Sly shook her head again. Almost involuntarily, her hand patted at the pocket containing the computer and two chip carriers. One of the chips contained Morgenstern's personnel data. The other held the encrypted file Louis had given her. "No, nothing else."

"That's good."

"Why?" Sly asked. "What's going on?" She hesitated. "Something happen to Louis?"

Smeland's eyes flicked to right and left. But there was no one close enough to overhear. As she craned forward even closer, their foreheads were almost touching over the narrow table. "Louis is gone," she whispered. "Faded?"

"Dead," Smeland corrected. "From what the Dead Deckers say, he died bad." She grunted. "I never liked the little drek, he gave me the creeps big time. But n.o.body deserved to go the way he went."

"What happened, T.S.?"

"Some people busted into his doss last night," Smeland said slowly. "The Dead Deckers said they did bad stuff to him, they asked him hard questions, you know what I'm saying?" Smeland shook her head sadly."They wired his wheelchair up to the main voltage, they crosswired his datajacks . . . Pros, s.a.d.i.s.tic pros. He took a long time to die."

Sly closed her eyes. Torture. Somebody had tortured little Louis to death to find out . . . what! What was it they were after? The encrypted file? Maybe. But the odds were just as good-better, in fact-that he'd been pulling a run for somebody else as well, and it was that second run that had attracted the unwanted attention.

"You had him on nothing but a simple personnel data-steal? A smear job?" Smeland was watching her, dark eyes steady on her face. "Nothing more than that?"

"That's what I told you, T.S."

Smeland chuckled mirthlessly. "Good answer. Exactly zero data content." She took another swallow of her scotch. "Well, it's your game. I don't play this drek anymore." She was silent for a moment, then went on, "You meeting your Johnson here?"

Sly nodded. With a sudden flash of apprehension, she tried to remember what she'd told Louis, how much she'd said about her contract. Not much, but Louis was a cunning little b.u.g.g.e.r who could well have figured things out for himself. Did that mean he'd told his murderers? Could that be why her Johnson had postponed the meet?

Paranoid thinking, Sly, she told herself. There's no connection. Louis was probably hiring out to other runners at the same time he was working for me.

Smeland was watching her carefully. "You know," she said lightly, conversationally, "I've got this little hidey-hole in the back, a little room behind the bar. Lots of security systems-cameras, microphones, thermos, the works. Somebody can jack right into all those circuits, keep a close eye on everyone and everything in the main barroom. Did I ever show it to you?"

A broad smile spread across Sly's face. This is why we have friends, she thought. "No," she said aloud. "But it sounds worth seeing. Why don't you show it to me now?"

Smeland's office was a tiny room, not much larger than some of the broom closets Sly had hidden in over the years. A small desk, covered in paper, a swivel chair that squeaked and had a back support like a torture device. The stereotypical retreat for the owner of a semisuccessful watering hole.

Except for the electronics suite. That was top-notch, absolutely state-of-the-art. One whole wall was covered with closed-circuit video monitors, and the control panel was a system designer's dream. Even better, there was a fiber-optic lead attached to a jack. Sly pulled the swivel chair closer, sat down, and slipped the jack into the socket in her head. Data streamed into her brain.

The interface was slightly different from a standard simsense or Matrix connection, and it took her a couple of seconds to make sense of what she was receiving. Then everything fell into place.

With the lead socketed into her datajack, Sly was the security system. The dozen or so cameras were her eyes, the microphones her ears; the other sensors became senses that had no direct human a.n.a.log. Visually, it was like being suspended above the barroom, looking down through a gla.s.s ceiling. But she could see into every cranny of the room, a perfect three hundred-sixty-degree view, as though she were looking through an optically perfect fish-eye lens, but without the distortion such a lens always creates. Through a simple act of will, she could focus her attention anywhere, zooming in for a close-up or backing away for an overall view. The microphones picked up the general hubbub of muted conversation, but she quickly learned that she could mentally filter out extraneous noise in order to concentrate on just about any single speaker in the entire room. So this is what it's like to be omnipresent, she thought with a chuckle.

