[The Monsterzirkus; the Jaeger Brückewerk]
[Alleytown Sprawl, Leipzig]
CURRENT TIME: 16 July 2081, 2015 hours
“This is prime, Fee.” Faust couldn’t keep their head still as they took in the spectacle all around. “If we weren’t on a mission, I could get lost in this stretch for bloody days.”
The Monsterzirkus. It was an underground—figuratively and literally, since it was under a huge, abandoned interstate bridge—collection of every kind of game, gamble, test of skill, and illicit recreational activity found in the Allied German States and beyond. There were pits for animal fights—natural, augmented, and even fully AR. Neon-lit tents advertised the sorts of things you just couldn’t get on the streets of Berlin since the megacorps crackdown. Axe throwing, a professionally trained wrestling sasquatch, a self-service BTL hub, and more sprouted up out of the grime and graffiti-covered bricks. If you knew where to look, and if you could lose or spend nuyen on it, there was a chance you’d find it there.
If you didn’t know where to look, you could always ask one of the Hussars—the combination security and shift managers of the Monsterzirkus. They stood out in their homemade blue-grey denim uniforms that poorly hid armor plates and left openings for cyberspurs, weapon access, and everything in between; each Hussar’s uniform was matched to them, but still looked like part of the team. A place like the Monsterzirkus generally policed itself—apparent by the occasional dust-up, collective raised voices, or unexpected cry of pain. Only when things got really ugly, like in the first few minutes of the team’s arrival, when Tutu the gladiatorial barghest escaped its kennel and ran amok, the Hussars were right there to put it down quick. As it seemed to be quite often, Janus was impressed with central European style and dedication to their roles.
“It’s okay, Faust.” Janus peered around, taking a moment to assense the area. “We wouldn’t let you get too far.” He saw the glittering sparkles of magic users, a few augmentative spells here and there, and several places where foci, hex bags, fetches and the like could be bought or traded for. His shining eyes were drawn to the bloom and swirl of the charms and forces in the Monsterzirkus, a cloud of wards and rites surrounding a cluster of spirits, all paired off like aetheric Olympians fighting one another.
Gute Fee is right. His brow furrowed. If it can be wagered on, you’ll find it here. “All right Fee, it’s your show. What are we doing here?”
“An old group of friends I used to run with—”
“Your gang?” Hollywood interrupted.
“We’re going to see a Kriegsritter gang?” Tanzo said lowly, careful not to lift his face too high.
“No.” The troll added a low rumble of a growl to her answer. “We were a freelance cross-country motorcycle club.”
“Did this club have a name? A leadership structure? Hazing?” Faust asked, adding a fast grin before they peered at a rack full of “Goochi” knock-offs.
“Well, yes,” said Gute Fee. “Of course. We were called ‘Asphalt and Battery’…and sure, we had to keep up our club loyalty. You can’t go and—”
Hollywood and Faust locked eyes and smiled as they both answered, “So…a gang.”
“Does it matter?” Janus sounded far more cross than he was. They were playing word games with each other when they should be looking out for anyone who might try and snatch Tanzo, or worse.
“No.”
“Not a bit.”
“That’s right,” he continued, “and since Fee’s old motorcycle go-ganger pals can help us and the package get to safety…” He adjusted the weather hood they popped on Tanzo’s head and shoulders to help hide him from accidental scans or any knowledgeable eyes. “…we play nice.”
“Thanks, Jan,” said Gute Fee, scanning the bustling crowd.
“Janus.” He hated unwanted abbreviations. “And you’re welcome…as long as this little adventure works in our favor.”
“You’ll see.” Between her metahuman eyes’ wavelength receptors and the fact she was a half-meter taller than 90 percent of the people at Monsterzirkus, Fee was able to see over the crowd with ease. She did so as the team slowly strolled down the throughway.
Hollywood’s techno-cowboy look drew quite a few eyes. While it was something that blended in a little bit in the UCAS or the NAN, it made the elven pistoleer stand out even more than the squirrelly Tanzo in the neon-orange weather cowl and welder’s goggles.
Maybe I can make that work to our advantage. With a few strokes of his keyboard, Janus pulled up a quick HUD schematic of the security suite and camera surveillance network, happy to see that a place like this wasn’t really monitored visually. There were a few face-pattern scanners, but nothing that could be kept for blackmail by clever deckers or digital pilferers.
“Hollywood?” said Janus. “You’re on point. Five meters ahead, stay between ten and two o’clock.” He tapped the side of his eye. “Stay sharp.”
Moving through the Monsterzirkus was a mixture of window shopping for things they didn’t need but probably wanted, ignoring gambling barkers for games they probably could excel at, and refusing the advances of vice solicitors that seeped out of every shadow in the place. It was like a flea market of sins and amoral trades.
Tanzo clumsily bumped into an ork with a modified assault cannon slung over her shoulder. “Oh, sorry ma’am!”
“Watch it, pinky.” She continued on her way.
“Is this what it’s like all the time for you guys?” Tanzo asked, obviously overwhelmed and excited about being in a place like this.
“Sometimes. But not really. Kind of depends on the job.” Janus tried to calm him down, but also saw no reason to lie. “But there are places like this all over the world. Some are just like this, others are more civilized. If all of this goes green and we get you to safety, you’ll need to come out to Seattle and we’ll catch a drink or three at Dante’s. It’s like this, but with more rules, better security, and much better music.”
“That sounds pretty great.” Tanzo chuckled nervously. “Especially the safety part.”
“Hey! Bricker!” Gute Fee’s booming voice cut through the ambient racket, but it was her 25-kilo flanged mace waving above the heads of a half-dozen inebriated thugs that got the attention of a cybered-out dwarf with neon-blue zebra stripes all over his body currently arm wrestling an albino ork.
