Veiled Extraction: Shadowrun, #56, page 12
And then, suddenly, he had it. It was the only thing that made sense. “It was some sort of ritual, wasn’t it? A sending. Someone hit them remotely.”
He felt understanding, then agreement. “I hid, but I saw it. I didn’t want it to see me. I was scared.”
That was certainly understandable. Any magic powerful enough to do this could have ripped the tiny spirit to shreds. “What about their magical protections? Did they have guardian spirits? Wards?” He hadn’t sensed any wards around the house when they’d come in—was that because there hadn’t been any, or because the sending was potent enough to destroy them?
“I don’t know.” The little spirit’s mind-voice sounded fretful, like a small child who’d been forced to stay up too late. “The spirits left after the people died. They didn’t like it here either.”
Damn. The chill crawling up Winterhawk’s spine increased. Somehow, Wu and her people had managed to piss off someone powerful enough to rain down this kind of destruction on them—and after only being here for a day or two. Who could it have been?
“’Hawk?” Ocelot’s voice called from downstairs. “We gotta go! Maya says she saw a couple KE cars heading in our direction. The place might’ve had a silent alarm.”
Frustration gripped him. He wanted to study the area further, but they couldn’t risk staying long if the cops were on their way. “Coming!” he called. He closed his eyes and reached out with his astral senses, concentrating harder. He didn’t want to—he already felt like he’d need to take at least four showers just from his previous contact with the place’s tainted astral energy—but he had to know.
He didn’t get it until he moved closer to Wu’s body. As he did so, the feeling of unease increased until he felt his gorge rise. Whatever this had been, it was centered here. Some kind of twisted, unnatural energy swirled around Wu, almost like—
No.
It couldn’t be.
It didn’t make sense.
Still, once he’d identified it, he couldn’t deny it was here. His breath quickened, and his heart rate increased until he could feel it thudding in his chest.
He had no idea how Doris Wu had managed to get on the wrong side of a powerful toxic magician, but somehow she must have done just that. The astral didn’t lie. The impressions were fading, but the power was strong—they would linger for days before dissipating fully. He opened his eyes and stared hard at Wu’s corpse again: the advanced, twisted decomposition was certainly in keeping with the vile kind of magic the toxics practiced.
But why?
“’Hawk! Get out here!”
“Coming!” On his way out, he ducked into the other researchers’ bedroom and quickly grabbed as much as he could carry of their gear, then hurried outside.
Twenty
Ocelot was driving now. Winterhawk sat in the shotgun seat, going through the bags he’d retrieved from the house. “This isn’t making sense,” he said under his breath.
“Still no idea why some toxic fragger would be after ’em?”
“I can’t imagine why. They’d only been here a couple of days—hardly seems likely they’d have gone out of their way to anger a toxic shaman. A powerful one, too—I don’t like to think about the level of power it would take to punch through the kind of wards that were likely on that house.” He continued to sift through the bags.
“You think she was runnin’ a little something on the side?” Ocelot steered the car around what looked like the aftermath of a three-vehicle pileup in an intersection. “Maybe that’s why she had to get you out of the way—she had something planned, and was worried you’d figure out she was up to something and get in the way.”
Winterhawk considered. “It’s possible.” He pulled Wu’s commlink from the bag. “Actually, that’s a damn good thought. I’ll hold on to this—perhaps Damon’s got someone who can crack it, or we can locate a decker. But for now, honestly, I don’t care what she was up to. If her shady dealings got her killed, that’s her problem, not mine. Shame about the others—unless they were in on it as well, of course. But right now, I’m more concerned about finding Victoria, doing Damon’s little job, and getting the hell out of here.”
“What about the ley line?”
“That’s not a priority at the moment. If I get some time to grab a few readings, I’ll do it. But we’ve already missed our ride, which means our focus needs to be on getting out now. I’m not putting my trust in Damon to make sure that happens.”
“Good to hear you say that. So where we going?”
