Wind whistled past the cockpit. The rush of air almost drowned out the moan and hum of the taut fibercables connecting the Fledermaus to its untenanted twins. The cables slaved the autopilots of the other craft, forcing them to duplicate Sam’s maneuvers. The dogbrains were left just enough latitude to compensate for slight differences in the air flow.
In the distance, the triple towers of the Brighton Centrum stood like spires of light against the night. Below and beyond them, the lights of the district dotted the landscape like a mass migration of hopped-up fireflies.
Somewhere down there various radars would be running, watching the skies. The cables ensured there would be no transmissions to unmask them, while the foamed exteriors and composite construction materials masked the metallic contents of the craft. To any vigilant watcher, the vee formation of Fledermaus should look like no more than a small flock of night-flying seabirds.
Sam hoped that was true. Cog had assured him of it, but he was safely on the ground. Sam turned the nose of his craft toward the land, riding the predawn seabreeze. Behind him, the other two ultralights turned in his wake like obedient dogs.
Hart tongued the button on the boom mike of her headset, silently acknowledging Jenny’s signal. A glance over the edge of the roof showed her the two vehicles carrying the mercs moving into pre-assault positions on the plaza between the towers. It was almost time.
Jenny had managed a reasonable crop, given the constraints of time, and they were every bit as cocky as the decker had said. But then most of their breed were that way; they didn’t have enough brains to be otherwise. Still, they were well equipped with untraceable equipment, which she had checked herself at the briefing. More importantly, they were hopped up and ready to go on what they thought was a retaliatory property smash.
Hart had arranged for the bloodballs they had demanded in their contract. The combat drug would raise their pain thresholds and boost their adrenal functions, making them more effective physically while cutting down on reasoning functions. Just the thing for a shoot-and-scoot where no tactical subtlety was needed. She had sternly admonished them to take only one apiece, but she knew most of them would pop a few more. In fact, she was counting on it, and had made sure the drug was above average purity. A merc who succumbed to its false promise of invincibility probably wouldn’t last the fight, but until then he’d be worth two or three straight shooters.
They’d need the edge; she hadn’t told them about the magic they would be facing.
Hart laid the Conner grapple gun on the parapet and looked through the sight to check the opposite roof. It was still clear. She wished she could see inside, but she didn’t dare send Aleph or make an astral check herself. Surprise was vital.
She tried to relax as she waited for Jenny’s go signal.
“Two doors down on the left.”
Dodger watched Estios and Teresa move down the corridor. She’d cover while the black-haired elf moved forward. Then he’d hold until she joined him. They were careful and quiet. If Dodger hadn’t been monitoring the hall camera, he would not have known they were there; the sound pickups didn’t register their presence due to Estios’s silence spell.
The pair reached the designated door. As Teresa crossed in front to take a position on the side of the frame opposite Estios, Dodger switched cameras and checked the room to satisfy himself that all was well.
“All clear,” he sent on the tight band. “Bonding charge is off. Only the panel lock left.”
Estios nodded once to Teresa. He barely waited for her to signal her own readiness before stepping away from the wall. He faced the door and kicked. A portion of the frame tore free. Estios used the recoil of his kick to drop back in a crouch. Teresa cut through the door and rolled to the left as Estios aimed into the room, ready to take out any threat.
As Dodger had known all along, there was none.
A dazed Pietro Rinaldi awoke with a start. He blinked sunken eyes into at the gun-wielding elves facing him. Like any intelligent person, he made no extraneous movements.
Estios released his left-hand grip on his Steyr and slammed a fist onto the floor. Furiously, he shouted into his microphone. “What kind of drek you pulling here, alley runner!”
“Please, noble rescuer. Lower your voice. I think you’re disturbing the good father. As well as possibly alerting ATT-Multifax’s sluggish but still present security forces.
“Father? This guy’s a priest?”
Dodger was inordinately pleased with himself. Seeing Estios lose his cool was so gratifying. “Now, now. Don’t let your prejudices show. It’s bad for public relations. Times are difficult and ‘the enemy of my enemy’ and all that. The good father opposes our mutual foe, and is their prisoner.”
“That’s his problem.”