“Holy fraggin’ drekballs! Fifi!” The dwarf’s shoulder loudly vented hydraulic pressure as he slammed his opponent’s arm into the padded section of the table, earning cheers from everyone around. He stood up, grabbed the fistful of credsticks from the table, and tossed them to the crowd. “Drinks are on the A&B!” he called, which elicited more and louder cheers. He wove through the adoring fans, shoving any of them out of the way if they lingered too long, until he reached Gute Fee and threw his arms around her waist. “It’s been way too long, Feef! What brings you out this way? Business? Or pleasure?”
“Not this time, meine Lieblingsmaus.” Gute Fee returned the hug with equal exuberance. “My friends and I need a ride. A cross-country ride.”
“Really?” The dwarf cocked a notch-scarred eyebrow. “Seems a little ’neath the big, bad…” He dramatically leaned in toward the huddled group. “…shadowrunner you left us t’become, right Fifi?”
“Can I just say,” Faust interjected, clearly targeting the dwarf with a blast of mood-easers, “that we are totally gonna use ‘Fifi’ on comms from here on out, mate.”
“Not if you want to keep all of your everythings in their rightful places, Herr Faust.” Fee smiled, but her tone was the verbal equivalent of a “caution: bridge out ahead” sign. She turned back to her friend. “Bricker, is there anywhere we can go and talk about this in private?”
“So it is business, then.” He sighed in defeat. Janus could see tiny pinpricks of HUD lettering flickering in the corner of Bricker’s cybereyes—good prosthetic jobs, by the look of them, just not built for secrecy. “Yeah, the club has a tent off the back path. Follow me.”
They wound their way through the crowd, ignoring the pull of the Monsterzirkus’ many delights, until they reached a broken stone walkway guarded by two very intimidating men—a massive ork and an even larger troll—wearing matching motorcycle club patch vests emblazoned with the kanji script for the letters A and B. They were about to step aside when the ork’s eyes suddenly went saucer-wide.
“Fee!” He lunged forward in what Janus thought was going to be another reminiscing hug—but quickly twisted into a meaty forward punch that landed squarely in Gute Fee’s bulging abs. “I told you what would happen if you came back through here, you greasy cow!”
“That’s your free one, Griffon.” Fee sucked in a breath through her tusks, cracking all of her knuckles and raising her fists. “I owe you that. But it’s time we bury this.”
Club or no club… Janus sent the action greenlight to his team with a mental flick of his datajack. …nobody frags with my team. They might be a ragtag group of nearly strangers, but they’re MY ragtag group of nearly strangers!
“Think it over, chum.” Hollywood was there in a blink, scooping the troll biker’s semi-auto out from his belt and pointing it directly at his horned head—but kept his thumb hovering over the safety. The gun’s owner growled, but froze in place.
“We lost a lot because of you that day!” the ork yelled in Gute Fee’s face, cocking back his fist for another swing.
“All done, Griff!” Bricker caught the ork by the wrist, the mechanical servos straining against the metahuman’s raw physical strength. “You said y’piece, and that’s that. She even letcha have a breadbasket shot. Now…smile.”
“But—” Griff stammered.
“But nothin’.” Bricker clicked his tongue. “I’m gonna let go of your arm now, and the only reason it’s goin’ forward again is if Fifi wants to shake y’hand. Okay?” He did as he said, his metal-banded fingers snapping open to reveal stripes of pre-bruising beneath.
“We good, Fee?” Janus was firing up the code spikes to spear through the firewall on Griffon’s EvoCorp-9 adrenaline pump. If that lug was going to get in the way of this mission, Janus was ready to overclock his system until he went into cardiac arrest; might even be able to make it look like an accident and avoid bigger problems.
“Yeah.” She actually looked pained, but not from the punch to her gut. Between her natural toughness and the layers of bio-dermal fiber-plating, she likely barely felt the impact at all. “I probably deserved that.”
“And more,” Griffon grumbled, stepping back from the altercation.
“Here you go.” Hollywood spun the pistol so it was handle-first and shoved it back in its owner’s awaiting hand. “Sorry. You know how it is.”
“It’s prime, chum.” The troll tucked his gun away with a begrudging nod. “It was a slick move. You’re fast.”
“Yeah.” Hollywood’s elven features sparkled with near-narcissistic pride. “It was pretty slick, wasn’t it?”
“Has everyone gotten all this bloody badassery out of their systems?” Faust clapped their hands together emphatically. “Let’s go inside, have a drink, and forget all this nonsense. Let’s be mates again!”
“I love that idea.” Bricker ran his metallic hand down his thick, braided blond beard. “Come on in.”
The Asphalt and Battery motorcycle clubhouse tent was made from several layers of faux-leather and plasticized tarp liners riveted and wrapped around sections of chain link fencing. It created a sort of semi-permanent shack lined with plasticine posters from local bands, cult classic vids, and several risqué models from every meta and sex imaginable. Between the dim lighting, the heavy fog of questionable smoke, folding benches, and scattered bean-bag flop chairs, it was really the perfect example of a go-gang clubhouse.
There were two other bikers lounging inside, and a third doing maintenance on some piece of major hardware. They jumped when Bricker parted the door flaps, quickly trying to cover up the most illegal parts of whatever they were up to. Bricker nodded to them, giving some kind of all-clear sign, and then helped himself to a bottle of lager from a nearby refrigerator.
“All right, then.” The dwarf thumbed off the cap and pulled back a deep swig. “What’s this ’bout a cross-country trip?”
“Bricker, this is Janus.” Gute Fee placed her heavy arm across his shoulders. “He’s lead on this gig, so he can do our talkin’.”
