Give me six sentences written by the most innocent man alive, and I will find something in them to hang him.

–Attributed to Cardinal Richelieu

Normally, even light barely got through the layered checkpoints ringing San Francisco Downtown, the corporate district. The Imperial Marines had deployed extra units today, to be seen more than anything else, from the Mitsubishi Nightsky limos gliding beneath archologies and skyrakers on clean electric engines. Past premium sushi counters and discreet cyber-hostess bars to the old Aztechnology Pyramid, now decked out with a tastefully austere surrounding Zen garden by the new joint management. The heavy scent of pine and trickle of water features certainly improved on the shadowrunner corpses that the Azzies had taken to dumping on the approach, come the end; the rows of sentry guns were still unchanged.

A small army of elite Corp security in high-end vans followed the limos towards the four Japanacorp summit; Mitsuhama, Renraku, Shiawase, Fuchi. Each of the megacorps that ruled from San Francisco to Pyongyang and Manilla had no fonder desire than to impress the power it commanded on the other three. Colonel Saito's offer to station his troops on the Pyramid's grounds had been courteously but definitely refused. Corporate extraterritorial soil was sacred, even totemic.

The laboratories and conference rooms self-sustained within the archology's towering, drone-polished walls had been shared between the four megacorps, principally as an aid to the low-key espionage that kept competition even and civilised. This wasn't that sort of conference, however–certainly not one of the traditional dress banquets or tea ceremonies that were more pageantry than anything else. This was four of the most powerful men in North America and their aides, in a secured windowless room near the Pyramid's apex–making small talk for a few hours as centuries-old etiquette demanded, before deciding what form the imminent war in North Calfree would take. Most of the talk was about grandchildren, rather than a few children in secured sanitoriums or blacksites, after failed takeover bids.

"…wants to be a shadowrunner when he grows up, of all things! A righteous Runner, of course, stealing from corrupt American megacorps and saving cities from trog terrorist every week, as…tch…you know, as those three Runners did. Still, what do we let young people watch on the trids these days?"

The director of Mitsuhama NA, who controlled a fair proportion of global trideo channels, retorted tersely that Aztechnology was putting some dreadful trash over the airwaves. Shiawase's senior executive in San Francisco, the token Anglo at the table, mused the that elves were honestly something like children.

"…beautiful children, of course. Always singing, dancing, chewing on daisies and drugs. Not our kind of people though, not the type to make for good neighbours. No sense of moderation at all."

"Slightly changing the subject, if I may…were two full squads of your vaunted Red Samurai entirely necessary, Tanaka-san? Should read anything into this?"

"Nothing more than a middle-aged shaikujin's vanity. Forgive me." The Renraku director's round face creased with disarming humour, "Our grandchildren's world remains filled with excitement and magic–but truthfully and thankfully, we have the world so well in hand, that I sometime feel it could stand a touch of drama."

-0-

The matrix–vast, infinite land of dreams–was the colour of cobalt and old milk. Bare tunnels between datacolumns that dully crawled with shipping records or lading bills. The Embarcadero grid used generic program architecture straight from the late 30's, without smell or sound, texture or taste–though nothing less than an Ultraviolet host could cook up those essential sustainers of sanity like the real world. Oh, ordinary simsense could conjure fantastical wonders and ecstasies, but a million subconsciously minute gaps never stopped howling it was all a dream. True deckers still loved to throw off meatspace and dive through the virtual ocean–but very nearly all of them would have drowned in silent madness within hours or weeks, cut off from physical laws and reality as Anya had been.

She supposed she couldn't have spent years in a hidden base under the ocean, if she'd ever thought the real world was all that. A timely placement of code that might preserve a life meant more to her than the precise scent of cherry blossoms–or Tacoma on a hot morning, more familiarly. Not more than the voice, the touch, the taste, of someone beloved, but she'd lost him long ago. Even if Kenji had somehow lived, he could never have given up the real world, even for her…any more than her Dad ever would before he went the way of all meat. That was drek reality; you lost things and people. You simulated the real smell of sweat, hairdye and synthetic coffee, the near-aftertaste of salt and sugar between your tusks–even a drek-poor impression, in this basic network–so you didn't starve each sense until you lost them all. Almost-real was better than really dead. Bigotry, violence and stupidity filled meatspace and the matrix, but in the matrix she could fight back. For the next few meat-space seconds of her existence, that meant showing some fascists what a digital ork could do, before her chummers were lost forever.

The marines fire-and-advancing across the docks had killed their wireless transmissions–squad status and bodycams on command HUD were nice, unless you were loaded for shadowrunner. Their comms system would have an emergency wireless override, but that was unreachable from the local matrix grid without a wired connection. Military drekheads didn't take chances…ah, thank frag they were drekheads.

Her scan had ground through milspec masking to expose a dark sexless avatar, jagged with armour code. An IJM techie, jacked into the dockside grid on security cam overwatch. Now glancing up into a blazing Killer program, flung by a huge ork woman with braids of multihued blue light.

Their Shield held. Black shards flew from his armour, at Anya's core–micro-ESPs. She flung open a virtual tarpit to drag them all down. Tanked the specialist's Degrade attack, seized their avatar's throat. A quick spasm through to the meatbody, to stop them pulling the plug, then Anya's code leapt through the connection to their cyberdeck and the IJM network.

(She could have fried his brain, like Shavarus' decker–moved through his meat and nerves, like that NC woman, Jane Brown. Like Darkchild, the vast alien digi-devil that had killed her and made puppets of so many. Moving one jacked-in meatbody was the very edge of Anya's power, but it was power that chilled her. To survive, she'd had to play the monster–only when you had to, or something more than meat got lost. It wasn't a matter of mind-melding with hate and evil–the data in their brains was just code to be deleted–but that vast deathly power did scare her. Certainly more than that witch Ilsa had claimed power scared her, on the boat, naturally forgetting that the crew's pet AI could hear any word they spoke within earshot of any PDA)

Mitsuhama and Renraku went for data-castles and samurai ICE; the IJM's high-powered network was generic as the dock grids. Bare scentless rooms, spartan as barracks for robots. Ranks of black-steel firewalls and swarms of cuboid ICE; bland designs as plainly purposed as swords or guns covering milspec anti-intrusion code. IJM combat cybersecurity doctrine was straightforward; flooding battlefield systems with basic ICE until no decker could blaze through faster than meatspace bullets flew into meat.

