"We remember that the elves sang. But we forgot what they sang about…they were a merry folk, especially when they were twisting your arm behind your back to see how far it would go."
–Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
North of the Embarcadero harbour lived an elderly beachcomber. Very few sailors or drifters noted his walks beside the scummy shoreline of the bay, or the sound of a flute that drifted from his shack with the tide. Or the days and weeks when he would vanish like a ghost, since very few ever noted him at all.
Tarne's off-road Yamaha Growler roared through the predawn gloom, briefly smothering the faint music. The elf concealed his bike by the roadside, then ran to the shack, kneeling before the old man like an acolyte before an ancient master. After exchanging pass-phrases, he quickly recounted his work in the Mission District.
"So Voire survived, who knows you." A strong, cold voice, with the mid-Atlantic accent Tir elves proudly affected, "The Marines will find him, he will talk, and the authentic local identity for which you were recruited will be burnt."
Less than twenty of Tir Taingire's active spies in the Baysprawl had travelled by winding routes from the forests of Oregon. Their principal task had been the recruitment of Baysprawl natives such as Tarne, with no connection to Tir Taingire. Lesser races were co-opted by trickery, bribes or blackmail, but they preferred to draw in goronagit elves with Tir's promise of their rightful destiny. Tarne leaned forward, his eyes no longer quiet.
"You recruited me for more than that, sir. I could go to the homeland, train, and then serve our people anywhere in the world. I know I have what it takes!"
The old man's rheumy eyes crinkled. The young asset's proper elvish pride had always touched him. Since the hardening hell of the deep forest training camps, however, no touch had ever moved his judgement. This boy might be a double agent, working his way up the ladder. Or simply a fool…or a dreamer.
The old man reached for his flute again and trilled a few bars through bloodless lips. Tarne recognised the tune, from Mission District street performances.
"In my years of exile from Tir's serene and blessed woods, I have learnt that this is a city built on desire, madness…and dreams. Perhaps Saito and his corporate masters would understand, if they stopped to hear the music. They comb every muckheap for terrorist plots, but a spark of fear and outrage will make their city rise in a single day."
"And I set that spark," Tarne eagerly asserted, "Our own assets, and the troll's minions throughout the city, have been armed to lead the charge. The precious 'face' of Saito's Marines will be covered in filth. The threat of his hatred towards our Land of Promise will be crippled! Even if the troll's grand plan transpires to be drug-fuelled vapouring."
"It is to be hoped not. Our comrades have come from the homeland, with the components that this wineg's dark dream requires. Come, let us go to meet their ship."
As they stepped from the beachcomber's hut, the old man ran both hands over his face. His tea-stain skin drained to ivory, his cheekbones exquisitely lengthened and sank. Every wrinkle vanished, and waist-length raven hair blew back from pointed ears.
Tarne watched as if hypnotised, as Lieutenant Desorn Lightfall, Ghost of Tir Tairngire's Black Banner, walked down the grey beach with a panther's easy care. Desorn's own violet eyes were fixed across the bay, at the lights of the shadowed bridge.
"A city of dreams. A hive of nightmares. A pot of gold for the taking, to the Japanese–and a dagger Saito aims at Tir's heart. What is San Francisco to you, my elvish brother?"
"A festering concrete scar," Tarne hurriedly answered, "Where our race that should rule the world sprawls among drugs, petty rubbish and hatred. As an elf, the place disgusts me."
"We'll raze it to the ground one day and plant a great forest. The birth right of the elves…the peace of Tir upon the Earth. We shall spare no more of the lesser races than the world can sustain, and drive them out to labour in the fields."
Tarne knew he couldn't have hidden his shock from the Ghost's bright eyes. He strove to express his happy acceptance.
There were two light ocean kayaks, with which the elves would paddle out and guide the vessel from Tir into the Embarcadero. Tarne joked about the fate of any IJM patrol boat that attempted to stop a ghost ship!
"Small chance of that. We're quite aware of the routes and timings for all their patrols. Did you know that Colonel Itami of the Marines has an elvish mistress?"
Tarne whistled reverently. Both elves laughed; perfect teeth shone in the starlight.
As Desorn sent his kayak slicing through the waves, he glanced back again at San Francisco's towering skyline. Shining like metal; a poisoned dagger that his people would break. The prospect of greeting his old comrades, freshly come from the song-blessed woods of Tir, thrilled his heart. His adamant judgement permitted him to croon softly, as he slid across the bay, with a rich tenor more striking yet for its softness.
