They dropped down low as they crossed the Danube delta, skimming across the marshland low enough that their props left intermittent wakes through the streams and rivers between soggy islands and sending the rushes and weeds almost horizontal with the turbulence.
"Do not worry. I have full control." Marius stared out of the windscreen, eyes flicking from left to right as his hands guided the controls carefully, making scores of minute adjustments every minutes through the controls.
"I know, don't worry."
"You just seem to be gripping the arm rest of your chair very tightly, Hunter."
Hunter looked down and saw his knuckles were distinctly white, and he forced himself to relax his hands and then his posture.
"Allright. Just don't fuck it up eh? At this height, we won't even get chance to scream." Hunter sat back a little, and tried to relax, while at the same time keeping a subtle watch on the instruments and making sure they weren't deviating from the flight plan. He felt them pitching up slightly, gaining height and his eyes snapped forward to see the cargo ship sailing down the canal cutting ahead of them. It was a pretty large ship – not quite up to the behemoth they'd crossed the Atlantic in a while back, but certainly a significant ship, that appeared to occupy most of the canal that cut across their path. Marius angled them up smoothly though, flashed across the ship and then slowly descended on the other side as they returned to the marshland.
Travelling north, the ground slowly dried out as they left the Danube behind them, giving way to kilometre after kilometre of heavily farmed land, falling into two main categories. The first was clearly the work of corporate interests, being either multi-level greenhouses that covered acres of ground, all tended by robotic equipment designed to extract the maximum yield possible, interspersed with large fields laid out with neat ridges and furrows, presumably for taller crops. In between some of the corporate fields though were much more ragged and haphazard plots of land, unkept hedgerows separating them from the glistening security fences and guard towers of the agri-corps. They saw a flash of colour as they zoomed over one field, and Hunter checked the sensor footage to see what it was, revealing an entire family out on the land. Adults led the line, breaking up the near-frozen ground with forks and mattocks, followed by children who plucked out the root vegetables from the cold and unforgiving soil. Hunter tried to enhance the image slightly, boosting the colours until he could make out the shape of the leeks being pulled from the neat rows in the ground. Older children collected them in larger containers, passing them up onto a cart where the grandparents neatly stacked them and checked over the crop. The trailer was pulled by what he assumed was the family horse, plodding forwards with its head down as it pulled the heavy load over the uneven ground.
Hunter zoomed out and examined the field, looking at the hundreds of acres left to harvest, thinking about how long that family was going to be out in the bitterly cold February days, gathering the harvest by hand while next door automated drones did the same job for a fraction of the cost, the extra profits going straight into the corporate bottom line. He shrugged, making a tiny noise of disappointment as his brain examined the difference in wealth levels between them, before pushing it to the back of his mind.
Heading northwards they ended up flying along or over roads for much of the journey, sticking to the public land to ensure they didn't fly into corporate lands and trigger some kind of security issue that would cause a fuss or investigation. They overflew several small villages and towns, finding a mix of newer pre-fab plastic dwellings that were finished in bright colours yet somehow still managed to look cheap and worn, mixed in with century-old concrete monoliths, legacies of the Communist era the country had once languished under.
It took only twenty-five minutes to travel to Iasi, and they soon found themselves flying on final approach. Hunter had tagged some waste ground as a landing site for them, but when they arrived they found it was actually some form of construction site, having a large pile of concrete pipes lashed together on pallets at one end, and a mass of rebar frames scattered around – along with half a dozen of the local children running around holding sticks and 'shooting' at each other. It wasn't possible to tell who were supposed to be the shadowrunners and who were the corporate guards, or who was winning, but either way the kids were running riot over the site, and if they landed they were certainly going to draw attention to themselves.
"I think we need another spot. I don't want to land here – too many questions."