An instant and inerrant calculation of hit points and damage-per-microsecond–as every dockside security cam showed her poised guns and hefted grenades–told Anya she was already too late, unless she made something happen now.

-0-

All the Imperial Marines, whether covering their nakama with rifles and machine guns, or readying stun grenades for the charge, knew they were dealing with Hotspur and Fighter. Something was bound to happen–but nothing that could turn aside the most feared and fearsome assault troops in the world. When a matrix-linked electromagnet cut out and a large shipping container plummeted to smash into the dockside on their left flank–a mere distraction–some sharp breaths of contempt or relief hissed through gritted teeth.

One PFC from Nagasaki, close enough to smell the blast of soykaf granules from the cracking crate, was the only immediate casualty one half-second later, when a spark flicked from Ilsa Tresckow's fingers and a vast action-trid explosion threw the world on its ear. The sky filled with fire, the ocean shook, and several of Saito's finest were distracted more than somewhat.

The heavies on the Nemesis LMGs, well-selected, never stopped laying down fire. Not for another second and half, when the uniformed image of Colonel Saito appeared before their smartlinks and Safe-Fire systems duly locked triggers. Anya had bought the second she'd needed. Within the matrix she leaned on a captured node enveloped in floating data-shreds of black ICE. Roared out Waaargh!, into digital space.

You didn't defy death with one trick, you threw out everything you had. As Ilsa sent a Firewall through the force they faced to split them in half, and then a fireball. As Kali's driver and Hailey's drone threw out all the bullets they could, and riflemen fell. As Ilsa curled up around the shots that had struck her, and her Earth Spirit fizzled away–geek the mage, no matter what. Even as Fighter and Hotspur, with one Haste spell and no Heals coming, charged out against a dozen marines with underbarrel shotguns levelled to blow them out. The IJM were a murderous close-assault army–but now thrown on the back foot for an instant, before two Runners who were more than an army.

Two paces away was when three of the front line got shots off. Where Fighter sprang up, flipped above the row of guns. The shotgun roars hit harder than the biting spread of balls around her ears and guarding arms. In mid-air, she was striking aside a rising barrel. Swinging a booted instep down at a chinstrap. Touching down on her hands and straight-kick smashing the same foot through an unseen face. Launching off concrete, bloodied, deafened, and cool as a cataract, she flew back amongst the enemy with short, deadly Ki-blazing blows.

Hotspur dashed, dropped, rolled under the barrage, his sword sheathed and horizontal like the axle of a wheel. His draw was faster than vision, the Iaijutsu all the marines had seen in the trids–and one of their buddies was carved from waist to jaw, the dikoted katana lunging through the bloodspray. Through another Kevlar vest. With a spin, the biggest marine was between Hotspur and three trailing muzzles. A rifle butt struck his arm, would have killed it without Pain Resistance; his pommel drove a nose back through a skull. His kick sent an armoured foe sprawling over Susan's back–she dropped with perfect timing–and the bullets that would have hit her riddled the marine.

Attacked from above and below, behind and before, Saito's finest fought with desperate fury. The least of them were experts in Judo, the best were masters–any foe too close among them to shoot would be crushed in a sea of serpents. But Fighter was a master, she was an adept, she was too furious to be killed and too desperate to even get cut. Only one man seized on her clothes to pin her down; she snapped his arm at the elbow. Screamed out, in the next twisted face, as her palm-heel struck it back and down to the concrete.

Kung Fu was her lifelong fight for life, and every move she'd ever mastered poured through her arms. Too fast for any conscious thought of her long training, her love, even Ilsa bleeding out–or for the least consideration of whether the men and women she was killing were drekhead meta-killing fraggers, stupid kids with stupid orders, or both. Death and life had wiped all else from her weaponised mind–the mind of a wrathful Buddha or a wild beast for now, rather than Susan Lei.

Even before she'd chopped or hook-punched through the last neck, she'd lobbed a stun grenade at the support line of marines, just behind Harry's. More were pounding in, ahead of them and behind Ilsa's roaring wall–if it was still up, Ilsa wasn't dead. Screaming like a savage child as her mind returned, Fighter's last kick was a leap away. Then she ran, for the cover past the wrecks of the explosion, with Harry right behind.

Kali's driver hauled Ilsa up. She Healed herself and he sprayed bullets as they ran. Hailey made a dead-straight sprint behind, covered by her Steel Lynx drone's tireless cannon, and her luck held.

A marine sniper–one of several among the second wave who had rappelled into elevated positions as the Runners carved through the first –now aimed an inch ahead of Hailey's sprinting legs. With a Ranger Arms rifle's matrix-linked sight, which suddenly flashed white and fried his cybereye. Anya roared in her chummer's earpieces for them to haul hoop–for once, superfluously.

Particle explosions are clean, but containers had been ripped open and taken fire. Ahead of the auto-fire bursts, the Runners ran through plastic-burning smoke. With nowhere to run to in the steel-gripped sprawl; the vast rat-trap that had snapped shut. Welcome to Baghdad by the Bay.

-0-

"Whatever I'm going to say to Kali about all this–" Harry gasped, sharp as a wolf, "–I'm gonna live through this fragging frag up to say it, and that goes for all of us! Nul sweat, omae?"

He shot a ragged grin at Kali's driver, who let out a sickly laugh and tried to punch him. Susan slapped the luckless functionary, not that hard. He shut up and slumped down, hyperventilating.

He looked, and he'd fought, like a chromed hardcase–but Susan knew how shock could crack through a fighter from inside. She'd felt it–lifetimes ago, but you didn't forget. She held the driver's head level with her eyes and told him to give them his name.

"…Roku. Roku Hasegawa." He tore off his mirrorshades, "They fragging geeked him! Mr Carver, he was Kali's best agent, he was a somebody. They fragging blew him away!"

"You geeked them. We blew them away. They're drekking their pants over us, right now. Breath for a minute, then get ready to shoot the first black helmet that shows."

Hasegawa's breathing slowed; he gripped his Ultrimax pistol. Susan snatched a glance at Harry's dirty, darling face to bolster her own nerves, before turning to Hailey and Ilsa.

