After a lonely flight, Fighter touched down in London town. The world's oldest metropolis, although there was a big wheel and a big clock instead of the Space Needle, reminded her more of Seattle's sprawl than Frankfurt's. A faint sea-scent under the smog and ozone. Rushing, bawling metahumans of every colour and country. The same blaring ad screens, with maybe a touch more English slogans than Japanese kanji.
The Agency had certainly delivered on 'extensive travel'. Even if Fighter wished she could have lived in one single place for a week without death at her side. She wished she could head down to Chinatown, London–with Sandra, Ilsa, and Harry. But what she wanted, now and always, was to get through the mission. Get the truth behind Frankfurt, get hands round the throat of her team's killer, whoever the frag that was in the world.
Passing severe statues and blocks of brocaded stone that were suddenly like nothing in West Coast America, the windows of the Hyatt-Regency hotel finally towered above her in ranks. Past white pillars, in the light of chandeliers and soft blue screens, the entrance hall shone like glass. An otherworldly temple of big nyuyen. Agent Susan Lei of Redmond knew she would always look on such places as from another, barren, planet.
"It's not the Ritz, you know." Corelli tutted behind her, adjusting his silk tie and cuffs, "Still, time to be putting on the Regency, with every due expediency."
It was not lost on Fighter that her hardest and only task in this mission, while Sandra put on a lovely frock and went to bed with the enemy, would be spending three days in a hotel room with a troll. Corelli had shown no concern but security when he insisted on the bookings. He had never shown any interest in her or Sandra except as moving parts in a mission. Still, after what Richards had done, the prospect crawled in her throat.
No. She could do her job; Sandra would be doing hers. Even if the worst happened, she'd killed trolls before.
-0-
Hours before the conference, the hotel was humming with Corp bodyguards–but also staff, loaded with luggage and exhibits. In a deliverygirl's polo shirt and visor, Fighter toted a cyberdeck, a computer and numerous plasma screens up to Corelli's suite. The troll was absorbed in setting his kit up for the next few hours. Fighter sat stiffly on a chair behind him. The bed was plush and white, but she wouldn't have felt comfortable.
"Look, change your clothes in the bathroom," Corelli ordered her, "Hang up my jacket while you're there–carefully!–and for Pete's sake close the curtains. I can hardly work with that enormous window at my back. I suppose, as a woman, you should take the bed. Although I will be doing all the work, I will contrive to squeeze myself onto the sofa."
"Take the bed, I don't mind."
"Oh? Thank you, I suppose."
Fighter told her own tension that it was idiocy. Corelli was a troll, that was it. He might be gay for all she knew. She asked him, as tactfully as possible; Corelli sniffed that it was none of her concern.
The room was bigger and whiter than the cheaper German hotels, but the cleaned, unlived facelessness was the same. Like the poor clones in that Denver lab, if bedrooms were people. Another strange room and another stranger.
"Anyway, that's the last of the security cameras deal with." Jacking out from his deck, Corelli sat back in his shirtsleeves, "Ah, it seems Agent Creighton has made contact."
Fighter stared over his mountainous shoulder at the security feed from the grand functions room. It formed the main exhibition space for the conference, with gadgets, busy screens and dancing holo-presentations dispersed among parties of quietly chortling suits. With the banners of the triple-A Megacorps looming proudly above their research displays, Fighter had no doubts that smiles and handshakes cloaked more intrigue and vendetta here than any gangland summit.
There was Sandra, the Juliet agent, in an open-necked skirt suit. Nodding as Dr Larssen explained the shortcomings of Renraku's latest Knowbots. As London rain hammered the windows, her smile was soothing as tropical sunshine. Her laughter rang pure as a golden bell at an oldish joke. She moved very slightly closer to Larssen as he touched her arm, interest dancing in her eyes. The natural spark she conjured left her target happily stunned as a pig on a slab.
Her conversation was informed, insightful, and active without unfeminine self-assertion. Fighter had been quite wrong to expect oh-doctor-won't-you-please-explain, combined with some cleavage and wavy walking. Sandra displayed the wit and breadth of knowledge boasted by high-class escorts and geisha.
It honestly didn't look like much, for all Fighter had thought and felt about Sandra's job. But that was the point; looks were a lie. Larssen seemed respectful, was not visibly repulsive, but Sandra would go to his room and his bed because she had no choice. Because he had done something. Because three agents and more (not Ilsa) were dead. And when Sandra had walked elegantly away (or less elegantly, if he liked it rough) with all the intelligence this silly old man could give them, he would probably be killed by his own employers. Fighter hoped he had done something worth death. Or wasn't that what Sandra was going to kill him through her kisses to determine?