“You are being short-sighted, Ice Eyes,” Dodger chided. “This gentleman will have information we can use.”
Estios began to bristle, working himself up for a blistering retort, but Teresa touched him on the arm.
“Dodger’s right,” she said softly. Her words made Estios flinch, but at least he stopped sputtering. “Besides, since he has seen us, we can’t leave him for them.”
“And leave you should. I’ve got activity on the motion detectors in the cross-corridor at junction three.”
“Frag it!” Estios exclaimed. “I don’t like being used, alley runner. I’ll get you for this.”
Despite his comment, he helped Teresa get Rinaldi to his feet. With an elf on either side, the priest was able to shuffle fairly quickly down the passageway.
Dodger guided them through the building, steering them past guard stations and roving patrols. His best information said that the staff of ATT-Multifax weren’t part of the Circle’s conspiracy, but their building security was still charged with apprehending intruders. Two elves escorting an emaciated priest would definitely attract their attention.
Once the elves and the priest were in the elevator and on their way to the roof, Dodger decided to switch back to the level where Rinaldi had been held. It wouldn’t do to have a hue and cry go up. He switched to the zone in time to see a group of four people moving toward the now-vacant holding area.
“Drek! It really is Wallace.”
“What did you say, alley runner?”
Estios’s query made Dodger realize he’d broadcast his surprise. “Nothing,” he responded quickly. “Just get in the VTOL and go.”
Estios made some kind of response, but Dodger was too busy studying the druid’s party through the security camera. He couldn’t see any transmitters, which was good; he would have a chance to slow them down. He started isolating the floor by activating all the tele-communications circuits for the zone. As the druid’s party discovered their prisoner was gone, he unleashed an expert program that would flit about the system causing mischief. Until someone isolated the bug, it would look as though a bush league hacker had broken through the building’s ice and was flexing his muscles by messing with the telecommunications lines. By then, Dodger would be long gone. He hoped.
As he expected, the first move of Wallace and her goons was to use a telecom to alert the rest of the Circle. While they struggled with the phones, Dodger continued his guerrilla tactics. His ground team had exited onto the roof, so he shut down the elevators. He tensely waited for the VTOL to lift before initiating the next sequence.
Finally frustrated with the telecoms, Wallace led her goons toward the elevators. He had only seconds before they decided to use the stairs. One by one, he cut off the security cameras in the sub-basement, starting with the one commanding a view of the elevator lobby. He was rewarded when the ATT-Multifax security triggered the building’s intruder alarm. The alert status let him tweak the response and initiate the magnetic locking of the stairwell doors to completely trap Wallace and her flunkies on a level about to be assaulted by security teams. As a parting shot, he programmed the sub-basement’s sprinkler system to function in random bursts and set off the fire alarms throughout the basement levels. The noise and discomfort would go a long way toward distracting Wallace from using magic to solve her dilemma.
He wanted to stay and watch the fun, but there wouldn’t be much for him to see with the cameras out. Besides, he had places to be. He sent the go signal on ahead and slipped out of the ATT-Multifax system as stealthily as he had crept in.
Glover watched the lights of the departing helicopter disappear into the distance. The craft was carrying Ashton to investigate the trouble at the ATT-Multifax complex. There had been no word from Wallace, and something seemed to be amiss on the lower level where he had arranged for the storage of Hyde-White’s prize captive. The disturbance might have nothing to do with the captive priest; there were enough targets throughout the complex to attract shadowrunners. The Circle had taken care of the rest of the priest’s team, and were still successfully blocking the Vatican’s inquiries. It seemed unlikely that a second team would have been dispatched this soon, and the priest hadn’t been in the country long enough to ally himself with other parties. Still, with Wallace out of touch, Glover didn’t want to take any chances. If there was a threat to their interests, Ashton’s magical muscle and his overly enhanced bodyguards would handle it.
But until Wallace and Ashton returned, the Hawthornwaite Tower’s magical defenses were weakened.
With Carstairs’ loss to the shadowrunners, the Circle had lost its best situated connection in the local government. The protection afforded their operations hadn’t totally disappeared, but it had been reduced, forcing them to regroup. They had been using Carstairs’ residence as their chief base of operations, and his death mandated that they seek a new location.
