"Perhaps you refer to the meddling of shadowrun- ners. They had been causing us some difficulty, but their masters are too ill-organized to control their min- ions and insufficiently committed to maintain bother- some pressure. Their bumbling runners ran afoul of their own internal factions, and the team crumbled 285.

away, leaving only a handful of pox-ridden elves to annoy us. Stings only. Why, just last night we swatted one of the annoying insects. Their importance dimin- ishes to insignificance as we grow in strength. When we have established the new knigdom, we will deal with the shadowmasters and they will regret opposing us."

The buzz of the telecom cut off Rinaldi's response.Glover was annoyed; he had ordered that he was not to be disturbed. He returned to his desk, intent on giving his secretary a piece of his mind, but he changed his mind when he saw which line was lit.

Tapping the command to transfer the call to headset, he settled the earpiece and opened the line. The call was swift and to the point. Cutting the connection, he faced the priest.

"Someone else has taken an interest in you, Father Rinaldi. You should feel honored."

37.

The garden mezzanine of the Hawthornwaite Resi- dential Tower was deserted save for three animated shadows near the banks of private elevators. Faint mu- sic from the bar in the lobby three levels below masked what few sounds the shadows made as they huddled near the control panel. One detached itself from the group and moved to stand by the brazen doors bearing the GWN graphic on the left panel.

Listening at the door, Sam could hear the elevatorcar approaching. If the car didn't stop, they might as well go home. If they could.

As the car sighed to a stop, Sam cocked the bolt on his 286.

Robert N. Charrette Narcoject Hypnos. The rifle version of the tranquilizer gun felt bulky and obvious. But this was a raid and incon- spicuousness wasn't a high priority. If the elevator dis- gorged security troopers, he'd probably need the extra capacity the rifle's magazine afforded. Briefly, he won- dered if he might be better off using the captured LD-120.

pistol that rode in the holster at his hip. No, the building's guards would just be doing their jobs. Did that deserve death? The druids and their acolytes deserved nomercy, but what of their unsuspecting minions?

Dodger, seated on the floor next to the doors, con- centrated on his cyberdeck. Willie readied the elf's Sandier submachine gun and laid it near his right hand before cocking her own.

"Give me first shot," Sam said.

"You sure?"

Sam nodded.

"Wilco," Willie confirmed as she backed along the wall to give her a line at the part of the car Sam wouldn't be able to cover in the first sweep.

With a pneumatic hiss, the doors slid open to reveal an empty car.

Sam let out a breath he hadn't realized he was hold- ing. With its release, tension drained from his mus- cles. They'd made it past the first hurdle.

He held the door while Willie trundled inside to catch the door button. Dodger jacked out and began reeling in the datacord he had patched into the elevator controls.

"Hurry up, Dodger," Willie urged."Patience, Mistress Machinerider. If aught appears amiss after we depart this floor, the alarums will ring.

'Twould be most unfortunate if haste undid our plans at this stage."

"Just do a good job, Dodger," Sam said.

"Assuredly, Sir Twist."

Dodger finished his fussing and gave the panel a 287.

quick polish with a rag before joining the others in the car. Willie released her button and the panels hissed closed. Sam reached across to tap the bronze strip la- beled OWN and start them on their journey to the ninetieth floor.

"Pray tell, Sir Twist. Where is the priest? I thought he had joined our team.''

"He had other business."

Willie snickered. "You bust him out, and the first time you need help, he's off doing errands? Some grat-itude."

"His other obligations had first claim on his loyal- ties. If all goes well, he'll be joining us later. With help."

"But not tonight?"

"No, not tonight."

"And why should we need help tonight?" Dodger asked sarcastically. "We are but three intrepid souls invading the residence of a multinational corporation's highest officers. Since we hope to beard their local executive officer in his home, why should we be con- cerned with numbers? He is only a dreadfully power- ful shaman and will, no doubt, have only a battalion or two of mundane guards. What have we to fear from them?"

"Dump it, Dodger." Sam didn't need the elf's sar- casm. They might not know exactly what they were getting into, but they had all studied what information they had. They all knew who the target was. The time for cold feet had been two hours ago. Dodger maynot have had anything to do with Herzog's death, but he was not yet back in Sam's good graces. "You know why we're here."

" 'Twas your choice."

"You didn't have to come."

"Pray, tell. What would you have done without me?

Scaled the building?"

288.

Robert N. Charrette "We'd have managed," Sam replied. Dodger's whining was beginning to get to him. "Willie's good with electronics."

"Take it easy, Twist. Dodger's just nervous like the rest of us. I gotta admit, I don't like moving on this guy when we don't know if he's dead or alive."

"Alive. Dead," Dodger scoffed. " Tis a difference that makes no difference to this run."

"It'll make a difference if the fat man's waiting for us," Willie observed, gripping her weapon tighter."The villain is dead. Did not Sir Twist see Hyde- White go down during the raid on the ritual?"

"But there was no body," Sam said.

" 'Twas present if you accept the wendigo corpse as his. Such a hypothesis explains the more grisly as- pects of the Circle's operations. 'Twould account for the sluggishness of GWN's business reactions as well."

"Jeez, Dodger. You can't still believe that," Willie said. "The druids are still doing their Bone Boy stuff.

That dead wendigo ain't the answer. I think Hyde- White is still alive, but wounded. That would fit with the business problems."

"A clattering fit to the facts, Mistress. The wendigo is dead. Hyde-White is missing. Therefore, Hyde- White is dead."

"That's pretty shaky, Dodger."

Sam interrupted Willie before she could get rolling.

