Thursday 30/9/60, Location:51.50211, -126.14977, Time 14:37

With Hunter and Aswon climbing the mountain under the watchful eyes of one of the two mages, the rest of the team watched as Ice Maiden flew off into the rain clouds and disappeared from view. They waited a few minutes to be sure nothing was coming back, and then carefully wheeled the barrels out of the rear of the aircraft and moved them round to the fuelling point. At Tads' suggestion, they laid down a sheet of plastic first to ensure that they couldn't spill any fuel onto the pristine ground and contaminate it, and they took more care than usual to try and make sure they left no trace of their activity. The team weren't ones for littering or causing disruption anyway, but they figured that neither Ice Maiden or any locals would be impressed with them for causing ANY ecological damage.

They were nearly two and a half thousand kilometres south of Anchorage now, so they were well into the fuel barrels reserve capacity – but they were also only about five hundred and fifty kilometres from the sprawling metropolis of Seattle, and they were certain there was fuel to be had there – it was just a case of finding someone reliable and trustworthy to deal with. Kai hadn't been to Seattle before – in fact none of the team had – but he knew some people who had, and he racked his brain thinking about the stories he'd exchanged with them over a beer at some dreary spot somewhere.

Most of what he remembered was that the Seattle area was an isolated enclave of the UCAS, the remainder of "America" following the drastic shakeup of the Awakening, the Great Ghost Dance and the resurgence of the Native American Nations. What had been the United States of America now stopped at Minneapolis, beyond which were the various NAN lands, sprawling across vast reaches of the continent. Seattle was the sole remaining port of the UCAS, the only gateway to the Pacific, and was surrounded by other nations now – the Salish mainly, but with the Sioux, Ute, and elven nation of Tir-Tangiere all nearby. Many of the NAN lands had relatively good relations with each other, and their borders were fairly soft, allowing for Shadowrunners and Smugglers to move around the different countries. Getting from the Salish into the Seattle Metroplex however was a different matter – the two countries were not at war certainly, but there was no love lost most of the time, and that meant that their watched each other carefully – and as a result the border was patrolled on both sides quite vigorously.

And both sides were likely to react with a good amount of hostility if they detected an intruder – which would be very bad for them. Of course, making the border hard to cross, and restricting goods in one country that were freely available in the other just meant the smugglers had to be good, and raised prices to the point that there was lots of Nuyen to be made running the border. So that there would be smuggler routes, and people that knew them – they just had to find out who that was, get them to trust the team, and share the information. Simple…

Of course, the most well known group that ran the border into Seattle were the Cascade Orks who had made it their primary reason for existing – much to the disgust of both the Salish and UCAS border guards. But they were also the smuggler stop they'd been warned about, and as a team they'd decided they didn't want to stop somewhere that they'd have to have a permanent guard on the tilt-wing and make sure people only moved around in pairs for fear of losing either key parts of their aircraft or finding themselves down a spare kidney or surplus cyber-eye.

They checked the maps, such as they had, and worked out they had a couple of options for getting into Seattle. They could do a run down the spine of the mountains, using them for cover and taking advantage of the broken terrain to avoid sensor stations and border guards, and cross into Seattle at the best place they could find – but have to cross both borders one after another. Or, they could head out to sea and then come in over the water, following the narrow shipping channel into Puget Sound, and cross over into Seattle airspace. That meant only crossing one border technically – though it did put them under surveillance from the other for some considerable time in a very narrow space where manoeuvre options were limited.

Kai favoured the water route personally – coming in over the shipping and cargo freighters towards the port, working on the basis that the Seattle authorities and by extension the UCAS government would be very touchy about anyone interfering with their trade routes, and the Salish forces would be well aware of this – but also not care to much about who was going into Seattle as long as they didn't look to cross the border into their lands.

There wasn't much to do beyond that, except wait for the drop team to get back – or so they thought. However, a while later they heard Aswon and Hunter appear back on comms as they descended, and realised they could discuss a few things between them while they were still climbing down from the peak. Kai got the ball rolling.

"When you're back and recovered, Hunter, I want you to do a search for us – find us somewhere to land in Seattle, where we can get fuel loaded on with no questions asked."

"Yeah, will do. I'll need the sat-link, but I should be able to get a decent connection for a basic search from that. Do we have any contacts down there?" There was a pause that stretched out, each person clearly waiting on someone else to speak first.

"I could call Spook. She knows people, from all over. I'm just a little worried that I'm over-using her, though. I don't want to drag her into everything we're doing."

"Fair enough. Does the stunned silence mean that we don't have anyone else over this side of things we can talk to?" Kai waited a few moments, then heard Aswon start to speak again.

"She's not here, or anyone close by – but I bet Germaine knows people. Probably some interesting people. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing though, but we could give her a try. I mean, if there's anyone who's going to know someone exotic and unusual in the city, it's going to be her. It just depends on if we want to get involved. And of course, we can offer our services to Germaine to bring stuff back for her."

