SHADOWRUN: Spells and Chrome (shadowrun)

  SHADOWRUN: Spells and Chrome

  ( Shadowrun )

  Anthology

  SHADOWRUN: Spells and Chrome

  Trade Secrets

  Jason M. Hardy

  Renowned as a womanizer on par with Don Juan and Casanova, Jason M. Hardy is alleged to have coded his seduction secrets in his works of fiction. If read properly, books like The Scorpion Jar, Drops of Corruption, and The Last Charge could help you avoid ever being lonely again. A similar code has been found in his short stories published on BattleCorps.com and other places, but sadly, those works were found to conceal nothing more than casserole recipes.

  Information was being transmitted by a hundred PANs, and all of it was fake.

  At least, that's what Vitriol figured. Broadcasting your real identity-or whatever passed for the actual identity of the people here who didn't have anything that could be called a real name-was like showing up to a masquerade in a t-shirt and jeans. It displayed a tacky lack of imagination.

  Visually, the room was a mishmash. Not only did everyone have their own distinct AR augmentation, but many of them were showing off by altering the club's AR overlay. The Clean Heart sported Roman bath decor that was almost entirely virtual-any poor sap without augmented vision would see nothing more than a big, concrete-walled room with a plywood bar over in one corner and benches that looked like they were made from broken chalkboards. With augmented vision, though, the full glory of an ancient bath came to view. Steam rose from a pile of heated rocks across from the bar, benches made of light-colored granite were scattered here and there, and a bartender in a fluffy white robe slid back and forth and served drinks in glasses that sweated condensation.

  But here and there, the theme altered. Around Agares, the steam drifting through the room turned to smoke rising above the hellfire that circled his feet. After every step that MidKnight took, black poppies grew, bloomed, and died in the footprints he left behind. And the corner of the room where Blood Sister sat didn't look like a Roman bath at all, but rather like the shadowy corner of a medieval cathedral.

  Vitriol thought most of it was pointless. It's not as if their alteration of the AR overlay did them any good. They weren't breaking into any forbidden nodes, they weren't accessing secret information, they were just playing around with a graphics program to show they could. Vitriol didn't bother with any of that nonsense. Sure, he'd disguised his PAN, but all he did was erase it, so anyone who looked for identifier tags on him would see a void, like trying to look into a black hole. He was there, his tags weren't. Effective, subtle, and not work intensive. Vitriol, unlike a lot of hackers, never felt like putting much time or effort into showing off. Blood Sister was pretty much his opposite, always walking around with her own private show like a goddamned performance artist. She was annoying as hell-but she was also one of the best, which was why she got away with it.

  Vitriol wandered around the room like a man without a plan. Other people were playing the room like a piano, going from person to person in a particular order dictated by music only they could hear. It looked like a lot of work, the way they did things. All these coded conversations, subtle insinuations, sly gestures. All so much bullshit. Get in, do what you need to do, get out. That's how you deal with systems, and that's how Vitriol planned to handle this gathering. The way he figured it, the less time he spent playing everyone else's game, the less likely he was to be played.

  He knew that he was about the only one in the room who looked impatient. Most of the people at these sphinx parties spent a lot of effort to look cool and unhurried, like they didn't need to be there, which was even more bullshit because if they didn't need to be there, then why were they there? For fun? Sphinx parties weren't fun. Everyone was too busy trying to find out what everyone else knew to actually enjoy themselves.

  That was the trick of sphinx parties. No one knew how the invitations came out, but you didn't get one-or so the story went-unless you had some juicy piece of info that most people didn't know, but lots of people could use. So everyone here was hungry, everyone wanted what everyone else had, but they weren't about to show it. They kept their faces cool and impassive, and kept the real meat of the evening, the information everyone wanted, electronically coded and out of sight.

  Vitriol didn't want to play their game. He wanted to do what he came to do, say what he came to say, and get the hell out. He'd be direct, blunt, straightforward. At a place like this, that was enough to make him a legend. Or at least notorious.