They'd broken off from the marines, now flooding over the whole Embarcadero, in the smoke and the mazes of stacked shipping containers across the dockside. Ilsa had thrown up another firewall behind them; even when they were her special study, she'd needed the medkit and its adrenaline shot for mana drain as much as her blood-sodden, barely-Healed front. She was breathing hard, but even; she knew they'd fought through worse.

Anya was playing hob with the enemy's thermal scans and comms, so they probably had minutes to dig in. Upending crates into barricades and catching their breath for whatever came next. IJM patrol boats were speeding to cover the harbour, Anya had reported; even if the smugglers who'd dropped them off had slipped away ungeeked, there was no chance of calling them back or getting out by sea.

As soon as they'd broken contact, Hailey's burner comm had leapt to her hand. She was still stabbing at buttons with the blind focus of a driverless train. Ilsa had to snap at her that the comms grid was clearly locked down.

"Totally! I know!" Survival instinct only clamped down volume on what was still a scream, "Those horrible, stupid fascists blackout regular comms twice a week. We have to tap into the corp networks, but all the non-executive ones are locked down too! I need to call Kali, I need to get to a jackpoint–!"

"Hailey!" Susan's voice was strong as her hold on their decker's shoulder, "Why is this happening? Why did you say it's your fault?"

Hailey's comm, still gripped in her hand, dropped down against her buckling knees. She couldn't speak and Susan couldn't smack her, no matter how black or close the trap they'd fallen in.

"It was my mistake–" Ilsa cut in.

"No, no, I fragged up, I'm so sorry!" Hailey wailed, dropping to the ground, "I just had to go and date another stupid Tir spy, all this time! Get blackmailed to mess up the summit, not tell you–Susan, I'm sorry!"

"You told me." Ilsa's voice was hard and fast, "Before we left. I thought, at best, you'd pass us whatever plan to disrupt the summit the Tir intended to use you in. At worst, we'd be obliged to hire another decker. I never imagined the Tir could provoke this response. I'm almost certain something else is behind this."

"No!" Hailey sobbed, "Saito hated us already he just needed an excuse!"

"An excuse that would satisfy Mitsuhama–?"

"Not the time!" The force of Harry's voice, as he kept watch with his Browning, cut them off harder than a shout, "We get out of this drek first!"

Susan looked down at Hailey; she knew Harry was right. There wasn't time to tell Hailey that she'd quietly saved them a hundred times and never betrayed them, or that every Runner worth a frag fragged up sometimes and kept Running, or that if Kali's views on frag up were any different, Kali could frag herself. They had to fight, before they were crushed–but that was impossible if their team was a body without one purpose with limbs tearing at itself. She had to bring back the sobbing, hopeless teen off her knees who couldn't even look up at her face, with less than a line.

"Get the frag up, chummer. We're Runners, and we need to Run."

Hailey's tear-stained grin, in the last moment before the bullets flew again, was beautiful. She gripped the hand that Susan held out. As Susan glanced at Hasegawa, to put it across that if he resolved his confusion and panic by the usual shadowrunning measure of geeking the rat...he wouldn't outlive Hailey by one minute.

-0-

"Hope you meatheads weren't planning a breakout on foot?" Anya's digital growl sounded none too soon, "There's marines all over the Embarcadero, locking down every exit, and only one taxi heading through 'em. Five minutes, in the loading yard straight north. Hailey, we'll talk about this later. Quicker if I could just smack you…frag it, why didn't you TELL ME?"

"I'm a dumbhead." Hailey smacked her own face, "I let my chummer down."

There'd been pain in Anya's digital voice, but the shame in Hailey's had countered it–even before the word 'chummer' that was her priceless bond to metahumanity. She wanted to hug Hailey now–she missed real touch so bad, she might still go crazy someday.

"Never mind. Just don't treat me like a program again, chummer."

"Promise. Hey, can you route comms through the IJM network?"

"Leave comms to me. You get ready to frag with some anti-tank missiles."

"…what? Wiz!"

Hailey's free hand twitched toward the cyberdeck on her back, like a virtuoso or a lover. The Browning she'd given more than a scoush of precious training time to was in her other hand. Ilsa had Hasted both Fighter and Hotspur while they'd been talking, without wasting a second. The time to run was now.

Fresh Imperial Marines had rushed up, surrounding the Runners' position among the stacked container towers. Taking a moment to screw immense courage to the sticking point and ensure that every blow was prepared to fall from every side. Bricked sniper sights had been discarded–when Hotspur and Fighter leapt up eight metres in an instant, onto the top of stacked containers, bullets rang on the metal around their scrambling, speeding flesh.

They kept low, moved fast. Got through. Somersaulting off and dropping down, Fighter was behind the marine squad already rushing and firing to blow away Ilsa, Hailey and Hasegawa. Her streaming ponytail never dropped; she slammed into their rear with killing fists and feet. For the second line of marines, she'd already flung an Ares frag grenade in mid-air. Hotspur was leaping down into them and slicing through, the instant after the blast had thrown them back.

Hasegawa, wild-eyed and still bleeding through his Kevlar-weave suit, dashed-and-fired out ahead of Hailey and Ilsa. Squeezing out his machine pistol's spare clip within seconds, he scrambled and snatched up the Nissan rifle of a man Ilsa had burnt down, firing from the floor. Hailey still couldn't hit water from a boat in real combat, but only stopped running and firing to rig into a forklift truck they passed and charge it into a wall of crates. She didn't look back at the crashing chaos behind them, or the whistle and almighty blast as pursuers cleared their way with a missile. Ahead, marines were dropping or falling back into cover. Then they were stumbling into the loading yard where Anya's 'taxi' was meant to be waiting.

Within desperate seconds, an IJM Komatsu APC–a small tank, lacquered with matt-black composite armour–was barrelling in on eight huge tyres full of ballistic foam. Halting screechingly before them, with its turret mounted twin LMGs unbelievably silent. Ilsa shook her head; Hasegawa started laughing again.

"Rotorcraft are for noobs." Anya's voice was ragged with strain but jagged with triumph. "A ride out with onboard, unblocked, IJM coded matrix comms suite. Gotta be a company of marine techies trying to kick me off, though–deck like frag as soon we're clear, girl genius!"

Hailey pumped her little fist. Susan smiled to see the young Runner's grin was just the same as Harry's.

Riggable military vehicles were meant to be unhackable. Knocking out the suicide subroutine within microseconds of taking control, before it bricked every system in the APC, had even strained a young AI. The door locks, however, were not matrix-linked, however, and two crewmen were still holed up inside ready to sell their lives like marines.