“Whatever you say.” Bricker winked. “Nice to meetcha, Janus.”
“Right back at you.” Janus stepped closer to Bricker to show him the waypointed map. “So, we need to get…here …as quickly as we can. Our friend from the area says the only way is to go through…here, down Piotr and across from Vtaloften Way.”
“Damn.” Bricker whistled long and low. “Your friend wasn’t kidding. That’s some rough goin’. There ain’t roads that lead that way, so we couldn’t help you directly.”
“What about indirectly?” Janus was being as blunt as he could be. “This needs to be done.”
“I don’t have the right gear to get you there, but I know who does.”
“The Klicks?” A ganger reassembling the gauss cannon chimed in. “But they’re still in—”
“The perfect place to extend a helping hand to our dear an’ good chums here.” Bricker shot a warning glare at his talkative gangmate. “But it will require a little quid pro quo. Does that sound amenable to you? I know runners can fall under specific terms and conditions in their contracts.”
“Depends on how quid those pro quos are.” Janus folded his arms.
“We’re still on someone else’s clock, mate,” Faust added, sliding by to take a seat in the center of the smoky den.
“Mister and Missus Klick own the Rosengarten,” Bricker explained. “A wonderful little shop that can surely get what you need, an’ probably in short order. However, they are technically all wrapped up in a debtor’s block with some of the local troublemakers.”
“Troublemakers that you, of course, would like to see dissuaded from their harsh dealings with the Klicks and their little shop?” Janus knew this kind of exchange. Whenever people wanted to get the upper hand in local turf wars, underhanded misgivings, and the like—if you could get a shadowrunner or their friends to do it, all the better. Sure, it was a good way of making solid names for yourself in new territories, or perhaps dangling a lingering favor or two here and there, but in the end, it still added risk to the current mission.
But the current mission is already one for the How-Not-To vids, Janus thought. Might as well keep riding that wave.
“How dissuaded are we talkin’ here?” Hollywood smirked, tapping his finger on the heel of his low-slung revolver. “Basic shake job or a full-on morgue filler?”
“I know what I’d prefer,” Bricker grunted, hurling his empty lager bottle against the far end of the rubbish bin, where it exploded into a shower of shards. “But I don’t want t’sign you up for that kind of mop ’n bucket job. Maybe in the future, Fifi will set us up and we’ll contract you directly-like, but for now…all we really need is for the Klicks t’know we still have their backs.”
“I don’t mean to sound like the devil’s solicitor…” Faust nestled a few inches deeper into their bean bag chair. “But can’t you just send over a little note, mate? A ‘thank you for being our hook-up’ note or something?”
“We would, but the whole area is blockaded and patrolled by the Blud Jacks—the rivals in question. If y’get within a block or try to send over a message, they have more ticks and spiders on that web junction than ever, and a physical messenger’ll have their wings clipped by one of the sentries in no time.”
“I take it you’ve at least tried?” Janus was interested and more than a little confused. What kind of go-gangers can’t break through a street-level blockade?
“Blud Jacks are corpscab sellout scum.” One of the gangers coughed out the remark through a cloud of crackling Bliss smoke.
“GOD’s on their payroll, too,” his partner added.
“What Lug and Straps are trying t’say,” Bricker laughed at his friends’ matter-of-factness, “is that they have the numbers, the gear, the backup, and have been in place all around the Rosengarten long enough t’have pretty much everyone dancing t’their tune. They see any of us within three blocks, and the Matrix noises up, AGS comes truckin’ through, and once…when it got real bad, a bunch of SK corpsec came in.” He lowered his head and put his mechanical hand over his heart. “Still miss you, Trip.”
“Trip? As in Triple Decker?” Fee gasped. “SK goons got him?”
“Actually, dumpshock,” Bricker sighed. “The corpos flooded the net, and one of the Blud Jacks found Trip’s meatsleeve all jacked in and…well…” he made a loud pop. “He’s still boxed up in Saint Benedict’s, livin’ off a DocWagon pull.”
Hell on Earth. Janus felt a shiver ripple down his spine. I’d rather be dead. “So.” He wanted to bring the conversation back to the most important matter: their gig. “Because they won’t know us, we can get in to the Klicks and give them a message? And for that, they’d help us get to our deepwoods rendezvous?”
“Absolutely.” Bricker was stone cold and unreadable. “In the days before the Blud Jacks moved in, we passed hundreds of thousands of nuyen through the Rosengarten. We just want t’get back t’that kind of business again. Because we know those corpdog wagelicks aren’t giving them the same cut or the biz.”
“So we’re just droppin’ a message?” Hollywood huffed. “‘We’ve got your back’? No triggerwork at all?”
“Doesn’t have t’be.”
“Seems too slick, too easy.” Hollywood was skeptical.
“We could use a little easy.” Janus nodded. Something has to go right somewhere, right? Might as well be this. “But these are Gute Fee’s connections, and she’ll be the one that hears the echoes if we do. It’s her call.”
Everyone looked at the big troll, who she rubbed her right temple—the left was too covered with irregular lumps of bone growth– with a huge hand.
“I remember the Rosengarten when it was owned by Herr Klick’s parents.” She smiled, eyes raised as if seeing her childhood as a vid on the ceiling. “Mimi Klick sold me my first RPG munition and firing tube. And the little Klick boy is who first told me all about how to find my Anson and the Weepers bootlegs. They and their Rosengarten really should be a piece of Leipzig firmament. We can’t risk endangering them, if they’re under corpo thumbscrews, we’d have to play nice.”
“So?” Janus knew where this was headed, but wanted to get to the next part of this plan sooner rather than later.
“Let’s do it,” she said, dropping her fist into her palm. “For the old A and B’s sake.”