  He started walking toward Blood Sister, pressing through the group of people that was always around her without actually being near her. They'd look at the architecture of her AR overlay, they'd admire the textures and the shadows and the way she managed to incorporate the light sources around her into the lighting of her overlay, but they'd keep their distance from the woman herself. With her black cowl and face that was blank, chalky white except for a pair of dark eyes that continually wept blood, Blood Sister had a way of discouraging contact.

  He tried pushing one of Blood Sister's fangirls out of his way, but when he reached out to shove the little ivy-covered woman out of his way, his hand went right through her. She was all AR. He had been ready to give her a good shove, so when he didn't contact anything he lost his balance and stumbled, moving away from Blood Sister.

  Even worse, he stepped near a dwarf who was sitting at the bar, tossing shot after shot of bourbon down his throat and then tossing shot glass after shot glass over his shoulder, keeping the cleaning staff busy (most of the decor was virtual, but no respectable club, no matter how high tech, ever settled for serving virtual booze). Vitriol tried to dodge out of the dwarf's line of sight, but he was too slow. The dwarf saw him and nodded, looking far too enthusiastic.

  "Gemmel," Vitriol said flatly.

  "V!" the dwarf said, in a voice far too high and nasal to suit his rough, black-bearded face. The shiny, silver woman sitting next to Gemmel saw her chance to escape and slipped away. "Been too long, too long, way too long. Where the hell have you been, omae, what have you been up to? I haven't heard anything about you, which must be good, because when you're doing it right people aren't talking about it, you know what I'm saying? So you're doing it right, right?"

  "I'm trying to," Vitriol said, then gritted his teeth and made himself ask Gemmel a rejoinder. "You?"

  "Oh, things are great, great, great, you know? I just finished a job, it was a good job, a nice little smash and grab, you know? I mean, I like the undercover sneaking around shit as much as the next guy, but sometimes it's really refreshing to just go in and do what you want to do and not give a shit who sees you do it, am I right?"

  Vitriol could just give Gemmel a slight nod and the dwarf would keep talking, keeping him here when he didn't want to be. He stuck his hands in his pockets and hoped his body language looked impatient. But if Gemmel noticed, he didn't care.

  The dwarf talked and talked while Vitriol scanned the room, and he saw that the crowd around Blood Sister had thinned. He had a chance, but he might lose it if he took time to politely disengage from Gemmel. But why bother being polite to someone he didn't care about?

  He walked away while the dwarf was in mid-sentence.

  He strode up to Blood Sister, wondering how long it would take her to see him. She'd recognize him, of course-his hair was now stubbly instead of the bald-scalp look he'd had since he last saw her, but he didn't think that made him look much different. He didn't stand out in this group, however, so it might take some time for her to find him among the freaks.

  As it turned out, it didn't take long. He was about five meters away from her when her dark eyes narrowed, squeezing out extra-large drops of blood t
hat ran slowly down her white cheeks.

  "Hi," Vitriol said.

  The cathedral arch above Blood Sister shook, trembling like an earthquake had just hit the place. Vitriol looked up and instinctively raised his hands over his head, even though he wasn't in any danger.

  The archway fell apart quickly, stone crumbling and falling onto and through Vitriol. The first chunks hit the club floor and stayed there, then more chunks came down, then more and more, far more than had been in Blood Sister's display, until Vitriol was completely surrounded by chunks of AR stone.

  Bunch of bullshit, he thought, and swept all the rocks away without so much as a gesture. He cleaned the overlay around him until it was once again just himself in his dingy t-shirt and tattered canvas pants.

  "Not happy to see me?" he said lightly. Blood Sister did not reply, but the reconstructed archway over her head was already starting to tremble.

  "All right, all right, fine. I'll go," Vitriol said. It hadn't been much of a conversation, but it had been enough. "I only dropped by to say hello, anyway."

  He turned around and walked toward the exit, hoping he could make it out clean. But there was a demon in his way.