"As long as it's small!" Tads added. "It's not like we have a huge amount of space."

"Fair point. Also, the guy that we killed on the last mountain – the one with the crescent-shaped scar. Do we go back and tell the Shaman about that? Or what I mean is, do we send a message back to him via the tribal centre, using the number he left?" There was a general rumble of agreement, with most of the team indicating they thought it was a good idea, until the comms link cleared of the overlapping signals and Tads could speak again.

"I can go deliver the message, personally, if we want to do that. He did say he was going to warn his tribe about astral travellers, and I've got a rough location for their camp. It's only a couple of hundred kilometres to the camp, so I can be there in about twenty seconds. At least that way I can also answer any questions they may have, rather than it just being a one-way conversation."

"Ok, good call, Tads. Let's do that – it'll be a lot more personal that way too, and should come across better. Now, next thing – Hunter, can we post the location of the crash site up on your shadow-matrix thing?"

"Shadowland," came the sigh in return.

"Yeah, that too. So – if we post the location, maybe some scavengers can recover the chopper and get some good from it. Earn us some rep."

"Absolutely not! I think we shouldn't tell anyone about that at all, and keep that as our little secret. Even with the smashed avionics, which it sounded from Marius like it was a complete loss, the airframe has to be worth half a million at least. It's a bugger to get to, but that might be a nice little nest egg to hold onto." Aswon seemed very definite about his opinion, getting a little breathless by the end of the sentence as he continued to descend the mountain.

"Ok, that's a fair point. We'll keep that to ourselves for now, then. So, back to the earlier question – nobody else have a contact of any kind in the Seattle area?"

"Do not forget that we have a job there. We do have someone who is presumably local to the area, as we have a chip to deliver to them."

"Oh, of course – you're right. I'd forgotten about that. Thanks, Marius. Yeah – we've got a contact number to deliver to, somewhere in Seattle. How much were we due for that?"

"Thirty thousand Nuyen." Marius could remember the weird conversation clearly, his eidetic memory letting him replay the scene with clarity in his head. "That should help with the fuel costs significantly."

"Ok, patch me through, would you – might as well see what they can do for us, or let them know we're coming." Marius fired up his sat-link and patched Kai through, linking the team chat in to listen in on the conversation, too. There was the usual few seconds of lag as the signal bounced up and down into orbit and routed through multiple matrix nodes, before they heard the ring tone for the far end.

"Yo chummer! Whatever you need, I can find it for you!" Kai looked down at the small video image, spotting an Elf with a neon green mohawk staring back at him, several prominent datajacks and cyber-eyes visible and indicating that he was at least somewhat augmented. The elf gave a broad smile that revealed a row of pearly white teeth, and he smiled at Kai confidently.

"Hello. My name is Kai. We have a delivery for you, from Shanghai. We just wanted to let you know that we're heading into Seattle in the next few hours, so we can arrange a delivery time."

"From Shanghai? Oh – my chips! Frabtabulous! So, we need to arrange a meeting. Oh. Meatspace. Of course. Um… ok then. We can sort that."

"We're arriving by air, and we need to sort out somewhere to land so we're not entirely sure where we're going to end up. So the timing might be a little loose at the moment."

"Oh, I can sort that. And you want to avoid any….imperial entranglements." Kai didn't know quite what he meant, or why that caused another large grin to appear, so he just nodded instead. "Great. What kind of tub you moving in?" Kai glanced at Marius and saw him bristle, but he kept quiet.

"We're flying a mid-sized VTOL plane."

"Ahh, no problem. Here, let me send you some co-ordinates. You can land here, the area's secure. Do you need fuel and stuff?"

"Yes, fuel would be helpful."

"Null sweat, chummer, I can get that sorted. Just let me know when you're near and I'll get the landing site cleared and the fuel moving."

"Excellent." Kai saw the profile of an attractive female lean into the camera's field of view, and start to delicately nibble on the left ear, while her hand gently stroked the neon green mohawk, fingers tracing a sensual pattern on his scalp.

"Err – I gotta go, chummer!" Kai saw the viewpoint swing wildly as he fumbled one-handed with the comm-link to hit the button.

"Until later then." Kai disconnected, then made sure the line was dead before calling out to the team. "We still want to line up some airports or landings sites and alternate fuel locations – I don't know if I trust him, or if he's reliable."

"Marius, do me a favour, will you? Can you call through to Iceman66 up in Anchorage and patch me through. We're almost back, but it strikes me he'll probably know someone down in Seattle, or have some info."

"Connecting." There was a brief pause, then "Go ahead."

"Ice? It's XX_Bourne_XX. Got a query for you."

"Hey there. No worries – whatcha need."

"We're heading down the coast, towards Seattle. Got a feeling the border is going to be a little rough, so we're just putting a shout out to see if we can make that a little easier."

"Ahh, no worries. Yeah – I can put you in touch with a Coyote that could help."

"Coyote?"