The sun on the meadow is summery warm,
The stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm,
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The babe in the cradle is closing his eyes,
The blossom embraces the bee.
Yet still says a whisper, arise, arise,
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Oh, Land of the Promise, oh show us the sign,
Your children are waiting to see!
The morning will come when the world is thine,
Tomorrow belongs to thee.
-0-
Shavarus leapt from the hulking pick-up truck almost before it halted; his feet thumped to the Embarcadero's concrete. His followers piled off the other two flatbeds, spreading over the dockland and hacking down a few luckless harbour guards. The sounds of groaning cranes and swearing men came over the water to them with uncanny clearness, but skirmishes between Corper security and smugglers were so frequent that no busier pier raised an alarm.
Sarah moved eagerly from the truck's cab to her lover's side. Fighter stood placidly by his other side. Shavarus had already Healed her wound from Colma, but a thread of pain might have still been noted in her immobile face. The militants' decker (The elf who'd helped Shavarus and Fighter take the paydata from the pyramid) passed a small datastick to his boss. Then he swooped on a security booth, near the foot of the wide stretch of concrete and clutter that was pier 5, and prepared to Jack in.
"Take over all security cameras and lines of communication." Sharavus ordered him, "Sarah; remain here. You; come with me." You meant Fighter. "The rest of you, set up an ambush among those containers. Allow no one onto the pier."
Shavarus' picked followers kicked the guards' bodies into the water, with curses, before setting down and rechecking their weapons. They were ex-gangers, banished MPA, veteran survivalists from Colma, and a couple of former shadowrunners. They knew their job and they believed in the troll, whose vision of metahuman power and victory had drawn them all.
"Lord Shavarus!" Sarah burst out, her huge shoulders sloping forward in submission, "If you fear that those Tir elves may betray us, please let me come with you!"
"I have planned against any treachery, therefore I am not afraid. I need you to keep watch; the security of this meeting is essential to my purpose. The Tir elves are a proud people, my dear. They have no respect for trolls." Shavarus's dark beard twitched with something very unlike a smile, "The human will serve to demonstrate how I am followed."
The troll girl glanced daggers at Susan's ponytail, as the Adept walked swiftly away beside Sarah's love and hero. No troll, Sarah was certain, had ever thought, spoken or led like Shavarus. His vision of justice and peace would have enthralled her, with as much force as the terror that humans had beaten and branded into her flesh–even if her saviour hadn't looked on, and loved, a pathetic troll like her.
Her strength was her shame. Even three humans should never have been able to rape a troll, but they'd got a gun against her head, and she had been too afraid to die. She'd been no fighter, she'd never wanted to fight. She'd wanted to be a dancer, or a Trid-star in LA like Kat Berg–the beautiful ork who spoke up bravely for metas everywhere. She'd been fifteen, and then they had made her nothing. She'd known that any human with a gun would've raped her again, unless she had run from the city.
She had loved SeeräuberJenny's songs. She had cried with Susan, over the shame the human girl said they shouldn't feel. It didn't matter if she fought, her shifu had insisted; she was precious and loved. But Shavarus had loved her first, as she'd never dreamt she would be, and had told her the truth. Unless she fought for metahumanity, she was nothing–and Susan had taught her to fight. Her hero would crush the vile little demons, as they had carelessly crushed so many innocents, and her own cowardice would be redeemed.
It was very believable to her that Susan had fallen for Shavarus as well. The exotically beautiful human barely ever left his side; she'd been cold and distant for weeks. Sarah wouldn't believe that her friend had truly stolen her love from her–but if it were so, then she would fight.
-0-
Behind Sarah, the elf decker had already dived into the Matrix. Hijacking security cams throughout the docks was candy from a baby. Until claws of blue light slammed down on his avatar's shoulders, like an ogre looming out of the fog.
"Hello, skinny. Don't try to Jack out or give any sign. I'll cook your brain before you can think. Understand? Good boy. To start with…where's data from the pyramid? On that stick you passed to your loco loudmouth leader? What the frag is Shavarus planning?"
"Do you think I'd just tell you? Without even a threat of torture?" The avatar sneered up into the shining jaws poised above his shaven head.
The digital sky became the colossal face of Anya Kotto. Through tusks like skyscrapers, her roar threw down the little avatar like a handkerchief.
"NOT PLAYING, SKINNY! TELL ME EVERYTHING, OR DIE!"