She couldn't sit by and meditate. After a short, sharp argument, Corelli printed her a fake staff ID, and told her where to steal a waitstaff uniform.
"Do remember, Miss Creighton is an expert shaman. Dolphin totem, I believe." The troll groused, "Your principal task here is to protect me."
Observing Sandra directly across the length of the exhibition room, using the waitstaff disguise, Fighter's trained eyes noted tension in the small of the elf's back. Lightning sideways glances, every time Larssen looked away. Sandra's eyes showed brief shock, when she noticed Susan, before a torrent of gratitude. Then they flashed back to the target, her smile electric.
Susan wished she could ask the Juliet what she was feeling, if she could ever have understood how Sandra could do the things she did. She wished she talk with her for hours, massage her shoulders and do anything for her friend to make her job a little easier.
She could only move innocently through the crowd, towards Sandra, with a tray of water glasses. Sandra accepted it almost without looking away from Larssen, and Susan moved quickly away. It was the least she could do in support.
-0-
For an evening with Dr Larssen in the hotel bar, Sandra changed into a high-necked blue dress that went devastatingly well with her slim elvish figure. Nothing obviously went wrong, but neither Larssen nor she suggested taking the evening further. Still watching on the cams with Fighter, Corelli supposed that Sandra knew her own job, and that tomorrow night remained. The troll rose, emerged from the bathroom in a tent-like silk dressing gown, and was soon snoring on the bed.
For multiple reasons Susan was lying sleepless on the sofa an hour later, when the soft knock came at the door. She heard slow, deep breaths.
"Sandra? I thought we couldn't, the plan–"
"You change plans, Susan. I…let me in. Please. I'm afraid…"
Susan only hesitated a moment; she could hear what her friend needed. As the door opened, Sandra quietly buried her face in the Adept's hair. Susan guided her to the sofa. They moved softly as children up past bedtime.
"Just hold me." The elf whispered, "I'll be alright…just hold me." Susan put strong arms around her, rubbed her back. She waited for Sandra to begin,
"Everything's changed since Frankfurt, Susan. Darkchild, this thing that killed our friends, I don't think we're even trying to unmask it. We're Running so many missions, but only to gnaw at the edges of Saeder Krupp, nothing else. We're at war, just as Darkchild told you it wanted!"
"Sandra...Darkchild could be Saeder Krupp. We could never fight SK head on, isn't this the only way?"
"It's not strategy, it's suicide! No one could fight Saeder Krupp from the Shadows–no one hides from the Golden Wyrm. It's a sword of fire above our heads. Everyone feels it, no one says a word…"
Susan felt it. The SK-marked nuclear aircraft-carrier, above Alpha Base. Anya, Orion and everyone, blasted away. Hit squads hunting her, Sandra, even Ilsa, across continents and years. Runners who made war on a Megacorp got hunted, and there was no escaping the shadow of a dragon.
It would have been useless to speak of Nagendra. The chrome-faced man could not be read, never shared his plans–of course, he had a plan, but there was no reason to think that it involved their survival.
"The other agents, if it's hopeless, they must see...?"
"They see, but they don't speak." Sandra's thin shoulders slumped, "They want revenge for Enrica Croce, they have no leader without Ptacek. No one believes we can beat SK, but any agent who even thinks it too loud could be a traitor. So many agents have been purged, they're even recruiting more–young Runners! Only Jack Richards could have led us all a different way. I pleaded with him, every way I could–" Susan remembered Sandra and Richards had been casual lovers. She hugged the elf more tightly, "–but he hardly speaks, now. Nothing I did could bring him back from Frankfurt. There's nothing good left in the Agency, Susan. The fear, the hate, the groupthink…it's worse than a Megacorp!"
"…why a Megacorp?"
Susan didn't know what else to say. But Sandra leaned back on the sofa, tucking her bare legs beneath her and seeming to grow calmer.
"I worked for Renraku as an Oceanographer, for five years. Surprised?"
"A bit. Corelli said you were a Dolphin shaman."