  From a distance, Agares did not look all that frightening or even demonic, except for the sharp-toothed crocodile he rode (the crocodile was nothing more than overlay, but Agares still moved like he was riding the nonexistent beast. Vitriol had to admit it was a pretty good trick). Agares had no wings, no forked tail, none of the traditional accoutrements of demonhood except for the reddish sheen of his skin and the nubby horns on his forehead. Once you got closer, though, and saw the eyes blazing out from under the old demon's protruding brow, you gained a full appreciation for the art of Agares' overlay. The face was a wonder of malevolence, with high, sharp cheekbones, a cruel, smirking mouth, and a gaze that cut into you with an almost audible whistle of air.

  Vitriol thought the whole package was a little pathetic. In his experience, anyone who worked so hard to look intimidating was overcompensating for something.

  "Agares, you old fart," Vitriol said cheerfully. "Did you bring some sulphurous fumes of hell with you, or were you just eating broccoli?"

  The crocodile slowly turned to look at Vitriol, but the demon did not move a muscle-except to speak.

  "You should stay away from my sister," The hiss of his voice blended almost completely with the steam rising from the AR rocks.

  "Oh, you're not related. She's only your sister in the sense that all nuns go to hell. So you're colleagues, nothing more."

  "You should stay away from her," Agares repeated.

  "And if I don't?"

  Fire burned deep behind Agares' eyes, and his lips curled in a tight smile. He stood slowly, then took a step to his left. He was no longer riding his crocodile.

  The demon said only one word. "Execute."

  The crocodile moved forward. • • •

  "Look, I know it doesn't have teeth, but when it bites you it hurts! It fucking hurts, okay?"

  Vitriol knew he was speaking louder than he should, so he shut up. He sat against the wall next to the roof door and huddled against the cold wind.

  He could tell Harpy was still curious, but also that she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of asking him anything more about it. But they had been on the roof for an hour already, there was no telling how much longer they'd have to be up there, and something had to pass the time.

  "So how does it hurt?" Harpy finally asked.

  Vitriol knew exactly what she was talking about, but it might be a long night and he needed to take his fun where he could get it.

  "How does what hurt?"

  "How does a goddamn crocodile hurt, you asshole? You know, the thing you were just talking about?"

  "Ah, right, the crocodile," Vitriol said, lightly slapping his knee. "Well, here's the thing. It's a program, right? Software. So it can interact with anything wired into the Matrix. You take your average Hiroki, someone without anything hardwired into their brain, maybe without any implants at all, and it's not going to hurt them much. No access points. But someone like me, I got all sorts of points of entry for it. So when it bites, it's trying to short out anything electronic in me. It didn't permanently fry anything, but it gave me a weird sort of sharp tingling in my brain and throat, like someone was trying to dig a dozen slivers out of the middle of my head with a dozen needles."

  "That's still not as bad as an actual crocodile bite," Harpy said.

  "Yeah. But it ain't good."

  They were quiet again, and Vitriol watched the Manhattan city lights calmly blink and flicker in front of him. It was soothing, which was all wrong, so Vitriol looked at Harpy instead. Her round face, her folded arms, and her eternally arched eyebrow were enough to keep him irritated and on edge.

  "Don't you want to know how I finally got away?" he said.

  "Not really."

  "Oh come on! It was a virtual crocodile trying to fry my neurons! That's kind of cool, right?"

  "I guess."

  "And obviously I got away from it, or I wouldn't be here. So how did I do it?"

  "I don't know," Harpy said. "Some sort of hacker crap. You got out your program and it fought the demon guy's program and yours either won or it distracted this crocodile thing long enough for you to get away. Who gives a shit?"

  "It's more complicated than that!" Vitriol said. "It's not like you just launch a program and sit back and wait for it to do its thing! There's all sorts of adjustments you need to make on the fly, moves and counter-moves, it's like swordfighting!"

  "It's like playing video games-just a bunch of button-pushing."

