I would apologize for this digression, but for the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enough in itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome.
–Roughing It, Mark Twain
Lt. Desorn Lightfall, Ghost of Tir Taingire, shuttled down twenty push-ups on his right-hand knuckles. Twenty on his left, twenty with mid-air claps. Then forty squat thrusts, then his unshaking fingers grasped the herbal tea. Steeped for–yes–three minutes exactly.
A gratifying start to his day. Physical prowess was scarcely less essential to the elvish ideal than physical beauty or magic arts. Though it was grace, beauty of form and conduct, that truly showed the spirit of the master race. At Desorn's exclusive high school, as at every good school in Tir Tairngire, sports had been practically more important than etiquette; the passion of young and old. There had been no chance of his adept powers escaping detection–as they often did for youths of the lesser races in their filthy sprawls. His path to the Peace Force and the Ghosts had been both smooth and inexorable.
He'd learnt since then that unhappier lands did hold some decent individuals, many of whom he'd killed for Tir's sake. He had not forgotten the fellowship under redwood trees, where noble elves laughed and sang in security. Even Tir's poorest lived in far more safety and comfort, with no fewer rights, than Seattle's SINless slummers. He only wished he could rest with his flute in Tir's forests again, after so many years in the field.
In the plain but orderly living room of their new Berkeley safe house, Sgt Alys Morgan was already dressed and parsing intel reports from Rowan, the squad's Matrix expert. His cover job on Fuichi corporate soil had been safe from Colonel Saito's purges. As Desorn walked in from the kitchenette, clad in sweatshirt and green running shorts, he noted that Morgan took a while to avert her eyes.
Lowri Greenwood, squad sniper, was watching a bargain-bin action Trid with her morning craft beer, sniggering over frequent improbabilities. About a country mile of slim leg stretched across the couch; her pale, svelte body seemed designed to hit the male libido like a shock-baton. With casual elegance, she tossed beef jerky into her mouth.
Like virtually all Tir elves, Desorn had never tasted meat before his induction into the Ghosts; they were the wolves who guarded the flock. Greenwood, crunching jerky behind her gorgeous lips, had also shown through five more assassinations over the past six months that she had the soul of a predator.
"Se'seterin, Morgan. Has last night's destruction of Colma led to anything of consequence, as yet?"
"Would've been a lot more dead winegs if they'd invited us to that party." Greenwood complained from the couch.
"The culling of metahuman separatists runs counter to our ongoing mission against the Japanese occupation." Desorn asserted drily, "I am grateful we were not 'invited' to an ill-organised and ill-defined operation, as missions ordered by Princes for their private ends not infrequently are. Although the elimination of Ilsa Tresckow would have been useful as the defeat of Susan Lei would have been satisfying."
"You Carromelegs with your fated rivals are so cute." Greenwood scoffed, "I slotted a point-three-oh-oh through Lei's cow-sized left tit, and she's given no trouble since. Scared the daylights out of that Goronit slot. She's finished."
Desorn did not think likewise, or feel that their comrades slain by the Runners were yet avenged. That day would come, but their mission to destabilise San Francisco ahead of Tir's invasion took absolute precedence. Their assassinations, conflict-sowing false flags and funding of anti-Japanese groups, from Norton's Army to the Native Californians, had certainly kept Calfree murderously unstable. The Japanese were still hanging onto San Francisco, however, and no path to their removal had appeared since the Shavarus fiasco.
"Kali, and some less prominent Shadowplayers," Morgan reported, "Have been making cautious inquiries about an unknown woman seen near Colma, during the assault. Their reasoning seems to be that the Japanacorps will pay through their noses for an individual that Lord Lofwyr may have firebombed a town, in part, to obtain."
"And this mysterious lady?" Desorn felt a sharp trepidation as he spoke. The same sensation had saved his life in the field before now, but never struck so inexplicably.
"Nothing, sir. Capture orders have reached the Native Californians, and also Ghost Squad Four, deployed on the northern border. If these orders truly came from Lord Lofwyr, the Prince who commands all secrets, then I cannot think why he has deployed no other assets in Calfree…unless secrecy, outside Calfree and Tir, is his first concern. I cannot explain the, well...hastiness of his actions, either. Unless this woman truly appeared out of thin air."
"Plausibly reasoned. I think we may leave that matter to our comrades in the north, however."
