“Plus we got the lady here.” The troll patted an obvious decker on the shoulder. “She’s running guard duty for us.”
“Hallway is clear,” Silver reported, fingers moving steadily over the Fuchi keyboard. “I’ve terminated the safeties and sent all the elevators down to the sub-basement. They’re frozen. I’ve also turned on the fire sprinklers in the stairwell, blown all the circuit breakers, turned on every alarm, and I’m locking and unlocking the doors every other nano.”
Through the Armorlite windows, she saw harsh light flash on the dome, then cracks spreading out and slowly closing. When she turned back to the room, the decker had a long cable attached to her deck that snaked off in the direction of her own desk.
“It appears I am your prisoner,” she said, moving casually toward the bar. “For the moment.”
With a rat of some kind prancing about his shoes, an elf wordlessly raised a fearsome-looking rifle at her.
At the sight, Harvin slumped. “I am your prisoner.” She curled a lip. “Or is it hostage?”
“And how do ya know we’re not here to kill you?” asked the troll, thrusting out his lower jaw.
Thunder boomed from different directions overhead, rattling the unbreakable windows.
“Because she isn’t dead already,” said the moustache. He kicked out a chair for her. “Sit, madam, we have much to discuss and little time.”
“Such as?” she retorted coldly.
“Such as, we know everything,” said the decker.
Barbara Harvin took the chair. “How nice. Infinite knowledge must be most gratifying.”
“You can arc-store the drek, breeder,” said the troll. “We got the goods and unless you play along, we all go to drek.”
“Pray, continue,” she murmured softly, somewhat taken aback by his crudity.
A thumb jerk. “Are you aware that you’re at war, not with the pirates, but with your own brother?” asked the suit bluntly.
Harvin felt her expression freeze. “Explain that,” she whispered.
The norm ticked off the reasons. “It was your brother who hired Emile here, an elf mage, to come down and help with your pirate problems. Even though any mage was the last thing you wanted in this place. It was your brother who secretly wrote a book about the pirates, and then let the personal passcode he gave to his ghost writer stay active for over a decade.
“And it was your brother who contacted a fixer to hire us in the first place,” he concluded. “Hired us! To search for the IronHell headquarters, even though he didn’t give a damn about them.”
“You already have a plan to deal with the pirates,” scoffed the decker, over faint detonations and the horrible noise of ice crackling. “And it’s happening right now.”
“He wanted us to find this dometown, then spill the scan,” said the troll.
“What scan?” she asked him directly.
“About the twelve dead mages,” spat the elf.
“Mages?”
The norm gestured and a Manhunter was instantly in his hand. Harvin stared at it, stunned as much by the move as by the weapon being trained on her.
“Keeping answering questions with another question and you lose a limb,” he said. “Which won’t kill you, but believe me, it is more painful than you can possibly imagine.”
“I believe you,” she said after a heartbeat.
The muzzle of the massive pistol did not waver a micron. “Good. I rarely joke about business.”
“And patching your stump will waste valuable time none of us has,” added the elf, taking a seat himself.
She jerked at the word stump. “No more games.”
“Download this,” said the suit. “IronHell found this place and blackmailed you for the secret of its location in exchange for shiploads of supplies, protection from Atlantic Security, and the salvaged submarines you’ve been selling them. They got more subs, less hassles, and generally left your surface ships alone. Indeed, the companies and corporations you most disliked were targeted for pirate attacks. Am I correct?”
“An interesting theory.”
“Theory, drek. We got the chips.”
“And why would I want to pay such an exorbitant price for a farm? Food that hasn’t been toxed or drowned in radiation is certainly valuable, but not at the level of nuyen you are discussing.”
“That’s hard copy. However, your brother discovered that you could utilize the abyss right next door to forge pressure-alloy chips worth billions on the weapons market.”
“We don’t manufacture chips. We’re just shippers—importers and distributors of weapons.”
“Natch. ’Cause you didn’t want to get into a war with Ares. The megacorp would kick your hoop into tomorrow. But you do sell them the chips, and they sell you the
weapons at a massive discount.”
“A staggering discount,” corrected the decker.
“Only then the pirates upped their demands, as they always do. The more prosperous the city looks, the more they want. And suddenly you needed an edge. So you built the coldframe to maintain a larger bubble and increase food production to hide the real profit from the chips!”
“Only you made it four times as large as necessary—we’ve seen it—so it could run a combat program for automatic weapons systems to blow them to drek.”
“Weapons built specially for you by Ares,” added the decker.
Harvin said nothing, watching their angry faces. They were leading up to something they wanted from her. This was not as one-sided a negotiation as it had originally seemed.
A pounding came from the office door, and muffled cries.
“My guards are here,” she said. “If necessary, enough of them to physically throw your dead bodies out the windows.”
The suit waved that aside. “Trivia. One flaw. Your brother decided to make sure nobody ever found the coldframe and for that he hired some mages to set up permanent wards of protection.
“Then he aced them to keep the location secret.”
Outside, the concussion of the torpedoes was coming louder, the flashes of light filling the dome like fireworks. The streets were madness, but quiet ticks went by in the office.
“The pirates may win,” Barbara said smoothly.
“If they do, we all die, and this is a meaningless conversation.” The suit walked over to the bar and poured himself a brandy. “But if you win, you need us more than ever.”
“Why?” she asked, wondering if they had truly figured it out. “Tell me, why would my own brother want people to know company secrets?”