Nearby living quarters for all members was desirable for mutual support, and easy access to the lower classes a vital necessity for the continuance of the ritual cycle. Plausible mundane world connections were needed, for the Circle was obliged to remain hidden until the power ritual cycle was completed.
Brighton Centrum had seemed the perfect choice. Sir Winston Neville owned the land on which the Centrum was built, and besides being the leaseholder, he was a major stockholder in the holding corporation that administered the complex. The former archdruid’s public connections with Gordon made it easy cover his transfer to the Complex beneath the guise of social affairs. Some of the Circle needed no special arrangements to move their operations to the Centrum. Hyde-White’s GWN Corporation already maintained residential floors in the Hawthornwaite Tower, as did Ashton’s Miltech Research. ATT had residences in all three towers, and it had been simple for Glover to invoke executive privilege to take a residence in the tower. Bringing Barnett’s General Services in to replace the security corporation had only left Wallace without a business reason to be there, and she was rich enough to afford one of the luxury flats. Thus had the Circle gathered under one roof, with no one the wiser.
A buzz from the telecom interrupted Glover’s chain of thought. Barnett answered it, as was appropriate: the call tone had indicated the building security line. There was a hushed conversation, most of which Glover didn’t hear clearly, but he had caught enough to be unsurprised when Barnett said, “I say, Glover. Security seems to be having a spot of trouble on the plaza level.”
“Why should it concern us?”
“Well, really, I am not sure that it does.” Barnett stroked his mustache in a nervous gesture Glover found irritating. “We’ve been having a rash of alarms throughout the complex tonight. Most of them have been false, but this is most definitely not. Sec desk is reporting ten or more heavily armed intruders wreaking havoc on the lobby and mezzanine levels.”
“Have they attempted to force entry into the Tower proper?”
Barnett shook his head. “Not as yet. Their violence is without pattern, and individuals are reported to be evidencing berserker fury, which has led Sec Desk to suggest we are dealing with a flashmob outbreak. Personally, I find the scale of this assault disturbing.”
Glover was annoyed by the whining tone in Barnett’s voice. “Then perhaps you had best attend to it personally.”
“But the Circle’s anonymity—”
“Will be safe,” Glover finished for him. “You are a licensed druid, and no one will think twice if you defend your residence, especially in aiding a security corporation you own.”
“Good point.”
Barnett demonstrated his concern by leaving the apartment posthaste. Glover returned his attention to the skyline. Ashton’s helicopter had long since vanished. After a moment, he felt a presence at his back. Refocusing his gaze, he saw Sir Winston Neville’s gaunt face reflected in the transparex.
“Now shall we tell Hyde-White, archdruid?” Neville asked petulantly.
Glover frowned. Archdruid indeed. The title he had coveted for so long had a hollow ring these days. While Glover wore the title, the members of the Circle always seemed to look to Hyde-White for direction. Without a struggle, the fat old man had leeched the leadership role and prestige from Glover. How had Hyde-White managed it without him noticing? He never missed a power shift in ATT, and had always moved with the flow to increase his own influence. So, what had happened within the Circle?
Without the fat old man actually present, Glover was still master of the others, so he was not totally without influence. Hyde-White was foolish in allowing him to garner the lion’s share of the power their rituals raised; one day that shortsightedness would turn around and bite him. Glover would not stay first in the Circle in name only. He may have missed the opening pitch, but the wickets weren’t down yet.
“Archdruid?” Neville prompted.
Glover shook himself free of his brooding and turned to his questioner. Neville stepped back, apparently startled by something he saw in Glover’s face.
“I just thought that,” Neville began. “I mean—if there is a significant danger, he should know.”
“And show weakness by running to him over some petty problem that most likely has nothing to do with the Circle? You don’t know him half as well as I do, Sir Winston. You would only earn his scorn.”
“And if it does concern the Circle?”
“Then we shall resolve it ourselves, and present him with the evidence of our efficiency. We captured the priest without his involvement, as you recall. We shall show him that the Circle is no longer weak.”
And I will have shown I no longer need his strength.