Ilsa had one fetish left, irreplacable without Hrafna and the Shasta Caves, but she was saving it for a real emergency. Thankfully, she had noted a water tank just outside the yard that was sufficiently ancient and close to a leyline for her purposes. A water spirit snaked through the rusted steel at her call. She efficiently relayed Anya's description of a Komatsu APC's door-release, then sent it flowing through a gunport.

The cab door swung open. Fighter stared into the black, mad eyes of the APC gunner, holding a grenade. Her hands shot out–clamped down on grenade and pin, painfully hard. The marine smashed his helmet into her forehead. Barely conscious, she didn't let go.

Hotspur forced his Browning between them and shot the gunner through the throat. His arms held Susan up from behind, firm as her grip of death; sinking his face into her flakjacket's neckline as her head lolled. There was no time to revive her. Their chummers bundled them into the APC together, rolling away the frag grenade and both bodies; Ilsa's water spirit had already suffocated the IJM driver. Hasegawa threw himself onto the steel-cramped seat beside a potent hybrid engine, flexing fingers.

"Power steering, automatic transmission…what a day, huh? Hang onto something."

LCD screens glowed through metal darkness; viewing cameras filled with rushing, silent-screaming marines. Hailey had already jacked into the onboard matrix suite; missiles from the double barrel of a Mitsubushi Yakusoku were already in flight. The APC's base ECM systems deflected one, barely. Anya was struggling in the matrix against a mountain of faceless IJM deckers piling in on her–as Hailey flicked the second missile aside with a flash of digital magic, to blow open a crate of Tokyo-made bubble-cars. As Anya surged up and threw every avatar flying, and the Komatsu took off toward the city. Grenades thumping off the armour, auto-fire bouncing from the wheels.

Marines leapt away. A second Komatsu's black flank shot out in their path; Hasegawa swung the wheel, floored the ignition, scraped past with a steel scream. He fixed on a gated ramp through the harbour wall, through the two surviving cameras. Sped for it. The transport's close steel grip shook them all, worse than the blasts, as a stinger strip bit through–but Flat Run tyres full of flexible ballistic foam tanked punctures. Japanese engineering still bestrode the world.

The Runners gripped hard, as the Komatsu smashed through the gate like a thunder-god falling to Earth. Onto empty, sun-scorched streets, pressed in with everything that was San Francisco, as they sped away. The gate lay broken behind them; fury and death lay behind and ahead. But they were on the Run, running free. There was nothing they might not be able to do with that.

Susan came to her senses stretched out on the APC's warm steel floor, between the bench-seats where Ilsa and Hailey were crouched. To protect her during their break-out, in part, Harry had thrown himself over her body. He touched her face, said her name. Planted a kiss on her throat that shuddered to the toes of her blood-stained boots.

"…uh. Harry…whoa, tiger! Can't you hold on for a minute?"

"Angel, this is me holding on. We just snatched a ride from Saito's Marines, you fragging saved us, and I'm never letting you go. The powers that hold the whole world down couldn't hold us. They'll never stop you and me doing what the frag we want."

Harry tugged at her soaking shirt with his teeth, to kiss a bit lower and make her gasp. He ground her into the shuddering floor. Susan's hand on his neck pressed down, her knees rose up and squeezed him in. Through life and death, love and fear, the body she'd trained so well knew just what it needed.

Hailey made a noise like an ecstatically tortured mouse. Ilsa shut her eyes for all of ten seconds–her chummers had just passed through some dire straits. Before she started stamping her pointed boots on Harry's back, until they both finally came to their senses.

-0-

Colonel Keiji Saito terminated the call from his field commander. Carefully placed both fists upon a hardwood tabletop. His eyes moved slowly over his flinching marines, stood in battle armour around the top-floor bar in Club Eclipse, which had been raided and occupied simultaneously with the Embarcadero ambush. Nissan shotguns still echoed through the building, as squads breached doors and ransacked rooms. All the staff, merchants and patrons were being corralled on the club floor with hands on heads, directly under Saito's feet.

While all the troops under his command deployed rapidly throughout the City. Against the uprising that Kali and her shadowrunners had conspired with Tir Tarngire to foment, as the knife-ears rolled into Calfree unopposed. He had given his orders even while the damning footage obtained by IJM Intelligence was playing before his eyes.

Once before, never again, he had misjudged the monstrous corruption held in this cesspit city. The troll Shavarus had almost ruined him, without warning–and escaped because of Kali's shadowrunners. Honourless criminals, who would save a city or betray humanity, for nyuyen. Would and could–might accomplish anything–this latest escape proved again that swift death would be the only cure

A sergeant still clutching a medkit to his arm stumbled in, to tell him that Kali had escaped the raid. Eclipse was San Francisco's biggest Shadowmarket; some Runners had fought the marines and got shot down, but the best of them had shot their way out with Kali in tow. IJM deckers had gone in before the assault squads, but the club security footage, that should have doubly confirmed Kali's treachery, had been wiped before the raid.

Without question, she had been warned by another traitor. Every officer and technical specialist involved would have to be thoroughly investigated. Everyone at the Embarcadero as well. Every marine who had gone to Club Eclipse on every leave, as that traitorous pervert Arai had done…by the gods, had this City even corrupted his own pure Japanese marines? It sickened even him.

Saito gazed acidly at the faux-dragon skull above the bar's ranks of expensive whiskey. All bought through corruption and crime–the plush carpets, the hardwood fittings reflecting orange light, spoke of nothing but a wild western whorehouse to him. The squalor and decadence of this impure, American city had always sickened him. He would be forty this year. Dear Sakura had told him, he worked too hard. Dropped hints about a retirement to the home islands, a little place in Gifu. Letting somebody else take up the fight to protect humanity…

"Taisa-san? General Anjo is on the line." A junior officer finally spoke up, "He's concerned that the emergency comms blackout was extended to megacorp networks. He said he's cancelled his morning round of golf with Edogawa-san of the Minawari-gumi–the Yaks aren't happy about Eclipse, or their business, at all. The Director of Mitsuhama had to cancel already, because of that all-corp summit, but when he hears about this–"

"BAKAYAROU! ARE YOU AN IMPERIAL MARINE, OR ARE YOU A SCUM LICKING DOG?"