“Back into Boston for now. MIT&T is apparently on lockdown, which means if Victoria’s inside, it will be tough to get her out.”
“And if she’s not?”
“Then we need to find people who know her.”
“’Hawk, you realize she might be dead, right?” Ocelot spoke with care, but as usual he didn’t dance around the hard truths.
Winterhawk nodded without looking at him. “If she is, that’s one less thing we have to do before we can leave,” he said, trying to sound brusque. He doubted Ocelot fell for it, though.
Twenty-One
The reports Winterhawk had received from the outside hadn’t been exaggerating: they weren’t getting anywhere near the MIT&T campus without a lot more backup and recon. Whether the place was trying to keep something out or something in, the four layers of walls, cordons, and barriers were pretty clear indication that they wouldn’t be getting onto campus without a lot more planning than they had time for.
“You think she’s in there?” Ocelot asked, regarding one of the numerous roadblocks they’d encountered surrounding the area.
“From the way her mother described her, no.” Winterhawk turned the car around and headed off down a side street, pointed north.
“So where are we going now?”
“Toward Cambridge. Fortunately for us in this case, she’s probably got no reason to hide. Her mother said she lived on campus, but if what I suspect about her is true, she probably didn’t spend much of her time at home, meaning she was likely caught on the wrong side of the cordon. If we can find someone who can track her, we might be able to find her—or at least where she frequented. I’ll probably need to borrow some funds from you, since I can’t access mine at the moment.”
As Winterhawk had suspected, quite a number of students had been caught on the wrong side of the MIT&T cordon, and from the look of things many of them had long since found alternative housing arrangements and spent their evenings hanging out at the bars and eateries near campus.
“You know your way around here?” Ocelot asked after they’d parked the car in what looked like a relatively safe spot and the mage had summoned a spirit to keep an eye on it.
“Well enough. Keep a lookout—aside from students, rumor has it that this area’s become a bit of a hub for local shadowrunners.”
“Maybe we can find a decker to track her.”
“Possible, though given the spotty nature of the Matrix inside the QZ, I’m not counting on that.”
The first few places they checked netted them no success. No one recognized Winterhawk’s description of Victoria, and Maya verified that none of them were lying or hiding anything.
“There’s got to be a better way to do this,” Ocelot said as they trudged toward the next place, a tavern-style bar with large MIT&T and Harvard AR banners flashing across the sidewalk near the entrance.
Inside, loud music played, several trid players showed sporting events, and the smell of beer, body spray, and hot wings filled the air. In other words, a typical university bar. Winterhawk swept the place with his gaze; most of the tables were occupied by either couples or groups of rowdy young men. He settled on one near the back. “Let’s try them,” he said, nodding toward it. They pushed their way through the crowd.
The table they headed for include an eclectic group of athletic-looking young people: a male elf, a female ork, and three humans—one female, two male. They looked up from their pizza, pitchers of beer, and animated conversation as Winterhawk and Ocelot drew closer. The ork, clad in a tight-fitting Harvard T-shirt that showed off her impressive arm muscles, eyed both of them with suspicion. “You guys want something?”
“We’re looking for someone,” Winterhawk said. “We were told you might be able to help us.” He paused, and when none of them spoke, he said, “Her name is Victoria Crane. She’s a student at MIT&T.” He described her, wishing not for the first time that he hadn’t lost his image when his commlink got fried. “She’s an adept.”
He assensed them as they exchanged glances. “Why you wanna find her?” the ork asked, eyes narrowing.
“I’m—a friend of her mother’s,” he said. “She’s concerned about her, and asked me to look into her whereabouts.”
The elf shrugged. “Never heard of her.”
The others shook their heads.
“Sorry,” the ork said, glancing around at her companions. “Guess we can’t help you.”
The twitch in her aura said otherwise, but Winterhawk’s instincts told him not to push it. Instead, he gave them the number of the commlink Damon had given him. “I can make it worth your time if you happen to remember anyone who might know where she is,” he said. “Give us a call if you do.”
