Chapter One
Time to Go
Thess let her eyes wonder of the lobby of the Nikko Hotel in downtown Seattle. The Nikko was famous for its plush and rich oriental design that echoed of mainland Japan. People in bland business suits came and went. Each hustling along with their briefcases and cellphones like their lives depended on it. Occasionally the never ending march of wage slaves was broken by the vacationing family. A father, a mother, a young child with dimples. Thess smiled, remembering her own childhood. She had been a very different person. Back then the majority of her body was still flesh and bone.
She took a break from her memories and casually touched her finger to her skin. It wasn't as warm. Skin wasn't really skin, just a semi-synthetic sheath of plastics, reflective polymers, and neural interfaces that covered her body. The muscles beneath the skin weren't her own, but vat grown replacements. The bones the artificial muscles connected to were laced with titanum. The stronger muscles were needed just to move her artificial and heavy skeleton. The neural axons running from the muscles were littered with artificial compensators and growths. That was the sacrifice she made to be better in what she did.
So little of her body that was real anymore. Thess began to doubt if she was really the same person anymore. If you changed the body, does that still make the person the same? Is she still Thess or some perversion of that person that once was?
"Thess? Do you copy?" The voice came from inside her head. More accurately, it came from the subdermal speakers near the mastoid process of her skull. It was the young, excitable voice of Kino. In many ways Thess admired her. Her body wasn't full of metal.
"I am here." Thess spoke her words, but they did not travel in the air around her. They were passed through a subvocal microphone imbedded near her voice box. Another 'improvement' over her original self.
"Three Toyota Elites just pulled up. Their transponders have Renraku's signature."
"That must be their pick up team." Thess concluded.
"Boxer says the mark hasn't left the room yet. I'm going to put a tag on the Elites since we don't know which one they'll use. If we miss, they might decide to split up."
"Can you do it with a drone?"
"No, too much traffic."
"Don't get caught."
"I won't. The driver's aren't even rigging."
Thess suppressed a frown. It was a risk in her opinion, but Kino believed it was playing it safe. Kino was parked across the street in her van. The van's chameleon paint was currently displaying colors for a delivery service. Kino herself was dressed in a matching uniform. She could blend into the crowd and place tracking signals on each of the Elites. Kino could track where they went if the team missed their mark and were forced into a car chase.
Thess switched radio frequencies on her headware. "Puck? How are you holding out?"
"Just peachy. Okay, honestly, I'm bored out of my mind." The dwarf's musky tone filtered over the subdermal speakers. He was on the street attempting to handout fliers for a metahuman rights rally. "The pickup team just arrived."
"Kino told me. She is going to try to bug the Elites. Keep an eye on her."
"I see her crossing the street. I'll try to distract the drivers."
An uneasy silence followed. Thess couldn't see the street from the lobby. In her mind she imagined a short, redheaded woman wearing a UPX uniform walking down the sidewalk while a squat dwarf with an oversized nose pestered the drivers with pamphlets. She tried not to imagine Renraku troubleshooters pulling assault rifles and hosing them down in the middle of the street.
Thess found her attention turning back to the vacationing family. The father had just finished checking in. Their little boy was bouncing with joy. He spoke of all the things he wanted to see in Seattle: the zoo, the park, the agricenter on the downtown docks. All of it held such wonder for him. Thess remembered being so easily amazed at the attractions of Japan as a child. the gleaming skyscrapers and stunning underwater gardens. All of it was distant memory now.
"Thess?" It was Kino in her mind again. "It's done."
A gruff ork voice came over the frequency. "Boxer here. They're coming down. The mark has four spooks with him. Two of them have briefcases."
"Briefcases could pack a surprise." Puck interjected.
"Couldn't get a good enough view to tell." Boxer answered. "I'm pulling out. Be at the van in five minutes."
"Better make it two." Thess suggested as she watched the crowd in the hotel lobby. To the untrained eye nothing looked out of place. Indeed it took her a moment to pick out the two suits standing by the front door. If one watched them long enough one could see the tell-tale twitch of wired reflexes. "There are two spooks by the front doors."
"Two more?!" Kino sounded concern. She should be. The odds of the shadowrun had just changed. "Did they come in with the Elites?"
"I don't think so."
"Great. That means there are three drivers on top of that. Nine all together."
"Stay chill, K." Puck said.
Thess rubbed her eyes. The action never felt right when the eyes were cybernetic. "Boxer, we'll need your help up front.."
"I'll be there."
The elevators pinged. Thess watched the vacationing family get in. The excited boy road the luggage cart. The smile on his face never weakened. She admired him for that. As the elevator doors closed another set open. Five men stepped out. Four of them looked stereotypical as they walked towards the front doors. The fifth was a lanky man who looked a little too happy with himself. Despite the fact that two of the others held his arms in death grips. Thess took a clsoer look at the two in lead. They carried briefcases. Again the untrained eye would spot nothing out of the ordinary, but a trained one can see the small holes. Thess had no doubt in her mind that they were gunports for a concealed submachine guns.