"Specialist in border crossings, under the wire. Guy I know has a pretty good rep. Let me see if I can patch them in. Have you got an ID to use in the Metroplex for your bird?"

"No, we need to sort that out, or find someone who can."

"I can help you with that as well, I know a guy."

"You can?"

"Hello! I'm a decker. Of course I can. Ok, give me a few minutes to reach out to people. I'll get back to you soon."

Aswon and Hunter made it back to the aircraft shortly afterwards, and once more the team helped them get out of their wet and cold clothing, and back into fresh clothing as quickly as possible. As soon as they were done, Marius started the take-off procedure and got them into the air, heading south-west and keeping their options open, while Hunter plugged into his deck and launched himself into the matrix to start his searches running.

"Oh, by the way – I've been and delivered the message to the tribe. The Shaman wasn't there, he was out in the wilderness, but they promised to pass on the message to him. I told them we'd found him just by random chance – unless it was fate – and he won't be hurting anyone else, ever."

"When did you do that?" Kai asked, puzzled.

"You were on the phone. I told you it wouldn't take long."

"Oh, right. Ok, good job then." Kai seemed a little confused, but rolled with it. "Ok – next question are we going down land or sea. Single border crossing or double."

"Do we have a transponder and things like that yet?"

"Not yet, Aswon – Hunter's working on those now, or waiting to be called about stuff. But personally I think we ought to go down over the water. It's simpler, and easier on Marius and the craft." Kai's grin faded away. "And joking aside, looking at the expression on his face, Marius is concerned about the damage we've taken so let's make this as easy as we can."

"Ok, got some details for you." Hunter interrupted. "First of all, Seattle is fracking weird. Couple of big airports, the international Sea-Tac, and a few smaller freight airfields. But almost no small fields, no private plane facilities. I mean, I've found notes for hundreds of air-taxi firms, so there have to be facilities, but they all look to be corporate-based, not for general use. So I poked a bit – and I think it's because of the crazy airspace and that they're surrounded by the NAN. There aren't any good places to fly to, without crossing an international border within twenty minutes of flying. So, there's almost no private facilities, and the couple that are look like they're squeaky clean. At least what I can see from the various comments."

"On the other hand, we're heading into a crazy quilt-work of airspace, with narrow corridors of public access, restrictions on flight levels, some weird-ass transponder registration scheme and more traffic than we've seen anywhere since Singapore. It's going to be interesting – but should give us plenty of cover to move around in. There's a whole bunch of paperwork needed to complete to even register for a direct flight, and that's going to cost us five grand or more, just to get started."

"Wait a second…" The team paused, listening to the drone of the engines and relaxing in their seats while Hunter listened to a message over the matrix. "Ok, Ice has put me in touch with someone in Seattle, and they have a fake transponder code available, that should hold up for a week or two. It's three and a half grand."

"Buy it – buy it now." Kai instructed. He grabbed a credstick and then passed it forward towards the cockpit, so Hunter could slot it into his deck and transfer the funds.

"Ok, that's done. Getting the details now. It's a cover as a private air-taxi, an Ares TR-55 mod C."

"That is excellent. I am somewhat familiar with that class, and it has a similar silhouette to our current vehicle." Marius sounded pleased. "However, I do need a decision on which route to take, either land or sea. The longer we leave it, the harder it will be to change.

"Ok, then take us out to sea. I think it's going to be the better route, and nobody has come up with any reason not to."

"Right, I'm going to dive back onto the matrix and find some taxi companies that run in Seattle, see if I can download the livery for them, so we can program the paint job into the system."

They banked to the right, heading out towards the ocean, and Marius found a quiet area of the coastline to transition out of Salish land and took them down to thirty metres over the ocean, slipping through the Salish radar coverage and into international waters. One of the border radar stations detected an odd-looking pulse, and they steered their set towards the tilt-wing, but the electronic deception measures kicked in and all they could spot was a large murmation of birds flocking out to sea, forming a constantly shifting mass of birds flowing through the air in a complex formation.

"Everyone, Iceman66 has just sent me some extra details. It's a fixer based in Seattle, who can help us arrange a decker that meets our requirements. I've got some co-ordinates for a location in the southern part of the city where we can meet up. Apparently we need to talk to the fixer to get an intro to their decker, which has a reputation for having some idiosyncrasies. But at this point I'm not expecting anything less."

"Good stuff. So, that's at least one fixer with a lead on a decker. We have a fuel stop and landing site organised to get us started. And we have a transponder cover so we can fly around the city. That should probably help us out a lot, and once we're there and we can chat to people, that's probably going to open up some new opportunities. And we should get thirty grand to help with our costs. I'd say things are looking reasonable."

"That should cover us for our business in Seattle. And as I understand it the next volcano is only just south of the city, so that's going to be pretty easy to reach?"

"That's right, Aswon," Hunter confirmed. "Mount Rainer is only about seventy kilometres from the southern edge of the city, just across the border into the Salish. So other than the border crossing, it's a walk in the park to get to. Even if we head back into Seattle afterwards, that's a pretty negligible hit to the fuel."