"Squad Four could take out Redding on their own!" Greenwood crowed, "And hunt down every pitiful pissant with a rusty AK from '36. They're proposing a war of stealth and death by night, against the Ghosts? We should've schooled them years ago."
"The invasion was planned for political ends." Morgan was unable to conceal her distaste, "For political reasons, it may not even take place. It seems to be generally accepted that Colma was occupied by dangerous metahuman terrorists. However, our own supplying of arms to the same heroic metahuman resistors against Saito rather muddies that narrative. Tir commandos were witnessed in the heart of Calfree. There will be blowback–"
"Makkanagee! The Redding strip belongs to Tir Taingire and it's ours for the taking! Don't you even know that Prince Dar Varian has taken personal command on the border? The War Prince, greatest Carromeleg in Tir, and conqueror of half the noble ladies in Portland! Ooo, if I were a baroness, I wouldn't rest until he'd bent me over a starlit balcony!"
Aside from duels with jealous spouses, all Tir's nobles had to pass through the deadly Rite of Progression to maintain their titles. They were a warrior aristocracy, honing spirit and skill through decades of refinement. In theory, any skilled commoner could attain nobility through the Rite; in practice, social connections were required for one's entry to even be considered. Lowri Greenwood had been barred from the '50 Rite of Progression, not for lack of connections, as she believed, but due to her unsightly and obvious sociopathy. Any current nobles equally unconcerned with anything but violence and sex had at least been trained from birth to conceal it.
"Prince Varian is certainly an ideal of elvish perfection," Morgan stiffly responded, "However, his romantic exploits are hardly relevant–"
"Less relevant to you, maybe. Eyeblight."
"Greenwood!" Desorn snapped, "You will show your sister-in-arms the courtesy our bond demands!"
He had seen Alys shake like a beaten dog, almost in tears. As brave and loyal a warrior-mage as he'd known, who'd faced death by his side. But she'd been a plain elvish child once, as she was now a plain elvish woman. Every child and adult in her world had let her know that this was wrong. That she was an eyeblight and a disgrace to her people.
But the Black Banner covered over all such things. With monumental security vetting, the Ghosts even accepted non-elves. An initiate brotherhood of warriors, bound in life, death and loyalty. Freaks, commons and eyeblights, missions and results were all that mattered. That was the unit Desorn had dedicated his life to. So, he had overlooked Greenwood's sneers and excesses…he had failed Morgan as her commander. But now she was staring as if he were some gallant hero of myth.
"Sorry, sir. A little sisterly tiff?" Greenwood pouted winsomely at Desorn, then grinned, "Hey, want to see something hilarious?"
She flicked the Trideo onto a recorded webcast. None other than Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes–Desorn narrowed his eyes, rather than laughing–was interviewing a human woman of Redding with a slung AK and a black 'Redding Defender' tee-shirt (Baggy enough to cover body armour, printed out of City Hall). It was apparently an effective 45 second recruitment ad, with competent production, no inauthentic slickness, and more charisma in Hotspur's smile than any human had the right to deploy.
"…I think you're novahot, Jane. A real hero."
"We're just here to protect our homes from invaders." 'Jane' trilled, visibly charmed.
Then suddenly, she faced the camera with an elvishly sardonic smile. Hotspur froze with the rest of the screen.
"Hotspur and Fighter, cheap adventurers hunting glory, can no longer protect anybody. Though their pet deckers can scrub the Matrix quite competently, hiding how many recruits they have already led to their deaths against NC thugs. They cannot oppose Tir Tairngire in the repossession of its own soil. They cannot even protect this woman; her real name is Kirsten Wendell, and her address is 15 Franklin Street, Redding. Anybody who stands with this boy against the Ghosts of Tir will fall. Think of your families and do not resist."
"Well, I'm here to protect you. And together, we can protect all Calfree!"
Crowingly, the Tir decker had retained Hotspur's heroic tagline, as if he were completely oblivious to the hack. Desorn and Morgan chuckled urbanely. Lowri Greenwood howled and kicked her legs.
"Oh, oh, aren't the shadowrunners meant to hijack megacorp broadcasts, and expose their evil…? Ahhhhhahahaha…!"