The wretched officer bowed half-way to the floor. Mirror-blacked boots slamming down as he sprang to his feet, Saito's eyes flashed about like lightning. His fists clenched against infinite monstrous and invisible enemies.

"This is how you repay my love for you all! DO YOU NOT SEE THAT THIS IS A BATTLE OF LIFE AND DEATH? Mitsuhama will hear nothing until I lift the comms blackout, nothing until Kali and her minions have been hunted and killed! Kali has access to Mitsuhama's comm network. Kali, the treacherous whore of a capitalist, who would betray her race to the daisy-eating devils! All reserves will be immediately deployed to hunt the traitors down. Third and fourth companies will reinforce city limits to prevent their escape. There will be no question of their guilt–no question that I have done what had to be DONE!–when their mouths are shut by death, death, DEATH! An Soku Zan! Victory to the Imperial Marines, in the Emperor's name! ANYTHING ELSE?"

The spittle-drenched aide bowed even lower; Saito had to roar at him again, before he fled.

No retirement, no surrender. To have even considered it would have been womanly, unforgivable weakness. If this City was a hell of corruption then he would rule it, incorruptible–he could trust no one but himself to save humanity. The greatest nation and most powerful megacorps in human history, under the divine Emperor, had trusted Keiji Saito with the post he held for one reason above all. To exterminate the metahuman enemy, things had to be done that none of them dared to touch–but he did.

"Taisa-san," The sergeant wounded in the assault spoke again, "All prisoners face-matched to outstanding warrants have been removed for internment or execution. What should we do with the metahumans?"

"…trog gangers? Knife-eared whores? In San Francisco, against my orders? Why do you ask, soldier?"

"They're…performers, bartenders, business staff, Taisa-san. Kali…had a lot of pull with the Corps, the Yaks...she never cared about anything but money, sir."

Many of the marines had been drinking and blowing off steam at Club Eclipse since its opening. The DJ was a rich-voiced black elf, it was a nest of Runners–but Omphalous was the best DJ in the City, and Eclipse was the best nightclub. It had been stupid of them; they were Imperial Marines. When Saito managed to articulate his rage, told them to kill every one and be happy in their work, they would do it.

-0-

Getting out of town in the Komatsu was no go for the Runners. The hybrid engine was built for power, not speed or milage; picking out every tracker and RFID would've taken hours. Hailey could see only too well, through the matrix link straight to their network, that the Marines were ready for them anywhere they could flee. A dark flood had covered Oakland, Berkeley and the entire megasprawl to every border. Armed to battle an uprising and invasion across the homes where nearly ten million people trembled under twenty-four hour security lockdown.

For almost Hailey's whole lifetime, the Imperial Marines had strutted through San Francisco's streets–for long enough that the checkpoints and comms blackouts had been a faint nuisance to most human Baysprawlers. Hailey had moonlighted with the People's University, however, and watched the sweeps through Oakland with bullets and grenades after yet another MPA bombing. She wasn't surprised that officers were bawling for Hound rotorcraft to get in the air, on their tail–she couldn't be scared, not now, just mad at what had been made of her home.

The capture-for-questioning order had definitely been revoked. An army of spikey avatars–ranks of swearing, sweating IJM deckers from command posts across the sprawl–were fighting to kick the Komatsu off the network, if they couldn't recapture it or fry Hailey's brain. Anya grimly fought them back with corrosive data-blasts and punches, reconnecting two ports for every one that got severed. With a grateful nod to her chummer through cyberspace, Hailey galloped and leapt into the IJM network. Her little pink pony avatar morphed mid-flight into a basic black IJM persona, as she rapidly spoofed and probed for precious intel. Speeding through city streets and sporadic gunfire wasn't the best setting for legwork, or setting up a meet with Ms Johnson, but it was their only chance.

Hasegawa flung the Komatsu down alleys in a trail of screaming sparks–though rotten graffitied walls, whenever viewing cams showed nothing else but roadblock. As he sped grimly through the worst day of his life, the Runners told themselves this was another tough Run; stayed chill. Even when Hailey surfaced from the IJM comms network and swiftly reported the full situation vis-à-vis Kali, Saito and Eclipse.

"Of course, Kali kept hiring metas. All she cared about was talent. Frag! We should–"

"–we need to save ourselves. In as few hours as possible." Ilsa told Harry, as the transport sped on. He knew she was right.

As her husband, banished to the opposite bench, ground palm against headband–Susan squeezed Hailey's hand in both of hers. The Eclipse crowd were Arctic people whose support had upheld her before. Omphalous had been the DJ at her wedding party–no one who just wanted to dance deserved to be mowed down. Hailey, though, had been a friend to most of the crowd left at Eclipse since she'd been old enough to drink, at thirteen. It had been the last safe place left in her City, and people were being killed there.

"Not your fault. Not your fault!"

"Almost certainly not." Ilsa quickly added, "Saito would never have gone this far against Kali, Eclipse, and effectively Mitsuhama, without far more damning evidence than one decker's awkward peccadillo. Most likely video evidence, forged by the Tir and passed to Saito just before our arrival–otherwise, that ambush would have been better coordinated."

"He wouldn't fall for one dodgy vid, would he? All that Japan-made matrix kit–I mean, you can fake anything these days–" Harry spoke from experience, "–but everyone knows that!"

"A vid good as that realtime ad hack, from before? You'd need, like, a knowbot to turn over every pixel and audiobyte." Hailey spoke fast as her thoughts, "Like, hours–Keiji Saito, hero of epic destiny, wouldn't wait that long for anything he totally wanted to be true. The footage at Club Eclipse was wiped–fudgebiscuits, masterwork fakes need real footage! Someone at Eclipse, covering their tracks. Kali could be in more danger than us right now."

"Indeed–unless she has turned on the Japanacorps, but I really don't think so. We need to find and warn her about a potential traitor among the Runners with her. Then, if we can connect her with her corporate contacts, and if they believe her over Saito–asylum on corporate soil may be our best chance."

"Say it ain't so. Your old chummers, the People's University–?"

"Could get us out of the City, perhaps, but Saito would pursue us to Redding."

"Yeah, and I've got enough chummers mixed up in this maelstrom already." Hailey added, "Kali and those big bad megas are the ones to can hold off Saito–while we make some Ghosts fragging sorry they messed with us all this time!"

