Chapter III: Settling in and Settling Debts (POV) - Time

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, I'm not dead - though it did feel like it for a few weeks there. I am now a University Graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. Thank fuck that shit's over. Currently looking for a years worth of experience supervised by an accredited clinical psychologist so I can do my Ph.D (which is needed to become a Clinical Psychologist in England). I'm looking to have everything I currently have uploaded plus two more at least at the end of act 2 by the end of that year of experience. The LiS fandom will probably have trickled down to just me and NothingYouCanProve by then, but I promised this shit would be finished and it damn well will be.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

"It's the Bronze! Take them down!"

Max's drones swooped down to the road and blasted the Lonestar roadblock with everything they had. Bullets riddled the armor plating and tore through it, ripping into whomever was unlucky enough to have been inside the vehicles. Two more appeared from the side alleys, firing at the officers they could spot.

She took the entire thing out in less than fifteen seconds.

Six missions, and the little hipster had only gotten more terrifying with each one. Six successful missions, though. Very, very, successful. Honestly, I don't know why I didn't become a Shadowrunner sooner, it's so amazingly profitable. Actually, I know exactly why I didn't. I ducked under a hail of gunfire and spun around a fucking fireball, moving to crouch behind a nearby wreck. The dead man lying halfway out of the window might not be producing any more blood, but what his enterprising little bones had made before his death was currently leaking everywhere out of the dozen or so fragmentation shrapnel wounds across his body. Unfortunately for me, I only realised this after a half pint had dripped onto my fucking back. "Ew ew ew ew ew!"

That's why: the dry-cleaning bill was a fucking nightmare.

I leapt to my feet with a shudder, putting bullets in the heads of two Lonestar officers before ducking down again, away from the disgusting bleeder. One of the more errant streaks of blood ran down the middle of the Lonestar logo, reminding me oddly of one of the few pre-crash films I'd seen. What was it called? Guardsmen? Sight-men? Watchdogs? Damned if I remember. It's not terribly important, I suppose. I certainly have more pressing issues to attend to.

I fished out my deck and set it to scan for nearby Lonestar installations. There didn't seem to be any, implying this roadblock was intentional for us, rather than something we ran into accidentally. Interesting. They shouldn't've caught onto our robbery. I'd taken down all the alarms Renraku had set-up in their Matrix connection easily. Ironic, really, considering their core business was computer technology. Maybe we'd missed someone who'd called it in?

Either way. This was the situation now. No sense crying over spilled secrets. You just shoot the spy and get on with your life. Or let them rescue you from Shadowrunners, then drag you into the Shadows in turn to get revenge. That works too.

The road suddenly goes silent. It's a stark change from the rails of bullets that'd been roaring over the area moments before. I carefully get to my feet and look around me. Six destroyed vehicles and around two dozen dead cops. I think I might be getting used to this. I still hated the sight of them, and felt horrible that I'd killed, but those feelings were more... distant. Plus, I felt entirely satisfied that I was the one still breathing. Yes. Glad to be alive.

I realised I'd been fingering the wedding ring I had on a string around my neck and quickly forced my hand down to my side. I forced the memories that were starting to appear down even more forcefully.

A large, toothy troll grin appears from somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, quickly joined by a dozen drones and a tiny freckled dwarf. "Nice work, Ice. Told you you'd be a fragging great distraction."

"Fuck off, Blue."

She leered. "That's more like it, Ice. Now you're a real runner."

"Fuck off, Blue." I repeated, in the same irritable tone.

She chuckled. "Come on, let's buzz. Gotta drop this drek off and get paid already. Plus, Maxie needs to go see Kate."

Max shook her head. "No way, Blue. I'm fine."

I raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. "You need a medic?"

Max glared at me and Chloe. Mostly Chloe. "No. I'm fine." It would've been more convincing if she hadn't coughed blood on the N.

"Looks like that Talismonger got you good." I offered dryly.

"No, I'm fucking-" She coughed again, then paused. Her shoulders sagged. "I think I need a doctor."

Chloe snorted. "Yeah, you do. Now let's go already. The Johnson is probably bored as drek by now."

Kate was less than impressed with Max's state. "I swear, whenever I come in, it seems like it's always you three in here." She ran a hand down Max's ribs and the cuts there began to recede into themselves. Max winced the entire time. It was strangely satisfying. "I know better than to ask how you got these, but could you at least try not to get hit with internally damaging spells next time? Fixing these is expensive." Another hand waved and Max's eyes bulged as her hand shot to her chest.

"What the fragging hell was that?"

Alice chittered on Kate's shoulder. I'm fairly certain the little spirit was laughing. Kate just shrugged. "Something tore your heart lining. It's currently knitting itself back together."

"Well, it fragging hurts! How long is it going to take?"

I smirked from my perch by the door as I listened to her whine. Big bad Shadowrunner taken down by a nasty little booboo. Poor thing. Hah.

Kate turned to me. "You're up next, Victoria."

I frown. "But I'm not injured."

"You faced a lunatic shaman throwing internally damaging spells around like candy. I'm checking you over." Huh. That's quite the formidable face. I, um...

I averted eye contact, shook my head, and stood up. "I'm fine, Kate. No need to worry. I'll just be going and-"

"Sit down, Victoria."

I sat down.

I flicked another finger and watched yet another sub-fucking-par news story flicker out of view, replaced by yet more shit. What the hell were they doing to my company? I thought Dragons were supposed to have fucking standards.

I ditched the ChaseSpace newsfeed and opened up an intranet access page. The blinking 'Username' and 'Password' boxes felt almost... teasing. Taunting, even. Like they were laughing at me. Ms Victoria Maribeth Chase, CEO of Nothing and Global Leader in Fuck All. The Bastards.