"Quite, the irony is staggering. I judge that our comrade Knightmare is still with Ghost Squad Four…"
-0-
Anya had found Hailey, after the hacked recruitment ad had gone out, stuffing sugary Stuffers and rocking her head. The Matrix visor she'd barely taken off for five weeks previous had been thrown into the cushions at her feet. Her hair was filthy, her sweet-cheeks gaunt with the shadows of a closet crammed with servers.
Anya had seen a lot in two years. For a start, the data that constituted the lives of every person and social construct in North America, past and present– she could've beheld it all together, with an Ultraviolet host and the will to upgrade until she was Anya no more. But she'd never seen Hailey look like this since she'd been shot on the Embarcadero-no, not since she'd heard how her beloved, Tarne, had been killed there. Anya had waited on her weeping for a day, back then, but then Hailey had smiled at the after-party like sunshine. And if Tir dropped the hammer next week, Anya knew, she'd never in a digital eternity see Hailey Clementine Smith again.
"Hey, Girl Genius. Gaming binge?"
Born novahot deckers never tired of the Matrix, any more than AI; birds and clouds both belonged in the sky. After 72 subjective hours of perforating giant ghouls with miniguns, guiding Mesoamerican tribes as their God-queen from hunting to spaceflight, and wooing a harem of elvish princes who proved to be uniformly fantastic in bed…a digital ork and a candy-pink cartoon pony sat on the edge of a sunlit Reichenbach falls. Where Hailey tried to tell what had gone wrong.
Five weeks of constant, silent struggle with NC deckers sleazing onto their comms network. Reposting the call to arms as rapidly as Tir's Peace Force deckers scoured it off the Matrix; a lightspeed swordfight with flamethrowers. Switching frequencies on their defence, morale and recruitment radio broadcasts rapidly as the Tir had started jamming-radio almost meant more than the Matrix in rural Calfree, and Hailey had been right after all to splurge on a milspec mast the NCs hadn't silenced once. After that she had scoured every message board time and again of the lies that enemy spambots were churning. Even Fighter and Hotspur's old enemies from Hollywood were deploying their naturally impressive control of the media.
Fighter is a metaracist. Hotspur went to Bunraku parties in LA. Redding's Defenders are another trog gang, anti-human, in the Tir's pay; bleeding recruits for every nyuyen before they die for the Agricorps in the Valley. Starting with the NC execution vids, Hailey's ESPs had kept burning them down. While Anya had exposed their enemies movements through every camera and dataport, never sleeping; two human assassin teams hadn't got within six blocks of Hotspur before she'd sent volunteers to take them out. Hailey had seemed just as tireless...but the poor girl was only meat.
"...I did, like, scrub real casualty figures off the Net, as well as lies. Just the drek that the Corps and bad guys do with dirty secrets. I wanted to show up the truth, when I got into decking! Still, the spin those bots were putting on facts would have hurt us. After all we've done, we've got to do anything it take...haven't we? Even Hotspur's giving out guns and orders, sending folk out to die...I still love that man, I'd totally rather die for him than live phoney. Are we still shadowrunners, omae? What are Runners, anyway?"
"Mercenaries who do the bad guys' dirty work, omae. Takes all kinds. Susan, Harry, and the Emperor, they're all 'lead the people to freedom' types. IMO, that's bulldrek– you can only grasp freedom with your own claws– but leaders seem to be fraggers most Runners need to survive. Chip truth; truth or freedom don't mean much if you're dead. Norton's Army, Redding's Defenders–I'm an anarchist, no part of any group, free and lonesome. Since the Agency fell, that's the only way I can live. As for you, I've said it before; if a wage job for Mitsuhama's rising star is too square for you, set up an extraction. Fake your death, if necessary."
"Hmm. Doing a runner on Kali could mean exile from San Francisco. That'd be a whole thing, you know…but maybe this mission in Redding was practise?"
"More than that, girl genius. You went into the Shadows because you were novahot, you wanted fun and fame. You've been fighting this whole month to keep fascist deckers off our comms, and you put the heart in Redding's fight–for the sake of our chummer, Hrafna, and that poor murdered girl, Lucia. Remember that, and you won't go wrong again."
Hayley's avatar bounced into Anya's lap. Hugging her round belly, nuzzling between her motherly, digital breasts.