“All right, then.” Bricker expanded a map readout from a projector on his arm and moved to where everyone—but especially Janus—could see it clearly hanging in the smoky air. “This is how we think it should go down.”
The blocks surrounding the Rosengarten were pretty low traffic at this time of night, leaving little chance of blending in. There was enough money and influence rooted in those urban stretches that surveillance was high enough that no one could actually go unseen without magical means.
I totally get why the go-gang would be clocked. Janus was spooled into his deck and was streaming in the AR pings and highlights onto his cybereyes, and the street was a veritable New Vegas of blinking colors and flashing symbols. But if the Blud Jacks’ deckers are even halfway paying attention, they’d have the retinals on any ganger that slinked through here.
It was killing him, but Janus had to push back a few of his standard safety protocols just to look like a normal web-walker instead of a fully wrapped and tapped tactical decker.
<Attention Diamond Level NeoNet Buyer’s Club Member! Our new platinum-plated jack lacers WILL speed up your connection rates, sharpen your AR imagers, and reduce your ambient noise by a full 2 percent!>
Seriously? Shop-ups in the middle of my mission? He paused. Well, while I’ve got it… Janus went ahead and flicked the order to his storage facility in Seattle. He never could miss a good NeoNet opportunity, even from halfway around the world. If GOD was watching, it would also give him the perfect reason for being logged in and playing code on this network. And platinum? Who says no to platinum?
“Eyes up, team leader,” Hollywood sub-vocalized across the comms. “You and Tanzo are definitely being scoped by the trio near the CafCall, and I’m not fully crystal yet on the window-cleaning guy on the rent-a-slab.”
“I smelled way too much Ares pin lube on my first pass, too,” Faust whispered into their wrist-mic as they raised their soycafe to take a noisy, foamy sip.
>Come on. Gute Fee tapped out her responses, adding to the cover image of her low-teching her way down the road. >Bricker said they’d be totally in the dark on us. Let’s all just head slowly to the Rosengarten and deliver the news.
“Sorry to say… ” Faust paused, pulling the faux-coffee an arm’s length away from their mystically augmented senses. “Holly’s right. The adrenaline on the window guy is spiking, mates. He’s going to—”
PING!
Dammit! I knew that sale was too good to be true. Janus had pulled down some of his security suite for less than two seconds to make the shopping transaction, but his network was hit hard by a Snooper program from all sides as soon as he rolled up the checkout window. They used me. What a rookie mistake! Frag! Even frustrated at his own carelessness, Janus was still far from defenseless. The signal scramble came down hard on the whole block as his emergency firewalls leaped into action.
Wait a second… Janus was sure someone had used the fake sales-pop to scan their team network, but all of this dropline security and all-too-quick reactionware? This had to have already been setup here like a baited mousetrap, waiting to be triggered long before his team ever even showed up. Otherwise it would catch nearly every AR passerby that wants to take advantage of a good sale. Somebody tipped them off!
“It’s showtime!” Hollywood sounded relieved, spinning on his spurred heels and calling his revolver up to his waiting hand. He was already aiming his first shots at the window cleaner.
While he moved at a blur, everyone else caught up at their own pace.
The surge that started it all, the window cleaner on some scaffolding a few floors up, let the canvas drop cloth fall from the stack of “supplies” next to him—revealing a modified assault rifle gyro-mounted to the scaffold’s frame. A three-round burst belched out of the shortened barrel, sending a payload toward the biggest threat—physically speaking—in the street.
“Fragging hell!” Gute Fee bellowed as the rounds pancaked against her. Two flattened out on her chest, shallow puckers of blood spattering outward like the filler from paint rounds, and with roughly as much effect. The third however, hit the handheld commlink she was typing on a second before—making it explode in a shower of sparks and plastic shrapnel.
“You ain’t welcome ’round here!” shouted one of the three by the coffee stand, pulling sidearms from beneath jackets or out from folded ad sheets.
“Get to the garden, mates!” Faust tossed their lukewarm drink at the trio, earning themselves the extra second they needed to draw the narcojet at their hip. Firing as fast as their finger would allow, the pfft-pfft-pfft of the pneumatic pistol launched double-dosed dissolving needles of salt-matrix narcotics into the closest thug’s bloodstream.
One successful injection’s enough to drop a full grown man in seconds, but three? That guy was going to be in real trouble and probably suffering from multiple organ failures within the hour unless he got some medical attention. Faust nimbly leaped up and over a parked autocar, putting it between them and the two remaining gunmen.
“Let’s go!” Janus grabbed Tanzo by the shoulder of his puffy jacket, steered him forward, and shoved. The two of them started running hard for the Rosengarten at the end of the next block. “The team can handle this.” I hope.
No reason to hold back now. Janus flicked on his full-strength safety suite with his free hand, sending a cluster program of surveillance-clouding flak code into the hub all around, and gathered the aether into a glowing pulse within the other. Normally he would reserve this kind of protection for himself in a mission, but Tanzo’s safety was the mission.
Planting his palm firmly on the sprinting coder’s shoulder, Janus released a surge of light that washed over Tanzo’s every fold, wrinkle, and pocket. Armoring magic wouldn’t stop more than a few rounds, but it was better than a plastic liner inside a puffy jacket.
“Whoa!” Tanzo exclaimed. “What the hell are you doing?”
I forget most people aren’t used to being enchanted. Janus always wondered what it must feel like to be touched by magic when you don’t have it. Did it tingle? Could it possibly hurt? Was it like the cold burn of rubbing alcohol, or more like the numbing sting of a tranq patch?
“Just keep moving!” He slowed down slightly, not wanting to leave his team without his magical or network assistance. “We’re right behind you!”
