The passengers were nervous—with good reason. Sam Verner was nervous himself, and he didn’t have any guns pointed at him. To the terrified corporates huddling in their seats, the shadowrunners would seem like rabid beasts, ready to savage them for no reason. Such an evaluation might in fact not be too far from the truth. It was certainly Sam’s own assessment of the unstable muscleboy in front of him.
Jason Stone was short, but he didn’t need the heavy-barreled Sandier TMP submachine gun in his hands to give him a dangerous presence. The Amerindian’s rebuilt muscles and quick, nervous motions told their own tale. He was what was known in the alleys as a street samurai; muscle for hire, chromed with cyberware to raise him beyond the frailty of the flesh. Like many of his kind, the trade of meat for machine meant some of his spirit had been tossed out with the undesired body parts. The cold chrome eyeshields shuttered the windows to what was left of his soul, but his leering smile exposed what was left of his emotions, leaving no doubt he would be happy to use his weapon on the corp salarymen.
At the other end of the cabin, Fishface George and Grey Otter were menacing the crew in similar fashion. They were samurai too, though less extreme examples of the breed, and neither walked as close to the edge of sanity as their leader. That was just as well. Sam needed the muscle for cover, but he didn’t think he could deal with more than one samurai of Jason’s hellbent aggressiveness.
Sam slid past Jason. He knew he was blocking some of the samurai’s field of fire, but he was confident the others would cover the gap. They always had before. They might not like Sam, but they knew he was their meal ticket. They’d keep him safe until they were paid off.
“Two minutes, Sir Twist,” buzzed the receiver in Sam’s ear. Sam nodded unconsciously to the speaker, but Dodger couldn’t see the acknowledgment. He was on a remote broadcast, the only way to link the elf’s position in the Matrix with Sam’s ground team aboard the shuttle craft. Dodger could have left the mundane time count to a subroutine, but his personal attention indicated his concern. They were all expecting the run to be easy, but Dodger was playing cautious. If anything blew up, a subroutine would be outclassed and purged by intrusion countermeasures before Sam could know about it. An online decker was Matrix security that every shadowrunner wanted.
In two minutes, the craft’s preplanned ground time would be up and, by then, the Aztechnology shuttle was supposed to be airborne, on its way to Sea-Tac international airport. If the runners delayed it, the metroplex air traffic control would be alerted. The plan called for the shuttle to lift on schedule, giving the runners time to get away with their prize before pursuit could be called in. They had managed to board just as the craft was leaving the gate, successfully slipping past the ground crew.
So far, only the passengers in the main cabin knew of their presence. Dodger’s black box had frozen communications with the pilot’s compartment as soon as Sam had affixed it to the wall. They should have been gone already, slipping away into the night, but their man hadn’t responded to the code phrase when they had announced their presence to the passengers. Time was trickling away.
Where was Raoul Sanchez?
Sam moved down the aisle, checking faces. The craft swayed as it continued its taxi. Fringes on his jacket’s arms brushed across the tops of the outer seats as he passed, occasionally flicking into the face of one of the seated passengers. No one complained.
Was Sanchez really onboard? The passenger manifest Dodger had boosted said he was. The man should have reacted to the code words, but he hadn’t. Maybe he was scared, getting cold feet now that his escort away from cozy corporate security had arrived. Sam was annoyed. What did Sanchez have to be afraid of? His corporate exile would only be temporary. Mr. Johnson had a comfy hidey-hole all ready, and in a week or two Sanchez would be back at work, safe and sound in his new corporate home.
Three rows from the forward bulkhead, Sam found Sanchez. He was staring fixedly ahead, sweating. The corporate’s hands were rigidly gripping the arms of his seat. Sam spoke the man’s name, but was ignored. Reaching out a hand to shake Sanchez, Sam was surprised when the man shrank away, “Come on, Sanchez. We don’t have time to fool around.”
Sanchez finally turned his head to look at Sam. The man’s dark eyes stared, wide and full of terror. He swallowed convulsively before saying, “Please. I have done nothing.”
Sam didn’t know what to say.