She'd been a little nervous when she'd first seen the datajack. "Is this system connected to the Matrix?" she'd asked.

Smeland smiled her understanding. "It's isolated. No system access node. No ice here." And with a rea.s.suring pat on the shoulder, Smeland had returned to the bar. Sly still had a few misgivings, but those vanished once she'd explored the architecture of the system. This isn't the Matrix, she'd told herself. It's safe.

The clock on the wall behind the bar read twenty-one-oh-eight. Her Mr. Johnson was late. She focused her attention on the front door.

As if on cue, the door swung open and a familiar figure came through. Not her Johnson. Somebody else, somebody she hadn't seen in a long time.

The elf was tall and thin, his skin the color of mahogany, his kinky black hair clipped so close it looked almost like suede. His broad nose was flattened, courtesy of one too many fists in the face, and he had eyes that missed nothing, dark glinting eyes that reminded her of a raven's.

Modal, that was his street name. She'd never known his real name, even when they'd been lovers in Tokyo five years ago. His rep as a runner had been just as drek-hot back then, and he'd worked as a personal expediter for many corps. She'd met him in a high-tone corporate bar in the Shibuya district, a weird little place called the Womb.

Officially speaking, they'd been on opposite sides of a run that had gone wrong. Sly's Mr. Johnson had been a mid-level exec for Kansei, a corp attempting some industrial espionage against a Kyoto-based multinational called Yamatetsu. The Johnson got what he wanted, then suddenly decided he didn't want it anymore. What he wanted was to get it back to Yamatetsu, now. (To this day Sly didn't know exactly what had gone down, but she could guess. Various shadowy characters had showed up at his house, maybe worked over his wife or threatened his kids. Hinted that things would only get worse if he didn't make rest.i.tution-full rest.i.tution-to Yamatetsu immediately.) And that was where Sly had come in. She'd been running Matrix overwatch on the original raid, while a group of local shadowrunners had done the physical penetration into Yamatetsu's Tokyo facility. Then her Johnson had come to her, saying she was to deliver an optical chip plus a credstick-obviously part of the rest.i.tution-to a representative of Yamatetsu. Why couldn't one of the other runners from the raid do it? she'd asked. Because none of them were alive any longer, Mr. Johnson had told her.

The meet had been at the Womb, and the Yamatetsu contact had been a tall negroid elf with-paradoxically- a strong c.o.c.kney accent. (At the time, she'd a.s.sumed he was a legitimate employee of Yamatetsu, not a hired runner like herself.) It had been a civilized meet. If Yamatetsu knew Sly was involved in the original run, they'd obviously decided it wasn't worth zeroing her. All they'd wanted was whatever it was she'd taken, plus a ma.s.sive payment for "damages." She'd handed over the chip and credstick, and gotten a receipt from the elf in return- civilized-and that was it. When Sly got up to leave, he insisted she at least stay to finish her drink. One drink had become several, and they'd spent that night-and several thereafter-together at Modal's doss near Shinjuku Station.

The meet at the Womb had signaled the end of Sly's employment in j.a.pan, and she'd headed on home to Seattle. Modal had stayed in Tokyo for a few more years, but eventually he too had come home to the sprawl. They'd tried to renew their relationship, but it just wasn't the same. The spark had died, and each realized that the other was just going through the motions. It had depressed Sly a little at how easily they parted, for neither seemed to feel any particular emotion. It was indifference, not tears or anger or some other pa.s.sion that marked the end of the affair. Is that all there is? Sly had wondered sadly.

And since then? Certainly, she and Modal had run into each other on occasion. News reports to the contrary, the shadow community in Seattle just wasn't that big. She knew that Modal had done the occasional run for Yamatetsu's Seattle operation, but to the best of her knowledge his a.s.sociation with the megacorp had ended a couple of years back.