"And after that?"

"It's Mount Diablo, down in CalFree. It's not a huge distance, only eleven hundred kilometres or so. But it does take us past Tir Tangire, which is going to be a problem."

"And this Mount Diablo. Is it close to Mount Shasta?" Aswon asked, frowning as some neuron triggered a memory, dredging up a name from his past."

"One second, I'll check…" Hunter was quiet for a moment as he looked on the maps and did a quick search. "Yeah, couple of hundred klicks from Mount Shasta. But I'm getting a shit load of hits on Shadowland for Shasta – what's going on there? Ahhh… ok. Lair of a dragon, it seems. Called Hestaby – or so the scuttlebutt says. Ok, yeah, let's stay clear of that."

"And where is the nearest stop we know about to Mount Diablo?" Kai interjected.

"One called 'Bust', about two hundred and fifty kilometres north east of Diablo. That's close to the southern border of the Tir. Quite far inland though, so we're going to use a bunch of fuel to get there."

"Maybe. Can you throw up the map, Hunter?" Aswon leaned over to examine the display more carefully. "Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. From Seattle, we were looking at heading west, far out to sea to get well clear of the Tir, and just bypass the entire country, right, and then have to come in over the CalFree border. Right?"

"We are not flying over the Tir if that is what you are thinking." Marius added hotly. "They have a reputation for a reason!"

"No, not through – around. Just the other way… look, from Rainer, we're already in the Salish right. So we keep heading south east, all the way down to the Ute border. But if the Ute and Salish are on good terms, that border is going to be pretty soft and easy, as borders go. And from Ute we cross just into CalFree, and we're at the smuggler stop. I mean, that's almost certainly why it's there – it's right near the border between the Tir, Ute and Cal-Free."

They all examined the map and the routing Aswon was suggesting, looking at the terrain and borders involved. It did keep them away from the elven nation of the Tir and their xenophobic, high-tech and highly trained border guards, which was a big plus – even though it did add some distance to their journey. However, as long as they could get to Bust and refuel, they were no worse off than going around via the water…

"Got another call, gimme a few. Think it's Iceman and this Coyote character." Hunter fell quiet while he negotiated over the matrix, before activating his commlink again. "Right, the guy has two options he can offer us. One is a 'loud' option, where they set up a distraction somewhere else on the border and draw the patrols in with an obvious noise – that's pretty quick to set up and will cost us a couple of grand. Otherwise we can go with a 'quiet' option where they pull some strings to get access to patrol routes and passcodes, or work out where the mobile sensors are and which routes to avoid. That takes a lot longer to sort out, maybe a day or two, but has a different risk profile. Price is not that much different though."

"Or we can trust Marius to get the job done and just sleaze the border ourself and save the money." Kai added. He looked from face to face, getting nothing but a bunch of shrugs and non-committal looks. "Ok, Hunter – thank him for the options, but tell him we'll handle it ourself. We're still not flush with cash, so it makes sense to do what we can."

"Roger that." Hunter dived back into the matrix connection and dealt with the rejection, and they flew on towards Seattle. It took them less than an hour to make it down the coast, keeping just far enough out that the curvature of the earth kept them out of line -of-sight from the shore and any tracking stations. Airborne detection was still a thing of course, but with them being so low over the ocean, they were a difficult target to detect against the constantly moving and changing surface. Soon enough they neared the shipping channel and turned in, following the constant stream of inbound and outbound traffic heading to the extensive port facilities located mainly in Tacoma, but found all up and down the coastline of the Metroplex.

The channel wasn't wide, and they were well inside detection range for the shore-based watchers who monitored the flow of traffic in and out of the waterway – but their stealthy radar absorbing skin and the electronic deception measures helped them evade most of the systems. Only one set managed to get anything approaching a decent lock on them, and Marius slalomed around a few bulk freighters heading in to throw off the sensors, though he kept a careful eye on the vessels as the crew scrambled to their gun positions as they rocketed past. The tilt-wing was well out of range before they were armed and ready, though, and they slid in closer to the shore and started to encounter the air-traffic from the Metroplex, and mixed in with the couriers, air-taxi, delivery service and corporate flights, merging to become just another blip on someone's sensor display.

Marius was about to turn to port, heading north-east and up to Everett when he detected a huge electronic signature sliding into view. Or rather, they were rounding a headland, exposing the waterway to the north, giving them an unobstructed view of the bay and the shipping to be found there. He muttered under his electronic breath as his threat systems lit up to the multiple radar bands and sensor systems that were active, forming a bubble of power to the north. He aimed the visual sensors that way and zoomed in, trying to see what was going on.

The huge hulls took his breath away for a moment, the rippling grey hulls of the massive warships slowly strobing as the dazzle-style camouflage rippled across the hulls slowly making them hard to make out – but there was no hiding a hundred and thirty thousand tons of aircraft carrier, looming thirty metres over the waterline. The accompanying cruisers looked small and insubstantial next to the bulk of the behemoth, despite being serious warships in their own right.