"Lead spooks have Protectors." Thess subvocalized.
"Smartlinked?" Puck asked.
"Can't tell."
"Then assume the worst." Kino added.
Thess agreed with her. When in doubt, assume the worst. It was part of an unspoken Shadowrunner creed. "Wait until they are outside."
As the group walked to the doors Thess fell in behind them. She made sure to stay far enough behind so she wouldn't draw suspicion, but close enough for action if need be. It was a difficult balance. Thess noticed that the two spooks on sentry did not follow as the assemblage walked through the front doors. She frowned, knowing she couldn't stop. Stopping would draw attention to herself. She had to follow.
Outside on the sidewalk Thess felt the growing tension in the air. She saw Kino's van parked across the street. The engine was running. Puck was coming up to the group on her right. She caught a glimpse of an ork smoking a cigar to her left. Quickly she switched her radio frequencies.
"Boxer, two spooks behind me." There was no reply. Not that she expected one.
Puck intercepted the group before they made it to their cars. He put on a smug smile and offered one of his fliers to people who obviously didn't give a drek about metahuman rights. "Hoi, I represent the Seattle chapter of Mothers of Metahumans. We're holding a rally tomorrow. Would you be interested?"
The spook glared at him. "Not now, halfer. Step aside."
"Come on! Just take a flier!" Puck forced the paper into the spook's hand. At the same time a tiny needle jutted from his finger tip. It pierced the taller man's skin and injected its noxious cocktail of gamma-scopolamine. He jerked his hand away reflexively, but the toxin was already pouring through his bloodstream. He stumbled for a moment, lifting the briefcase he was carrying, before collapsing onto the sidewalk.
"NOW!" Thess yelled as the world slowed down to her. She grabbed one of the spooks holding the mark and planted an elbow into his neck. He responded by whirling around with a high kick before she knew what happened. His foot slammed into her metal-laced arm. The impact felt like it hurt him more than her.
A gunshot rang out. Pedestrians scattered in fear. Thess felt the impact of metal against her dermal skin. There was pain only for an instant before her compensators blocked it out of her mind. Behind her the two spooks that had been on sentry came dashing through the door. Cruel looking auto-mags were clutched in their hands.
More heavy booms rang out from Thess' left. One of the sentries stumbled as heavy slugs tore into his shoulder.
Puck managed a startled gasp as the lead spook touched the quick release on his briefcase. The fake housing fell away from the concealed submachine gun. He had less than a heartbeat to haul his tiny nacroject from the small box of pamphlets and put a dart into his neck. The chemical cocktail took immediate effect. The jerking spook triggered his gun as he feel. Red hot lead shattered the window on one of the Elites.
"Hang on!" Kino screamed over the radio as the van kicked into gear and pulled an impossible tight u-turn in the middle of the street. The top of the van deformed slightly as a turret snapped into place. The barrel started tracking the front of the hotel. Thess hoped to the great ancestors that Kino was smart enough not to pepper the whole group with explosive rounds.
Thess grimaced as one of the sentries leveled his automatic on her. She could almost feel the spook's smartlink targeting her head. Suddenly the spook lifted into the air, then was violently flung by some unseen force through the glass doors. He skidded across the lobby knocking down civilians who had not had sense to run in the first place.
"Boxer, you grab the mark!" Thess shouted as she blocked another kick and leveled the offending spook with enough force to rearrange the bones in his face. He dropped like an sack of potatoes under the force of the impact.
The spook to Thess' left grabbed the mark and yanked him aside as he triggered his automatic again. A gaping hole appeared in her thigh. Fresh crimson spewed from the wound. Her damage compensators shut off an let undying pain fill her mind.
Puck popped him with a gamma-scopolamine dart. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. "Thess? You're hit."
She smiled to herself. She felt the pain. It was real. That meant she was real. "I know."
Boxer snagged the mark's arm just as 10mm rounds struck his armor jacket square in the back. The lanky ork shagged for a moment under the punishment. He pointed his Predator behind him as he pushed the mark out of the way.
"Boxman, hold tight!" Puck urged as he rushed up to help with the mark.
"Everyone down!" Kino warned over the radio as the popup turret on the top of the van chattered to life. The spook that had tagged Boxer saw the barrel's blaze just as he was torn to pieces. Thess tried to get out of the way. She expected to catch a few rounds, but Kino kept the bursts short and controlled.
"Thess! On your feet!" Boxer urged as he and Puck shoved the mark towards the van.