“You know perfectly well why,” said the decker. “Redemption. He’s dying. The medical records are there for anybody to find. He only lives today because of the stolen flesh of others. He’s no more than a collection of other people’s spare parts.”
“I see,” Harvin said.
“Only it isn’t working any more, and now he wants to clear his conscience before he flatlines,” stated the suit. “Maybe not consciously, but he keeps fragging up in small disastrous ways.”
“And leaving holes in your security nets for others to find and exploit.”
“Supposing this is all true,” Harvin said slowly, “why don’t I just kill you?”
“Then your brother sends more and more shadowrunners until the story is blown and you’re naked in the sunlight.”
“And we’ve taken steps to make sure the whole story of the food . . . additives will be released to the general population down here if we’re harmed.” The decker grinned. “Which would probably cause a riot big enough to make the pirate attack seem like simsense sex with a bouncebaby.”
“Plus,” said the elf, “we’ll broadcast the story of the elves over a Gertrude for the whole sea to hear. Maybe nobody hears the broadcast.” A rueful smile. “Or maybe they do.”
“And if word of it gets to Tir Taingire or Tir na nOg . ..”
“Every elf mage in the world would get himself here and smash this hellhole to bits.”
“And then you would be dead.”
“Or worse. Out of biz and penniless on the streets.”
“Easy prey,” chuckled the troll.
“A bluff,” Barbara shot back defiantly.
“Try us,” smiled the norm pleasantly.
An explosion shook the office door, but did not achieve penetration. Precious minutes ticked by in silence. Then a laser beam punched through the door in the office. As the beam winked out, the troll rammed in the muzzle of his Mossberg and fired off a full clip. Screams came from the other side.
“Guarantees will have to be given,” she murmured.
“Half of us will always be down here as security for the safety of the others.”
A horrible noise shook the whole building, knocking pictures off the walls and smashing glasses and bottles at the bar. Looking outside, they all saw a pirate sub looming large and then ramming into the city dome, cracks spreading out of sight. The honeycombed prow punched straight through the althropic plas and stopped, a circular spray of water from around the crumpled metal bow knifing into the city. Wherever it struck, buildings and bridges were cut apart, the
chunks tumbling to the ground.
Lasers from below and the sides diced the sub into pieces, large sections falling off. The spreading cracks slowed their advance, and began to close. Then the bow was nipped off, the prow tumbling down to land in the street, where it exploded in a staggering fireball of flame, smoke, bodies, and vehicles spreading out from the mushroom cloud.
“We have a deal,” Harvin said with a sigh. “You are now my new personal security staff assigned to the city for quote general info protection end quote. Satisfactory?”
“Once it’s on chip,” said Delphia, holstering his weapon. “And notarized.”
“Agreed,” she accepted grudgingly. “Maybe you truly will be a valuable asset for this corporation. Done and done. You there . . . decker?”
“Silver.”
“
Hai,
Silver. Please give me a link to the guards.”
She gestured. “Go . . . sir.”
* * *
As Barbara Harvin spoke at length to her security people, and then her legal staff, the noise from outside diminished more and more. The flashes of light soon stopped and cheering came from the streets below.
“Seems we won,” said Emile, leaning on his wand, looking out the window at the damaged city. Smoke and wreckage were everywhere, but so were dancing crowds.
“If you call this winning,” said Silver, unjacking from her Fuchi deck. “Now we’re trapped into working for these gleebs forever!”
“Nyah,” snorted Thumbs, rubbing his arm. “Just until they geek us.”
“Thank you, Captain Chuckles.”
“No prob.”
“All right,” said Harvin, standing and going to her desk. Silver moved out of the way, and the older woman took the chair. “First thing to do,” the older woman said, folding her hands on the desk top, “is kill my insane brother.”
“No,” said Delphia. “You will have to handle that yourself.”
“We’re bodyguards,” agreed Thumbs resolutely.
“Not assassins,” added Silver. “If we were . . .” she left the thought unfinished.
“I’ll kill him,” said Emile, with Grand purring in his arms. “Gladly and for free.” To the astonished looks of the others, he added. “It is a matter of personal honor. He killed a dozen elf mages and must be made to pay.”
Harvin gave him a slight smile of satisfaction. “Excellent. You’ll leave first thing in the morning after we repair the Slib docking stations.”
“Immediately after I receive the antidote for the food poisoning,” hissed Emile and Grand together. They ignored the hand.
Her face did not show any expression of surprise or disappointment as she reclaimed her hand. “Of course. That's what I meant to say.”
“Suits,” snorted Thumbs softly to himself.
“
Gaijin,
” corrected Delphia, sipping his brandy. “Welcome to the Gunderson Corporation,” added Silver, unlocking the door.
Nicholas Pollotta has written and published more than a dozen novels, including
Illegal Aliens
which he cowrote with Phil Foglio for TSR, Inc.
Shadowboxer
is his first Shadowrun® novel. He has also been a stand-up comic who performed regularly at New York’s clubs in the mid-70’s. Under the name “Nick Smith,” he has published cartoons in publications like
Starlog
and
Dragon
magazine. In the 1980’s, he was the creator, producer, director and star of “The Adventures of Phil A. Delphia,” a series of humorous, science fiction radio plays that were broadcast over college radio stations. Hating boredom worse than almost anything, his many hobbies include gaming, martial arts, movies, books and guns.
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ROC
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