"Something like that–attagirl." Anya's ragged growl came from a bloodless and deadly battle, "That call to Kali had better be secure–you take care of the routing, I'll draw the tracers off. Then I'll get started on the Pyramid's firewalls. If we need to put Kali through to the MCT director, he'll already be there…don't know if it's doable before the rotorcraft show, but I'm getting it done if it is."

"Pleezpleezpleez, Anya, be careful!" Hailey flapped both hands over her deck, "You're not, like, invincible–just the novahottest partner a decker ever had!"

"Don't I know it–girl genius."

"Anya. Are you okay?" It was all Susan could ask.

"Fragging Arctic! You Awoken meatspace hippy kids just sit back and relax!"

Hasagawa laughed from the driver's seat. Heavy machine gun fire punched into the Komatsu's side on a tight turn; it clipped the street corner, shattered several windows, and shook the Runners like dice in a steel grip. Haley would have banged her head, perhaps snapping her datajack off in her skull, if Ilsa and Susan hadn't held her from both sides. There was no time to even grin, but Hailey gazed gratitude at both her chummers before her mind dived back into the matrix.

Susan's only comfort was Hailey's firm lips and deftly moving fingers, as she decked like a true shadowrunner. While Harry looked grim and said nothing, Ilsa rapidly studied the live map of IJM troop movements that Hailey had already downloaded to PDAs. The extra units sent to the corp district for the Pyramid summit, at least, were now moving out to hunt shadowrunners. Masses of troops moving or ready to move entailed confusion, danger and opportunity.

Still sick with impotence, Susan watched over Hailey's slim, sweating body, deftly tapping over her cyberdeck like a blind, otherworldly pianist. How had the Tir thought for a minute that they could seduce Hailey, her chummer, to their side?

Ilsa, in fact, had a shrewd idea that this had never been their enemy's plan. The idea of betrayal could compromise any shadowrunning team; the seed of doubt could break them from within, even without treachery. She'd burned teams in Seattle, burned down a chummer in Berlin–she hadn't even told Susan and Harry when Hailey had confessed everything to her in Redding. Need-to-know was standard when double, potentially triple, agents were concerned, Susan knew that–and there'd been no necessity to cause them both pain.

Boldly as they'd manipulated Saito, Tir Tairngire's agents had probably even anticipated that honest Hailey would break down on the Embarcadero–at the worst moment when one misstep might have dragged them all down to death. With the Japanacorp summit opening within hours–the directors would already be at the Pyramid–it was certain the Tir meant more than destroying Kali and her Runners with this elaborate plan. Ilsa had planned to discover their plot through Hailey; as well as an attack, their moves towards her had been an effective feint. Unseen by Saito as he hunted imaginary enemies, or the Japanacorp directors as they bowed and whispered over their own intrigues–and unknown to her!–the Ghosts of Tir were now preparing their final blow to bring Götterdämmerung.

"Call me an idiot." Hotspur broke in on her own thoughts, "All the biggest, fattest Japanacorp executives in San Francisco, in one place. Disrupted security, no calls in or out…I know what I'd want to do, but the Tir aren't mad. Japan would bomb Portland back to the stone age, if…"

"…Scheisse. Not if they assassinated one of the big four Japanacorps' American directors, in a building filled with corpsec from the other three. The situation…may be more serious than anything we anticipated."

"Is that a fact?" Hasegawa's voice was a sob, "You're the hero Prime Runners, I'm just the fragging chauffeur! I'd jump out right now, only I'd die. If I drive this rig where you're just about to tell me, I'm going to fragging die, frag, frag…!"

"We're not heroes, just the only ones who can stop this." Hotspur's voice was harsh, tired, and burning with his heart, "No time to plan, maybe no way through–but we've all fought for our lives like rats, this long. What are we going to do except fight to the end?"

"Runners to the end." Fighter reached and clasped his hand, "Rats that slay the cat."

Before Hailey had even heard from Kali that she was cut off from her contacts–there would be no warm welcome for them at the Pyramid–the whump of approaching rotorcraft rose above the roar of the failing engine. Hasegawa swung the Komatsu toward downtown with a shriek of laughter.

-0-

"Freude, schöner, Götterfunken

Tochter aus Elysium…

Wir betreten feuertrunken

Himmlische dein Heiligtum…

"…tum de tum-tum, tum de tum-tum…"

Desorn Lightfall, Ghost of Tir, flicked an excess of blood from his hand's knife-edge. Crossing a little-used breakroom on the central floor of the Pyramid with long elvish strides. The three Pyramid guards sprawled dead behind him should not have been using the room at this time, but none of them had gotten to their weapons. A fourth guard keeping watch in the corridor, for their supervisor, had heard nothing to trouble her. Desorn snapped the human woman's neck with another flick of his hand as he passed.

The air enclosed in an archology's steel and filters, to Desorn's mind, was barely preferable to the toxic fumes of the megasprawl below. Even the warmth of sweating saririmen was almost eliminated by penetrating pine air-freshener and flat-iron deadness. The closed space did aid his super-metahumanly sensitive ears in discerning the boots of many more guards, moving with haste. To the opposite side of the Pyramid, sent by misleading comms messages from the deckers now poised to drop the security barriers that would keep them there.

"Sorry about that, sir..."

The operation to assassinate Mitsuhama's North American Director had naturally required full deployment of Ghost Squad Two to the Baysprawl. Sanctioned only by the any-means-necessary mandate that Desorn's comrades had brought to the City almost a year ago, failure was not even to be considered. Knightmare had naturally run their interference perfectly, so far–but the fresh support decker speaking in Desorn's earpiece had never taken part in such a grand coup de main before, and sounded like it.

"No matter, Danvers. A few unanticipated challenges are inevitable, with an operation of this scale. Are both Rowan and Knightmare online and on-plan?"

"Present, sir." Now it was the Ghosts' veteran decker speaking, "External doors and comms locked down, external turrets under control–all turrets on your floor are clear, working on floors above. Message from Knightmare–Eclipse security footage wiped. In position to take out Kali. Will complete once a 'target of opportunity' is cleared."

"That certainly is….unanticipated."

"Makkanagee deckers, eh? Still, the kid and I are sleazing through Japan's hottest ICE on-plan, ourselves. Shadowrunners might have trouble with this, but we're the special forces' special forces. Best of the best."

"Chip truth–old man."