Thess looked through the aching pain in her leg. She hobbled to the van as Kino remotely slid the side door open. Boxer and Puck pushed the mark inside as the turret blared to life again, firing over Thess and into the lobby. Thess didn't want to know what Kino was shooting at. Nor could she make out the screams of pain from the screams of civilians caught in the middle.
Thess stumbled in front of the Elite. One of the drivers got out and pointed a gun right at her, but the report of Boxer's Predator splattered the contents of his skull across the Toyota's roof.
"Come on, Thess." The ork grabbed her, hoisting her arm over his shoulder. "I'm not taking out a room here.". Boxer gracelessly shoved Thess inside the van as the turret's gun lit up again. The lead Elite started coming apart as Kino opened up on full auto. "Kino, we're all in."
Thess and Boxer were violently tossed about as the Kino kicked the van into gear. The supercharged engine roared as it sped down the street and made an impossibly tight turn at the intersection.
"I'm heading for the garage." Kino's disembodied voice said over the van's internal speakers. The riggers thin, frail body was comatose in the driver's seat. Datacords ran from the riggerjacks on the back of her neck.
Thess grabbed her leg. Blood pumped from the open wound. "I'm bleeding. Bad."
"Great Wing did not see that." A shaggy looking elf said as he peered over the passenger seat. "The Great Wing tells me that your self has been punctured, but your aura is to weak to be helped."
Thess afforded a frown at the shaman. Winger was quite possibly the oddest person she had ever met. He had the traits of an elf, but none of the grace most people associated with them. He lived on the streets, wandering from place to place. It showed in his attire which was often dirty and grimy. The shaman always had the rotting corpse of a bat on his coat. He said that it was a marker of the 'Great Wing', whatever that was. Thess, along with most of the others, found it disgusting.
"Thess, are you okay?" Kino's synthetic voice sounded concerned.
"I'll be fine. How far are we from the garage?"
"We're almost there. Lone Star is already putting out a description of the van."
"Boxer, hand me that medkit." Puck said as his squatted, as much as a dwarf can squat, over Thess' leg. "Frag, looks deep."
"It is."
"Can't get the bullet out in here."
"Just wrap it up."
Puck took the medkit from Boxer's hands and pulled out a sterile bandage. He worked quickly as Boxer tried buckling an overly excited mark into the back seat.
Winger lifted himself over the passenger seat and passed his aloof gaze over Boxer. "You're self is punctured too." The shaman said.
Thess looked at the ork. "Boxer?"
Boxer shifted his shoulders a little. "It's not bad."
Thess huffed. Sometimes she thought that the shaman didn't really like her. Then again, who could blame him. Someone who was barely human isn't going to be liked by everyone anyway.
As Puck finished the temporary bandage on Thess' thigh the van made another sharp turn. The skyline of Seattle disappeared as the entered a parking garage. Once out of sight the van's chameleon paint shifted from the delivery truck colors. The morphing license plate also changed. Kino also loaded a false transponder signal to make them look like just another commuter. The van's occupants weren't silent while this change was taking place. In fact, one of them was laughing rather loudly.
Thess frowned at the mark they had just risked their lives to snatch. "Mr. Tanaka, if you don't mind, shut the hell up. You will be back with your old company soon enough."
Mr. Tanaka, a wiry man in his mid forties with balding hair, continued to laugh. It was a laugh of idle wonder.
"What's so funny?" Puck questioned.
"Heehee, you don't see? It's all over now! All over! Gone! Haha!" Mr. Tanaka's chuckled uneasily. "All done with?"
"What the frag are you talking about?" Boxer grumbled.
"Heeehee! Soon it's all going to be over! Took me away! Haahaa! That's it! All gone! I'm going to go away soon!"
"What is he talking about?" Kino questioned as she slid the van back onto the streets. Then something caught her attention. The van's sensors picked up a radio signal being received by something inside. "What the? I'm picking up a signal."
"Heehee! Boom!"
Thess' eyes shot wide open. "He's wired!"
"Frag! Get him down! Hold him down!" Puck grabbed the medkit. "We've got to get it off of him!"
Boxer grabbed Tanaka and threw him to the floor. The little man wouldn't stop laughing even as Boxer stripped off his shirt. "I don't see anything. Where is it?!"
Thess limped over. "Kino, try to jam the signal."
"I'm trying!"
"There's nothing here!"
"Stand aside Box, let me look." Puck pushed his way pass the ork. "There's got to be something."
"In his head." An all too calm voice stated.
Puck looked at Winger. "What?"
The shaman tapped his temple. "In his head."
Puck frowned and pulled a scanner out of the medkit. It confirmed what he had been afraid of. "He's hot."
"Cortex Bomb!" Boxer explained as Tanaka started struggling. The ork flipped him over and pushed his face against the floor to hold him still.
"Get him out! Get him out!" Kino pleaded.
