"No Californian gentleman or lady ever abuses a Chinaman. Only the scum of the population do it –they and their children; they, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America."

–Mark Twain, Roughing It

"…Joshua Abraham Norton. A failed San Francisco rice merchant, in the mid-1800s. A Jewish Brit from South Africa, I believe, so as San Franciscan as anybody. And, of course, he got the idea one morning that he was Emperor of the old United States. He published decrees commanding everything from the abolition of Congress, through the institution of a United Nations, to a bridge across the bay. The City regarded him as the harmless crank he certainly was, but with affection and even respect–something like a sacred clown. Imagine how our Japanese friends would deal with poor Norton, were he alive today!"

They had fled the pyramid. Anya had blocked more armoured shutters, cracked open a fire escape and brought their van speeding round–they would have been trapped or turreted minutes into the Run without her. Orion had said simply that he was proud, then watched his PDA screen fill with hug icons.

The ork Adept was driving, not so fast as to get them stopped–his nerves of leather were the only ones unshattered. Ilsa had called Henry Chambers, her historian boyfriend, which showed just how shaken she was.

Dropping down harder from the Run than she could imagine her girlfriends did from novacoke–exhausted, damp and sticky–Hailey still thought it was totes wiz they had both a historian on speed-dial, and a cute decker who knew all the rumours about Norton's Army. She didn't say so, however. She glanced at Harry, who hadn't lifting his head or made a sound yet.

"Dear Ilsa, you know I can go on about history," Chambers was saying, over the comm, "But I…is it over? That, ah, shadowrun? My girl, are you safe?"

"Not yet, Liebling. But I will stay safe–"

Then Harry batted the PDA out of Ilsa's hand.

"Adepts can't be mind-controlled. She couldn't be, she couldn't!"

Ilsa cursed Harry and scrabbled for the PDA. She assured her panicking lover she hadn't been cut off by a bullet, before ending the call.

"I told you, dummkopf! Be afraid of wizards!" Her own frustration glared into Harry's desperate eyes, "Susan has broken Blood Magic control before. However, if her will and even her self-image were to be shaken–as they were–and a spell worked subtly over weeks–as it must have been–"

"NO! FRAGGING NO!"

Hotspur, the unstoppable Runner, hit his own forehead with his hands and screamed. They had outrun death with no time for fear; now they were trapped, and Hailey was terrified.

"No, no, no! Susan! I couldn't, I'm sorry…the fragging TROG!"

Orion screeched the van into the curb. He seized both Harry's hands until he stopped struggling. Hailey and Ilsa stayed frozen to their seats.

It had been a troll gang thug, in a Redmond truck park's darkness, not the troll that held her now, that had crushed Susan's beaten body under two years of struggle and shame. But that meant nothing–Ilsa, Anya and Hailey knew. Seizing a woman's strength and will with magic was already a kind of rape. Orion knew exactly what Harry was looking at, and he could barely hold him or speak.

Harry had risen to his knees, with a bullet in his gut. He'd emptied his gun at the monster above woman he loved, and it had not gone down. He hadn't saved her. For two years he had never saved her. And now in this city of madness–his eyes were hollow without end, his arms were limp–the undying nightmare had broken through.

-0-

2052, San Francisco, two months ago (Susan 'Fighter' Lei)

Freedom, finally, had felt more unsettling for Susan than anything. Even before the rigorous, deadly demands of her time with the Agency–and the battle to end it–Harry's shadowrunning dreams and her father's Kung Fu had been the bloodstained rails directing her path. Now she had struck out in San Francisco on her own fresh way. Which meant that if bawling songs and dancing about in expensive clothes was not the best she could do with her strength, it was on her.

"A singer? Isn't that quite a change?" Dear Ilsa had certainly looked dubious, but she'd been smiling.

"Yeah, like Maria Mercurial! You know she was a Runner, once? Whoo weeeps for the childreeen…? Freedom, justice and rocking tunes!"