Still. I tap a few keys and enter an ID I hadn't had to use since... well. Since before my parents died.

Username: VictoriaMaribeth

Password: chasingdreams

The screen flickered and a red message flashed. MATRIX ACCESS ONLY. I pulled out the connector cable, slotted one end into the deck and held the other to my temple. I took a breath, and jacked in to the Matrix.

The room that appeared in my mind then was one I hadn't seen for an even longer time than I'd not used the log-in. A large sandstone fireplace was set into one wall, a proper old-fashioned woodburning one and not the modern electrical monstrosities, sat under a large portrait of a familiar, unsmiling family. The opposite and the far walls were both lined with old mahogany bookcases. A genuine Persian rug lay in the middle of the room, covering the flagstones that made up the floor. At Feng-Shui-proper angles to the rug and facing the fireplace were two red-upholstered sofas, each with a small table at either end.

I walked over to the far sofa and sat down, smiling when a menu flickered into life beside me. I tapped the third option, then stood as another screen appeared above the fireplace. I walked over and picked the options over each of my parents' hearts.

The hunt began. If I were some kind of pirate, or perhaps one of those creepy old archaeologist men from the tri-vids, I'd rub my hands together and cackle in anticipation. But I was rather more refined than that, so I simply turned to the shelves. Let's see if I remembered the old codes.

Fourteen along, eight up... Aha. From Impressionism to Post-Impressionism. My Au-Pair used to read to me from this to get me to sleep. I pull the top of the book out, leaving it jutting out of the shelf at a 45* angle. I step away just as it starts to glow, and another menu pops up. I select the third option and move on again.

I found the second book, The Fall: New York's Nit and Grit, at six along, two up. I pull it out to 45* again, snorting as I do. I cannot believe I was so foolish in school, crushing on that psychopathic fucker. A flash of a dark room makes me shudder in detached horror. Until this lunacy, that was the closest to death I'd ever been. There's nothing to break hero worship like said hero trying to kill you.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts and move on. Just like the shrink taught me.

The final book was my own, 'The Rise of the Nouveau Art-Riche', written just after I took over the ChaseSpace. I was so proud. And for once, so were my parents. After that, I showed them just how wrong they'd been about me. Damn them.

I went back and sat down on the sofa again. The menu this time was far shorter, showing only one option. 'Are you sure?'

"Yes."

The menu vanished and the room slowly faded away. I blinked in the darkness, and suddenly the vibrant blue of the Matrix appeared around me as I dropped into the entry crossroads. I was in.

I took an immediate left, dodging around the alarm ICE that made up the outer perimeter of my company's security. No sense letting anyone know I'm here this early.

The pathway lead forward for about thirty yards - not that there was any real distance in the Matrix - and took a sharp right. I followed it along, grinning when I spotted the first hub. Looked like... personnel. Excellent. I tapped into the data and downloaded the lot to my deck. If Lofwyr or that prick he'd assigned to run my company in my... absence had hired anyone, I'd know who to take kneecaps from. Plus, regular status reports from my employees would help me find out what they'd wrecked and how I'd need to fix it. Incompetent wretches.

That done, I headed back to the initial crossroads, then carried on straight across to the next hub: external financials. Here would be anything Lofwyr paid to anyone outside the company. I'd have to be clever and the payments would definitely be well hidden, but if he'd paid anyone to hunt for me after he'd taken over, it'd be somewhere in here.

I dodge another few ICE defences and download what I can from three more hubs: draft articles, prospective leads, and the informal employee chatlog. The latter was supposedly hidden from managerial view, but I'd found it years ago and kept an eye on it. If I erased it, another would simply pop up elsewhere, so what would be the point? At least this way I could keep tabs on what my employees were saying.

I was almost perversely pleased to see that they were all miserable. Apparently the new boss was something of an intolerable hardass. I hummed with intrigue as I scanned the latest entries. He was driving the investigative reporters to look for something, but none of them were talking. Or writing draft articles, damnit. Juliet disappearing had been bandied about as an example of what happens to those who question the new management, so they were all worried.

Cowards.

Hmm. Wait. I headed back to the Matrix exit and dropped out, then brought up the downloaded external financials file. Most of it really was useless, just various consultants that the new management had brought in to see how my company worked, but a couple of hours of work revealed something... interesting. The earliest mentions of the reporters being bossed around correlated with a serious of payments to someone in the Allied German States. I didn't have a name, and another hour of searching revealed that I couldn't narrow down the location, but it was a start. Lofwyr took my company because he was looking for something. Did he think I had it?

Okay, Victoria. Think. What the hell could I possibly have that would catch the interest of a Dragon? Certainly not money, Lofwyr could buy my company three times over with his daily income and he practically owned Europe. So, what else? It could've been information. My reporters knew about a lot of skeletons and ChaseSpace was essentially an information conglomerate with fingers in every stage of the knowledge gathering process. But if that was it, why would he be getting my reporters hunting? So, maybe, but probably not.

This is going to need a lot of thought. Hopefully there was something in the files that would give me some ideas.

I pulled the downloads back up and started searching. This was going to be a long night.

AN1 -

Translations-

Bronze - Cops (Shadowrunner version of 'the fuzz')

Lonestar - Private Security Firm with more real estate than a small African nation and more guns and tech than the entire American PMC network

Renraku - Bunch of racist Japanese computer makers

Fragging - Fucking

Buzz - Move

Drek - Shit

Talismonger - Shaman, comes from their usage of 'talismans' for summoning spirits

Ms/Mr Johnson - Nickname for anyone paying a Shadowrunner, allows anonymity necessary for work in corporate espionage/sabotage