"Thanks, chummer. You're so wiz! I scrubbed that stupid fake ad off the net, already, but I'll write another ESP to keep burning as the Tir repost–"
"And you're very cute, squishy." Hailey received a very firm and squishy hug, "You've been working your hoop off all this year. You could be dead in a week. I know you don't want to die alone. Why don't you take a break and find someone special?"
"I guess I wanted to do my absolute best, you know? It hasn't gone like I thought, or saved our chummers who died…but I'm absolutely, hyperlatively glad to have a chummer like you! They said trust is rare and precious in the Shadows, you know, but I guess I'm lucky…?"
"Yeah, chip truth, I've trusted and doubted the wrong fraggers before now , but not you, sunshine."
-0-
"Good evening, I'm Norman Finknottle and this is Truly Trideo. Here with me in the studio tonight, the beautiful orkish starlet, Kat Berg! Miss Berg, before we talk about the runaway success of Blackstone's third season; you must be glad that the recent tragic violence up north has scarcely touched us here in L.A.?"
"Well, Norman, I'd like to say that was because we have no dreadful racist murderers in L.A., but that would be bulldrek. We've got Iron Crosses and thousands of others who'd love to do in this city what those NC drekheads did to our people in Chico. The only reason that has not occurred is that orks, trolls, elves and dwarfs here in L.A. have come together. Armed and ready– that was all it took to send those Humanis cowards running."
"Um, isn't there a danger in arming metahuman militants–?"
"If you mean terrorists, say it, and I'll tell you self-defence is not terrorism. There's no reason it should make you afraid. The days of police protection for all are long gone. As a proud immigrant to this beautiful country, and a proud Californian, I can tell you that going armed to defend our families may no longer be our inalienable right…but it is our duty, in days like these."
"What about the exploitation of these desperate metas by terrorists and criminals? For instance, the shadowrunners who seem to have effectively taken over the city of Redding with a private army of metahumans? We've discovered that some of L.A'.s leading citizens have spoken informally with Governor Whitman, about the liquidation of Redding's Defenders by the National Guard."
"We will see about that. Yes, we will see about Redding. I'm sure you laughed at that Tir video hack, didn't you? But I remembered how they beat the NCs down across Calfree, when the National Guard were sitting in barracks. I remembered how they're giving the metas from Colma a safe home, right now, after the graveyards Saito had driven them to were firebombed by the Tir– and I'm not laughing. That's why I'm giving the Defenders of Redding fifty thousand nyuyen, for a start, to defend our country and my people. The parties calling Fighter and Hotspur fakes are those same parties who tell you that Calfree belongs to Tir- and that all orks are drekhead gang thugs, just as in the movies they make!"
-0-
"...the lady's got stones." On the vidscreen, Kali shook her rainbow-dyed head, "You know she armed the L.A. metas? As well as that slotting charity, she's in deep with the Sons of Sauron; Humanis for trogs. Still, the Hollywood mob are going to hurt her for helping you; she knew that. Thought you should.
Harry slouched back at the desk which had belonged to the Mayors of Redding, before they'd moved to a modern, smaller hall several blocks down. Despite the unbelievable opulence of real-wood furniture, from Redding's forests, the office had been nothing to Harry but a gilded prison. He'd met the National Guard officers, that the LA mob had bribed the Governor to send, on his feet outside. The Guard hadn't been deployed against the NCs (though a few units had fought regardless, without support) or to defend from the Tir, but against the only force defending Calfree, led by the hero of San Francisco. After a brief mock battle they'd sold off their surplus weapons and headed home. Some days made everything worth it.
"Kat Berg's support should net some more metahuman recruits–" Kali went on, "–but you've already expended far more resources on saving poor trogs from cheap thugs than on building any defences against the Tir. Looking like a trog gang will make the support of the Japanacorps, who actually have a snowball's chance of defeating Tir Taingire, much harder to obtain. I understand the Agricorps are winding up their contract with you, now the NCs are gutted. Also, that video hack was a colossal frag up."
"Next to the regular frag ups, that regularly get my chummers killed? A blow to my pride is nothing."
"Hotspur, I didn't allow Ilsa to bring you onside for your notable leadership or military experience, since you don't have any," Kali's eyes were tired and baggy, but still suggestive of a burning tiger, "Ditto, a record of loyalty, unbroken success, or corporate contacts. All that you and Fighter bring to this task of raising a militia is your popular reputation in Calfree as San Francisco's saviours. That reputation is all that's keeping you in your charmingly secured, guarded and warded little fortress, with the Ghosts and numerous others seeking your life. It's frankly all that's inducing my Mitsuhama contacts to keep persuading Saito to delay your assassination."