And now here he is again, she thought. I make a run on Yamatetsu, my decker gets geeked, and up pops Modal. Coincidence? Coincidences did happen, she knew, but putting pure chance at the bottom of any list of possible explanations was a good survival tactic. She focused her electronic attention on the dark-skinned elf as he made his way through the tables.

Nimbly sidestepping an inebriated decker, Modal reached the bar and settled himself on a barstool. He raised a hand to Smeland in greeting. "'Oi, T.S. 'Ow's it?"

Smeland greeted him with a smile. (So they know each other, Sly noted. Interesting.) "It's going. How about you?"

"Oh, not so worse." He glanced around, leaned closer to Smeland. With a mental tweak, Sly increased the gain on the nearest microphone. "Looking for a chum," he told her. "Sharon Young. Seen her about?"

Sly heard her gasp in her own ears, the sound somehow more immediate than the sonic data coming in through the datajack. So much for coincidence . . .

"She hasn't been around for a few days," Smeland answered smoothly, not missing a beat. "But who knows? Maybe you want to Wait, she might be coming in later."

Modal shrugged casually, as though it didn't really matter. "Might just do that," he said. "I think I'll go pa.s.s the time with some old mates I see in back there." He smiled, showing brilliant white teeth. "A pint of your best ale, T.S., if you please."

Theresa chuckled. "Toff," she shot back, one of Modal's favorite expressions for someone putting on airs. (They know each other well, then, Sly realized. I'll have to ask her about that.) Smeland handed Modal a pint of draft, and he wandered off to sit with a couple of orks who Sly didn't recognize. Not Armadillo regulars. She mentally selected the microphone closest to that table.

And that, of course, was when her Mr. Johnson walked in. A short man-human, but not much above the height of a tall dwarf-dressed in a designer suit that must have cost as much as a small car. He stood in the doorway, looking around. Looking for Sly, of course.

"Frag," she breathed. This was going to be tricky. She didn't want Modal to spot her, but she had to meet with her Johnson. No meet, no payment. No payment, no contribution to the Sharon Young Retirement Fund. Frag it till it bleeds, she thought. Was there some way to send a message to Smeland, tell her to direct the Johnson back here? Dump a message onto the screen of the bar cash register, maybe? But no, the security system was just as isolated as Smeland had said. It didn't even hook into the other computerized equipment in the building.

She hesitated. Why? she wondered. Why am I afraid of Modal? And she was afraid, she realized with a touch of surprise. First, Smeland's story about the death of Louis, and then the unexpected appearance of Modal-someone who'd worked for Yamatetsu in the past. But what does that mean, really? Frag, I've done a job for Yamatetsu Seattle. She remembered getting a call last year from the head of Yamatetsu's local operation, a contract to dig up background on some street op called Dirk Montgomery. Everybody works for everybody, right?

She'd been keeping tabs on Modal. Not seriously, not a full trace, but she was fairly sure she'd have heard if he was working for Yamatetsu again. Seattle wasn't a big town, not in the shadows. What were the chances, really, that Modal was working for Yamatetsu now? Slim. And what were the chances that it was Yamatetsu that had geeked Louis? Better, but still slim. So that meant the chances of Modal being after her for reasons other than past friendship were slim squared. Maybe she should just go back to the bar and meet Johnson, and to h.e.l.l with Modal. If she was careful, maybe he wouldn't even see her. . . .

Movement. Fast movement in her "peripheral" vision, the part of the barroom she wasn't concentrating on. In the flesh, she'd have had her back turned, wouldn't have seen anything. But jacked in like this, she didn't miss it.

Someone surged to his feet, a table fell, drinks crashed to the ground. People yelled in outrage.