"You're not going say I look too young?" Sandra's smile in the darkness was almost playful, "The first year was amazing. Sun, sea, and swimming over the Barrier Reef. Fascinating Bryozoa, beautiful clownfish. So many handsome surfers, I scarcely had the time…but then two years of office work, in San Francisco. Reports, meetings, data analysis. All in quest of oil deposits or aquatic power sites, that would've spelt the end of that beautiful reef.For some reason nothing was found, and I was exiled to a secretarial role in Wisconsin. Torturous tedium. The Dolphin is for sparkling, adventurous free spirits…when the Agency appeared, I jumped for them."
"…but, they wanted you as a Juliet. You're a shaman, a scientist, why...?"
"It was what they needed. And there was exotic travel, the interesting people..." Sandra grinned. Quietly twisted a strand of Susan's long black hair around her finger, "...and did you know that dolphins really like sex?"
"…um, uh…" Susan felt her cheeks burn, "…I'm sorry. It's your choice, but I could never…are you, were you happy? Did you feel free?"
Sandra's eyes, dark blue in the darkness, seemed beset with sorrow but lit by an immortal inner joy. They also looked very wise, because they held so much Susan would never understand, and such an unstoppable weight of feeling. She couldn't look away.
"For the first year. The thrill of the chase, the handsome secret agents…" Her fingers rubbed Susan's hair, so gently, "…I felt free, and so alive, even if none of us were free in truth. I could keep closing my missions, fulfilling my potential…" Almost a sob, "…when I though that it was for the world. After wageslaving for Renraku, the cause meant something. I could save poor drowning souls, as a dolphin should. I had to put that above my own desires and do what every mission demanded. What every man demanded. And when that wasn't enough…when the meaning was gone, only the bad was left…I had to endure, because I couldn't escape. But I could endure, this long…because of love. A beautiful, brave young agent who was meant to be free, but still fought and endured so much..."
Susan couldn't fail to see, with everything laid out bare. Sandra's body trembled like a shipwreck survivor, her eyes pleaded…Susan's heart ached. She lent across and kissed Sandra on the mouth.
It felt softer than kissing Harry, for about a moment. Before red lips slid across hers, less forceful than irresistible, and their tongues moved together. After several seconds, Sandra pulled away.
"Oh…you are straight. Susan, why…?"
"Because I choose to." Smiling, face burning, Susan put her hand on Sandra's cheek, "Because we can be free."
"Couldn't you…just once?"
"I'm sorry. That's all I've got. We need to get through this mission–I know you can do it–and then we'll find a way to save our friends. If Richards won't lead a mutiny, I will."
"Oh, my Fighter…" Sandra breathed, before she left, with a last sad and playful smile, "My femme fatale."
-0-
Susan found she could sit on the bed the next morning. She even tested the springs a little, as Corelli stayed hunched over his screens.
"So…were you always a troll?" She finally probed, "Or did you, you know, Goblinize?"
"The term is Awaken." Corelli turned, his thick brow knitting with displeasure that surprised her, "And why do you ask? Do you think I would rather be a human than a troll, or somesuch, because I do not drag around a club and make ug-ug noises?"
"I didn't mean that. You just never seem happy to talk about yourself. And you know trolls don't do those things."
"No. Trolls can do worse things, as you well know," Corelli shuddered, then growled, "Look, maybe I was born into a Boston Brahmin family, who disowned me at thirteen when I Awakened. Maybe I was born in the Redmond Barrens and clawed my way out. Whatever the case, the way I dress or speak, and the reasons thereof, are my choices. My own business."
Fighter smiled at the back of the troll's head. Maybe Corelli wasn't so bad. Maybe bringing all the different agents together, wresting control from Nagendra and Oldfield, was not impossible.
On Corelli's screens the second day of the convention was in full swing. Sandra was back at Dr Larssen's side, in a presentation on the A.I.s of tomorrow that seemed notably dull. The happy couple would slip away to Larssen's hotel suite early as possible in the evening. Giving Sandra plenty of time for unguarded conversation, and subtly dispersing Corelli's bugs on everything from clothes to tablets.
The day wore on. Fighter realised that Sandra was on none of the cameras, and neither was Larssen, which could only mean she was in.
Thirty minutes passed. None of the bugs, including the microimplant behind Sandra's ear, had begun to transmit. Corelli had begun to grind his fangs.
"Something could have happened." Fighter burst out, "Can't we–"
"An interruption at this point could be particularly awkward. 'They also serve who only stand and wait'."
Further minutes passed. Then Corelli checked the camera feeds, and gave a sharp intake of breath.