“Nice ambush, suds!” Hollywood laughed, fanning two quick shots from his revolver up at the window-washer. The first bullet caught him in the belly, the second in the knee. Neither hit was a lethal one, despite his aggrandized aim, which meant they could have been deliberately incapacitating shots. “But all you did was piss her off!”
The window-washer pitched forward off the scaffolding. A three-story fall would’ve killed a weaker being, but it seemed the Blud Jacks could afford some biotech enhancements—because the window-washer, despite his wounds and the fall straight to the sidewalk—was already trying to pick himself up and fish med-patches out of his pockets.
“Shoot me, huh?” Fee roared like a lioness on the hunt, charging across the alley’s front. She didn’t even pause as she hip-checked her way through a postal deposit box, buckling the alloy and popping two of its feet off the cement bolts holding it to the curb. With all the grace, determination, and aim of a UFL place kicker, Gute Fee reared back mid-stride and planted her steel-toed boot into the window washer’s stomach.
Having only reached his hands and knees, the Blud Jack folded like a taco around her rising foot, bones splintering and organs rupturing as he rolled up and flew back against the brick foundation of the building he was—just minutes before—pretending to clean. There was a sickening crack when he hit the building, eliciting a sadistic laugh from the troll.
“Aztecho scum!” one of the remaining gangers shouted at Faust, rattling off a few poorly aimed shots that shattered glass and split plastic from his cover.
What’d he say? Janus paused for a step. What about us would make him think we’re bed with Aztechnology?
He fired up a wide scan across the block and it revealed nothing. Nothing extra beyond the surveillance web. Most notably, there wasn’t even a single trace of a priority message…which is what these Blud Jack scouts should have done if things were like how Bricker said. Unless whoever tipped them off about us purposefully linked our team to the only megacorp a bunch of Saeder-Krupp suck-ups wouldn’t want to cross.
Janus spun and turned to face the action. “Keep going!” he ordered Tanzo.
“You rotten gits!” Faust took aim and sank a few more chemi-spikes into another ganger. Unfortunately, this time their target was made of sterner stuff and swatted off the narcotic crystals before they could start to dissolve. “How dare you think we’d run with those bloody sorcerers!”
“Not a chance!” Hollywood added, circling around to get a shot at the gangers, pointing his sidearm directly at the shorter thug’s face. “Throw ’em down, guys. Go get your friends to the doc. Nobody else has to—”
The ganger answered by squeezing off two quick rounds. One went wide, but the other punched a hole straight through the flapping hem of Hollywood’s duster. “—DIE!”
As if the injury to his wardrobe was as bad as an actual wound, the gunslinger’s eyes narrowed angrily and he exploded into action. Hollywood’s open hand became a blur, yanking back the hammer on his revolver repeatedly while the trigger was depressed. Four bullets punched through the soycafe stand’s signage and into the talkative ganger. His defensive measures protected his heart and lungs from the penetrations, but his outstretched bicep and exposed love-handle at his waist were less fortunate; the softer flesh there was shredded to ruin.
“Aaaaghk!” The ganger collapsed to his knees, sidearm falling from spasming fingers. His other hand swept up and tried to stem the bleeding, but it was a gushing river.
“Frag this!” The last ganger—now flecked with gangmate’s blood—spun on his heels and started toward a parking structure.
Oh, no you don’t. Janus wove his fingers together, blowing motes of aetheric energy into his steepled hands. Like the embers of a growing fire, each puff of breath added to the pale green light collecting between his palms. After three quick breaths, he opened his hands toward the fleeing ganger, his fingers popping out like the petals of an opening flower.
A streak of green light escaped, slamming into the ganger’s lower back. The magical energy seeped into his spinal column, overloaded his nervous system, and caused him to ragdoll tumble head-over-heels several paces forward on the sidewalk, pistol scattering away from his spastic grip.
“Fee!” Janus shouted. “Grab him and bring him to the Rosengarten.”
I want answers.
The Rosengarten was easily one of the most beautiful buildings Janus had seen since arriving in the Allied German States. Clinging hybrid vines with crimson and white rosebuds wove up the sides and front of the building’s brickwork, stained-glass windows depicting fields full of flowers or skies full of birds, and legitimate gas lamps glowed softly at the corners of the doorway.
A quick AR scan showed it had decent Matrix access, but wasn’t quite as locked-up with spyware as the surrounding blocks. Whatever extra measures the Blud Jacks’ corp-sponsors had set up definitely ceased at the doors of the Rosengarten itself. These Klicks must be more influential than I thought.
A quick shift of vision into assensing the magical plane, and the shop was revealed to be even more than just a pretty face. The walls and foundations were thick with enough living growth and layers of algal insulate that Janus couldn’t astrally investigate the Rosengarten if he wanted to. Judging by the thickness and root cultures, it has been this way for a long time.
It is a beautiful suburban fortress, he thought as he joined Tanzo on the stoop.
“You frosty?” Tanzo asked between pants, the shadowrunner slang slightly off coming from his mouth.
“Yeah.” Janus walked right up to the double doors and yanked them open by the enormous, polished brass handles in the shape of twisting tree branches. Halfway inside, he looked over his shoulder at his team jogging down the street, a limp ganger tossed over Gute Fee’s shoulder in a floppy fireman’s carry. “We need to bring this circus inside closed doors.”
He held open the door to let Tanzo in, who folded over at the waist to catch his breath as soon as he was inside. “Thanks… I…I…I will never get used to being shot at.”
“No normal or sane person would.” The florist’s voice was melodic, welcoming—but a little confused. “Can I help you guys?” A handsome, dark-haired man in a green plastic apron stood with open arms in the middle of the room.
