewel inside the cargo compartment, then checked for a compact mirror, knowing she probably had a bad case of bedhead. Then, realizing she wanted to make certain her appearance was good for her kidnapper, she settled for running her hands through her hair and letting it fall. Unwilling to leave the artifact behind, she shouldered the backpack and walked to the door.