He banked hard, making sure he didn't approach any closer to them than he had to, and instead plotted a course to skirt around them, travelling over land instead. It wasn't as if the locals wouldn't be used to the sound of aircraft buzzing around at all hours anyway. For a moment he wondered if he was going to attract attention for suddenly banking off – but looking around he could see a large exclusion zone around the carrier group, and lots of other craft were banking away too. Presumably if people got too close, they would be warned off and if they persisted on closing then driven off, with the application of force if needed. It must be hard on the crew, to be in such a congested area, and still trying to maintain their defensive bubble… he pushed that thought aside though and continued to close on the co-ordinates given to him earlier, punching up the map quickly.

"Kai, Attention. Estimate ten minutes to landing site. Appears to be an industrial area, just to the south of a highway, the Interstate 5 according to the map. Next to a large river, in what appears to be a non-residential part of the city."

"Thanks, Marius – better call our contact, I suppose." He pulled out his comm-link, checked that they'd latched on to the local service and then dialled the number.

"Yo Chummers. Have you got what I need?"

"Yes, hello, just to let you know that we're about ten minutes out from you."

"Better get your landing spot cleared, then. See you soon, chummer!" As he was disconnecting the call, Kai just caught a glimpse of a pile of electronic gear and computer panels behind him lurching through the view as he rose from his chair.

Marius followed the flight corridors marked out, avoiding the strobing warning beacons of corporate facilities and private airspace which seemed to be everywhere, and made his way up towards the Everett district of Seattle, following the turgid and slow-moving Snohomish river.

"Ugh. This place is rancid." Tads sounded disgusted as she surveyed the area through the viewing goggles, her lip curling in horror as she saw the toxic waste dumped haphazardly in places, the black spots of fear and suffering denoting a murder site and the general malaise that hung over most of the city. "This place is going to be nasty to cast in, and we should keep an eye out for toxic spirits."

Marius slowed as he closed in on the landing spot, watching as the land narrowed between the crawling eight-lane snake of the I-5 highway, jammed solid with traffic on his left, and the river and an old railroad to his right. A light industrial district filled the gap in between, making use of the undesirable land unsuitable for residential or commercial development. The very last building before the curving highway cut across the land and river was a church, an old and somewhat run-down looking single storey building with a newer construction to its right. Next to that was a portable structure, a large plastic edifice that rose up to almost the same height. It looked like the sort of thing used to house a stage at a music festival or for disaster relief, rather than a permanent building. In front of the buildings was a large car park, cleared of people and cars, and with three people standing watch, sub-machine guns held down by their sides. And sitting on a large motorbike next to the church, reading from a data-slate was the green haired elf. He looked up as the engine noise grew, then tucked away the device, and looked up at them, his grin visible even from a few hundred metres.

They landed, Marius bringing them in close to the buildings and using their bulk to shield him from view from the elevated highway to the north and west. There wasn't anything he could do about the roads to the south – he had to rely on the taxi firm colour scheme that Hunter had programmed into the photo-voltaic paint controller. Still, the road didn't go that far before turning, and the industrial estate didn't look busy. As they touched down, he gave the sensors another quick glance, checking around to see if there was anything suspicious. The guards still seemed to be looking out, checking the area around them, rather than turning in to face them or threaten the bird, and he couldn't see any other armed hostiles. The elf had gotten off of his bike and was slowly ambling their way, his mohawk rippling in the wind. It seemed safe enough, so he started to spool down the engines, shutting down the systems properly and settling them in.

Kai had gradually been shifting his features, elongating his ears a little, slimming his face down and making himself appear to be distinctly more elven in appearance. When he was satisfied, he headed to the sliding door and climbed down to ground level, listening for the rustle of fabric that indicated that Shimazu had jumped down next to him. It was still uncanny to not hear his footsteps as the followed him, but he'd gotten more used to it now. Hunter leant against the door frame and let his rifle dangle on the sling, ready to grab at a moment's notice but without appearing to be too threatening, while Tads stayed on the viewing optics and kept her shielding up on Kai and Shimazu as they headed over to meet their contact.

"Hey chummers! Welcome to Seattle!" His face suddenly changed, the smile vanishing in a moment and his hand dropped to his waist, grabbing for the pistol holstered there. He was fast, clearly having augmented reflexes on top of his already quick elven reactions. Shimazu managed to get his sword drawn and raised as the huge and weird-looking pistol was raised, up towards their faces… then elevated past them aiming at something beyond them. Shimazu managed to reign in his natural rection to strike "Now duck!" They did, bending their knees and keeping their heads up, staring at him in surprise.

Kaaa-choooow! They'd been expecting a gunshot – but not the strange whine of a capacitor and the sound of super-heated air flashing to plasma as the lasing chamber fired a bolt of intense light up into the air. It was green, they noticed, just like his mohawk, and a split second later they heard the sound of something exploding behind them. Kai twisted round and saw the deluge of small parts from the destroyed micro-drone as it tumbled from the air, while Shimazu kept his eyes on the elf, muscles twitching as he stayed ready to strike.