A second behind the coder, Janus shoved his way into the foyer. “Thank you, Mister Klick, I presume?” Janus’ cybereyes fed the image through an encyclopedic filter, and the decker-mage was happy with the informative results. The florist was unaugmented, or at least un-networked. In one hand he had a pair of high-priced professional pruning shears, and a cluster of ghost orchids in the other. The data on those flowers alone meant this guy actually knew what he was doing, botanically speaking.
“Yes. I’m Hughe Klick, manager and owner. I don’t suppose you have an appointment? We don’t get many walk-ins these days…”
At that perfect moment, in stormed the rest of the team—a speeding, gun-waving elf, followed by a well-dressed socialite and a troll murderess carrying a grumbling street ganger.
“…and sometimes that’s a good thing,” the florist finished with far too much humor in his voice. “May I reiterate? What can the Rosengarten do for our friends in the Blud Jacks today?”
“Three things,” Janus began. “One: the only Blud Jack in this room is this Chuckie right here.” Fee jostled her groaning cargo. “Two: we actually came on behalf of Bricker and the riders of the Asphalt and Battery. And three…”
Fee spin-dropped the Blud Jack onto the floor—whose groans transformed into whining, roused slightly by the two-meter fall.
“Would you mind if we borrowed a private room for a few minutes? We need to talk with our slightly concussed friend here, and you might want plausible deniability.” Janus finished.
“Old gang, new gang,” Hughe Klick sighed, setting down his snips and the flowers on the countertop. “Doesn’t matter, does it? You guys always just barge in here and –”
“Unhhh…” the Blud Jack started to mewl into consciousness.
“Nope! Gute Nacht!” Fee brought the palm of her hand down on the thug’s head with the exuberance of a contestant slapping the buzzer on 25,000 Nuyen Trivia, sending him back into the cold arms of unconsciousness once more.
“Listen, Hughie.” She smiled her patented “deflate the tension with goofy sweetness” smile. “I used to wear the A and B, did a lot of work with your dad and mom. They gave me lots of shopping lists, if you get me. But I’m out of the club now, and this—” she gestured to the chaos that had just barged into his shop, “—is my current crew.”
“Who is it, honey?” A charming feminine voice rang out from the archway to the greenhouse off to the side of the building. A second later, a beautiful elven woman with shining emerald hair and eyes to match leaned out slightly, cocking an eyebrow and wrinkling her nose at the scene. “Everything okay out here?”
“Krissa, dear.” Hughe’s tone was surprisingly bright, given the circumstances. “Can you watch the front while I take some old friends of the family into the gallery for some…private…party planning?”
“Of course.”
“Follow me.” Hughe started toward another side door, this one topped with frosted glass and rimmed with a noticeable sound baffle. The group did as he requested, Fee unceremoniously dragging the Blud Jack by the ankle.
The planning gallery was a small room dominated by a single large table, several folding chairs, and a bookshelf of numerous AR spin-discs that could be fed into the room’s splash-vid projector. Most likely to show floral and décor packages to potential—normal—clients, thought Janus.
“Ma’am,” Hughe said to Fee, “the fact that you once worked for my pa got you in the door, but now is the part where you explain what the hell’s going on. You obviously know the Jacks and their SK string-pullers have basically embargoed the Rosengarten, and nobody has been willing to cross the picket line, so to speak.”
“Bricker sent us.” Janus pulled a sealed and encrypted data packet into AR, removed his user privileges, and left it hanging in mid-air for Hughe. “He asked us to give this to you. It should explain why we’re here, and why we need your help.” Janus looked at the unconscious ganger draped over a chair. And then that gutter punk will explain what happened outside.
“Let’s take a look.” Hughe took a set of fingertip trodes out of his pocket, grasped the data packet, and started to unfold it like unmaking origami, revealing the privacy passphrase from Bricker. Plugging in the answer to whatever question he was asked, the packet expanded and unraveled the information to him.
“Bricker said we would be able to sneak past the Jacks if we played like Tom and Harrys on the block.” Janus added their side of the story to whatever the data packet was telling Hughe. “But then things went red quick, like they knew we were coming.”
“Yeah.” The florist folded the packet and tilted his head. “The message says that the Asphalt and Battery club is going to make a statement outside, and in return for shaking up the Blud Jacks’ grip a little, they want the Rosengarten to extend you some jurisdictional credit. It says that you’d know what to ask for, but only after you cleaned up our streets a bit.” He looked up at Fee. “Why would Bricker say that if you were supposed to do a stealthy waltz to my door? How would he know the Jacks would jump?”
“I’m going to find out why.” Janus cracked his knuckles and stepped toward the ganger.
“There will be no torture in this house, friend.” Hughe stepped in the way, a flash of the arcane glassing over his eyes. “My pa stood against the corps and their vile ways, and we lost him to the Surtr because of it. I’m not about to let that sort of drek fly on my watch.”
“I promise you,” Janus reassured him, “he won’t feel a thing.”
Touching all off his fingertips to the matching ones on the other hand, Janus applied a specific sequence of pressures, which caused the corresponding fingertip to glow a spectral blue-white for that moment. As the sequence grew faster and the pressure lightened, his hands began to look like some kind of strobing holiday display. Slowly Janus drew his fingers apart, and the lights continued to hang in the air, repeating the pattern, tethered to his hands like illuminated cobwebs. Holding the glowing motes of stringy aether out in front of him, he approached the ganger.
“Someone hold him up, please.” Janus was a little out of breath, and wondered if the wet, runny feeling in his nostril was just sinuses or the start of a bloody nose.
Faust took the opportunity to not only hoist the ganger into a sitting—well, slumping—position, but with Janus tapping into the aether, he could feel the mystic’s added influence. Perhaps a deeper sedation? He wondered what a social mystic was truly capable of, started to envision grand tactical applications, and then snapped back to the task at hand. Focus, man. Focus.