  "Yeah, but really cool button pushing!"

  "Shut up," Harpy said.

  "No, hold on, let me explain-"

  "Shut up." Harpy grabbed her dark sunglasses and threw them on, watching the images that appeared on the insides of the lenses. "They're here," she said. "You're on."

  The dark rooftop in front of Vitriol faded as he focused on the image inside his head, a feed from a security camera in the building below. Lochinvar was in the lobby, dressed in his usual black with clips and creases in all the right places. Next to him was the pigeon, a man whose newly implanted scalp hairs did not yet conceal the fact that he was balding.

  "No, no, I think it will grow in fine," Lochinvar was saying. "But it's unnecessary, really. Your eyes are-well, forgive me for this, but your eyes are simply extraordinary. I'm not sure anyone could look beyond those eyes and notice anything about your scalp."

  The pigeon-his name was Carruthers, if Vitriol remembered correctly-was walking beneath one of the cameras, giving Vitriol a good look at the stubble on top of his head. The skin underneath was turning red.

  "Okay, let's move," Vitriol said. He took his focus away from the security footage but made sure he still paid attention to the audio link from below.

  Harpy stood, picked up the crowbar she had tucked behind her, and wrenched the rooftop door open with a screech.

  Alarms went off throughout the building, but there wasn't any sound. Prometheus Engineering apparently did not feel any need to let any of its neighbors know about break-ins on its property. The people who needed to know about it, though, now knew.

  "Oh dear," Vitriol heard Carruthers say through the security feed. "I'm afraid we have to leave."

  "Why?" Lochinvar said. "What's happened?"

  "It's-I can't really say," Carruthers said. "But we need to leave."

  "How disappointing."

  Harpy and Vitriol were plunging ahead, going in and out of range of several security cameras and being captured by all of them. Thanks to Harpy's spell, though, the only thing they'd show is two dark, ghostly, faceless images drifting past.

  They found the entrance to one of the building's corner staircases and ran into it. The walls here were plain and gray, and while the AR overlay wasn't much prettier, it sure was interesting. Security access points were all over the place, glowing bright red so they couldn't be mi
ssed. And security personnel were in the staircase too, a few floors lower, chasing the ghosts their cameras had seen.

  "Oh-oh dear," Carruthers said inside Vitriol's head. "The doors are sealed now. I'm afraid we can't leave."

  "That's entirely my fault, I'm afraid. Emergencies and crises and such things just aren't my forte. I find I want to talk about what's going on instead of doing anything about it, and that leads to a sort of paralysis that is not helpful in this kind of situation. Which I suppose it's what happening now, as I'm blathering on and not helping the situation."

  "It's all right," Carruthers said. "There's somewhere we can go."

  "Really? Where?"

  "Follow me."

  Lochinvar's part was proceeding smoothly, so Vitriol decided to watch his own ass for a bit. Since the staircase was becoming a bit crowded for his tastes, Vitriol pushed a door open and ran into a hallway on the building's fourteenth floor. It was freeing to be able to intrude into a corp building without worrying about setting off an alarm. It's quite possible that he set of three or four additional alarms as he ran across the burgundy-and-green carpeting in the long hallway, but the thing was, none of them after the first one mattered.

  Ahead of him, doors opened and guards came out, weapons lowered and ready. There were two of them, and they'd be shooting to kill.

  Harpy was ready, though, and she was faster than them. Vitriol didn't see what got them, he didn't feel it, but he saw what happened. One of the guards went down immediately, falling like his spinal cord had been abruptly severed. The other staggered, wobbling and weaving on rubbery legs, his gun firing but not until he had dropped his arm so that all the rounds went into the floor in front of him.

  Vitriol was on him quickly, laying the small blackjack he always kept with him alongside the guard's jaw, dropping him like a punch-drunk boxer.

  He waved to Harpy, who was lagging a little after casting her spell.

  "Come on," he said. "We can stay on this floor for a little bit. There's plenty of room to wander."