"Sorry, Chummers. Local troubles. Some tech-gang have taken a dislike to some stuff, and keep trying to spy on me. Dumb fraggers – don't they know who I am?" He shook his head briefly, and then the smile returned. "I'm Rad, by the way. Though I'm sure you've heard of me…"

"Rad, as in radiation?"

"Oh frak no. No, Rad as in radical, or maybe Rad as in radiant. Maybe even Radtabulous. Nothing so crap as Radiation. So, you have something for me?"

"We do – do we need to move to somewhere else? Go somewhere more quiet?"

"We can if you want, but here is fine. All the locals know to keep their heads down when something is going on, and we've got watchers out covering stuff." Tads heard the elf speak and did a quick scan of the area astrally to see if they were covered there as well, and spotted a host of city spirits on patrol in the area, roughly the same kind of power as the ones she allocated to the team each day. There was also a much more powerful one keeping a subtle eye on their contact from the edge of the church, guarding and protecting him. It was a city spirit, like the rest, but she estimated it was larger than the one she normally called on each day to guard the chopper. He was clearly not magically inclined – the amount of cyberware riddled through his body made it very unlikely he could be powerful enough to be that adept at summoning – but that meant he had access to someone that did.

"Kai, bunch of spirits watching the place, generally facing out. One big one guarding your contact, powerful. Be careful."

"Ok, well, I'm happy to do business here if you are, then. So – we can get your merchandise sorted for you," Kai offered, hoping that Tads would understand that he'd understood her message and intended to stay in sight, "but did you manage to arrange any fuel for us?"

"Course I did, Chummer." The elf stared off into the distance for a moment, looking disassociated with the real world. Kai guessed that he was either decking or rigging something, he looked the same as Hunter and Marius often did. "Yup, it's rolling. Will be here shortly." Kai turned and waved towards Hunter, who grabbed the package and threw it to him underarm. He almost fumbled the catch, but managed to snag it with his fingertips and then turned to pass it to Rad. "Sweet! This… this is going to be awesome." He reached down into his jacket and pulled out a slim and sleek computer and popped the back off, then opened the package to extract the chip located inside, and slid it into a waiting socket. Flipping the computer back over he booted the system up, and Kai saw the smile return, and then somehow get even wider. "Just what I needed. Here, this is for you." He passed over a credstick, which Kai took with a gracious nod, sliding into a pocket to check later. Rad suddenly looked up from his computer and gave Kai a considering look.

"Say, it's a longshot. But I don't suppose you have anyone who's good with a Komatetsu LD-45 electric backhoe do you?"

"I don't know about that specific type – but our pilot is pretty excellent with machines. I can get him to have a look if you want?"

"Cheers, chummer, that'd be great!" The grin was back and Kai turned to face toward the tilt-wing, and made a beckoning motion. He couldn't see Marius through the polarised windows, but he was pretty sure they were listening to the conversation and watching him.

"Kai – you might want to ask about their shaman as well. I think I'd like to talk to them, on the way back, maybe. They're potentially going to have some spells we might be able to make use of, or trade for.

"Sure," Kai responded, then shook his head a little as Rad glanced at him curiously. "Marius, can you come check this thing over?" He turned back to Rad. "Where is it, by the way?"

"It's over in the vehicle bay," Rad pointed to the large plastic tent. "We keep most of the big stuff under cover. Avoids questions." He led the way over, with Kai, Shimazu and Marius following along, then pulled the plastic doorway open and ushered them inside. Crammed together in the tent were a number of SUVs and off-road vehicles, some of them sporting heavy armour panels, though none were obviously armed. Down one side were a handful of bikes of different types – road and off-road, single and dual seats, and some with a cargo rack welded onto the back. But in the centre of the space was a large… tank. At least it looked tank-like – very heavily armoured with small recessed windows that were protected by deep lips and sturdy ridges to reinforce them. The wheels were mostly covered with an armoured skirt, and there was a small turret on top, though with no gun sticking out of it. Marius whistled and leant over to examine the vehicle more closely, his hands clasped behind his back.

"An Ares Mobmaster. Very heavy protection. The police do not seize this?"

"We have it covered under a security consultant licence, that mostly does the job. But we try to keep it out of sight, to avoid causing problems. The LD is over there in the corner…" Marius looked back and saw the small digger tucked away in the back corner. It looked battered and somewhat old, but clean and he headed over to give it a closer look. The vehicle was fairly small, designed to operate in confined spaces and do some heavy lifting or excavating with the large bucket-scoop on the front and smaller bucket on the articulated arm to the rear. There was a small seat surrounded by the heavy-duty roll cage and a complex-looking set of controls for the vehicle and the scoops.

"So, what is wrong with the vehicle?" Rad blinked at him in confusion.