“Yeah,” the elf said. “We’ll do that.” The rest were already turning away, returning to their conversation.
Ocelot waited until they were outside before speaking. “They know something,” he said. “Why didn’t you push ’em?”
“They do,” Winterhawk agreed. “Or at least the ork woman does. But I sensed she didn’t want to say anything in front of her friends. We’ll see if I’m right. Come on—we’ve got a lot more people to talk to.”
But none of the rest of their conversations with students and others in the clubs and restaurants around campus gleaned any useful information. No one they asked had ever heard of Victoria or recognized her description. The closest they came was one man who said he thought he’d seen her a few months back, before the quarantine had gone into effect, but he couldn’t be sure.
“How long are we gonna do this?” Ocelot asked as they headed back toward the car. “Hell, even if she’s still alive, she might have gotten out of town before the shit hit the fan. You don’t know, and it’s damn hard to find out—”
Winterhawk held up a finger as his commlink buzzed. “Yes?”
“I know somebody who’s got some info you might want,” said a voice Winterhawk recognized as that of the ork woman they’d first talked to. “She won’t stick around for long, though. You know where the the Purple Horse is?”
He consulted his commlink. “Is that the gay dance club in the South End?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell her to meet you there in an hour. She’s an ork like me, only skinny and white. Crazy blue hair. Can’t miss her. Name’s Jazz.”
“You can’t just tell me?”
“Take it or leave it, chummer.” The connection went dead.
They left Maya patrolling outside and another spirit to watch the car. The club was doing a brisk business: loud music pounded into the street every time the padded doors opened, and club patrons of all metatypes lounged along the walls chatting and smoking. Most of those outside were male, dressed to impress. They eyed Winterhawk and Ocelot as they passed, and a couple called out cheerful invitations.
Inside, the thumping synthpop music was so loud it was hard to hear oneself think. ARs were everywhere, advertising drinks, clothing, sex toys, and other wares; occasionally they’d glitch out and flicker off before reappearing. The clientele inside was still mostly men, but some women, in groups and pairs, sat at the tiny purple-topped tables and dotted the dance floor.
They spotted Jazz instantly—as the ork woman at the bar had said, it was hard to miss her wild shock of blue hair. She was seated at the bar, alone, her hand wrapped around a tall, nearly empty glass. Winterhawk indicated a vacant table off to the side of the dance floor, and he and Ocelot settled there. Winterhawk sent a text to the bartender, who a moment later placed another drink in front of Jazz and nodded at them.
She regarded them a moment as if evaluating them, then picked up her drink, moved through the crowd, and dropped down across from them. “I didn’t think you’d show.”
“Your friend said you had information about Victoria.”
She took a long pull from her drink, watching the writhing bodies on the dance floor, and then her face twisted into an expression of distaste. “Yeah, I know her,” she said. “Knew her.”
“Knew her?”
She shrugged. “We were hooking up a few months back. Till she dumped me for that ganger slitch.”
Winterhawk and Ocelot exchanged glanced. “Ganger?”
Jazz snorted. “Yeah. Vic’s an adept like me, but she didn’t fit in too well at school. Didn’t even want to be there. You say her mom’s looking for her?”
“She’s asked us to find her, yes.”
“Not surprised. From what she said, her mom’s a bitch on wheels. Vic was only at school because Mom got her in on some kind of corp scholarship. She didn’t give a fuck about goin’ to class.” She leaned forward, an anticipatory gleam in her eyes. “So whatcha gonna do when you find her? Drag her back home?” She looked as if the thought appealed to her.
“Not…sure yet,” Winterhawk said. “Tell us more about this ganger.”
“Can you believe it? We were out at this dive in the Rox—Vic always liked walkin’ on the wild side, y’know? A buncha Ancients were there. I wanted to leave, but Vic spots this elf slitch in their colors and strikes up a convo with her. Next thing you know, they were at their own little table in the back, actin’ like nobody else was even there.”