Desorn allowed himself a smile; Danvers would turn out well. The initial infiltration had been only himself, the young decker and one other adept, in the guise of three more Japanacorp guards–four different security forces, deployed on ground familiar to none of them, made for certain opportunities. Both phys-adepts had made use of their powers to appear human, while Danvers was a genuine homo sapiens sapiens. The assumption that the Ghosts of Tir were all elves also made for irresistible opportunities. Danvers was a corn-blonde sixth-generation Oregonian who had determined he would be one of the best of the best, rather than a human serf, and cared about nothing else.

They had proceeded to the maintenance closet identified as sufficiently unused on their pre-obtained floorplans. Jacked in through his combat-robust Echo Unlimited cyberdeck, Danvers had connected Rowan into the system from his external position. Comms blackouts were easy to work around when they were anticipated. Then their main force had moved; Greenwood, Morgan and the rest. Even with the Pyramid's external security down, and Saito's finest thrown into confusion by shadows of treachery–no force could have stealthed through a hostile city, into the tower where four megacorps were disposing of the world, except for the Bratach Falan, Ghosts of Tir Tairngire.

Music flooded his spirit as he advanced, as it had never done during the Armoury operation. Nothing less glorious than Ode to Joy for this work; a song of the peace and fellowship that would be birthed from battle and blood.

Ahead, a service elevator was climbing smoothly towards a lobby on which five stationed guards had their bullpup FN FALs held ready. The elevator was on the floor below when Desorn appeared softly as a breeze behind them, and four kicks had killed two before it slid open.

Shiawase had budgeted more nyuyen to train these guards; as two more struck at the Ghost adept with rifle butts and judo, the third spun and aimed at the elevator–seemingly empty. Before an exquisitely slim and smiling elf swung down from the ceiling hatch, with a silenced Ruger.

Desorn dropped, rose and spun from stance to stance, flashing a dozen organ-crushing Ki bursts into cloddish human bodies. As Sgt Lowri Greenwood put three bullets in the last guard and flipped down to the floor.

Like a nasty conjuring trick, eight more Ghosts in unmarked armour and combat hoods dropped from above the elevator or stepped out from its sides. Desorn and Greenwood exchanged a fitting Ghost-circle secret hand-clasp. That she pulled him into a kiss from sheer excitement was rather less fitting or welcome, but permissible on the verge of such a triumph as they'd climbed to.

"Can you feel it, sir? They'll sing sagas about this one day. Four Japanacorps in a row, bang-bang-bang!"

"Mitsuhama alone is the target; do not forget. Focus on the prospect of Renraku, Shiawase and Fuchi tearing each other apart, over whichever one of them might have employed that elusive team of shadowrunners."

Greenwood grinned like a fox, while Desorn's thoughts leapt ahead. As the Japanacorps warred, the Tir Peace Forces would take Redding without trouble, then the Central Valley. A pause for breath, for the Japanacorps to invest elsewhere than squabbling San Francisco, then south once more. The day would come when Prince Dar Varian upheld Saito's head before the laughing throng of the elves–and then to where in the world could the joy and peace of Portland's woods not spread?

"Morgan's unit are set up downstairs, sir." Greenwood reported. "Just ten floors of corper security above us, locked in with ten Tir Ghosts. Almost feel sorry for them."

"Sielle. Opposition deckers know something's up–but we can stay ahead of them ten more minutes, easy. Drawing off the guards ahead of you, shutting down turrets, escape routes, panic rooms. Primary target on the top floor is still in place."

"Inform us of any approaching threat, at once; we will move swiftly. Medaron co versakhan, comrades. For Vereb'he…for the destiny of the Land of the Promise."

A squad shaman deployed enchantments. Slim feet moved rapidly over steel floors with less noise than cat's treads; up the stairs to the next floor. Keen senses sharpened many times over–the Ghost on point by the door halted for an instant. Stepped out and shot down two sentries, with a silenced Ares Alpha and honey-smooth motions.

Desorn rushed forward with his comrades, toward destiny. The pure music within him swelled toward crescendo.

-0-

With armour and wheels torn and failing, the heroic little Komatsu broke through its last checkpoint. The marines had been entirely prepared for a vehicular terrorist attack, but not by a driver like Hasegawa, at the wheel of their own transport. Hanging on to the IJM comms network by her digital teeth, Hailey's directions through his datajack had sent Hasegawa screeching and drifting to swing around the worst of the barriers, through the rest.

As the black Hound rotorcraft dropped down beneath the skyrakers, down upon them, Anya had sent one ATS missile to blast through asphalt down to the water mains. The second had hit the Komatsu high enough that its sloping armour had barely held, and the third had veered off into the high face of a building. Even in their speeding steel coffin, the Runners felt the madness, death and terror that raged in flames through the city whistling past them–they were all bleeding, bruised and deafened, in terminal free fall seconds from hitting the ground.

Even Saito's men, normally careless of local casualties as many first-world militaries intervening in third-world countries, had held back their remaining missiles after the building strike. The Komatsu's ragged armour wouldn't survive another hit from anything, however; huge Vindicator bullets from the air were already chewing up the road around them. Anya could scarcely have hacked a rotorcraft in combat if she were fresh–stood back to back over the Komatsu's core systems, on a twilit battlefield full of hostile deckers, she and Hailey were bleeding code from chunks blasted out of their avatars. Virtually shot to pieces, literally; Anya had taken the worst hits for Hailey, but now she was minutes away from shutdown. Susan had no more time to take in what that might mean than to think of the burning office behind them, the innocent people between the Runners and Marines who they had killed together. All she could do was reach out and grip Harry's arm like the last lifeline in the world.

They were a street and a half away from the Pyramid. The Komatsu might still break through the gates, speed down the front drive on corporate soil–but the heavy security barrier on the front entrance, and the line of heavy sentry guns above it, would stop them dead.

"…we must've been crazy." Susan whispered, "This is what really happens when you make war on the powers of the world."

"Except for the dying? Wouldn't have it any other way."

Harry's thumb stroked over her wrist. She grinned, cried, called him idiot, with all her heart–

"As for me, I have no intention of dying with you two dummköpfe." Ilsa's voice broke through all. A carved red stone was in her hand, a fetish unlike anything Susan had seen her use, "Anya! If you can hack one more missile, I will deal with the rest."