Sam could see some kind of commotion at the base of Hawthornwaite Tower. Flashes of light from heavy weapons fire and magical blasts lit the sky with the sudden violence of summer lightning. The arcane bolts were coming from inside the building, which most likely meant that one or more of the druids was involved. The Centrum’s security company had no on-staff magical talent, relying on quick response from the municipal police forces. Sam was pleased. The distraction would only make his job easier, perhaps changing the odds of success from utterly impossible to only mostly impossible.
He banked the Fledermaus, sending it in a wide curve around the western tower. Locking the maneuver into the autopilot, he relaxed and sent himself down into trance to free his astral body. Any warning his reconnaissance might give now would be minimal.
He ghosted through the target floor and found nothing alive. The thing coiled on the sanctum’s arcane dome hissed at him, but did nothing to impede him. As he passed through an area set aside as an office, a communications device buzzed, demanding attention. An immediate response cut off its strident complaint. There had been a telecom in the sanctuary; Hyde-White must have answered the call from there.
He rejoined his body as the Fledermaus finished its turn. Sam called up an overlay graphic to the heads-up display and confirmed the target floor. Dipping the nose of the craft, he headed in.
One hundred meters from the tower he switched on the auxiliary motors, giving the three craft the extra power they’d need to deal with the updrafts around the building. His screech transmission to Willie was answered at once.
Next Sam blew the armament covers, sending fragments of radar-absorbent panels fluttering toward the ground, then cut the trailing craft free. They’d be under Willie’s control for the final approach; there was no longer any need to maintain comm silence.
“Fifty meters, Willie.”
“Affirm.”
“Launch on three.”
“Wilco.”
“One. Two. Thr—”
The Fledermaus bucked as it launched the single air-to-surface missile slung under its belly. Flashes of fire lit the cockpit from either side as the remotely piloted craft launched their missiles simultaneously.
The floor-to-ceiling transparex windows of the target floor dissolved into millions of fragments under the hammer blows of the triple explosion. Sam fought the controls as the backblast washed over the Fledermaus. Somehow he managed the keep on the flight path. An updraft caught the craft just as its nose reached where the windows had been. The tail drifted forward and one wing dipped. Dipped and caught against the building. The ’Maus slewed around, flopping hard on its belly. The light craft bounced, then came down again on its nose, balancing precariously. Sam, hanging in the safety harness, saw one of the other craft nose up as it crossed their newly made threshold and kiss the ceiling inside the residence. The collision canceled its momentum. The Fledermaus’s tail was still hanging outside. With a grinding roar, the craft slid backward and out into space again. Sam could picture it tumbling toward the plaza.
Thank you, Lord. That could have been me.
His own craft rocked backward, its precarious balance disturbed by the rush of air chasing the plummeting Fledermaus. Sam’s teeth slammed together as his aircraft crashed to rest in a horizontal attitude. Half-dazed, he flicked the harness’s quick release with one hand and with the other triggered the explosive charges that blew the canopy open.
He crawled shakily from the wreckage, eyes scanning the area in search of any opposition. Finding no immediate threats, he checked the status of the third craft. The other ’Maus had made a perfect landing and was discharging its cargo. A dozen rigger drones rolled down the extended ramp.
Each drone ran on four fat, deeply treaded tires and looked remarkably like a child’s radio-controlled toy. But no child had ever had such a toy. The drones were armored with ceramic composite plates and armed with fully automatic pistols mounted in extendable turrets. Each was equipped with a dog-brain that allowed it limited tactical responses when the rigger wasn’t directly controlling it. The expert system wasn’t a great shot or a canny fighter, but the drones would make good pillboxes capable of suppressive fire. Their small size made them difficult targets.
Once off the ramp, each drone turned in a different direction. Most were headed for the entrances to the residence level; their job was to limit reinforcements for Hyde-White. Some stolidly climbed up and across obstructions, proceeding in direct lines to their stations. Others whizzed around debris, taking corners as if they were driven by tiny, demented road rally drivers. Sam thought he knew which ones Willie was running. Within thirty seconds, only three remained in sight, and they had taken up station in a triangle with Sam at the center. Their turrets swiveled to allow gun and camera sight to cover a circular field of fire.