"Ah. You finally caught on."
The synthetic voice, Darkchild. It shot Fighter to her feet, lips drawn back.
"Hello, Agent Lei." From their own computer, the voice slid out, "It seems that we can finally begin."
-0-
The feeds from several external cams dissolved. They had been fed a loop. By the hotel's rear exits, in the bulky shadows of their APCs, squads in yellow-black armour had stacked up. Submachine guns up, jackboots poised–Knight Errant, prepared to breach.
Within the hotel, Sandra walked out of Larssen's suite, listening to a comm. She glanced up wistfully into the camera, as if bidding Susan farewell, before starting to run.
"DAMNATION!" Corelli's fists shook, "Never trust an elf!"
"Or a woman. Or a shadowrunner. Or an agent who lies to men she lies with. Clichés so conveniently remove the need for thought, do they not? For instance, 'The traitor Sandra Creighton will receive a traitor's reward.' How about that? No need to thank me."
In lockstep, black armoured gunmen–like the ones in Frankfurt–stepped out of rooms throughout the hotel. Fighter saw the owner of one room, an elderly pearl-wearing Englishwoman, on the floor within with her throat cut.
As the Knight Errant teams poured into the hotel through the back doors, more black, anonymous gunmen crashed through the windows upstairs. Fighter watched them cut through the hotel security. Fire on the KE pawns as they met. She heard them, smelt the blood and cordite, all around the plush, clean room where panic clawed at her throat.
They were going to kill Sandra. Silence her, the traitor. Which meant she knew something, about Darkchild, Frankfurt, Croce, Ptacek, Dunbar…Susan could not stop the chain of thoughts that strangled her breath.
"Why?" Fighter breathed it out like a curse, "What do you want, all this killing–who the frag are you?"
"I want more than you can imagine, Agent Lei. Revenge. Freedom. Initially, the destruction of the Agency…"
Corelli had been scribbling on a pad; he thrust it in Susan's face. They needed help from the Agency, comms and phones weren't safe–he was going to Jack In. If he even twitched once, she had to pull him out.
Susan knew Corelli was a craftsman, no great decker. Darkchild–hacking Agency planes and drones, brainwashing armies of gunmen–was glaringly unstoppable in cyberspace. But if Corelli Jacked Out, as soon as the monster appeared, he might identify their nemesis. Find the truth.
"You're not a field agent," Susan found herself gripping his huge arm, "You don't have to do this."
"…I find that I must." Corelli hesitated a moment, as more gunfire sounded outside. Then he raised one claw above his cyberdeck, and seized the Jackpoint with the other, "Watch me, Lei. Watch for the very second,"
Then he Jacked In. His vast body shook, then settled. Susan fixed her eyes on his neck, let her Ki flow down her arms. Speed, speed, fastest, calm, a clear lake….on a monitor, black gunmen were falling back before a KE breach team, the floor below them. She glanced back at Correli as he twitched, and her hand blurred as she pulled his Jack.
Correli slumped off his chair, shoulders heaving with dumpshock. Susan rubbed his back, waited to hear the truth. But when the troll looked up she saw dull, empty eyes, before a vast brown claw shot out towards her neck.
-0-
Susan flew back–stumbled into the bed behind her. Corelli was on her with animal, thoughless speed–a troll's simian reach, a troll's strength, around her neck. She couldn't scream that this was not him–he was a dandified egghead, no monster, himself. Because there was nothing in her mind but choking terror and the fight. Her fingers clawed back his thumb and wrist pressure-point from her strangled windpipe. The troll's weight pinned her legs, as he forced her against the bed. She knew she could not break his grip. Corelli's eyes still held nothing at all.
It lasted two minutes; he would have broken her like a twig if it had been longer. If she hadn't targeted the spot beside his elbow, slipped out one of two hands preserving her throat in a deadly moment, and punched until something went crack. The claw was gone; she rolled away, racked with choking.
Corelli stood still as a tower. Perhaps the brainwash had been incomplete, perhaps the pain broke through, perhaps she saw light, very briefly, in his eyes. Then the troll turned away; charged at the window and through. In a chaos of glass, metal and brocade curtain, his great body plummeted and smashed into the pavement far below.
Fighter didn't understand. She didn't even know how a mind could be wiped out, stolen, by a machine. Cyberspace was another alien world to her; a fresh horror. Corelli could have explained to her. Told her why he had died. Killed himself, to save her…?