"Can you sing?"

"…I think they have Autotune? Pop idols don't have to sing, Wiz–" She had stared down from the plane, at the lights of Frankfurt, grinning unstoppably, "–all you really need is to feel."

Kali, once persuaded, did indeed have Autotune–though Kali's songwriters, Brecht excluded, churned out more trashy glitch-pop for her than meaningful megahits. SeeräuberJenny had to make herself into a protest song; by instinct, she knew that performance was communication.

SeeräuberJenny stood above howling crowds and trampled on fear. For the shivering, cheering young girls she was confidence unashamed; assailed, but unbroken. For the guys, she was a pure, dizzying angel in ripped jeans, urging them to be better men for her–though for the ones who stared at her breasts all night, she had only defiance.

It was skin-crawling scary, like dancing between bullets in the floodlights, and she soon loved the rush like battle. Kali had been right; she had the volume, the moves, the cred–and all you needed was a heart for the crowd. SeeräuberJenny, the pirate queen. Calling them to raise a black flag, make war on the stifling world. And if there were worse things than her young fans dreamt of, every hour in every city…with time, surely, she could change something?

She had sent some money to Mrs Fawkes (Buddha reward her), and the shelter in Redmond. But apparently singing idols needed to buy clothes and go to flashy restaurants at their own expense, 'to keep up their profile'. She had at least been firm with Kali that the next photographer sent to coax her, Susan, into a nude shoot would also lose his teeth.

Like the infamous noise you notice four months after it stops–sat in a quiet Chinese restaurant, in a white cheongsam, as her waiter bowed and scraped–she realised she was an ex-shadowrunner. Killers still wanted to kill her. The MPA with their threats, all the gangs, Megas and people she'd ever hurt. That never changed, but she could forget it. Bury the fear under soft lights and designer perfume. She couldn't–no, she didn't have to fight. Susan's bare arms shivered. She ate her Beijing Duck like the sweetest thing she'd had.

She'd been actually a little envious of the good work Ilsa had found in Oakland, but unrestrainedly thrilled for her. Though things had been a bit frosty with her friend, since she'd frankly told her she could do better than Dr Chambers. Maybe the dwarf-human thing was too weird…maybe she really was envious. Nothing in her assumed, drifting celebrity life could have made her complete–nothing under the stagelights, or the shadows–until her man was finally with her. Harry, where he belonged.

She could have dated the minor simsense stars or singers Kali proposed, but she hadn't. The Shadows had taught her Never Give Up, if nothing else. And when the nightmare racked her again (There were the bullets, monowire, the thousand deaths that had stroked or battered her. But always her first Shadowrun, the Halloweeners who had thrown her down and should have raped her because she was beaten and helpless, always...) it was Harry who stood up to save her.

Sweating over her sheets, pinned down, weeping for her helpless flesh, she always whispered for him. Save me, love me, forget all the fragging drek and come now. She'd let her miraculous life slide into oblivion, unless her hero got the happy end of his dreams that could not have died.

Finally, she told some of this–that she was waiting for her boy, that she would keep waiting–to a cheerful greenhorn Runner called Hailey who she'd met around Club Eclipse. Hailey had thought her tale was epically cool;

"…and it's like, a total kwinkydink! My friend Tarne has sort of been missing for months." The PDA photo showed a solemn elf with dark hair, traditionally long, "He's, like, kind of a dreamer as well, you know? He always talked about getting metahumans together and fighting back. He wouldn't tell me much…but I thought when I was a novahot shadowrunner, he wouldn't be so protective!"

"Boyfriend?" Susan smiled, as Hailey blushed and wiggled down to her toes, "Or not yet?"

"Not yet…but I just really want to know that he's not in prison or a landfill, for being a meta."

By the time Hailey went on her innocent way, Susan had copied the photo of Tarne to her comm and learnt about the march planned in the Mission District. A group bizarrely named Norton's Army, which Tarne had possibly worked with, were possibly involved. If Hailey's Matrix searching hadn't tracked down her not-yet-boyfriend, she needed a Runner on the ground.