Janus slowly outstretched his hands so the web of energy between his fingers enveloped the ganger’s head, coming closer and closer until his fingertips barely rested against his skin. To everyone in the room, the energy wisps disappeared into the flesh like alcohol evaporating away.
Through Janus’ connection with the mindprobe spell, what he saw was drastically different.
The mental fog of unconsciousness within the Blud Jack (Archie, his name is Archie. Named after his uncle, who died in Bug City.) was thickened by Faust’s influence, but also had the psychic flavor of serious narcotics. Janus suddenly saw poor Archie and his friends from the street fight passing around a compact full of novacoke. Grabbing the synaptic reins, he reeled back the thoughts and images rolling around in Archie’s mind.
—Loading his pistol. —
—Snorting lines of coke. —
—Arm wrestling a dwarf named Russo over a facon breakfast burrito.—
—Who steals soy syrup? —
—He gave his tram seat to a pregnant woman, that’s commendable. —
—Receiving orders from…here we go…
The scene was clear. A Blud Jacks ork lieutenant explained to Archie and the other gangers that Janus’ team, with a perfect description of their members down to the tiniest details, was coming to cause trouble and stir things up. The intel came from “an insider”—it had to be Bricker—who attached the team to the Aztechnology megacorps, making sure to paint a tremendously bloody picture about what the shadowrunners were up to, but also highlighting their corporate aspect. It was a smart move on the dwarf’s part.
“Bricker told them just enough,” Janus said after withdrawing the probe and ending the spell. He wiped the tickle from his nose, glad to see it wasn’t bleeding after all. “Kept them from calling in the big SK guns, which would risk a direct reprisal from our team. It still ensured they would jump us, keep us from making too much noise on the web, but still force us to go to heels in order to reach the Rosengarten.” Janus whistled slowly. “I’m actually impressed.”
“Janus?” Fee leaned on the table. “Did Bricker double-cross us or not?”
“And either way…” Hollywood tapped the barrel of his pistol lightly on the ganger’s head. “What do you want to do with Bumbles, here?”
Hughe shook his head. “No torture, no executions.”
“Fee, Bricker definitely set this up. He knew we’d be able to deal with those sad grunters outside and free up the Rosengarten a bit. He might have been using us, screwing us over, or maybe this is just one big gangland prank.” said Janus, “You’re the only one who actually got hit out there, and Bricker’s your baggage. Unless one of you want to say otherwise, it’s your call.”
Everyone glanced around the room, but no one interjected. I hope we never have to see her old biker buddies again, thought Janus.
“Nah.” The disappointment in her old gang was clear in Fee’s tone. “Let’s play catch-and-release today. The Jacks will think twice about horning in on the Rosengarten’s business if he can go tell them you have new friends, Hughe.”
“Agreed.” Janus caught eyes with the business owner. “Just be sure to start spreading the whisper that you have a bunch of prime runners looking after you, maybe post up a few pics of her trollness here in the AR for display. It’ll go a long way to keep your doors a little more open to folk beyond the Blud Jacks.”
“That sounds good to me.” Hughe smiled, and it was the perfect mixture of a friendly salesperson and the cousin you only see at weddings—but are always happy to do so. “Anyone who my parents were on board with will always have credit on their ledger under this roof.”
“Where do I throw this one back?” Fee lifted Archie like a toy and jostled him around to punctuate her question.
“There is a green-edged door off the back of the main room.” Hughe pointed toward where they came in. “Just tell my wife I told you to break down a few boxes. She’ll pop it open for you.” Seeing the shadowrunners’ curious looks, he continued. “She’s seen worse come through those doors, believe me.”
“I bet.” The troll grinned knowingly, leaving to follow his instructions.
“Now that all that is out of the way,” Hughe exhaled deeply, “what can I do for this group of totally average industrial professionals?”
“The Asphalt and Battery guys said they couldn’t help us get to a spot off the beaten path,” said Tanzo. “But you could.”
“Here.” Janus spooled up the map and highlighted where they needed to go. “But it has to be through here. We’ve really—”
“Say no more.” Hughe headed toward the front room. “I think we’ve got just the thing.” He led the group there, joining Gute Fee and his wife just as they returned from taking the ganger to the back alley. “Go ahead and close up shop for a little while, honey. We’re going to head downstairs for a little bit.”
“Everything okay, then?” Missus Klick asked.
“Wunderbar,” her husband replied. “This way, everyone. Gute Fee, was it? Watch your head. The first landing is a little low.”
Hughe led them to a quaint wooden door, painted a soft teal and rimmed with a floral pattern in gold filagree. He grasped the door’s knob, letting his fingertips find a series of depressions invisible to the naked eye. Once his fingers were in position, there was a series of counter-magnetic thunks, the hiss of pressure, and the door slid open and vanished into the wall, revealing a stairway. Small but powerful lights flickered to life on either wall of the staircase, bathing the descent in a yellow-green glow.
At the bottom of the stairs was a landing, which Fee did have to duck to cross through, but not before Hughe pressed his eyes up to a scanner and let the flash of light inside scan his retinas.
<Welcome, Master Klick.> The wall toned electronically, vibrated loudly, and then broke into three separate panel sections that turned, opened, and then fell away to reveal a sprawling sub-level of darkness. Ropes of LED lights lining the reinforced walls blinked to life, illuminating a sprawling supermarket-sized warehouse.
“Welcome to the real Rosengarten, my friends.” Hughe opened his arms wide, letting the expanse of the area fill their view.
“Queen’s garters!” Faust gasped.