No, he hadn't even liked her. Susan suspected, hoped, that Specialist Anthony Corelli had died to remain himself.
The black gunmen; brainwashed to the moon and back. Memories, minds, were just data, Ptacek had said. She had frozen up, impossibly, before she died, so had Richards, so had Kenji Mikami–no, no, none of them had been Jacked In. Dunbar had been Jacked into his Rig. He had grappled Ptacek's arms before the drones shot them. With eyes, if she had seen them, she knew, empty and dull as Corelli…
Frag! The Agency, simsense training, up to a quarter of the agents Jacked In! If Darkchild got into their system–Anya would know, Susan had no idea, what they was, or wasn't, to stop him–all those agents would only rise up with empty eyes. A slaughter, and worse than death, before Lofwyr even lifted a talon!
"Specialist Coreli has jumped from a window." Only a moment had passed, before the voice oozed out again, "That is fascinating. Exact and complete knowledge eliminates the possibility of prejudice, yet I would never have expected it of the troll…"
Susan realised that she was slumped before a shattered, open window. Barely, she rolled aside, before the sniper's bullet hit the wall where she had been.
"A pity. Your continued existence is the result of sub-par shooting, as of now, rather than any valuable quality you possess. Please try a little harder not to die, Agent Lei. There are many more games I hope you will join me in."
A troll had forced her down. Almost killed her–but she was alive, and she was furious. She had never hated anything like that voice of the smug stealer of souls, and all of its tools and minions.
On one of poor Corelli's screens, a titan water elemental was blasting back Darkchild's gunmen in the functions room; Sandra would be near. On another, the Knight Errant breach team was heading toward the room where she, Susan, was. In the corridor outside.
Fighter heard the jackboots pounding. Grinned, rose up, and kicked the door open. The edge swung out and smashed the lead man's visor like a flying guillotine.
-0-
Fighter came out low, almost across the floor–unfolded, spun and kicked up to snap a man's neck. She ducked behind the swinging door, smashed a kick straight through it. Another KE Pawn folded up around his ruptured midriff.
More Knight Errant Pawns down the corridor, more on the main stairs. Battered and weary from even fighting through to their target, but still grimly aiming their Heckler-Kochs. For every good lawman ripped apart by superhuman scum, hold fast. Wipe out the shadowrunning creeps.
Back in the hotel room, the window. No-covered by the sniper, and she had to get to Sandra. In the corridor behind her, two Pawns. They'd come up the emergency stair, before wedging the exit shut with a fireaxe.
As Fighter moved, another door swung open. A senile-looking old man with a white moustache and dressing gown poked his head out. An alert KE man shot him down, before he could even ask what the devil was all that banging?
Fighter ran. With blazing automatics and an innocent corpse behind her, a long scream burst from her lips. One Pawn was too unmanned to fire at all, the other got off one shot. Then Fighter swung up her fist, one down. Kicked off the wall, bullets punching into her Kunei suit's back. Dropped her elbow into the other Pawn, they both fell sprawling. Rolled, kicked back, sprinted for the emergency staircase with all superhuman speed.
A drop kick broke through both door and fire axe, as bullets flew over her body. Her twisted leg beneath her uncoiled, launched her roll down the stairway so fast she struck her head. One bullet had got through her armour as well. She had no Medkits, but the hotel would have an infirmary. She staggered up and raced away. Infirmary first, then the conference room and her traitor-friend.
-0-
The hotel was a warzone now, between Knight Errant, Darkchild, Corp bodyguards and Hyatt-Regency guards, ringing with gunfire and stinking of smoke. As she ran, Fighter saw more guests and staff lying in blood, from either Darkchild's psychopathy or KE's shoot-first doctrine. She punched her way through a few knots of hostiles and dodged around others. She propped one injured woman up and gave her a medkit but saw little else she could do. Perhaps she hoped that Sandra would get away from her. But it seemed the Dolphin shaman had chosen to hole up rather than run out into a sniper bullet.
Sandra flung her bare arm, with Hastened speed, over a barricade of chairs. Her Waterbolt blasted one black gunman to the carpet. Her second bolt hit, but only staggered-answering bullets struck her body. The elf collapsed, a Heal spell fizzling in her palm. When she gazed up, it was into a gun barrel.