"Is…is that the best you can do?" The elf was still grinning. "Aren't you going to mess with my time perception? Show me my worst fears? Toss me through tortures that even a hideous meat body like yours couldn't survive? The Matrix can be so much fun, that way, but such idle pleasures are behind me. For Lord Shavarus' cause, for metahumanity itself…if I must trade the joys of life for a worthy death, then I must. I wouldn't expect a race-traitor to understand."
Anya's code shook with incomprehension–if she'd still had flesh, it would have been visceral disgust. She had decked for the Agency, they had tortured without mercy–but she was determined to do no such thing herself. She wasn't even happy to extinguish the life, forever, of such a vile creature as this.
The elf made to Jack out. If she fried him, his chummers would be alerted before her chummers were on the scene. Faster than thought, Anya deleted the code he required to Jack out from the Matrix or do anything within it at all. Disembodied and paralysed–Anya remembered the horror–the elf's grin stretched to a mad rictus.
"Kill me. Kill me!"
"...I surely will. When my chummers get here."
Anya rapidly cased the whole Embarcadero, through the windows onto cyberspace afforded by the security cams. Shavarus and Fighter were half-way down pier 5. She sent a camera loop to the troll's PDA so he wouldn't miss his decker. There was nothing useful in its memory; another burner. There were harbour recovery drones stored on the pier, but none with weapons, or she would have jacked them and thrown them at Shavarus at once.
Especially as she homed in on a small party of elves, in civilian clothes, stepping off a trim, innocuous yacht at the end of the pier. Not even the Agency had dared to cross Tir's legendary special forces, but she recognised the handshakes and countersigns of the Ghost Circle. Whatever had convinced Shavarus that Susan was under his control, those operatives would never let her walk off the pier alive. Anya opened a comm channel to Harry.
"Hoi, loverboy! Shavarus and Susan are meeting with Tarne and five Tir Ghosts right now. You did not mishear! I've shut the troll's decker down, but you've got ten minutes, tops, before his goons work out that jacking cameras doesn't take that long. Get your hoops here, now!"
-0-
Slightly less than a mile from the Embarcadero, the Runners' stolen car had run dry. Ilsa tutted that it was quite predictable really.
The dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, piled out. They had borne as quietly with the frantic car ride as with many other happenstances of their straying, vagabond lives. Like Susan, Hailey thought they were smarter than some people, even if they'd half smothered her in sulphurous black hair on the back seat. Her legs trembled, as she got out; she had been moving and facing death for over sixteen hours that felt like a war-torn lifetime. Or maybe the unbelievable thought of facing Tir Ghosts was about to drop her down in the dirt.
"We can hardly run the rest of the way." Ilsa glanced down the empty road, then at her PDA, "We need to–"
"–run the rest of the way." Harry slammed the car door. His eyes held no doubts, "That's all we can do, so we have to do it, now. We've run, we've fought, but if we're ever going to see Susan again in our lives, we need to make a miracle, now! Ilsa, you can Haste yourself. Hailey, your hoverdrone can keep pace. Anya, give us siterep as we go! Don't think I can't see the danger–but I see her, Susan, risking her life, and if two hundred fragging Ghosts were on that pier, I would still go!"
They ran. Hotspur's legs sparked with Ki, tirelessly champing up the ground. His sword level at his waist like a falcon's tail, he ran like a hero. The dogs galloped at his side; Bummer raised a low, savage howl and they ran still faster.
Grimly, Ilsa ran, her Haste spell letting her barely keep pace. Hailey was in excellent trim, for a decker. For her city's sake, she just ran her heart out.
-0-
Nine minutes and thirty seconds later, Sarah wondered again if it would be safe to nudge the elf decker. Then she saw blood burst from his pointed ears–she turned to him, then behind her, racing feet! A skinny human devil with ravenous eyes and a Japanese sword, rising to kill the trog slot. To kill Lord Shavarus. To kill every hope she'd ever clawed back from the evil men did…
"NO!"
Flinging a massive side kick at the human, she breathed out with her scream as Susan had taught her. Her rear leg swung round in another kick like a wrecking ball. Her comrades' gunfire opened up from the crates behind her. The human leapt back, her fist followed. She let nothing hold back her rage and hate–power she'd never felt fired through her limbs.
Then a spirit burst up from the water, scaly and stinking, on her comrades' flank. They answered its water jets with bullets–but a drone was humming aloft on their other flank, punching its shots through street-armour. Now, magic was crackling over the huge black dogs that galloped out, fire bursting from their mouths. Sarah heard her comrades' death-cries. Desperately, she fought and swung on.