What was freedom, if you couldn't do something different and good? Her tour of America's oldest Chinatown had been spirit-reviving. Even if she couldn't find Hailey's pretty-boy, she could see the oldest part of the city, and possibly show her support for afflicted metahumans?

-0-

It was largely a blur, from when she stepped between the soldiers and the march. Her unyielding harangue to the marines; SeeräuberJenny's swansong against a massacre. With barely time to accept that she was facing guns again, facing death–it came down sudden as a baseball bat on her spine. She scented hope as the soldiers wavered, then turned to the ork who shoved her down in the street.

Over half the marchers were women; the ones without banners simply shook their fists. Even children were running and shouting in the crowd. People who'd come freely to face soldiers with guns, because they wanted to live safe and free. Susan knew metahumans were human; people of every kind. She'd learnt, she'd overcome so many hells before, her mind was strong…!

Then the grit cut her arms. The trogs were black against the sun, above her, all their pounding feet in her face. That trog was grinning, laughing, she was helpless–NO. She was not weak! She was a shadowrunner! She would never stop fighting, she would not be crushed! Harry would find her, strong and pure as him…they'd run the Shadows, together…if she killed the orks.

She could have stopped herself; her will was battle-forged. But it smashed into her free and easy life from nowhere…she just fragging didn't. She killed the orks. Until she saw the children fall down limp; felt bullets hammered the screaming bodies all round her. She leapt clear, saw the black-armoured marine, kicked up her gun barrel at her face. Lunged and punched to burst her midriff, like any other thug with a gun.

She was a Runner, she was Fighter…she was staring and sweating, as the marines fell back. One bullet nailed her arm. She swayed aside from another burst, then kicked and punched until the enemy were dead. The officer had been downed already with a thrown brick; one of the few armed marchers shot down the last marine, to cheers.

Another snarling ork thrust a handgun at Fighter; she had to break his arm. That ork went down in the crowd, as the rumble of Komatsu APCs drowned the clamour and the rout truly broke.

Susan ran with the mob. She was battered, almost crushed, but it was the faces–men, women and falling children–that broke her with horror. In the storm drain where she crawled and hid from the company of marines that swept in, and never stopped shooting, she curled up around her knees.

What had she done? What had she been doing? What would she do? She was a murderer, weak and stupid. She'd be hunted. For her life, for her soul, she couldn't go back. She had to do something different. Be something completely different, again–wasn't that freedom? Wasn't willing death and rebirth the warrior's path of her father? There was Harry…but she couldn't face him now, or Ilsa.

There'd been a terrified dwarf crammed in the storm drain with her. When the pounding boots had moved on, she'd asked if he knew anything of the orks she'd killed. Names? Families? Resistance groups? The dwarf shook, when she mentioned Norton's Army.

"Please. Tell me where. I'm not your enemy, I killed those marines…I mean…they'll kill me if I'm an enemy, won't they? That's all I want."

"…the Emperor is in the town of Colma. Woodlawn." The dwarf's smile was sickly as the clinging stench, "A crazy like you should love the place."

-0-

Travelling by night, hitching or on foot, Susan hiked down the peninsular to the town of Colma. She heard few IJM rotorcraft in the sky–Saito's men must have assumed an ex-shadowrunner would go to ground in the city. She spent more time hiding in dusty ditches from every metahuman farmhand on the roads.

Her PDA had been broken, which saved the trouble. She'd stolen some proper shoes, a medkit and a large blanket on her way, leaving her credstick in return. Her heels and modest-but-eyecatching top had been shredded; the blanket covered her body. Also, it would disguise her from Governor Moonbeam and the other spy satellites. Even after the medkit, her wound looked angry–but her head was too light, and her broken will was too strong, to stop and think. She was going to Colma.