“Frag it, Twist. If that’s the suit, get him moving.” Jason moved up the aisle as he spoke. Reaching the perplexed Sam, he stretched an arm past and pulled Sanchez to his feet. “Last thing we need is getting hosed cause the suit’s gone limp.” Jason shoved his gun muzzle under Sanchez’s chin, forcing his head up. “You don’t jerk us. Comprendé, chummer?”
“Please, señor. Do not shoot,” Sanchez pleaded. “I do not know what you are talking about. I am only a technician. I am not an ahman. I have no access to secrets. I am nobody.”
“You’ll be nothing but a corpse if you don’t get your ass out of here.”
Sam reached out to touch Jason’s arm but the samurai shifted, placing Sanchez between them. “Jason, I think Señor Sanchez knows less about this run than we do.”
“I don’t care what he knows. We’re taking him out.”
Sam frowned. There was more going on here than they knew, and he didn’t like what he was thinking. “Otter, check outside. Dodger, anything moving on the air traffic grid?”
“Negative, Sir Twist,” the elf replied instantly. He must have been monitoring the conversation through Sam’s microphone. When she ducked back in, Otter gave the same report.
So much for his first thought. “Well, whatever the screwup is, it doesn’t seem to be a trap. Still, we’d better buzz.”
Otter nodded and started to undog the cabin door. Fishface looked as blank as usual, but remained standing where he was, his eyes fixed on Jason. The Amerindian still gripped Sanchez.
“It stinks. It’s got to be a trap and this pedro’s part of it.” Jason leaned into his gun, forcing Sanchez’s head even further back. “Ain’t that right, pedro? Sure it is. You’re too nervous. Don’t like being the bait when the fish have teeth, do you? I don’t like being fooled, pedro.”
“Chill it, Jason,” Sam snapped. “You’ve got a gun in his throat. Of course he’s nervous. Let’s just get him out of here. The sooner we’re gone, the better.”
Jason slowly turned his mirror eyes on Sam. “I say we smoke him. It’ll be a lesson.”
The Amerindian was pushing, testing Sam as he had ever since the split with Ghost. Jason liked to claim he was as good as Ghost, but Sam had never seen even a remote resemblance. Ghost Who Walks Inside was a real warrior, cast in the mold of his people’s ancient heroes. Ghost was worthy of being called a samurai, unlike this cybered-up punk. Ghost only killed when necessary, but that was just one of the differences between the two warriors. Jason had never really understood Ghost’s principles; he had only been blinded by the glittering street reputation of a man who stood up for his people. Sam couldn’t deny that Ghost had embraced violence, but only as a means, never as the end Jason seemed to believe it was.
It meant nothing to Jason that he was using a man’s life in his dominance games. But it did mean something to Sam. There was more at stake than Sanchez’s life. If Sam backed down now, he would have no more control over Jason. Too aware of the Amerindian’s enhanced reflexes and deadly aim, Sam straightened. Height was one advantage he had over Jason. He tried to put utter assurance into his voice.
“I said no killing. We take him with us.”
Jason simply stared. Sam knew he relied on the unnerving effect of his chromed eyeshields to intimidate his target. Determined to be unimpressed, Sam stared back, but a motion in the back of the craft caught his attention. Someone was rising from his seat. The passenger’s right hand was cocked back and a shiny barrel protruded from the base of his palm.
Whether Jason used his own peripheral vision or saw the reflection in Sam’s eyes, he was moving before Sam could say anything. The man in the back was moving at chipped speed, but Jason was faster. The Amerindian shifted sideways, vacating the space in which he had stood. Sam felt the heat of the bullet’s passage and heard the slug bury itself in the cabin wall.
The gunman started to drop lower, trying to use a seat and the passenger in it for cover. Jason swung Sanchez around with one arm and shoved his other arm in the direction of the gunman. His movement looked deceptively awkward, almost haphazard. Sam knew that it was anything but. The Sandier TMP had a smartgun adapter, feeding targeting information through the induction pad in Jason’s palm to establish a feedback circuit. When the crosshairs appeared on Jason’s cybereyes, he could be sure that his weapon was effectively aimed at his target.