Thess tried her best to ignore Kino. She could understand the rigger's concern. If the blast went off her neural link with the van could cause her serious injury. To say nothing about what a blast in the confined space would do to the rest of the occupants if it was a cranial nuke. "Puck, can you get it?"
"I don't know! Boxer, hold him." Puck grabbed a scalpel from the medkit while pressing the scanner against Tanaka's head. "I can't see where the detonators are. Oh wait, there. base of neck 15 centimeters in. Wait, where's the charge? I can't find the charge."
"Just disarm it."
"Gone! Heeehee! You took me away, now I go! They said it would happen!"
"Shaddup!" Boxer growled as he tried his best to hold Tanaka down.
"Get him out!" Kino continued to plead.
"Puck, can you remove it?"
"Give me a second! I've never done something like this before. And hold him still for frag's sake!"
Thess felt an urgent need to help, but knew she wasn't in any condition. It was hard enough to move around with her injured leg. Puck and Boxer were in a frantic frenzy on top of Tanaka while Kino kept pleading to through him out. The only person who wasn't fully engaged in the situation was Winger. He was calmly sitting in the passenger seat, looking on like he was watching the trideo. Did the shaman know what might happen?
Probably, Thess decided, he just didn't care. With that in mind she grabbed two extra armor jackets that were laying on the floor and tossed to Winger. She tried to wrap the other around Kino's unconscious form.
"An incision here, yes. fifteen centimeters. Awe, drek, I can't see anything. Kino! Keep the van steady!" Puck growled as the van hit a bump. Blood seeped from the incision as he desperately searched for the detonator.
"Aren't these things set to explode if you tamper with them?"
"I didn't need to be reminded of that, Boxer." Puck huffed. "Kino? How's the signal?"
"It's getting stronger! I don't know how much longer I can hold it!"
"Boxer, cover your fingers." Thess warned.
"I can't! This guy will squirm away."
"Heehee! Soon I go boom! I should never have gone away! Haha!"
"Wait!" Puck cheered. "I think I've got it! Yes! I found the detonator."
"Hurry Puck!" Kino's voice screeched over the intercom.
"Almost there. Now, if that's the transmitter, then this is the signal booster. Oh, frag that's not it. There's too much blood. Where's my clamp? I need a clamp!"
Winger adjusted himself slightly. It was almost like he was expecting something as Puck clamped off the blood flow.
"I think I've got it! Just one twist right here. I think." Puck leaned in just as the van hit another bump. "Kino I-"
*BBBOOOMMMMMSPLUUUSSHHH!!!!!!*
Puck didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. All he saw was a faint shimmer of blue around his fingers before he was blinded by a hail of blood and soft tissue. Boxer immediately jerked away. The back of the van exploded in a sickening vomit of gray matter and skull bits. Blood splattered everywhere and on everything.
"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" Puck stumbled back. "Oh FRAG!"
Thess grabbed him as he fell back. "Where are you hurt?"
It was hard to tell. The dwarf was covered with blood and chunks of brain matter. He wiggled his fingers. "I don't think it's me."
"Boxer?"
Boxer shook his hands, splatter chunks of red crimson over the van's floor. "It's all mark"
"Oh, god, that hurt!."
Thess lifted her head to the disembodied voice. "Kino? How are you?"
"Okay, just have a splitting headache now."
Puck checked his fingers again. "It was a popper not a cranial nuke. If it had been a cranial nuke none of us would be here. Guess karma was with us, huh?"
"Too bad karma wasn't with the mark."
"Not karma." Winger said as he peered over the passenger seat. "The Great Wing said you would need help."
"Huh?" Boxer was dumbfounded.
"Whatever, Winger." Puck counted his fingers again. "So long as they're all there."
"Is he dead?"
Boxer looked a the mess and headless body. "Oh, yeah, Kino. He's dead."
Thess pounded her fist against the floor. "Drek."
"We can't stay on the street like this. Kino? Where are we?"
"Just getting on the freeway, Box."
"Man, how are we going to explain this to Mr. Johnson?"
"Tanaka had some kind of failsafe." Thess helped Puck to his feet. "Something his holders must have put inside incase he was extracted. After we snatched him his watchers probably hit his kill button."
"That still doesn't answer my question."
"Worry about the J later, Puck." Boxer said. Every step he took on the floor made a squishing sound. Blood and bits of tissue dripped off the roof. "We can't be driving around Seattle with this drekker's brains all over the place."
"We have to get off the streets." Thess said as an afterthought.
"Hey, Thess, you're legs bleeding again."
Puck was right. The bandage was soaked with blood. Her own instead of Mr. Tanaka's. She placed her hand over the wound. For a moment she wondered how something so artificial could have so much blood.
"Kino." Boxer said aside.
"Yes?"
"Can you get to make it Grayson's place?"
"I think so."
"Better call ahead. He's not going to like us showing up like this."
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