The City of the Silent. Susan trudged past darkened lawns and lines of trees, withered by the emissions of distant Corp factories. She made out the odd huddle of houses through the gloom, but ahead there were rank upon rank of black tombstones. Then a high arch announced the entrance to Woodlawns Cemetery.

Millions of San Francisco's dead–Susan learnt later–had poured into the town of Colma for burial, for a hundred years. The walls were rotten with moss; faceless stone angels loomed. Susan could feel that she was watched–but in the silence, she only heard the dead.

She heard the screams of the marchers, shot around her–the desperate cries of the ones she had killed. Then eternal silence, of all the foes she'd killed and the chummers she'd never save. Whatever Emperor ruled in Colma, this was her path of death and her place. It sang to her weary heart.

The gates howled apart through rust. Between tombs like endless prison bars, white faces peered and vanished. Fear of ghosts, since the Awakening, was only plain sense. Susan felt the whispers through the astral; it was no surprise when figures stepped out ahead of her. Three orks, a troll, with shotguns or hunting rifles. More of them, still hidden. And a shaman, with piercings that covered his bare chest and face.

"The dead told us you came. The stars told us you would come." The ork's eyes rolled savagely, "Signs in the sky! Norton lives!"

"Norton lives." A few orks mumbled. Most stayed silent, pinched and grim as starving ghouls–but only looking on Susan with wariness.

"My name is Fighter," She raised both hands. Her voice was tired but unafraid, "I was at the march in the Mission District. I killed your people. I'm sorry. I was…I'm just sorry. If their families are here, I want to meet them. I swear on my father's honour, I'm not going to hurt you any more."

"No hurting here. No killing here, with the dead. No humans, to hurt us and kill!"

Now Susan was afraid. More metahumans were gathering from among the graves; a staring, whispering army. She had come to them, as she had to; she couldn't fight. Now they surrounded her, in the darkness. They could do anything with her they wanted.

It was howling terror not to fight and kill, again and again…but she would lose her will, her self. She'd killed innocents, couldn't go back. She was too trembling weak to run, after all she'd done and suffered…but if she was not a hate-crazed trog killer, this was where she had to stand.

"She's an enemy–!"

"A human–?"

"…at march. She kill the drekhead marines!"

"Bring her to Norton! Norton lives!"

"There is no need to trouble his Majesty's serenity with this sordid case," The harsh voice of a troll, "It is with silence and secrecy that our home is defended–from the hate and lies of humanity, so-called."

Susan gazed through the uproar at the block of stone on which the dark-bearded, carefully spoken troll had rested his claw. She read the carved letters in the moonlight.

Norton I. Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Joshua A. Norton. 1819-1880.

It took an Adept's control for Susan to fight down her terror. She was frozen water; still. Silent, as she was questioned and prodded. Until a shriek came through the throng; she killed my son! Susan instantly threw down her forehead in the grave-dirt at the ork woman's feet.

"I'm sorry…!"

"You think that can help my boy, now? You fragging slant-eyed squishy! We went back to the City, for that fragging march, because he thought we could be with humans in peace! And I thought maybe my son wouldn't have to hide for his life in a graveyard–but then you fragging Kung Fu-ed him, broke his neck!"

"I'm sorry. I was wrong…"

The wall of orks glaring down at her grovelling submission–her back, her backside, her neck–was torture for Susan. But the worse weight was what she done. Her life. She had chosen to kill, for money, and then for nothing, rather than feel so weak and afraid. Now the ork mother was drawing back a kick, at her face. She prayed it would end soon, and with death–

"OUR FATHER! WHO art in HEAVEN! Forgive us our SINS! AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO SIN AGAINST US!"

The crowd was silent. Susan looked up. Strutting from the shadows, arm upraised, was a human. A bearded old man, wild-eyed but unashamedly upright. More like a mystic than any king since the day of Caractacus the Briton. The Emperor Norton II was shabbily resplendent in an old UCAS Army blue dress uniform. Two hulking black dogs loped out beside him. They stared at Susan but did not growl.

