Hunting Shadows
By
Fade
Chapter 16
The rest of the run had been fairly anticlimactic. After draining the sole remaining vampire of essence, DeVries had helped the runners find the second exit that he had been sure the vampires would have.
Silk hadn't been so sure that it would exist, considering that the vampires could always come and go through the air returns, but agreed that it would make sense for them to have a second way through which to bring their meals home.
As the runners led the few living scientists out, DeVries-his hunger finally back under control apologized to Shadow for abandoning him, which the shape shifter accepted grudgingly. Shadow hadn't ever run the ragged edge between life and death quite as far as he had that night, and it appeared that his own mortality was finally starting to become as real as everyone else’s was in his mind.
Once everyone was back out on the street, and away from the heavy jamming that had commenced once the explosions had started, DeVries' team of deckers had reported that they had traced the research data through eight or nine systems before finally losing it. Although it was almost guaranteed that the data would have been backed up somewhere offline, everyone was a little disappointed that the deckers hadn't managed to completely destroy it.
In the end, the most important thing was that the vampires had been denied the services of some of the top geneticists in the world. Even with the data recording their work, there were probably only fifteen or twenty other people in the entire world who could hope to understand it well enough to continue their work.
When the battered group of people finally made it to one of the vehicles that the vampire had arranged to be waiting for them, the runners had narcojetted the scientists to ensure that they didn’t have any more trouble, and then everyone but DeVries, who was to a certain extent revitalized by feeding, had fallen back asleep.
An hour later, Hammer awoke to find the van pulling into a small helicopter pad. DeVries turned and smiled back at the troll. “I just reported back to that mysterious benefactor that Silk is so curious about. Once again he is very impressed with what you’ve managed to accomplish. It looks like the elf is about to get some of her questions answered, he wants to talk to the four of you.”
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I'd like to express a few words of thanks. First to Rat for allowing me to include both Winterhawk and Gabriel in Hunting Shadows. If you're reading this the chances are that you've already read Rat's work, but if that isn't the case, go to Magespace and treat yourself to some truly excellent reading. Thanks need to be expressed to those who have read my work and provided valuable feedback, you all know who you are.
If you made this far, I have two requests: first, drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know what it was you liked and didn't like about Hunting Shadows. Second, let a few friends (especially aspiring writers) know about Fade's Fiction. I'm a bit cynical now, but I still think it would be wonderful if we could start to develop a fan base and make some progress towards fulfilling our mission statement.
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This story is copyrighted by the author. Winterhawk and Gabriel are the property of Rat, used with permission. The author grants license to all parties to copy and redistribute this work, as long as it is not used for commercial gain or modified in any way. Additionally, the author must be given credit for his work, and his contact information, [email protected], should be included with any copy of his work. All other rights are reserved.
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