Lazarus' eyes glowed red. A troll hefting a grenade went suddenly stiff as a board. The half-hellhound strays would have run through hell for their good friend. A hunting rifle cracked, blood flew from a black flank, but Ilsa's healing magic flashed out. More bullets sunk in their shoulders–Shavarus' troops weren't going to run–but the pain only maddened them over again.
Bummer's muscles surged beneath his hide, as he bowled down an ork and crushed his throat. A dwarf shaman had called up a burning salamander-spirit; Lazarus snapped back at the monster without pause. Aiming charms flashed over the gunmen from an elf street Mage's hands, until Ilsa burnt her down, and ducked into the cover of the security station. She firebolted the orks that Bummer and Lazarus flushed from shelter.
Hotspur dodged back again from Sarah's fist. Her blows were wild but empowered by rage. And the red light of killing Ki, around her fists. Sixteen was late for Awakening, but trauma could bury inner strength. Harry didn't know the troll girl's story, or where the rage in her eyes had been born. He knew he had to kill this troll, before Susan's brainwashed act broke down. Before all he had feared fell on Susan after all, while he was only one bridge away from his love! He had to kill the sad-eyed, furious troll with her long dark hair, but he somehow could not.
Sarah whipped round, as Ilsa threw a Flamestrike at her back. The troll girl finally crashed down, silent and smoking.
Hotspur dashed over her, at the foes between him and Susan. His blade carved a huge ork's torso from shoulder to waist, the best way. At his side, Lazarus snarled under another bullet, then spat fire at the shooter's face.
It was over in minutes. A stand-up, routine fight, except for one thing. As Hailey jogged up, rested on her thighs, then rose and made towards Ilsa–an ork rested a hunting rifle and fired a soft-nosed bullet into her chest.
Hotspur was on the ork before he could work the bolt or aim the handgun he drew; one thrust ended his life. Then Harry sprinted back to where Hailey had collapsed. Ilsa was already applying a medkit. Air from her lungs and blood from her arteries were already pouring out.
She finally coughed blood, as the nanites did their work. Harry squeezed her hand hard. Her brown eyes rested gently on his tortured face.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I should have waited, I should have watched…frag, frag, frag…"
"It's okay, Harry. Uh…you're okay. You had to run and save your girl…hrk!…not me…but doesn't this, like, deserve a little kiss?"
"She needs a DocWagon," Ilsa snapped, "Medkits and Healing can only do so much." Harry swiftly clipped his own gold contract transmitter to the young decker's wrist, "We need to go now, Hotspur. They must have heard all that. Right now or never, wasn't it?"
Hailey didn't let go of Harry's hand. There was blood on her teeth–like Susan's lips, that night in Hong Kong. Her eyes pleaded that she could face anything with a smile, so long as her chummers didn't leave her alone and dying.
Harry thought of Feng; he had no idea if she was alive, but she was probably dead. He thought of Izanami and Alison Douglas. All the women he had left behind. And Susan Lei, only and always, the woman he still had to save…could shadowrunners save anyone at all? He knew, like he never had before, that he was doing a very drekky thing to the girl at his feet…but he would do it. He would go to save the girl he loved, at last, and never let go of her. Then he would never leave a woman behind again.
"Yeah, you need to haul hoop, chummers!" Anya trilled in their earpieces, "A speedboat of Renraku Samurai will be onsite, five minutes or less, from their anti-smuggling patrol round Pigeon Point. The Marines will be here in twenty."
"What? Haven't we seen enough of those fraggers, why the frag–?"
"I called it in! Spun a story about a uranium suitcase. These are Tir Ghosts, Hotspur! You can't beat five of them, no way, Susan can't escape them alone, nohow. Our only chance is to get her out and get the frag out, with the distraction I have just kindly arranged for you!"
"Where have you been all my life?" Ilsa muttered, "A chummer with a plan."
"I get it. We need to go…" Harry finally pulled away, "You're a brave Runner, Hailey. See you on the other side."
Then Harry darted up, and away, towards the girl he had to save. Medkit-drugged and fading as she was, Hailey saw how his eyes were fixed straight ahead. His breath quickening, like a wolf hearing the howl and catching the scent of its mate. A desperate but somehow peaceful smile spreading, beneath hungry eyes, as if for the first time in two years or more, he was where he belonged.
Weary but unyielding, Ilsa followed him. Anya quickly briefed them further on the enemies she could see. Bummer lingered beside Hailey to lick her face, but Harry called him, and the dog trotted along with Lazarus. They needed everyone who could move to stand a chance, and they were almost certain that DocWagon would find Hailey before the Marines did.