Jason fired as he dropped into the seat that had been Sanchez’s. His Sandier shrilled as it spat slugs to rip into the gunman’s cover. Blood and polyfoam stuffing erupted into the air. Jason’s line of fire skipped up past the head rest and clipped the gunman in the shoulder as he ducked.
Fishface’s gun chattered behind Sam. Women’s wails and screams of pain joined the noise of the guns. The sea of corporate faces that had been staring at the runners vanished beneath the waves of the head rests. The passengers were huddled, praying, hoping, and pleading that no fire be directed at them.
Slow to react, Sam found himself the only one still standing. He reached for his holster. As his hand closed on the butt of his Narcoject Lethe, he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough. The gunman was rising for another shot.
Again, Jason proved faster. The Sandier roared it pounded slugs into the man. Sam watched the slugs chew away cloth and flesh to reveal the implanted armor that had saved the gunman from Jason’s first shot. The impact drove the man back, spinning him out into the aisle. More bullets gnawed at him, pounding through his protective plates. He started to collapse, his palm gun firing convulsively, the bullets spanging wildly around the cabin.
The gunfire stopped as soon as the man hit the deck. With Fishface screaming orders that no one move, Jason rushed down the aisle to his victim. He ran a quick hand over the dead gunman. He found a wallet and, after only a brief glance, tossed it on the man’s chest. He spat on the corpse and stood. “Azzie corpcop.”
Sam relaxed a bit. The attack wasn’t the closing of a trap. The gunman might have been an air marshal, or he might have been an off-duty officer on his way somewhere. The man had just been trying to do his job and keep some shadowrunners from killing a corporate. Likely, he had seen the confrontation between Sam and Jason as his chance. He had bet on his own skills and lost.
“Heat’s on now, Twist,” Jason said. “Pedro’s dead weight we can’t afford.”
Before Sam could respond to the samurai’s latest challenge to his authority, he felt a hand grip the fringes of his jacket.
“Señors, you cannot leave me now.” Sanchez’s fear seemed to have redoubled.
“The hell we can’t,” Jason snarled as he shoved past.
Sanchez winced. His glance darted nervously to the door Otter had opened, then flickered around the cabin. Finally, his panicked stare alighted on Sam.
“You have condemned me.”
“They saw you weren’t involved,” Sam assured him. “Your corporate masters understand this sort of thing. They will know it was all a mistake.”
Sanchez shook his head vehemently. “The ahman. They will not believe.”
“Everyone here saw that he started the firefight. They’ll tell your ahman what happened.”
“No, senor. The ahman will not believe.”
“Why not? You’ve got fifty witnesses.”
“No, señor. Look at them.”
Sam looked around the cabin at the faces that had reappeared. They were all strangers, but he knew them. He knew the grim determination and fear that lived in every one of them. These people were already denying that Sanchez was one of them. Sam understood such draconian group dynamics from his years in Japan.
There, an entire family or organization took the heat for the actions of a member. The only way to avoid destruction of the group was to deny the membership of the offender. Sanchez’s fear told him that the Azzies believed in group responsibility, too.
The cabin stank of death now. The cowering salaryman was right—it wouldn’t stop here if he left Sanchez behind. An Aztechnology security man and at least two other corporates were dead. Several more were injured. This was no longer a minor matter, and Sanchez’s fellow corporate employees would not defend him. The ahman might decide that Sanchez was responsible despite the evidence. If the ahman condemned Sanchez, those who spoke in his defense would be under suspicion—if they didn’t share his fate. Aztechnology was not known for its understanding and forgiveness. These people would not take the chance.
Sam looked down into Sanchez’s face. The man was full of fear. He was terrified of staying, terrified by the thought of leaving the corporation, terrified by the shadowrunners, and terrified of his own presumption and desperation. His fears fought their war openly on his face.
Sam understood those fears. He reached down and took Sanchez by the shoulders, drawing him up.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The gratitude on the man’s face almost masked the fear.