Harry knew it. His insides were churning like marsh gas. But it wasn't for his own life, or even just Susan's. It was for Norton, Tomas, Hrafna, Selene; Hailey, Lucia's parents, Kirsty Wendell, Zachery, Ryan and all of the others. Fighters and workers, all leaning on each other; everything he'd led them to could go down like a house of cards.
He'd felt it for a month. Decisions of life and death were accustomed weight, but the victories were deceitful, the frag-ups were dagger-sharp, and the fear was Hong Kong times ten. Then he'd met with the Mayor, community leaders, half the community– for frag's sake, he'd done paperwork. He'd made speeches, that they could beat any foe if they faced down fear. He'd sat with volunteers who'd watched IEDs blow their childhood friends to scraps. One of them had tried to punch him. But his battle now was putting heart into everybody, from the cooks and the drivers to the soldiers on either side. So each of his chummers without fail had all they needed to come back alive. He was a shadowrunner, they were all his chummers; there hadn't been so many dead yet that hadn't felt for them all. He could still believe it would work this time, it had to work, all they'd done... he wouldn't be the story of a drekhead. The ones who lived for Redding wouldn't die.
He'd watched his wounded chummers come back from the battlefield where his wife had been struck down, alone without him. The only spots of hope were that it wasn't Susan sitting here, in this agony over him, and she was going to be fine.
Goldfinch, the elf who'd come straight back with her from Colma, had been a top Docwagon healer before Saito's purge of San Francisco. With Hrafna's components and Norton's raw power, Susan's strength would be hers again. And then a hellscape of paperwork would not keep her from his arms, his hands and his lips.
"I remember telling you; I'm doing this to keep the Megas out of Redding, and the Marines out of Calfree."
"Is that really still the case? Now you know Redding's people, and you've seen them torn apart by the NCs? Now you're leading hundreds of fighters, that the Tir Peace Force is going to chew up with their families, as matters stand? We agree that Imperial Marines on Tir's border would blow everything to drek, but I've been working my hoop off to get official corporate backing, with the Marines excluded. And I'm going to keep pushing, regardless of your wishes; the fate of Redding hangs on the four Japanacorp conference in San Francisco, in three weeks. Redding's Defenders and Norton's Army, the plucky local militias–your job is mostly to create the image of a fervent local defence, until a real army turns up. Isn't that good news? Susan could get out her SeerauberJenny costume and give Redding an inspirational concert. A lucrative legend for the histories, while the real war begins and ends in the Shadows."
"Is that so? We're hiring Calfree mercs with the Agricorps' final payment, Kali. They'll train our fighters, Susan will train them, and our people might show the Tir even more fight than the fragging legendary show they gave the NCs. Especially the trogs." Harry rose from his desk, tight lipped, "Much as I've love to keep gabbing, my wife should soon be waking up from having a Toxic Spirit extracted…"
"Ah so, desu ka. Hmm, if the concert is a no go for extra nyuyen, why not leak your sex tapes? Nothing to be ashamed of, in the twenty-first century; giving your fans something Olympic would keep up your street cred as well as your funds."
"…Kali. Do you go to bed every night hugging a credstick? Did you ever have time to feel, or love?"
"I feel. Especially strongly about the especially human matters of money, power and making my mark on a history that doesn't involve the Pan-American war of 2053, or the lonely, bankrupt death of Kali. As for love, I've had to make sacrifices–but even you'll need to make sacrifices before the end of this, Hotspur."
-0-
After all she'd seen, Susan was still amazed by the changes at City Hall. In the last week, a bustling camp of guns and metahumans seemed to have burst out, with laughing, swearing and a continuous rattle from the basement shooting ranges. Some recruits had headed home for good after the vid hack, but only some, and not Kirsten Wendell. Norton had summed up the mood with astonishing brevity; Tir Taingire would have to do better than that. The notion that Tir did not think them worth any more trouble that that had fortuitously not spread. It mattered more that the boys and girls who'd bled for Redding knew what Fighter had done with their efforts, and they surrounded her return with grins and cheers.