The bearded troll quickly muttered in Norton's ear, with a vizier's manner, as the Emperor rested his other hand on the royal headstone. Without paying the least attention, the Emperor Norton addressed his people.

"My loved, loyal and suffering subjects! Sisters and brothers, in historic destiny! Let vengeance be stilled, for half of a quarter of a minute, at this moment of fate!"

A number of shamans screamed for silence. The metas were American subjects, so they didn't kneel, but they listened.

"Two hundred years ago, peoples from every nation on Earth came to this bright and storied land. They built up free California, together, on gold, silver and steel. Even then, they came in quest of hope and security–those rights that the humblest soul of our sore-afflicted nation cannot be denied–from as far afield as CHINA! And yet those industrious immigrants were mocked, exhorted and pursued with hatred, in those days! How senseless, to persecute their brothers for nothing but appearance!" Bitter, gravelly laughter, "How senseless, when they came offering no violence, in earnest and humble trust!" No laughter. Muttering, "Has affliction driven pity from our hearts? Must the cycle of revenge consume us all? For these times, the gods have appointed certain men to be kings! To show a brighter way, and to stand in the gap!"

With eyes brighter than all the gold, neon and madness in California, Norton stood in front of Susan. The ork mother snarled, but stepped back, as the huge dogs moved beside him. The Emperor spread his arms.

"Two hundred years ago, our royal forefather reigned in San Francisco. It was his deepest wish, as it has always been our own, that our subjects of every metatype, race or degree should live one and all in safety, dignity and peace! Undivided by factions and policlubs, undisturbed by fear! When San Franciscan, human mobs, in hatred and rage, purposed to burn down Chinatown–our honoured forefather stood unarmed and alone, between the people and their victims! His only shield that day were these words, and I say them again–and again, though you tear apart your king! Our Father, who art in Heaven, forgive us our SINS! AS WE FORGIVE–!"

"–THOSE WHO SIN AGAINST US!"

"Hail Norton!"

"Norton lives!"

"Signs in the sky!"

"Down with Saito!"

Confused as the roar was, it was for Norton, and loud enough to empty the graves. Susan saw the old man almost weeping, as he stood in his crazy, beautiful destiny.

The troll advisor was dark browed and silent. The ork mother was completely unpersuaded, but with Norton's further urging backed by the crowd, and Susan refusing to get up until she had forgiveness, she eventually and insincerely received it. Along with a full and fervent royal pardon, a heavy face lick from the dogs, who Norton grandly introduced as Bummer and Lazarus–and some much-needed healing magic for the infected wound in her arm. Though she had fallen into an exhausted slumber well before that.

-0-

Over almost the next two months, Susan got to know the sizable metahuman community that had fled occupied San Francisco for the shunned Colma necropolis. Squatting in mausoleums, taming spirits as look-outs, pitching their tents among the graves. Norton's Army went armed, but their only visible resistance was to preserve their own lives and dream of better, which certainly wasn't the worst kind.

There were many shamans, or very American wingnuts, who would probably have been living in a tent and babbling about signs under any kind of society. There were even wannabe-metas with implanted tusks or ears, viciously detested by all. But the peculiar leadership of Norton II, Emperor of the United Canadian and American states, Protector of Aztlan, ensured that reasonable peace reigned in Colma.

Susan believed that Norton's Army had found Norton–musing over the first Norton's grave, perhaps–rather than that he'd gathered the army. His past life and real link to his 'royal forefather' were a total mystery. Susan thought that almost all his 'people' knew his claims were insane, but still believed. Norton believed, with everything that was left of his mind, and that was all his band of lost and battered metahumans wanted.

Even human spouses and children of metas were welcomed; it was unlike any place that Susan had imagined. She realised that on her second day, when she heard the cry go up that Humanis militia from the countryside had raided an outlying camp. Four orks had been killed; the human wife and daughter of one of them had been taken. There was going to be a pursuit.