Hailey thought so too, but it was less of a comfort. The dawn was warm on her cold face, the crying seabirds sounded like vultures. Seagulls did wolf down any kind of food, just like shadowruns.
She'd met an Emperor, almost stolen from a Megacorp, fallen in love, again, and now…the world was totally more brilliant and brutal than she had imagined. She didn't want to leave it yet. She wanted to be with a man who would look at her like Harry had looked to Susan…because in fifty years or next month, or right on this spot, she did not ever want to die alone.
-0-
About fifteen minutes earlier
For much the same reasons as Anya, Susan took small comfort from her front row seat at Shavarus' meeting with the Tir. If she'd been set to watch the foot of the pier, she could have killed a guard or slipped away to accomplish some eavesdropping. Impossibility of solid plans had not been the worst part of feigning to be the brainwashed puppet of a power-drunk trog, for two weeks, three days, four hours. Ilsa would have especially hated it, but Susan had always been one for improvising. It was not knowing what the frag would be done to her–only knowing that she could never fight back–that she feared had already broken her mind.
The three days she'd taken to break the trog's control, she might as well have spent needling herself in the stomach. Screaming at the buried core of her mind that she was being stolen, violated, abased in shame. Shame she could have forgotten so easy, if she had stopped fighting for a moment…but she had kept stabbing, never stopped. She had come out lying spent on a tomb's floor, tears trickling over her face to the stone. She was an Adept. She couldn't be controlled, she had sworn never to submit. She wanted to burn the dust from the trog's sandals off her lips.
Shavarus had recast the mind control spell, of course, but she'd been ready for it. She had burned to kill him, of course, as she'd killed trolls before–but it never helped. She would still have been violated and beaten. A false hero from her first shadowrun, who couldn't even save herself.
But if that was what she was, couldn't she use it to truly defeat the trog? Her weakness, his monstrous pride–redeem the one and smash the other? And save San Francisco. She'd heard him talking with the elf, Tarne, about his plans with Tir–he'd boasted about the depth of his hate, as he'd beaten her bloody.
At his feet, with the horror she'd always feared, always fought, choking as much of her mind as his fist had not knocked out…she had not fought back. It had been hard, it had been wrong. But she was a shadowrunner. She'd killed three innocent orks; killed more people than she could count, and she couldn't remember why. If she could save Ilsa, Dr Chambers, Hailey, Kali and everyone else…if shadowrunners could save people, as the man she loved had said (Frag, she needed him, frag…!) then…how could she flinch from anything she suffered at all?
So, she had taken the beatings. Naked, she had borne the trog's gaze unmoving, as her soul had writhed. She had obeyed the monster. She had deceived her sister-friend Sarah and felt the troll girl's hostility–that had been the hardest bit, apart from nearly everything else. But in secret, she had enlisted her friends in Colma as spies within Shavarus' traitors. Every time the trog had recast his magic, she had broken it. Alone, when she didn't know how she would ever get through, she had kept hope. Beaten, shamed, unresisting–she had never felt stronger. As if a fire blazed and spread within her unbroken body.
She could endure anything. She had to endure everything. Did not all metahumans bleed…?
Susan knew that when was it finally time to kill the trog, she might find he had controlled her all along, and she was helpless. She knew that the weeks of still suppression and silent abuse might have broken something inside her forever, already. Ilsa had told her, two lifetimes ago, about the assault victim's slippery slope–from shame to false guilt, to ruined self-worth and self-abuse. She had to move on; she had to save the city, but she had to get out. Seeing Harry in Colma, without running to him and clinging to his feet, had almost broken her. She couldn't last much longer…but she couldn't get out, wouldn't move on, without him. This wasn't the way she had planned it, but she would never leave behind her years of pain unless he finally saved her. Then he could move on too, from their blighted past...they could go through their lives together, unless she died today.
-0-
Above Susan, Shavarus' horned head was erect and fixed upon his destiny, as he stalked heavily towards the elves at the end of the pier. There was Tarne (Susan had resolved to beat him half to death, for Hailey's sake), failing to hide his nerves. And there were the five elves with noiseless footsteps, eyes to penetrate walls, and an assurance of mastery in their thin lips.
A white-haired elf in green robes, with a sense of age and intensity to his smooth face. A slim, stunning woman with two silenced handguns holstered beside her breasts, a Steyr rifle on her back, and an unsettling grin. A more nondescript woman at the elder's side, if any elf could be nondescript. And a bearded, more thickset elf, who sent four tiny electric-blue finches flashing out from bags at his waist. As the tall, dark Adept–Susan saw it in his steps–advanced and clasped the troll by the hand, in the red light of dawn.