It was the fourth elf, the fourth member of the group discussing ghosts in the Matrix, the one who hadn't said anything. Faster than any metahuman had any right to move, he was on his feet, his right arm swinging up. He was pointing it straight at her Mr. Johnson, hand bent far back. And then a plume of fire burst from his wrist, the muzzle flash of an automatic weapon. A cybergun, implanted in a cyberarm.

Through the security system she could hear the bullets whip-crack across the intervening s.p.a.ce, hear them slam into the chest, throat, and head of her corporate employer. Blood and tissue sprayed, the impact ripping a gurgling scream from the man's throat.

And then, even before Johnson had a chance to fall, the elf was moving again in a flickering dash toward the door. Slamming patrons aside, upending tables. Vaulting over the crumpling corpse of the corporator, flinging the door open and vanishing into the night.

Guns came out of holsters, sighting lasers flared. Slow, too slow. The deckers in The Armadillo were armed, ready to defend themselves. But though their reactions would have been as fast as thought in the Matrix, out here in the world of flesh and blood they were much too slow. One gun boomed, a heavy-caliber pistol, the bullet slamming into the door where the elf had been an instant before. It was Modal, she saw, bringing his Ares Predator back into line for another shot. Another shot that never came, because his target had vanished.

Only then did it begin, the confusion, the yells of outrage, the screams of horror. The aftermath of any a.s.sa.s.sination.

Moving slowly. Sly jacked herself out of the security system, sat back in the squeaking chair. Her Johnson was gone, the file on Morgenstern now nothing more than a waste of storage s.p.a.ce. And Louis' encrypted file? Maybe, suddenly, it was even more important than she'd thought.

Maybe, she mused, it's time for a talk with Modal.

4.

2237 hours, November 12, 2053 The pain had diminished slightly in Falcon's ankle. The ankle wasn't broken, but it was sprained, and pretty severely. He could feel it swelling up inside his high-top runner, pressing against the synthleather. Should he release the velcro straps holding the shoe closed, give the ankle more s.p.a.ce to swell? No, he thought, it was better to keep the shoe tight as long as he could stand it. Doctors put tensor bandages on sprains, didn't they? The shoe would serve much the same purpose. But still it hurt, and it slowed down his progress back to his own turf.

The unwelcome attention of the Disa.s.semblers had driven him a long way from home, and his detour to the park near the Renraku Arcology had taken him even further. Now it was a long walk back-much of it, unfortunately, through Disa.s.sembler turf.

Falcon sighed. He could take a detour, head east of Alaskan Way and loop out around the Kingdome, then approach his home turf through the Burlington Northern rail yards. But that would add kilometers to the trip, a very real problem considering the condition of his ankle. Besides, that route would take him into the territory of the b.l.o.o.d.y Screamers, a gang with whom Falcon's First Nation was at war. If the Screamers recognized and caught him, even without his colors, they wouldn't be satisfied just giving him a beating. They'd tear him to pieces, then send him home to the First Nation as an "object lesson" not to stray.

No, the lesser of two evils was obviously the direct route, down along the docks, and to h.e.l.l with the Disa.s.semblers. If he was lucky, the ones who'd been chasing him would still be yarfing up their cookies anyway.

He headed west on King Street, intending to cut south on First Avenue. These were wide, well-lighted roads, offering him a good chance of spotting anyone who was potential trouble.

Of course, it'd give everyone else a good chance to see him, too. The Disa.s.semblers rarely strayed as far north as King, but the stretch of First near the Kingdome went straight through the middle of their turf. Did it make sense to jander on through, perfectly illuminated by the sodium arc streetlights? Like frag it did. There was an alley-another fragging alley-to his left, leading south. Narrow, dark, and claustrophobic, it looked even more dangerous than the wide-open streets. But that's life, he thought. Appearances are lies. He turned into the darkness.

For a few moments his eyes, which had adapted to the bright streetlights, were blind. While taking a couple of tentative steps forward, waiting for his night vision to return, his right foot struck something. Something yielding.

"Hey!"