"Nothing, Chummer – runs like a dream, fully charged. The question is - how much do you think you can excavate in a day? I just need a driver for it that's top class."

"Ahh, I see. You need an operator for the vehicle, not a mechanic. What is it you need to achieve?" For the first time Rad looked a little shifty.

"Well… it's a quiet thing I'm trying to sort. But essentially I just need a nice big hole dug, somewhere quiet. Out of sight. To put things in…"

"I see. Perhaps you need to talk to Hunter rather than myself. He is our engineer. I will call him now." Hunter was already moving, sauntering over to the tent and joining the group there, closely followed by Tads who wanted to keep the team under observation while they were outside the wards. Aswon and Vadim stayed with the tilt-wing on guard, and as soon as she could see them all again, she covered them once more with her shielding powers. She tuned back into the conversation, and heard Hunter discussing the business of excavation with Rad.

"Have you considered your waste product? Whatever you're taking out, you'll need to dispose of, and that is often something hard to hide. By the sounds of this you're talking about thousands of cubic metres of spoil to get rid of."

"I was just going to throw it on the river. Nobody will notice." They picked up on his choice of words and Tads shuddered again, wondering just what manner of filth had been dumped or leeched into the river as it meandered through the city.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with your digger of course, it all sounds doable. And I'm sure Marius could do the driving…" A shout from outside interrupted the conversation, and they ducked outside to see what was going on. A large fuel tanker was pulling into the front of the car park, and was waved over towards the parked tilt-wing, and the team headed over to supervise the refuelling.

Whilst they were negotiating with the delivery driver over the fuel for their internal and additional tanks, Hunter explained what Rad was after in simple terms.

"He wants a space about twenty by thirty metres digging out, three metres high, deep underground, with a bunch of access tunnels. He's got the equipment needed, but not the skilled operator. It's a pretty big job and could take a week or more going flat out. But, I think there's another option we could offer him."

"It's a horrible area to work in. But yes, it can be done. And if we get deep enough underground that might get easier. And if they have a shaman powerful enough to summon spirits like those I've seen, they have one powerful enough to spot our wards and magical defences and they know we've got someone on the team with some power too. So we're not really revealing anything that useful." Kai wandered over with a pained expression, slotting his cred-stick back into his pocket.

"Fifteen and a half grand, but that's us topped off. So half of what we made getting here is gone."

"But we're still up thirty thousand on what we'd be if we hadn't taken the job at all," Aswon reminded him. "And that gets us all the way down to the last volcano and the smuggler stop, and most of the way back here, let alone if we refuel at Bust. And if we get back here, we can potentially get on a Maersk boat to get all the way back across the Pacific, so we can get half-way home without much more hassle."

"Fair point. And it all gets very easy once we get paid for this job, of course. So – Hunter, what's the deal with this hole?"

"Guy wants a big hole dug. Tads can excavate that no problem – but it'll chew up a day, I reckon."

"A day? Why – is she slipping?" Tads glared at Kai, but it was Hunter that answered.

"No – she can make a hole as big as we want in about ten minutes – but it'll collapse just as fast. She needs to make a hole and let a crew in with props and supports behind her, shore up that section, then move on to the next area. Rinse and repeat… and it's getting it propped that will take the time. But still massively less time than digging it out mechanically. You just need to decide if we can spare a day to do that, and how much to charge him for our services."

"I think it's worth it for the goodwill and the reputation gain – and we can maybe barter for services. This guy is at least connected in some way with people – maybe we can get him to locate some deckers for us to work for Ice Maiden."

"I can make use of the day to work on the chopper. There is much to repair that needs a facility – covered areas and some tools beyond my basic kit, but not much more. A day would be very handy."

"Fair enough, Marius – sounds like a plan. Let's go find him. Come on, Tads." They wandered back over to the vehicle area and found Rad talking with someone, a slender, older woman who gave them a curt nod and left without a word as they arrived.

"Mr. Rad, we have a proposal for you. It just so happens that Tads here has the ability to move a large amount of earth magically, much faster than you can excavate with your digger. We'd be willing to dig your hole for you, probably in less than a day if you can help out with the supports and props and things, in exchange for some services."

"You can? That's great!"

"Yes. What will help is if you allow me to cast a spell on you, to link our minds together. Then I can gather the exact details of what your requirements are, and understand your vision for the finished product, and ensure I dig it out correctly."

"Whoa there… just hang on." He hit a button his commlink and then spoke again. "Fang, I need you. Magic stuff." He smiled at them as he released the button. "She'll just be a minute, but if you can explain to her… I'm sure it will be fine. Moments later the attractive woman they'd seen nibbling his ear in their initial call appeared, padding over to stand next to him. She was dressed in combat trousers and sturdy boots, and a loose comfy looking top, that she somehow still seemed to make look stylish, and she gave them all a quizzical look. Rad explained what Tads had proposed and she turned to give Tads a look up and down. A moment later Tads felt her aura being gently probed and poked at, examined by the shaman as she tried to gauge her intent and power. Tads looked back, and saw that Fang was also masking her aura, hiding her magical nature. There was a stand-off for a moment, as both Shaman stared at each other, looking deeply into the others' eyes.