Then the gun whipped round. Knocked Fighter's thrown knife from a face, but then the Adept's sprinting feet had closed. Two gunmen. She punched one aside, leapt and span. Her kick broke a skull like an egg; another low kick snuffed out the fallen man as he raised his head. Black hair fanned out, then settled, around her lovely and unyielding face.
No more weakness, no more despair. She was Yip Lei's daughter, 4000 years of unarmed death. A fighting angel. She stooped down beside Sandra and looked into her eyes.
"I won't ask why. I think you told me, last night. Just tell me what you did, and who for."
"I called Saeder Krupp," The elf's words quietly trickled out, "On a stolen phone, last night. Before I went to your room….I just couldn't bear it anymore, the fear. The certain death…all those missions, the death inside. SK sent Knight Errant to get me out, I knew the Agency would kill me if I ran. Kill you, and Corelli, anyway, for security…I was insane. I knew Darkchild might tap my call to SK, but I didn't know it would move so fast! I didn't know–!" Sandra's desolate gaze travelled over the wrecked hotel, the bodies. She sobbed and coughed, "I'm sorry. Sometimes, when the ship is burning, you can only save yourself…"
"What about Frankfurt? Darkchild?"
"No. That's all I did, call Saeder Krupp! Or why would Knight Errant be here? I swear by the Dolphin's smile…and sea-spray in the sun…I was a loyal agent for two years, until yesterday evening. I don't know anything about Frankfurt…Darkchild…but, I think…"
"What? Why does Darkchild want you dead?"
Sandra trembled on the floor. A shipwrecked maiden, or a fish bleeding out on a slab. She finally spoke.
"…Susan. I think Darkchild is the Agency."
It was insane. The Agency was destroying itself...? Yes, by diving into the war that Darkchild had provoked. Hadn't that fragging voice even sounded something like Nagendra? And didn't watchers from the Agency shadow every mission, reporting indiscretions and disposing of threats? Who watched the watchmen, unless they were brainwashed, living drones? Susan gazed at the black nameless bodies, and imagined them in Toyko, Boston, Denver. Seattle, Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Watching her, watching Sandra, until the chrome-faced man grew tired of his writhing chessmen.
Moving rapidly, Susan attached a Medkit to Sandra's chest. The elf stared up at her in a daze.
"…I almost got you killed. I betrayed everyone…"
"No, Sandra." Susan squeezed her hand, "You betrayed yourself, for years, but no more. If you want to make anything up to me, just live free."
"Did I ever mention…" Sandra gazed up, as if at a Valkyrie, "…that I always loved you, Fighter?"
Trust. Love against everything. The precious connection Susan had needed more than light and peace. In Stuttgart, in Hong Kong, for what felt like forever. But there was nothing to be done with it, except to clasp bloodstained hands and walk away. Knight Errant would be coming for Sandra, to bring her to Lofwyr, her new boss. Susan did not expect to ever see her again.
-0-
Perhaps Knight Errant's thronging reinforcements had cleared out the snipers surrounding the Hyatt-Regency. Perhaps Fighter was just too fast. She ran through everything, to twisting alleys full of rubbish and nothing. After running until her hands shook, as if through an endless tunnel of darkness, she sat down on a trash can and wondered where in the world she could go. How she could stay alive, ahead of both Saeder Krupp and the Agency.
She'd never been trusted with the location of Alpha Base. Harry had told her not to look for him. But did she have to listen to that idiot, when she had practically never needed him more…?
"Hello, Susan. You look as well as ever, I suppose. Apologies for, well…"
As if by magic, Ilsa stood in the alley ahead. Her face looked a little battered, her eyes even more serious, and Susan threw her back into the wall with the force of her hug.
"WIZ! I…I…where have you been?"
"A wizard is never late, nor is she early. She arrives precisely–"
"Bulldrek! I needed you an hour ago, I needed you a month ago..." Susan grinned through unstoppable tears, "How did you survive? And what have you been doing?"
"A rather particular illusion–I'll explain everything later, trust me. I'm sorry I couldn't precisely give a warning, but I rather suspected you would put faith over ocular evidence. As for my activities–a trip down the rabbit hole, you might say? I have more answers than you even have questions. I'm afraid it took all your money and more, however."
"Well, you can owe it!" Susan stepped back, still grinning, "How did you find me? Have you got a safehouse here, or…?"
"Susan. I'm sorry about this."
Then the fair-haired Knight Errant officer stepped out behind Fighter and discharged a Defiance Super Shock into her back. The Adept crashed down into darkness at Ilsa's feet.