The grunt from the darkness was enough to scare the drek out of him. Falcon backed away a step.

His night vision was slowly returning. Sitting on the alley floor, leaning back against the wall was the vague outline of a human-sized figure. He'd stumbled into one of the individual's outstretched legs.

"Watch where you're walking, chummer," came the voice again. A deep male voice, resonant, but overlaid with a hint of fatigue. The figure moved, drew its legs under it, began to stand.

He was big, Falcon realized, taking a step back. "Hey, sorry," he began hurriedly, "if this is your squat, you're welcome to it. I-"

The man cut him off. "I'm no squatter. Can't a man sit down and take a rest without someone calling him a squatter?"

Falcon could see the figure more clearly now. He was tall, close to two meters, almost two heads taller than Falcon, and heavily built; not fat, but bulky and muscular. Long, straight black hair pulled back from his face in a ponytail. High cheekbones, a strong, aquiline nose, and deep-set dark eyes. Falcon thought his complexion must be dark normally-maybe a little darker than Falcon's own-but at the moment the man looked somewhat pale. An Amerindian? Almost certainly.

The figure wore what Falcon thought of as a "business suit," the kind of close-fitting, dark jumpsuit that shadowrunners and street ops always wore on the trid and in simsense.

Falcon took another step back. "Sorry."

"Ah, forget it." The man sounded even more tired as he leaned back against the wall. With his right hand he reached around under his left arm, probing at his ribs. When he brought his hand back, the fingers were dark, shining with something wet. "Frag," he muttered. "It's opened up again. I guess you don't have a slap patch on you?" He snorted. "Didn't think so."

To his surprise, Falcon felt his fear slipping away. The squatter who wasn't a squatter was big enough to be daunting, and something about him hinted of lethal competence. But there was also something that convinced Falcon the man didn't make trouble just for the frag of it. Unlike the Disa.s.semblers, for example. Give him reason to come after you, though, and may the spirits help you. "What happened?" he asked.

The Amerindian smiled grimly. "Didn't dodge fast enough," he said. "High-velocity bullets always have the right of way."

Falcon looked at the stranger with increased respect. He'd seen someone take a bullet wound once-a First Nation member shot in the leg by a Screamer in a gang war. Just a scratch was all it had looked like, but what the trid called "wound shock" had really trashed his chummer out, knocked him flat on his b.u.t.t. All he could do was lie there, staring dully at the blood seeping through his jeans. In contrast this guy had taken a bullet in the ribs-a nasty wound, judging by the amount of blood showing on his fingers-but he was handling it okay. Sure, he was tired, probably from blood loss, but he could still joke about it.

"You . . . like, you want some help?" Falcon asked tentatively.

The Amerindian snorted. "From you?"

Falcon drew himself up to his full height. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"

"Why not?" A weary smile spread across the man's face. "Don't sweat it, chummer, I'll take care of myself. But . . . good thought, you know? Good offer. Thanks." He gestured down the alley in the direction Falcon had been heading. "You've got to be somewhere, right?" Falcon hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I . .

A deep-throated yell cut him off. "There 'e is," a booming voice announced. "Told you I seen 'im!" Falcon spun in horror. Four figures stood in the mouth of the alley, silhouetted against the streetlights. Huge, asymmetrical shapes. Even though he couldn't see the colors, Falcon knew they wore gray and white leathers.

The four Disa.s.semblers stepped forward into the alley. "Led us a merry fraggin' chase, dintcha?" one of them snarled. "I seen you limpin'. Let's see you do it again now."

For a moment, Falcon considered running. But he knew with sick certainty that the troll was right. His ankle was fragged; they'd catch him before he'd gone a dozen meters. He looked around desperately for a weapon of some kind-anything.

The Amerindian casually stepped away from the wall, into the path of the trolls. "Leave him be," he said calmly. "He has my protection."

Falcon saw the eyes of two of the trolls widen in surprise. There was something about the man's calm, measured manner that made him seem suddenly like a force of nature-lethal and implacable.