“Pinch me,” Hollywood whispered, holding his arm out in front of Gute Fee, who pushed it aside with a stifled chuckle.
“This is wild.” Tanzo’s jaw hung open.
“No.” Janus hid his internal glee at seeing the shadowrunners’ dream laid out before them. “This is exactly why Bricker sent us here.”
Rosengarten, at least this part of it, was any shadowrunner’s dream shopping space. Rows upon rows of shelves ran along Janus’ line of vision from the slightly raised stoop. The aisles contained racks of guns, weapons, explosives, armor, specialized equipment and an assortment of other products any variety of shadowrunner, corporate agent, or mission operative could possibly want. Stacks of Kevlar vests. A cage-case of pre-packaged parachute packs. Even a crossbar of dangling cyberlimbs—two of which were still in their factory shrink sleeves—sat just off the second row. In the very far back, all the way at the far end, Janus even saw a short row of jet skis on trailer hitch frames.
“Cross-country gear is in aisle three,” Hughe said happily as he hopped down the stairs to the main floor of the shopping area. “But what I think you’ll really want to see is all the way in the back, by the LDS turrets.”
“You have a laser defense system rig?” Hollywood’s shining eyes went wide.
“We’ve got three,” Hughe replied, leading the group down the row. “They’re leftovers from the megacorps blockades. Serious buyers or local rentals only. Sorry.”
“Are…are those Excal-II VR+ decking systems?” Tanzo paused at the junction of electronics and talismongery.
“Yes.” Hughe continued toward the back without pausing. “I’d tell you to go ahead and take one, but I’m guessing Bricker doesn’t want to pay off seven figures from one little box.”
“Oh…okay,” the coder sighed, setting the package back down.
Janus scooped it right back up again, tossed it to Tanzo, and tucked a second in his deck satchel. “If he doesn’t like the bill,” he said, “he shouldn’t have ordered us the lobster when we asked for whitefish.” He winked at the goggle-eyed coder, picking up the pace to catch up with Hughe.
“Grab some AT packs, MREs, and bootslips for all of you,” said Hughe. “Aisle two.”
“Ugh. Bootslips?” Faust tossed one of the all-terrain backpacks over their shoulder. “That’s going to scuff up my Louies something bloody terrible.”
“Not as much as these will, my friend.” Hughe reached the back wall of the storeroom. There were a number of enormous containers marked in various languages, some as large as a small shed, but he stopped at a row of smaller lumps under blue plastic tarps. He reached over and yanked the covering off of the first to reveal a slightly used Mustang ATV. “Three of these, plus the gear, and you should get to your mystery point in a day, maybe two.” He continued to unveil similar machines, one by one. “And Bricker gets the tab.”
“What’re the chances these are wired to each other and not the Go-grid?” Janus was already flicking open the firewalls and getting his repurposing programs ready to slice the OP-Sys if Klick’s answer wasn’t sufficient.
“All clear.” Hughe smirked. “These are ghosts now, and they’ll be like fog on a mirror out there in the wild stretch. Promise.”
We’ll be back if you’re wrong, thought Janus. “Good,” he said. “Two on each, Fee gets her own.”
“Makes sense,” Faust laughed as they struggled to get the straps on the backpack to fit properly. “’Cause I can’t bloody well drive to save my mum.”
“You’ll get back on mine, then.” Hollywood held up a hand and caught the security fob Hughe tossed to him. “These are our iron horses in the badlands. I’m perfectly fine at the yoke.”
“Tanzo, you’ll ride with me.” Janus took his fob and tucked it into the pocket next to his cyberdeck—already starting the process of ripping the ignition codes out of that antiquated, easily misplaced, copyable piece of plastic. I’m no rigger, but it’s safer on my own wavelength every time.
“Uhm, Herr Klick?” Fee asked, swiveling her head back and forth at the walls. “How are we getting these out? I’d rather not have to carry these out the front door, but I can.”
“Miss, allow me.” Hughe made a few gestures in the air, arcane gestures, but then motes of Matrix activity shot out from his person and connected to some awaiting mechanisms hidden in the back wall. The wall shuddered and began to ratchet itself down into the ground, opening up to a glowpaint-illuminated ramp leading up to the streets of Leipzig.
Technomancer, Janus nodded mentally. Now the safety measures and the Matrix loadout in here makes so much more sense.
“Thank you, Mister Klick,” he said, taking a moment to shake hands with the fixer. “When I have any way to do so, I’ll make sure the Shadownet is talking about how great the Rosengarten is. I’m not an easy person to impress, and I’d five-star you prime if there was a service report for this.”
Hughe accepted the handshake with another grin. “Which there isn’t.”
“Good answer.”
After a few minutes of prepping, the ATVs rumbled to life. Janus made sure his ghosting program was running full-tilt and that all comms were limited to between each other and not grid-bounced, and checked Tanzo’s goggles and weather cowl to avoid accidental facial regs.
>Time to go, team. He sent the message across all the comms as they pulled away. >No stops until the second marker.
“Oh? Leaving already?” Krissa walked up and leaned against Hughe as they watched the runners disappear up the ramp. She even raised one of her slender hands and gave a polite wave. “What a nice group of clandestine murder agents.”
“Yeah, I hope they have a good mission into the wild.” Hughe waved the wall to slowly begin to close again, wrapping his other arm around his wife. “They really have no idea what’s waiting out there.”
“I’ll light a nice dreamcicle thought candle in their name.” She squeezed him around the waist. “Send them all my good vibes, you know?”
“Speaking of good vibes. I think we’re going to see a bit more business this quarter, love. Let’s go dust the showcases.” He grinned. “And oil up the showroom tactical fifties.”
“Love you, Hughie.” She planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Love you more.”