Casper, the mad dwarf shaman-sniper, was being happily rolled round the room by Bummer and Lazarus. It was rumoured that he'd slot and run on both the British army and Britain, after shooting his sergeant for mistreating a dog. Archangel and his elf lady–Gabriella, appropriately enough–had already vanished to their hotel room. Hrafna had gone down with another panic attack, the last time she'd braved the main hall crowd, but she was feeding Pup in a quiet side office, ready to merchant when needed.
Tomas had just jogged in with a big group of humans and orks, from a forest training exercise. It warmed Susan's chest to see that Harry hadn't been wearing through the carpet during her magical surgery. Before taking Tomas' verbal report with due attention, Harry had checked how one guy's recent cyberleg was breaking in and sent a second guy with old shrapnel wounds back to the Ripperdoc. He'd asked four recruits if their sick parents were any better, or about the boosts their love lives had gotten from soldierly employment. He shouted cheerfully at one faraway ork that he should either ask the girl out or get his head in the game.
"It just seemed natural," He told Susan, between kisses, after they'd slipped away to the office, "Remembering little things about everyone–" He stroked a channel on her neck that emptied her lungs and set her thighs shaking, "–could be live and death, in Redmond. Valuing the chummers who keep you alive, heart and soul…that's the only way I know to Run the Shadows, angel. Only way to live."
"I suppose…mmm…we've both got a lot of chummers to thank that I ever came back to you, stud. That we're alive, here and now…it's their strength in my arms and Ki in my body…ah! In a way. Harry, Harry, for all the people we've got to save, I need to do everything with the strength of a hundred! I mean, everything, stud…"
Harry couldn't have flung the 'paperwork' off his desk without breaking a desktop and two cheap tablets, but he removed them to safety with preternatural speed. They had a hotel room, but he had twenty minutes before his next meeting and he needed this. He wasn't some helpless wageslave, he was Hotspur. The recruits knew it and they loved it; Susan knew him, and she loved him. If he could burn up all the paperwork, the death and endless fear, in twenty novahot minutes of love...but he could not just pounce on Susan and bend her over his desk, would not use her like that. He would let her make the move.
Susan took the chance to get the desk between them as she pulled the blinds. Then she rested her tush on the edge of the desk, then her left boot. She threw a smile over one shoulder that was simply full of love.
"Shadowrunners with an office! I know how you must've suffered, Harry. You're going to save this city, you're going to take me on this desk so many times, but first–" As Harry rushed to her, Susan caught his arms and pushed him down to his knees.
Both her boots hit the wall, shortly followed by her pants. Susan had to roll up her shirt and bite down on it, as she leant back, or else they'd have heard her in Portland. Her ponytail hung over the desk, shaking gently and unstoppably as her curling toes. Harry gripped her thighs from beneath, and knelt for his warrior-princess and wife, until she stretched out a hand for him to join her above…
-0-
Sarah, Ilsa and Paladin had remained in what was left of Colma, to protect and heal the metas, until trucks and lorries could be run down from Redding. Sarah was sleeping under the stars with Norton's Army, as they all were accustomed to. Ilsa, more intolerant of discomfort, had claimed the unburnt half of a disused chapel of rest. David 'Paladin' Steiner, tearing off his combat helmet as he took the chair beside hers, had told her he was going to bunk down outside. After she'd convinced him that leaving her alone was safe.
"Really? I've survived two years without you, David. Taking one's own life is a great deal harder than you'd imagine–"
"You're harming yourself with words right now, Ilsa. You've been scarring your soul for two years. I should never have left you alone–"
"I left you, David. Don't you see that? In Berlin in came to care about your happiness, and that is why I am telling you again to leave me."
"I cannot leave you. I will not forget you."
"Dummkopf! I was never your princess in distress. I am a criminal mass-murderer, deserving of death."
"An honourable murderer? Do you think giving your life up like Rommel–or Judas–will redeem anything? You abandon law, faith and hope; you drown in shame without a trace of humility. You gorge yourself on hellfire, and cling to this satanic honour; your last defence from facing what was done to you, Ilsa…"
"What Gruber did to me derailed my life. Mein Vater the colonel, his iron discipline and unthinking rules–may have done more harm than good, if you truly wish to get Freudian. As surely as I am Ilsa Tresckow, however, I made my own choices and did what I did to myself!"