The troll leader didn't have the sensitivity to pick up on that. Or if he did, he ignored it. "Move it, you scroify breeder," he snarled. He reached out an arm thicker than Falcon's thigh to push the man out of his way. Large though the Amerindian was, a hard shove from a troll would still be enough to fling him back into the wall.

But the Amerindian's chest wasn't there to receive the shove. At the last moment he'd twisted out of the way, grabbed the troll's wrist with both his hands, and pulled. Off-balance, the troll lurched forward. The Amerindian kept on turning. His back to the troll now, he had the creature's huge arm locked against his body. He repositioned his hands, twisted.

The sickening crack of breaking bone sounded loud as a gunshot in the alley. The troll bellowed his agony. Not for long. The Amerindian released the troll's broken arm, made another half-turn and slammed the heel of his right hand up under the Disa.s.sembler's chin. The troll's teeth slammed together with a clearly audible clash, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in a boneless heap.

Two of the three remaining trolls leaped forward, roaring in anger at the fate of their leader. The third, the smaller, backed away from the incipient melee, his eyes bugged out in surprise and fear.

The two larger trolls reached the Amerindian at the same instant, a solid onrushing wall of flesh that would have been enough to smash the man from his feet. Even worse, Falcon saw the glint of steel in one troll's ma.s.sive fist. A knife? It had to be. If they'd had guns, they'd never have rushed him. The Amerindian disappeared under the trolls. That's it. Falcon thought.

But no, it wasn't. One of the trolls howled in torment, a soprano whistling cry that made Falcon's thighs tense in unconscious sympathy. Light flashed, and something clattered to the ground at Falcon's feet. The troll's knife.

One troll was down, unmoving. The other was swinging a brutal haymaker at the Amerindian's head, but it didn't connect. The Amerindian ducked low, let the momentum of the troll's swing carry him on around, then fired two brutal short-arm jabs into the exposed kidneys. Bellowing, the troll arched back.

The Amerindian took a step and kicked the Disa.s.sembler's legs out from under him. The ganger went over backward. As the troll fell the Amerindian threw his own weight on top of the ma.s.sive body, riding it down. The first part of the troll to hit the ground was the back of his skull. A loud crunch. The Disa.s.sembler convulsed once, then was still.

A tiny dot of ruby-red light appeared on the Amerindian's shoulder, tracked up to his head. Falcon spun.

The sole remaining troll stood in the mouth of the alley, a pistol dwarfed by his huge hands. The sighting laser was burning, and Falcon could see his finger beginning to squeeze the trigger.

Falcon stooped, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the knife lying at his feet. Threw it, a desperate underhand toss.

The troll must have seen the knife out the corner of his eye. He twitched, just as the trigger broke. The pistol spat once, then the knife struck him in the head. It was a lousy throw for a real knife expert-the hilt hit first, and the razor-sharp edge did nothing more than nick the troll's chin-but considering the circ.u.mstances it was pretty fragging good.

Not good enough, though. Snarling with anger, the troll brought the gun back onto line, tightened down on the trigger.

And magically, the hilt of a knife seemed to sprout from his throat. Gurgling and spraying, he went over backward. He scrabbled desperately, then was still.

The Amerindian was still lying over the body of the second troll he'd felled. His left arm, the one he'd used to throw his knife, was still outstretched toward the gun-toting ganger. He'd made an underhand cast, much as Falcon had tried to do, but the fact that he was p.r.o.ne made it even more difficult. Difficult or not, the throw was perfect.

Slowly, the Amerindian pulled himself to his feet, groaning with the effort. For the first time. Falcon saw that the big man's right arm hung limply at his side. It didn't take long to understand why: the troll's bullet had ripped a couple of nuyen's worth of hamburger from the Amerindian's biceps. Blood poured from the wound and down his arm, dripping from his fingertips to the alley floor.