"The renowned Shavarus, I believe? Well met. I am Desorn Lightfall. You know your contact, Tarne. This is Aeirion the Defender, our field commander." The elder inclined his head. "You'll forgive me for not introducing my other colleagues."
"Don't worry; I will forgive it." Shavarus growled, "Those birds–one of the Awakened species you breed and train for lookouts? Unnecessary. My followers have secured this area."
"Ah? Well, please do indulge our little foibles in this matter." Desorn's calm elvish smile did not shift a micron, even as he turned to Susan, "Speaking of foibles…?"
"A human dog that I have tamed through spellwork. She was an Adept." Shavarus raised his cliff-like chin even further above the elf's head. "While the ancient magic of Tir is justly renowned, you can see that my own power is nothing to sneer at."
Six cold, iridescent gazes settled on Susan. The control spell she'd resisted still hung on her aura. Shavarus' towering pride in his magic had scorned to minutely check the astral tendrils snaking around her brain, but they would, they would, all for nothing…with all her willpower, Susan did not move, or look away, or accelerate her breaths, under the eyes of the Tir Ghosts.
"An Adept, eh?" Aeirion murmured, "I might take a look to make sure…"
Sharavus barked a command at Susan. She thought of Harry's face at Colma, his touch, and it was somehow the hardest thing she had done in two weeks, but it had to be over soon…
She lowered herself slowly to her hands and knees, in front of Desorn. She kissed his sandaled feet, then Aeirion's shoes, then the shoes of the bearded animal trainer. Who, with a leisurely grin, squatted down and ran his hand down Susan's backside.
Desorn and Aeirion scornfully averted their eyes. So did Tarne and the plain elf. Sharavus was staring fiercely at Aeirion; the gunslinger was giggling musically at the display. Nobody saw Susan shut her eyes. They would have heard the choking in her throat–but she fought down the nightmare that had tortured her for years, and smothered it.
"Very well; you have tamed an Adept." Aeirion snapped, "Most impressive. Might we now proceed to more significant business? You proved your bona fides when our associates funded your successful shadowrun on Pyramid Holdings. You have been extremely close, however, about the major operation which apparently requires such particular materials."
"You have brought the fetishes? From Tir itself?"
"Indeed we have." The old Mage's eyes narrowed dangerously at such goronit brusqueness, but Shavarus was thundering to his victory.
"Excellent. They will summon our new, true dawn of vengeance. With three first-rank magic-users to wield them, including myself...and the data from Aztechnology. If had been less 'close' with my plans, you might have raided the pyramid and brought this vile city down yourselves!"
"The Aztechnology data?" Desorn murmured, "We assumed you intended to use it for blackmail. Il-ha?"
Shavarus loomed above all the elves, like a black storm cloud. The lightning of his vision flashed in his eyes.
"I am no criminal. I am more than a shadowrunner, more than a terrorist. I am the saviour of this world, and I will remake it with my own hands! All peoples will live with strength and pride, in their own place. Oakland will be for the orks and Halferville for the dwarfs. The elves–will manage as well as they ever have, I do not doubt!"
Desorn answered Shavarus' grin at this touch of humour. Then the troll kicked the kneeling Susan about a foot to one side.
"There will be no place for humanity. The dogs of the Megacorps, the scum of the Earth! Did you know that this land all used to be desert? For centuries, every drop of water has been pumped across miles of pipeline, to prolong man's unnatural existence on this peninsular. The Aztechnolgy files expose every detail and defence of the great Hetch Hetchy waterway. The carotid artery of San Francisco, my brothers, and we will eviscerate it tonight. Men will look for aid in vain from the selfish, fleeing Megacorps, or the drekheap they call a national government in Sacramento. They will get out of this city or they will die like dogs, of hunger, thirst and disease. We shall make a desert, and we shall call it peace."
-0-
Through the pain, Susan listened. Shavarus had given the details of his plan, and Aeirion had shut down Desorn's objections, before the sound of gunfire poured down the pier. Susan thought she might run, as the monsters turned. But the elf woman had a handgun at her head before she could rise.
"Just in case she's not quite controlled, you know? Or she might come in handy."
Susan felt the elf's grinning eyes, like a rabbit in a weasel's jaws; they dared her to try. She knew the Ghosts meant to kill her here, and not leave any loose end to chance.
"Nothing but some second-rate shadowrunners!" Shavarus forcefully assured his elvish allies, "That is the noise of my followers gunning them down."