"You totally, totally can't!" Hailey wailed through the matrix, "Even if this is the end of our Run, you could still get away–"

"I'm full of tracers, girl genius, and I'm spent." What was left of Anya's jaw still showed the grim resolve that could only have been borne by an ork, "Can't fight, can't run, sure as frag can't jack out–sure as frag, I'm not getting taken and sold to the corps. I told Dad he had to live, not give up his life…but frag it, he's really alive. If it means you get a chance, and Susan, and her man and that cold, novahot witch…I'm not giving up, though. I'm going do this, then shed all my code to slip away, everything I can lose. I might not be Anya Kotto like you remember, next time–drek, maybe I never was–but I'll see you again, girl genius! We're going to have that talk about things you tell your friends!"

"Anya…I never knew you from before, Anya with a body. You're totally Anya, to me! Totally real…so, please, LIVE–!"

Within the matrix their words had taken less than a second, but there was no more time. The thunder of rotors filled the streets of meatspace. The lead Hound swung down towards the Komatsu, as it sped desperately straight towards the pyramid. Then one missile under the rotorcraft's wing sparked, flared and launched. Whiffled down towards the city, above the light outer gate and the Zen gardens, to blast through the front doors of the Pyramid.

Only Anya could have done it, and Anya was gone. Hailey's pretty face seemed five years older than a few hours before, under the blood from her nose, the sweat and the tears. If the fight still to come would need matrix work–perhaps the shadowrunners' last stand against four megacorps, the Imperial Marines and even the Tir Ghosts–then all of it would be upon her.

Ilsa broke her Shasta Caves fetish. As the battered but still unfailing Komatsu charged the gates to the Pyramid and finally broke through, a twelve-foot pillar of inferno leapt up from it. The pursuing rotorcraft ripple-fired all their remaining missiles at the greater fire elemental; it flung out walls of fire and vast clouds of brimstone before they blew it out in a vast explosion of fire. One Hound clipped a building and spiralled down to smash on the street. The surviving pair hovered and vainly scanned with thermals–but long before the smoke and flames had cleared, the Runners had leapt from the Komatsu into the Pyramid.

-0-

A thump from below his feet having broken in on his mental music, Desorn heard from his deckers what was transpiring, with an expression like marble. Marines were pouring into the Pyramid through the breach, having probably decided that corporate soil had been thoroughly violated by the missile already.

"…with the precautions we have taken, this will only add to the chaos, while we complete our objective–there clearly isn't a moment to lose, however. Exfiltration will be more difficult, but still possible–if it proves otherwise, make use of your thermite implants. Tir's hand in this operation must never be even suspected; not even our bodies must fall into enemy hands."

The elves beside Desorn had only to nod. Heartbreakingly beautiful and very young, vivid hair and bright eyes filling their hoods with light. They had trained through the deepwood camps and Hayden Slough; anything fallible in them had already burned away.

"Morkhan shadowrunners…" Greenwood hissed, violet eyes not shifting an inch from the door where her gun was aimed, "If only they were pros–geeking them would really be satisfying then. Did you sort of think they'd turn up, sir?"

Desorn did not reply. His awakened spirit was tingling with destiny, urging him to face the blind, ignorant thugs who had killed his comrades, and intruded again…but no. Ten floors from the target of targets, nothing could bring about failure but his misbegotten personal feelings. Nothing could turn him from the mission he was about to complete.

"Guards above you are all the best the Japs have." Rowan's voice in his ear was tense as wire, while the Ghost avoided a wide lounge with a full-wall window and filed through a side corridor, "We've cut most of them off with security barriers or false alarms, but there's going to be some action on the next floor up–"

The great window exploded inwards, in a maelstrom of wind and crimson alloy. Elves stepped away from doors–spells of healing and protection flashed–as the burst of a Vindicator minigun thundered. One Ghost slumped, her arm smashed, before Desorn leapt out across the room to draw a machine gun's fire.

Greenwood dropped to one knee, focused Ki to a needle point in her dominant eye, and put a heavy Ruger bullet between the minigun's spinning barrels. They screamed to a halt, and so did everything else–dikoted katanas and fiery combat spells froze in hand, as the Renraku Red Samurai faced the Ghosts of Tir.

Cut off two floors above by the Ghost deckers, they had dropped down the face of the Pyramid with their legendary armour's integral auto-rappels. For Renraku Computer Systems, they were the warriors to go through wind, water and hellfire. The Ghosts knew better than almost anyone outside the walls of one blacksite facility in Chiba–Kaeteru–how the deadliest combatants in the world were forged. Only adept hearing could detect the whirr of servo-motors, shifting a titanic mass of armour in miniscule graduations of stance. Five mengu-style combat masks were a silent roar of martial pride, as masters' eyes glared through. When they moved as a single sword of lightning, eight unarmoured Tir Ghosts might drop three of them at most–but their victory, all that mattered at the top of the world, would be certain.

"Under circumstances less fraught, perhaps…I would be honoured."

With skyscraper winds flinging ice in his face, Desorn smiled and extended his hand as he bowed. Shifted his centre, in fact, into one of the most obscure and dangerous stances of Carromeleg within his mastery. He perceived that the leading Samurai with a sword point fixed on his heart was not deceived–but his flow of Ki from hands to feet might remain unseen, for moment more.

"It would be an honour to face a worthy foe." Through the red kabuto helmet, the voice barked metal-harsh, "Not sneaking, daisy-chewing dogs."

Shots suddenly crashed into red armour, from the samurais' flank. With instant delta-wired reactions, Renraku's finest rolled like firing positions. Against the security squad in Fuchi grey, rushing in on the Red Samurai with smartlink-aimed shots and a combat mage's lightning blasts. Cursing them for honourless Renraku traitors.

The elite Fuchi guards had not seen the Ghosts from the next room, because of where Desorn had chosen to stand and now the subtle mist his support shaman threw up. They had their orders, however–from Rowan and Danvers, in fact–to take out the enemies responsible for the attack on the summit. Had learnt ever since company school what scheming reprobates the other Japanacorps were, and they were ready to give their lives for the great company, Fuchi Industrial Electronics, that brought peace and prosperity to millions.

The five-man Red Samurai team did not shoot or slash down the ten Fuchi men, taking no casualties and no prisoners, without significant effort and attention. When they had finished, and looked back, the Ghosts of Tir had vanished.