"Did you get it? IronHell's location?" asked Thumbs.

She shook her head. "No, the coldframe doesn't know. It's why they hired us-to find it for them."

"What?"

Wiping moisture off his chattergun, Delphia frowned. "We were hired by Gunderson?"

"Yes. And Moonfeather was working for them covertly."

"She was a mole?"

"And our executioner if we succeeded."

"So they wouldn't have to pay us?"

"So it seems."

"The traitorous slitch!" growled Thumbs through clenched teeth, hands bunched into fists. "I'll kill her for that!"

"Already dead," reminded Emile, stroking Grand.

"Yar, but I didn't get to do it," grumbled Thumbs menacingly. "And somebody's gonna pay for that, too!

"Once I get the frag out of this aquarium," he added softly to the room at large.

"Done is done," Delphia said, waving one hand dismissively. He turned back to Silver. "Did you get an entry code for a sub? Anything at all useful?"

She swallowed. "I ... I found out everything. Harvin's old code from the ork librarian worked down here also."

"Very strange," said Delphia.

Thumbs, however, gave a drek-eating grin. "Arctic. And?"

"And?" With a bitter laugh, Silver slumped in the chair. "And we are seriously fragged. Totally and utterly. Might as well put a round into our own heads. 'Cause we're already dead meat."

34.

Weapons fire and explosions rumbled in the distance as the door to Barbara Harvin's office slammed open. She stormed in, flanked by six Guards carrying Vindicators, plus a couple of suits with computers and briefcases. The office was empty, but the limp body of a guard was lying under a table.

"What the frag is going on here?" Barbara demanded loudly. Then she stopped as the guards and suits all tumbled to the floor as if suddenly boneless. The door slammed shut behind her, and she spun about to find herself facing a dirty gang of street toughs who were securing it closed.

"Security! Intruder alert, Level one!" Harvin yelled, backing away from them. "Stat!"

"Their arrival will prove a bit difficult with the spell we got on that door," said a norm in a rumpled suit of exquisite styling.

"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."

"Like hiring us."

"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."