“So she dumped you right there?” Ocelot asked.
“Nah. But she might as well’ve. After that she was always busy when I tried to meet up with her, and eventually I heard she and the slitch were a thing.” She took another long drink and sighed. “So yeah, I’m not feelin’ too much like I want to protect her, y’know? You want to track her down and drag her back to Mommy? You go right ahead. Let ’er try to explain why she blew off half her classes stayin’ out late hangin’ with a keeb go-gang.”
“Wait,” Ocelot said. “She’s human, right? How’s that work? The Ancients’ll barely talk to anybody without pointy ears.”
“Yeah, mostly,” Jazz said. “That changed when the walls went up, though. Lots of things did. Word is they’ll take anybody now, long’s they got some mojo. I’m not sure whether Vic joined up or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s the kind of thing she’s into—fast and furious, y’know? The faster the better.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t care. She can do what she wants. Don’t tell anybody I told you where to find her, though. I don’t want to get on the bad side of any gangers. It’s tough enough in here now, even if you keep your head down.”
“Your name won’t come up,” Winterhawk assured her. “We—”
Off to their right, on the edge of the dance floor, something was happening. A crowd of people pressed in around something, but they couldn’t see what it was. Ocelot tensed. “We should get out of here.”
“It’s chill,” Jazz said, her eyes focused on something they couldn’t see. “AR chatter says somebody probably got a bad batch of Chroma again.” Her gaze shifted back to them. “Happening a lot lately. Last couple weeks. Stupid to even take the chance, you ask me. Stick to safe shit like novacoke.” She finished her drink. “Anyway, gotta jet. You guys got what you need?”
“Thank you,” Winterhawk said, getting up. Already, two burly club staffers were pushing the crowd aside while another carried a slender young man out. The young man’s arms and legs flailed madly, and his screams were loud enough to be heard above the pounding beat of the music. Winterhawk assensed him as they went by. He only got a couple seconds’ read before the group swept past and was once again swallowed by the throng. He got Ocelot’s attention and pointed toward the exit.
When they got outside and could hear each other without yelling, Ocelot said, “So now we gotta find the Ancients? Great. They’re gonna love us.”
“Sounds like they’re a bit more open-minded now.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it. They ain’t gonna want to talk to us.”
“We’ll just have to be persuasive, then.”
They got back to the van. Winterhawk dismissed the spirit, Maya settled into her spot in the back seat, and they picked their way around the abandoned vehicles clogging the street.
Ocelot had retrieved his shotgun and was scanning the area around them, as usual hypervigilant for potential threats. “So what was that back there? What’s Chroma? Some kind of club drug, it sounds like. Must be new. I don’t do clubs as much as I used to these days.”
“It’s only been around for a year or so,” Winterhawk said. “Supposedly one of the more harmless of the BADs—mundanes use it so they can ‘see the music.’” He frowned and shook his head. “One of these days, these fools will learn that there’s no such thing as a safe BAD. They’re playing with things they don’t understand.”
“Eh, you’re just gettin’ old,” Ocelot said, grinning.
Winterhawk didn’t answer. This was exactly the sort of thing Damon would be up to his scaly snout in—club drugs, designed to enhance the hedonistic experiences of the user, would be right up his alley. Especially magical ones. Had the bad batch the unfortunate young man had gotten hold of had come through the dragon’s distribution pipeline? Even more than that, though, what he’d seen during his quick assensing of the victim troubled him. He couldn’t be sure he’d gotten it right, because he hadn’t been looking for it, and had only recognized the faint traces because it was so soon after he’d encountered them before. But if he’d seen what he thought he’d seen—
“Check something for me, will you?” he asked.
“What? And where are you going?”
“The Rox—the west edge of it, anyway. If memory serves, that’s where their territory is. You can check that too, if you want. But before that, see if you can find anything else about anyone’s experiences with bad batches of Chroma.”