"Whether Hyde-White is alive or dead, OWN is still functioning and serving the Circle. That's more than enough reason to hit it. Since the company's a poten- tial target for more than the opponents of the Circle, we'll be able, with a little lucik, to hide our incursionunder the guise of an ordinary shadowrun against the corporation. Besides any damage we do to GWN, we should be able to find out the truth about Hyde- White."

289.

"And if he's alive, Twist?" Willie asked.

"We cut him out of the Circle."

Dodger waited a moment before asking, "Sir Twist, are you saying we shall kill him?"

Sam kept his gaze riveted to the doors, but he could feel Dodger's eyes on him. "There are still too many druids to take them on all together. We need to chip away at them."

"You have not answered my question."

The slowing of the elevator was an answer of its own.

"Get ready," Sam ordered.

As they had hoped, the guard at the station was slug- gish. He had no time to do more than catch a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye before Sam cast his spell. Sam knew it was a success as a puzzled lookcrept over the security man's face. He had succumbed to the illusion and was seeing an empty elevator car.

The guard stood up and started around from behind his desk, muttering about technical malfunctions.

Sam shot him with the Hypnos as soon as he was out from behind the desk. The guard's puzzlement slipped into bafflement as he sank to the plushly carpeted floor.

He was snoring when the runners stepped over him to get to the desk controls.

Willie ran her hands along the controls. Her stubby I fingers touched each lightly as if she could divine their function by mere contact. She nodded to herself, tongue sticking out to touch her upper lip, as her roaming hands came to rest on a row of buttons be- neath a flat metallic panel. She tapped the first, and the panel clicked, its left side separating from the desk's surface. Willie flipped the panel open, revealing a hidden set of switches and a datacord receptacle.

"Rig option," she announced. "Ain't it nice whenthe info ya buy is right?"

Her partners didn't bother to answer her question, 290.

Robert N. Ckarrette but she didn't seem to mind as she settled into the still- warm chair. In thirty seconds she had jacked in and switched the security system management over to rig- ger control.

Sam had never understood how a rigger made the translation between body sense and the diverse com- ponents of a building's systems. Rigger security con- trol was even more alien than the way they piloted vehicles. "Nothing to it," she had said when he pro- posed the raid. "It's just like a big body; ya get itches where something's happening." The concept was creepy to Sam. It lacked the purity of the Matrix or even the more understandable body-control concept of vehicle rigging. But Sam didn't have to understand orlike it. It was Willie's joba151all Sam had to do was count on her to do it right.

"What's going on in the residence?" he asked.

"Quiet," she replied. "I don't think anybody's home."

' 'And no signs of recent occupation,'' Dodger added confidently.

"Wrongo, elf. Plenty of signs: dirty dishes, rum- pled bed, private line call logged out less than two hours ago. But nobody's there . . . wait a min.

There's something funny about that level."

"Looped broadcast?" Sam suggested.

"Neg. All eyes are live. But they're not seeing ev- erything."

"Alternate sensors tracking something?"

"Neg on that. There aren't alternate systems any- where but on this level. I think . . . yeah, it's got to be. There's part of this level that isn't covered by the security system."

"A black room?" Sam speculated.

"Could be." Willie agreed. "Looks like you two will be doing an in-person visit after all."

"Thrilling," Dodger said.

291"You can handle the locks, Willie?"

"Null perspiration. You want to go up by lift or stairs?"

"Stairs. More options for retreat."

"Allow me," she said. Across the lobby a doorway opened. Through the arch, Sam could see stairs.

He tapped Dodger on the shoulder and started for the stairs. Sam could hear the elf grumbling under his breath as he followed. The unprofessional bitching stopped as they reached the landing below Hyde- White's residence. Guns ready, they advanced up the last flight. When Sam signaled their readiness to the stairway camera, Willie opened the door. Dodger went through low while Sam covered him.

They got the drop on an empty room.

When nothing reacted to their presence, Sam said softly, "You there, Willie?"

"Affirm." Her voice came from the building inter- com speaker. "I see you but they won't. I dumped a copy of an all-camera scan, just in case we need to know the layout of the place for some future op, and I'm using it to run refeed on the room cameras from the five minutes before you got there. If anybody no- tices, it'll look like a digital overprint. Just let meknow if you need more time. But try to be quick, a second blip'll start looking suspicious."

"We'll do that. Now where's this blind spot?"

Hyde-White's residential level was made up of a be- wildering arrangement of spaces demarcated by free- standing walls and half-walls and room dividers.

There were also several spaces which were completely en- closed. Willie directed them as well as she could, but it still took them five minutes to isolate the area that was in the rigger's blind spot. Dodger found the door hidden behind a tapestry.

"Sir Twist," his muffled voice called. "You must needs see what I have found."

292.

Robert N. Charrette Sam pulled aside the tapestry preparatory to enter- ing the hidden chamber and immediately felt the tingle of magic. Warily, he leaned against the outer walland probed with his astral senses. The room was sur- rounded by the rosy glow of an astral barrier. Some- thing coiled about the top of the domed-shaped protection, but it seemed inactive. Sam sensed no threat from it. Concluding that the ward was only a protection from astral intrusion, Sam returned to his mundane senses and probed the open doorway with a tentative hand. Nothing happened, so he followed Dodger into the chamber.

The stench was the first thing he noticed. The place smelled as though something had died there.

Rotting meat was Sam's first thought, but the temperature was so low that meat would have been unlikely to spoil.

Sam was already chilled despite his winter clothes.

The room was only a few meters across, but it was jammed with an eclectic collection of furniture and artifacts. Dodger was poking about among the jack- daw's nest of furnishings and decorations, but Sam paid him no heed. His eyes were locked on a large oil portrait of a woman that dominated the wall opposite the doorway."Quite attractive for a norm," Dodger commented when he noticed Sam's fixed stare.