Susan hadn't at all recovered, but she knew what she had to do now. She staggered up from her bedroll and jumped onto a flatbed beside the orks and trolls with shotguns. Norton's troll advisor–Shavarus–led the party. Susan quickly learned that the security and running of Norton's Army entirely proceeded from the troll with the black, plaited beard and devastating magic.

They rescued both the women, though their eyes brought Susan nothing but sorrow for them, and rage. They killed enough Humanis thugs that they wouldn't be soon attacked again. Norton personally commended each fighter, handing out flowers borrowed from graves in lieu of medals, which Susan could barely stand. What was being done for the women, or the others the dead had left? But it had rall remind her that killing people could be a worthwhile profession. And some orks and trolls already looked on her with the trust of fellow fighters.

That evening, she endured Norton interviewing her at length about the state of San Francisco, problems of Seattle's Chinese community, and the general trials of young people in the inner metroplexes. He did seem genuinely concerned, even aggrieved, as he stated that something would have to be done.

"Yes, but what? I mean, your Majesty…I'm so grateful you forgave what I did. But I need to help your people, somehow, or 'sorry' is just a word."

"Words have power, in a world of magic, dear lady," Norton magnanimously passed over her brusqueness, "The word 'Emperor' is the twin font both of these vexing troubles of state, and the dignity which enable me to bear them. We all have our troubles, dear Fighter, and some of us must search for our vocations."

It was a lot of kindly spoken hot air, but something made Susan consider it. She looked up.

"…your Majesty…what do you think of self-defence? I mean, could I…?"

-0-

Kung Fu classes in Colma gently took off like a dream. The first evening, Susan waited on the lawn between two graveyards until a young troll girl lumbered up, and said she wanted to learn how to defend herself. Susan stared up past two feet at the troll's curved horns, but she guided her one-on-one through the basic stances and blows. Correcting her posture, she told her not to hunch her shoulders like she was afraid.

Her name was Sarah. After a few evening talks, she told Susan why she wanted to learn self-defence; what three drunken marines with guns had done to her a year ago, when she'd been fifteen. Susan spent the whole night holding Sarah, sometimes weeping into her massive bosom and shoulders. She swore she would do anything to protect the troll girl that she could.

"No good." Sarah sobbed, "No good for me to learn to fight. I'm a fragging troll, but I couldn't fight them! How could I ever fight like you, and kill them like you...?"

"Fight your own fear. Fight your weakness. I'll teach you. I'll fight with you..."

More orks, trolls and dwarfs were attending her classes by then. Susan didn't trust herself to demonstrate sparring (killing punches weren't an easy habit to break, when they were your life). But she found, again, her talent for seeing what students needed and speaking it to their hearts. Such varied metahuman figures stepping through patterns in unison made for a funny, happy sight. The mother and daughter who'd been abducted eventually came, but they were helped more by evening talks with Susan and Sarah. The four women clasped hands and let each other cry as much as they talked. Susan let herself feel helpless and weak, loving and loved.

"How do you do it?" She once asked the ork woman whose son she'd killed, "When drek happens, and there's nothing you can do?"

"Always something you can do, squishy. You go on living."

The ork waved further apologies away. She'd heard something of Susan's past from Sarah, and unhappily accepted that she was a killer, not a murderer. Susan watched the woman's heavy, worn figure stump away among the headstones.

Kung Fu taught more than kicks and stances; it was control, persistence and strength. Young orks and dwarfs had been beaten and driven out, victims of the world; Susan taught them to never give up. There was hope in their eyes, trust and unity–and Susan was proud to share it with them all. The strong and the weak, the grim and the crazy; survivors and true friends. When she thought that she'd hated all ork and trolls once, she felt like weeping with present happiness among the graves. She was happier than with anything else she'd done.