Smoke from the missile explosions filled the air, cutting visibility. Sam crouched, trying to keep his head below the smoke. He had to move cautiously; there were plenty of places to hide in the warren of living spaces that made up the residence level, and no guarantee that Hyde-White was still in the sanctum.
Sam drew the Lethe. If by some chance Janice had been present in the sanctum and was now roaming the floor, he didn’t want to shoot and kill her. Once he had a better idea where the opposition was, there would be time to shift to the heavy Ares Predator filling the holster on his left hip.
The stalk through the apartment was slow, lengthened by Sam’s caution. The metroplex’s distant night sounds soon faded from his awareness. Only what was near at hand mattered. He stepped carefully, trying to move silently. He listened for the slightest sound. The drones escorting him hummed almost inaudibly.
“Bogey. North Quarter,” Willie announced suddenly in his ear receiver, making him jump. “Tally ho!”
A short burst of weapons fire ruptured the silence, followed almost immediately by a howl of pain. More gunfire followed, and the sound of a heavy body crashing into things, but there were no more vocalizations. There was a crack like thunder and a flare of light washed the ceiling in the north quadrant.
“Drek. Oh drek!” Willie wailed in his ear.
Sam’s escort drones swiveled their turrets and surged forward. As the last one careened out of sight around a corner, more gunfire erupted.
Sam arrived at a waist-high partition and ducked behind it. Cautiously raising his head, he got a glimpse of the battle. The drones were racing about, dodging beneath and behind blood-spattered furniture while taking pot shots at Hyde-White, who was dodging with surprising agility. He too was using the residence’s furnishings as cover while he sought a clear shot at the whizzing drones. The fat druid looked uninjured, and his right hand glowed with some kind of spell held in readiness to cast.
Before Sam could decide on a course of action, Hyde-White spun and faced a drone that had backed itself into a corner. Disdaining to use his prepared spell, the fat druid reached out with a stubby-fingered hand and grabbed. With a casual flip, he smashed it into the opposite wall. The drone split open on impact, scattering innards like shrapnel. With a sizzling pop, it tumbled from the drone-shaped dent in the wall and landed sparking on a couch. The fabric began smouldering.
Sam was startled by the druid’s display of strength. Belying their toylike appearance, the drones weighed almost twenty kilograms apiece. They were not easy to toss around, and the druid had thrown one with sufficient strength to crack it open.
His stomach flip-flopped. The last time he’d seen a man display such strength, the “man” had not been a man at all, but a dragon concealed within a shape-shifting spell. Allowing Willie’s drones to carry the fight, he slipped into astral perception.
In his altered perspective, the attacking drones became blurs of murderous intent, their clean-lined mechanical appearance replaced by a fuzzy presence of intent and purpose. As machines, they weren’t truly present on the astral planes. But Hyde-White, a living being, remained clear in Sam’s eyes. The fat druid glowed with raw power. It was a dazzling aura, but in its tone and strength unlike anything Sam had seen before in a human.
One of the drones must have caught the druid cleanly with a burst, for he suddenly staggered backward. A smaller man might have been dropped by the impact of the bullets, but the massive Hyde-White only reeled. Sam expected to see the man’s torso splattered all over his fancy wall hangings, and the live glow of his astral spirit dimmed and dying.
What he did see frightened him badly.
Hyde-White’s astral glow remained steady and strong. The image Sam saw looked like a double exposure he had once seen in an old photograph collection. There were two Hyde-Whites occupying the same space, the sharply defined astral image and the increasingly tattered flesh form. Sam saw muscles tear, bones shatter, and blood burst forth from the flesh form to stain the room incarnadine. But the druid did not fall. Torn skin crawled and flayed muscles writhed as though imbued with lives of their own. Splintered bones swayed together to disappear under closing wounds. New flesh spread across gaps where chunks of muscle had been torn away. Once the process began, Hyde-White regenerated the wounds caused by the drone’s gunfire as soon as they were made.
Despite his appearance, Sam could no longer believe the fat druid was human. Whatever Hyde-White was, he was invulnerable to physical damage. Sam’s throat tightened with fear.