With a twitch, Fang dropped her own masking, revealing her true aura and letting Tads examine her. Tads did the same, returning the trust shown, and they quickly checked each other out. It took only a moment for Tads to realise that she was looking at the summoner of the spirits she'd seen. Fang didn't seem to be quite as powerful as her – though the power of the spirits she summoned would seem to argue with that. It made her wonder if she was a specialist summoner, someone who practiced only that side of their magical talent and were better at that and much weaker at spell casting, or not able to cast at all. But, she felt wholesome and good, her aura vibrant and glowing with energy. Tads wasn't sure what exact totem she followed, but it was something aligned with the natural world, growth and life – and that was probably good enough.

Fang had apparently checked her out, and was equally satisfied with her own results, and turned to rest a hand on Rad's arm.

"It's ok, you can do it. Just think clearly about what you want her to see." Rad nodded to her, and she turned and headed off, stalking away quietly like a big cat on the hunt. Tads took a deep breath and made a show of casting her spell, giving Rad time to prepare. When she touched him, she formed a link to him and started to 'listen' plucking the pictures from his brain. Soon she had a good idea of what he wanted, seeing the underground datacentre he was aiming to build, deep underground and away from prying eyes. She in turn showed him how it would be dug, and how they would need to prop up the dig site as they progressed through – and also showed him images of the team warding caves and Russian barracks, then imagining the same concepts being applied to his underground datacentre.

[How much would this cost me?]

[You'll have to discuss with the boss, and we'd need certain supplies to make it permanent. But they are not hard to get hold of. Discuss with Kai if you want it, but I am sure he will barter for services.]

She broke the mindlink, then smiled at him.

"Let me go and get Kai," She wandered out of the tent and found him near the tilt-wing along with the others, who were watching the guards and the people moving about. There was a clear separation between two different groups – the vast majority of the people appeared to be squatters and homeless folk, wearing ragged clothing and with a slightly haunted look to them, with a tendency to scurry from place to place, always wary and alert. And there was a much smaller group that stalked around, walking with utmost confidence – more so than the bulges under jackets and in the back of trousers would justify. Most of those people were carrying concealed firearms, probably at least a heavy duty 12mm pistol – apart from those like Fang that were often unarmed or carried only a knife or a walking stick. Extrapolating from their own experience that made them mages or shaman, for who a firearm was often only a distraction, and nowhere near their most powerful offensive ability. "Hey Kai. Got the details on the dig. It will takes us about a day. Rad wants to talk price, and maybe get an option on getting the place warded as well."

"Yeah, that'd be cool. But she said you might be interested in bartering for services. What do you need?"

"We're looking for someone very talented,"

"I'm talented."

"I've heard that." Kai glanced over to Fang, raising an eyebrow, but she declined to rise to the bait. "Well, one thing we're looking for is a couple of deckers, willing to work for someone anonymous, but who'll meet with their contact face to face to receive tasks and deliver results to. Ideally three or four."

"Oh, that's null sheen. I can sort that for you – can do that now in fact." He dug out his computer again and pulled a silvery jack cable from a port and slid it into the datajack behind his ear, focussed briefly then held up his own commlink to bump against Kai's and trigger a data transfer. "There you go, numbers for the four best deckers in Seattle."

"Thanks, that's superb, this…." Kai's voice trailed off as he looked at the transferred data. "This appears to be your number four times?"

"Yeah, that's right. Me in the evening, me in the morning, me in the afternoon, and me while I'm having some soy-caff. So ranked in order of expertise, as well as sex appeal and general good looks."

"Unfortunately, our sponsor would be happy to deal with you in only one of those personas. And we're probably looking for some other people as well. Someone else to work with if you're busy perhaps, on a more important task, but they need to order takeout. Something mundane like that."

"Ah, right. Got you chummer. Yeah, a lesser decker could handle that. I can dig out a few names for you, set up some meets?"

"That would be great. And otherwise, if you can clear us some space in the vehicle tent there to get our bird under cover and let Marius use some tools to do some urgent repairs – and provide the warding materials needed – we can dig the hole out and ward it for you, and put any excess value into any future services if we're back in Seattle?"

"Works for me!"

"Right. In that case, if you've got people available, let's find the place for your access shaft and get to work. It's coming up on 5pm, so if we make a good start now, we can get half of it done tonight, and make a good start in the morning and see if we can finish off earlier in the day so we can get a good start on warding. If you can get the materials that quickly?"

Rad glanced over to Fang who gave a very subtle nod of her head.

"No problem, Chummers. Let's go dig a hole!"

He started to whistle some little ditty, and as he wandered towards the edge of the site they heard him quietly singing to himself.

"Digging a hole, diggy diggy hole. We have no dwarfs but we're dig-ging a hole, diggy diggy hole…"