Although she sent a note to Ilsa with one of her new chummers, leaving Colma would've been difficult. Norton had the idea that the miraculous Chinese girl he'd saved–his Unarmed Combat Instructor by Royal Appointment–was essentially tied into his imperial destiny. Hence, he attended earnestly to Shavarus' advice about security risks. Susan well remembered how Norton's humour could alter the mood of his followers; she consoled herself that she wouldn't have wanted to leave just yet.

About a fortnight before the man she still dreamt of arrived at the Embarcadero, Susan had spent the morning on guard duty, and the afternoon walking Bummer and Lazarus with some ork kids. The dogs were some of her best friends in Colma–more golden-hearted than even their master, with a lot more sense. The ork kids soon saw they weren't so scary. She playfully clipped one cheeky tyke who offered to date her when he was older, and waved them home with a smile. Then she flopped down on a bench behind some shading trees, where Shavarus was reading a little book called The Jew of Malta.

"Hey." She smiled easily at the troll, "So, did you learn magic at university, or what?"

"What respectable college would admit a trog? Fortuitously, for myself, at least, talent and willpower are the only essentials of magic. What I had to learn, I worked for myself. We have this much in common, Fighter; when I believe that 'something must be done', I see that it is."

"Okay. Are we all ready for Humanis attacking again…?"

"There is no security in defence. Peace can only come through an utterly decisive attack."

"You're talking about striking back, aren't you? Okay. If it won't hurt Norton's Army, or the People's University, or innocent people…what's your plan?"

"No. Will you defend metahumans from hatred and murder, by any means necessary?"

"Look, I want to know what it is before–!"

"Do we not bleed? Are not metahumans the injured, raped, banished people you have slaughtered with your hands? They must be protected. You must protect them, by any and every means that I command. It is your fate to protect the metahuman–by the slaughter of the human vermin. The destruction of San Francisco. Do we not bleed?"

"Yes. Yes."

(The troll's voice washed through Susan's brain like acid. She tranced, her mind dropped away from body and the grasp of magic, to fight for control. But Sarah, Anya, Orion, didn't all of them bleed…?)

"Yes. You are a strong human–but I am a troll. You have despised the superior race too long. It is fitting that you kneel."

The trees hid Susan from the path. She knelt. Shavarus' claw curled over her hair–then he pushed her into the ground. Her face came up half-stunned and bloodied. Eyes dull.

"I am stronger than you could possibly be, my Fighter. The false rule of humanity will fall. Yes, this is right…"

Obedient to the troll's growled command, Susan kissed his sandaled feet. Choked; they were like plates of dust. Towering above her, Shavarus shut his eyes in intense satisfaction.

-0-

2052, Club Eclipse, San Francisco (Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes)

Orion sat with Harry in his tiny safe-room at Eclipse. He waited, as the young Runner sunk in silence, clutching his undone headband, for as long as he could.

"I had another family; years before I met Anya's mother. Three sons, my daughter…my wife, Bea. Violence against metahumans was everywhere; I couldn't get strong enough fast enough, before they came for us. Three humans held me down, after they'd killed my boys and shot me. Then I had to watch what the mob did to my girls. The shame of failing them, their faces…but I swore I would never look away from them. I would help them heal, however long it took…but the humans cut their throats when they had finished, so I could not."

"You killed those fraggers…?"

"I killed many humans; it did me little good in myself. I had to love another woman, and lose her, also…but your girl is alive, Hotspur. You will find her and free her. Never look away from her."

"How could I…? I love her. But I couldn't do anything. How could I ever look her in the eye?"

"You must be stronger for her, now, and set yourself aside. Whatever she needs, however much it hurts–if you are anything you have ever sought to be, love her now."

It was nothing but words. It was all they had. Harry barely had the strength to wipe his own eyes. He stared into the ork's dark, rough face.