"My birds are saying…" The bearded elf strained for the ultrasonic chirps that training and magic had attuned him to, "…that four hostiles are heading up the pier. Your followers are presumably dead. So it goes, for the weak."
"Might we possibly trouble you, my dear Shavarus," Desorn's voice dripped with poisonous courtesy, "For descriptions of these second-rate shadowrunners? Lankin, keep tabs on their position. Medaron co versakhan, my comrades."
Susan's heart hammered. The elves stood their ground, but as lightly and alert as cats.
Lankin, the animal trainer, finally stabbed his finger at two large crates. The Runners were on the other side. Then he sniffed the air, laughed out loud, and wove an obscure little cantrip as he whistled.
Bummer and Lazarus trotted out to the Ghosts with tails wagging. They stared at Susan, smelt their friend's distress–but Lankin stepped in front of her and the whistling notes filled with safety and charm rang out again. The dogs stood and stared, dizzied and torn, as the elf woman reached for her second pistol.
"Don't you dare shoot them, Greenwood." Lankin hissed, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The elf woman, Lowri Greenwood, gave another musical laugh.
"Facing the Ghosts of Tir, with Awakened beasts! How unfortunate. How foolish…"
Then her head whipped round, at a creaking noise. The block of an automated crane beside the water, with an invisible digital ork in control, was swinging ponderously for her.
The elf's Ruger was still at Susan's head. She would fire as she dodged. It wasn't a chance, but Susan knew it was all she would get. Her hand, hung limp at her side, flicked up.
She was fast, the elf was faster. The silenced, still ear-cracking bullet would have blown her out, if Ilsa hadn't fired her body with Haste that moment. Fighter dodged and chopped the spitting gun aside, fast as a hare. Then she smashed Greenwood's nose with a backswing chop and twisted a straight kick into Lankin that flung him down. An Acid Bolt fizzled in his palm, as nothing but Greenwood's Adept speed and rage let her duck the crane.
The dogs heard the fury and pain in Fighter's scream. They fell on Lankin and mauled the stunned Ghost to death on the concrete.
At last, Fighter let power fill her limbs again. She was deafened and aching, but she grinned up into Shavarus' rage. Filled with the victory that would redeem her when she had killed him.
With a horrific roar, Shavarus threw a blast of flame–that burst in his hands, as Ilsa strode forward with a counterspell. The plain female Ghost beside Aeirion flung ball lightning. It threw the dogs back whining, and scorched Fighter's limbs as she leapt ahead. Her punch still bit into Shavarus' midriff. She dodged huge claws, darted back in and sent her foot slamming up into his jaw, screaming out rage with every blow.
Hotspur answered her as he sprinted out, flinging a stun grenade. Greenwood shot it out in mid-air from the floor. A knot of drones burst from a locker and crawled at the elves, multitools waving. They were blasted within a second, but it gave Lazarus the chance to end Ilsa's rapid counterspell duel with the female Mage. The dog's eyes flashed, she was paralysed. Then Ilsa threw a fireball, and Bummer spat fire with her.
Through the smoke, Ilsa saw that Greenwood was still reeling, the Ghost's female Mage was stunned. But magic flashing from Aeirion the Defender had wiped out every burn or wound on all the elves. Then darkness rushed from Aeirion's hands; the dogs fled the scene in howling terror. The Ghosts' leader began a third spell, like nothing Ilsa had seen or imagined.
Tarne drew his Browning, fired on Hotspur as he charged. But Harry was flying in, urged on by more than strength or magic–as Susan swung her fists at the troll, he had never charged faster. This was the fight he had been born for. She was where he belonged. He rolled under the bullet, smashed his swordhilt up into Tarne's chin. The elf crashed out cold.
Then Desorn strode forward; his arm flicked out. Hotspur's sword flew away, clattering to the edge of the pier. He'd been disarmed by a master Triad Adept before–he had already charged his fists with Ki. Fast and jointless as a snake, the Ghost shifted back and forth, ahead of his punches. Then Desorn darted in, and his blows struck like a storm. Without even a closed fist, his sheer speed would have shattered planks. It threw Hotspur down in a bloody heap.
"HARRY!"
As Shavarus fell back from Fighter, her head whipped around, and she sprang at Desorn. The Ghost Adept twisted about like a dancer; she dodged aside from his front leg straight into his turning back leg, and thumped down.
"Only human." The elf murmured, "It must be so aggravating for you."
"We don't let it get us down, drekhead." Hotspur spat, rising. Ilsa threw a Flamestrike at Desorn–that went straight through the Ghost, without effect.