"What you did to yourself was done to you Ilsa. By an outcast, fragile, mortal girl, lost in the Shadows and in fear for her life! You are a brilliant woman, of miraculous capabilities and the pride of a lioness, but you are only a woman, facing what none of God's children should face alone. You have made mistakes as well as choices, and suffered enough to break my heart. If you have done so much wrong to save your brother, your friend and me, don't you need love, and deserve it? If you have made mistakes, don't you need forgiveness, won't you take it?"
"MISTAKES?" Ilsa smacked David's face, so overcome by rage that the blow was weak, "Then is my life nothing but my weakness, and the cruelty or kindness of MEN? I bound and gave to Lofwyr this fire spirit, that has brought terror and killed innocents at his will! I betrayed and abandoned one who loved me! I held a gun…to a dying man's head, in his lover's sight! DO YOU WISH FOR ME TO CONTINUE?"
"Yes. Yes, Ilsa." David's hand slipped into hers and clenched, "Tell me all you can tell, mein schatz."
"I…turned a dial. With the Agency, I tortured, I…fear I have led everyone I love to their deaths…!"
Ilsa knew what the idea was; the venerable Catholic 'bless-me-father-for-I-have-sinned' business. She could have reminded David, however, if she had cared to, that there were several good reasons priests heard confession behind protective screens. Inexorability, as she wept harder, he gently held slim shoulders in strong hands. Of course, as her lips surged up, his kiss was rich and ravenous. He tasted of ashes, powder and glorious humanity. His muscles all around her were her armour and her drug. Ah, scheisse. Humans really did make mistakes as well as calculated choices.
Their second time was a lot slower; they had time to appreciate just how savage their passion was. It was David's second time altogether; Ilsa groaned and whacked his chest. As the witch and her knight filled each other with a particular bliss, that had never moved in the world before.
Ilsa could hardly hold back a sensitisation cantrip that would have transported both their pleasures to a whole new plane– but she did not want to even suggest she had bewitched her knight. She wanted her lover to want her, of his own will, more than anything in Earth or Heaven– as, at this moment, she desired him.
She was a witch, she was a demon. She was doing something terrible, again, with no future, that her love would damn himself for tomorrow when he should have hated her. But this was the path she was on, and she could not stop.
-0-
Desorn usually finished his day as refreshingly as he began it. A short sharp workout, an hour of meditation, and a perhaps a brief flute practise in the dusk. There had been a particular need to calm his mind tonight, after hours of scrutinising intelligence reports for the path to a coup de main. And after Sergeant Alys Morgan had finally told him what he'd already known.
"Sir. Thank you, for defending me this morning. It was truly…I've always thought of you as a truly noble elf."
"Thank you, Morgan. It was no more than the due of our bond, as Ghosts of Tir Tairngire."
"Sir, isn't that bond's ultimate purpose that we complete our mission, whatever the cost? In the Armoury fight, you could have destroyed all our enemies and San Francisco itself, ending Saito's threat to the homeland…if you had not chosen to save my life."
That choice had haunted even Desorn's blue-steeled mind. Looking on Alys' tormented, worshipping face, the matter was infinitely more painful, but no clearer.
"Everyone knows that the rules don't apply, for the Ghosts." Alys rushed on, rose-cheeked, "They didn't apply to Greenwood, when she was sleeping with Lankin, and they didn't apply to Lankin when he would…force his attentions on me. It was a test, wasn't it? You wanted me to get up the nerve to complain? I should have done, but who would've believed he wanted me? I'm…so téch ugly! No, we do not fight for ourselves, we fight for others. Peace for every elf in the world, our vereb'he! I've given my life for our Land of the Promise…even as you have, sir. When you saved me, I thought…Desorn, I always lo…"
Desorn sighed; Morgan's lips froze in mid-word. He reached out with perfect elvish grace and touched her short black hair. His eyes moved over her slim, flat body. The light freckles across a face that might have been beautiful, if Alys Morgan ever smiled.
"You are not ugly, Alys. If it is your wish to leave the Ghosts, I am sure you will find romantic love. All that I can do for you is to swear by the Ghost Circle and the Black Banner, I will protect, love and honour you as my precious comrade. I have failed to protect you before–for this, I beg your forgiveness. Yet you are a Ghost, serving our nation in a land of darkness. Yours is the soul of a lone elm tree, wisdom and inner strength–you are the strongest woman I have ever known. Isn't the bond between warriors something more than love?"