News of the pyramid Run had broken quickly. In the lobby of Eclipse, vendors tapped at winking screens and PDAs; some offloading their stock in Pyramid Holdings, others piling it up. Runners in the bar upstairs were leaving no contact unturned to discover who they needed to kill for the missing paydata. While Ilsa and Hailey were in Kali's office, informing her that the paydata had been snatched from them by Susan Lei–

"–who you believed would sell it to you, I presume, after you'd sent us in as decoys for her?" Ilsa pursed her lips, "I'm afraid that depends on us releasing her from the magical control of an apparently-insane troll terrorist."

The music mogul stared at her desk. She finally smacked it with both hands and looked up with a snarl on her purple lips.

"This is as fragged up as it could be. If these Runners are with the metas, they won't sell the proof against the Azzies to anyone! They'll blackmail Aztechnology for more bombs, keep the Corp war in San Fran dragging on, and every single Japanese Megacorp will blame me. And you. What the frag do you plan to do about this?"

"Retrieve the paydata, and rescue your errant singer for a bonus." Ilsa's coolness was unshaken, "We'll need an advance on our final payment, and any information you have on Norton's Army. As you astutely noted, your life depends on our success."

"…ask any metahumans left in the Mission District. Or there was that elf Tarne, he might've been linked to them. Your boyfriend, wasn't he, chica?"

Ilsa stared at Hailey, who shook her head; her cool was completely blown. Kali's eyes were hungry and dangerous as she slid the credstick over her desk.

"Do not frag everything up for me again," she whispered, "Or Renraku, Shiawase and Mitsuhama will not be the first in line to geek you."

"Yeah, no frag ups. We're going to get our fragging chummer back." Anya hissed in their earpieces, after they'd left the office. Ilsa nodded, hard.

Kali was far from the worst threat she'd faced. All the gaudy screens and holograms in Eclipse seemed some of the least significant things, compared to the unforgivable horror that Susan, her friend, was still held in. Nothing she might burnt could've be enough for that. But the waste remained and killed. Nyuyen, ambition and progress added up to murder, rape and xenocide. She meant to remain in this city, unless that meant leaving Susan alone, ever again.

"Yeah!" Hailey tried to sound bright. "We'll save her, before…I mean she couldn't…that doesn't happen to shadowrunners, does it?"

"Shouldn't happen to anybody." Anya grated.

"No sin but ignorance. No good comes from it." Ilsa's voice was firm, "Whatever has been done to Susan, we will deal with it when we know, and when we find her."

"Yes. We will."

Harry's headband was retied, his sword sheathed in his hand. His eyes were feverish, but steady. Someday, heroes had to face what they feared.

And Hailey had to admit that Tarne was her missing friend, she had told Susan about him and that was probably why she'd gone to the march.

"I know I should have gone with her. I'm sorry."

"No need." Harry touched her shoulder, "You couldn't have done anything but get yourself hurt. Did Tarne have any chummers involved with the resistance?"

His calm shocked Ilsa and even Orion. Hailey would have swooned, but they were still on the Run. She produced a PDA photo of Tarne's friend Voire, a sullen-looking blonde who had talked even more loudly and often about fighting back in some way.

"Probably not the smart way," Harry recognised the photo, "This guy was about to throw down with a squad of marines, the day I got here."

"Voire?" Hailey put her hand to her cheek, "He always, like, took stuff to heart, but he's not stupid! He even stopped talking about resistance, since Tarne vanished."

"Hatred gathered to heart obscures the mind," Orion grated, "And when it can no longer be vented in speech, the explosion is close at hand. I've seen it too many times. If this boy knows anything of Norton's Army, we should be quick about finding him."

It was soon determined that Voire had last been seen leaving the club for the Mission District. No one in the know expected him to be long among the living.

"The Mission District, then. To find Norton's Army, or this wannabe-militant pretty boy."

"Very well." Ilsa responded, "And if we hear a march, a bomb, or gunfire–"

"We head towards the noise," Harry's smile was grim, "We find this elf before he finds some marines to get killed by. Then we go to Susan, wherever she is."