Aeirion had completed his spell. A crystal in the elf Mage's right hand threw a sickly glow over his smile.
As Fighter went for Desorn again she could shift his knife-hand barely aside, straining her arms to the utmost. Had he learnt Wing Chung and Drunken Fist in Chinatown, on top of his crazy, formless elven style? He would strike high, no–! She blocked his first low thrust, not the second or third. She could barely read him, she couldn't match his speed, but she could not fall. Her low kick went through his knee like mist; he'd let her hit home to show he was untouchable, she was sure. The Ghost's knife hand hurt like any blow she'd taken–and Shavarus was looming up behind.
Her foot axed up into the troll's thigh, but the elf's Killing Fist stabbed at her chest. She struck out and struck again, but nothing hurt the Ghost, and Heal was flashing from Shavarus' claw. Nothing stopped the trog. She ducked the blow of a huge shotgun stock, dropped to the floor and rolled back, shaking.
As Hotspur staggered up, Lowri Greenwood was up as well. Ilsa's Flamestrike passed harmlessly through the Ghost gunslinger. She aimed three shots and fired in one motion. As every security cam on the pier sparked and exploded.
Greenwood put bullets through Ilsa's shoulder and Hotspur's body; undistracted, she would have headshot them both. Fighter barely darted aside, into a blow from Shavarus, as the third bullet cracked concrete. Anya, who'd overloaded the cameras, screamed at her chummers from the silent Matrix; RUN!
Harry hauled himself up again, with a bullet in his gut. His Ki damped the pain, but he knew he would fall in seconds. Behind him, the troll and the elf were boxing Susan in. Too slowly, he pulled out the old Fichetti from his side, that couldn't harm the Ghosts at all, and thrust it out. His eyes slowly, frantically groped about the elf woman's grinning face. She was savouring his helplessness as he fell.
As the grenade dropped from his left hand, and then he kicked. Lowri lashed out at the Renraku flash-bang but it blew, blinding her and Aeirion for seconds.
Ilsa's summoned Earth Spirit thundered at Desorn and Shavarus, swinging its granite fists and throwing out protective magic. A flame wall sprang up behind Susan, as she dashed to Harry's side–Ilsa had to Heal her own gunshot or she would have bled out where she'd collapsed. Then she ran, even throwing her cloak aside, though she managed to snatch Hotspur's sword from the ground as she went.
She could hear the shouts and pounding feet of Anya's summoned Renraku harbour patrol. Rather than charge through an obscuring barrier at a gathering threat, the Tir Ghosts would slip away–at least, that was their only chance.
Only Sharavus charged through the flames. As Susan lifted Harry up, his fist threw them both down. Still gripping his Fichetti, Harry emptied it from the floor at the monster's face. Little bullets; Shavarus still staggered back.
Susan hauled Harry up again, and they ran with all the will to live in their hearts. As Shavarus fired his shotgun, Ilsa threw back a final firebolt. Stray pellets bit through their armour, but they couldn't fall again. There was SMG fire behind them, the Renraku team, then Sharavus' roar of fury. They heard the troll running, diving into the water. With elephantine power, swimming for the city.
Then they were tumbling into a boat, and Ilsa was shouting for someone to drive it. Collapsed in the bows, Harry gave her the swiftest Speedboats 101 in Calfree history. Susan pulled a medkit from his bag, for him. Then she only clung to his head, as he rested on her knees. She was coughing blood herself. They were finally speeding off across the bay. Three shadowrunners, bloodied and exhausted.
"It was certainly fortunate," Ilsa called, "That one of us knew how to start this boat!"
"After running from the Triads…from Hong Kong to Japan…" Harry gasped, "I should fragging know my way around a boat…"
"My man. Where would I be without you?" Heavy joy forced down Susan's head, "We'll have so much to talk about. I should know about boats, after a sea dragon floated Ilsa and me across half the Pacific…"
"That…sounds novahot." Harry managed, "But when you let me think you were brainwashed by that troll, what were you thinking? I was so scared for you…I love you…I nearly went insane."
"...sorry. It was tough for me as well, you know."
Sorry sounded a lot like idiot, and Harry felt it. Susan looked away, at the patrol boat churning towards their vessel, and didn't even slap him. They were together, at last, but of course he'd fragged it up.
Ilsa rubbed her glasses, sighed, and took note that happy endings did not exist. Though their more pressing issue was whether to flee the patrol boat's machine guns in their tiny stolen speedboat, or finally stop running.