"I…suppose it is."
His answer had taken a moment to give, but he could not settle it in his mind, even hours later. He knew Tir would always mean more to him than any woman or man, but did he simply not love poor Alys Morgan, or could he not love at all? He had never given more thought to his own sexuality than occasional pangs of doubt that fought his duty. Neither of them were subjects worth considering.
Could he ever be a better leader to Ghost Squad Three than Aeirion, his late lamented commander? If he left the 'heroes' of the Armoury alive another hour, was that an insult to his sworn comrades' memory? If he remained, and plunged all the scum, hatred, madness and songs of San Francisco into chaos–would that be entirely without regret?
Meditation brought him back through the storms of ambiguities, to the redwood glades of peace. The magnificent whispering branches that drew their strength from a single tower…when he opened his eyes, he had his answer.
"Are we going to kill Saito now?" Was Greenwood's immediate response, "Pleease, let me whack that morkhan!"
"For once, our hopes agree," In the morning, Alys Morgan looked bland and officious as ever, "Some reports from his metahuman processing centres outside the City have been deeply disturbing."
"Saito's over-aggression is the most destabilising influence in the Baysprawl," Desorn calmly maintained, "His assassination would result in nothing but his replacement, very likely by a more competent enemy of Tir. No, it is the Japanacorps presence, funding and diplomacy that causes the occupation to be maintained. It is Kali who has been instrumental to them in sinking their roots into the Baysprawl. It is Kali and Ilsa Tresckow, Susan Lei and Harry Fawkes, who oppose the invasion of Calfree. With a little assistance from our comrade Knightmare, the operation I have in mind will put them all down together like ninepins. We are commanded by our Princes–but our mission, in the Council of Princes' name, is to destabilise San Francisco by any and every means. We will bring the light of Tir to Calfree with our own hands, alone. We are the Ghosts of Tir and this is our work."
Greenwood's lips drew back from her teeth. Morgan gazed on Desorm with rapt satisfaction. Desorn turned to a holodesk, and summoned floorplans of the former Aztechnology Pyramid.
-0-
Hailey had chosen not to tell Anya about Whiteknight, the very charming elf decker she'd first Matrix-dated two weeks ago. That had been when she finally knew she'd boo-booed. She'd absolutely fragged up.
But only dumb racists thought every elf was a Tir spy! Why not conceal his metatype with another avatar? Susan, Anya, even Ilsa, had wonderful men; she had fought back NC deckers in silent struggle until she shook and bled. And fearfully needed someone who loved her, to hold.
She wasn't an idiot. She'd hadn't shown him round City Hall's secure systems–Anya would've spotted that. She'd never even spoken a word about her work (In spite of subtle probes, that she only noticed now…?). Frag it, she'd never even connected the cheap deck she used for their dates to City Hall's systems, that was standard OP…but she couldn't tell Anya anything, because she was an idiot, she'd fragged up. The first guy she'd ever had cybersex on the first date with was probably, meaning definitely, a Tir spy.
Of course–except for Anya–virtual sex wasn't real sex. But the feelings that made her weep and weep were real. The feelings his slow smile had poured though her, when she'd finally seen it, and the careful strength that had told her this was the one…fraggity fragging frag, how did elf guys do that to her? Her, and all the other novahot decker girls he must have brought down...if this got back to Kali, her career as a Runner was all but finished.
She didn't know. Maybe the Shadows had made her paranoid and insane. She needed to know. The only way to turn this about, if he didn't know she suspected him, was getting precious Tir intelligence from him, instead of vice versa. In fact, that would be worth giving up most of all there was to know about Redding's Defenders; if they knew what Tir knew, and Tir didn't…
So, Hailey jacked into the public grid with her burner deck. Her avatar appeared in a virtual discotheque, built from tiny points of light. No cartoon animals, only her own bare body. She brightly smiled and waved at her date's flawlessly handsome avatar. Went to him through the crowd.
Any minute, Whiteknight would pour out how the Tir had abducted his little sister (He had mentioned a sister…) and would be killed unless she went against Redding. Or he would say that Kali would hear she'd slept with a Tir Taingire agent, and have her killed the minute she heard, unless she went over body and soul to the side that won.
She was a shadowrunner. What would she say? And what would she do?