"On it, Kai. Just looking around… ok, possible spot, about five hundred metres south of here. Shows as undeveloped on the map, behind some kind of supermarket, just off the main road." They felt the aircraft bank tightly as Marius followed the directions, and a few moments later they abruptly slowed and the engine noise increased as the pods started to rotate, spinning the propellors from the vertical plane to the horizontal, ready for landing.
"Looks like a churned-up field. Hut in the corner with a couple of donkeys or mules or small horses in there. No people in sight though, except out the front in the supermarket car park…" Shimazu reported, spinning around from one camera to another as he checked the zone out.
"Confirm," called Hunter from the front, double checking with the vehicle sensors.
"Um – the donkeys. They're not…feisty-looking, are they? No bony top plate on the head, or stingers?"
"No, they look like normal donkeys. Pretty sad and ratty, actually. Not para-donkeys, no sign of magic at all." Shimazu smiled as he rotated the camera views once more, finding it amusing that Aswon seemed to be somewhat paranoid. His smile faded somewhat as he remembered the canon-goats near the oil pipelines and the nova-scorpions, and the snakes down near Papa New-Guinea, all of which had seemed to find the taste of Aswon more preferable to other members of the team.
They landed quickly, and Marius shut down the engines as soon as they were safe, checking on the fuel status and doing some quick calculations on the journey to come and the reserve fuel in the tanks, confirming they were covered. Tads did a quick check and ensured the spirit was still concealing the craft, hiding it from mundane eyes and preventing their discovery.
"Right – who's coming to the handover, and who's staying here?"
"I suppose I should go, as it was my contact who got us the job." Marius stated, unbuckling his safety harness and grabbing his jacket.
"Fair enough, and I'll go… so I guess that means Shimazu, you're coming, too?" The bodyguard nodded to Kai, and ensured his sword was loose in his scabbard and his pistol was loaded.
Hunter, Tads and Aswon all confirmed they were going to stay in the tilt-wing. Hunter had some matrix searches he wanted to monitor and adjust, and he was also going to manage the fuel top-up while they were gone, whilst Aswon and Tads had both apparently decided that they were going to investigate the rather sad-looking donkeys inhabiting the shed in the corner of the field.
"So, Marius – can you carry the gun, and hide it in your chest compartment thingy?"
"I am not sure it would fit – but even if it would, no. If I put something in the compartment, that means I have to strip off to get it out. And that means taking off my armour, in the middle of a potentially hostile situation – so no, Kai. Can't you put it in a bag or something?"
Kai grumbled, but looked around in the back until he could find a box and some material to wrap the gun in, and then secreted it inside. Looking around quickly, he checked they were good to go, then led the way towards the main road and turned north towards the junction and the original landing site they'd planned on using.
As soon as they were gone, Aswon and Tads wandered over to the shed and examined the donkeys. They were in a very poor condition, covered in mange and with a few festering sores under the harnesses attached around their noses and necks. The shed reeked of filth, and the large water trough next to it was full of thick green algae – the water was definitely not fresh, and had not been for some time.
"Can you do me some carrots, Tads?" She nodded, concentrated and produced a bunch of small but broad red roots, thick and stubby, with a long white root tapering out from the bottom. Aswon looked at her for a moment sceptically, then gestured to the magically created food."
"Um… carrots?"
"Yes… carrots." She grabbed one of them and took a bite, chewing for a moment and then swallowing. "Yup – definitely carrots." Aswon raised an eyebrow and shrugged… maybe carrots looked different up in her lands than the more normal orange variety he'd seen. He grabbed one and gave it a taste, and a look of pleasant surprise crossed his face.
"Ok. We need some of these in our meals from now on, Tads. Those are nice… and thinking about it, I think most of what I've had has been flavoured soy… so my apologies. Just wasn't what I was expecting. But still – if I feed them and try to keep them calm, do you want to see if you can do something about their wounds?" She nodded at him, and they moved towards the creatures, speaking slowly and calmly, Aswon extending a hand to offer them something fresh to eat. Both of the donkeys hobbled towards him and started to eat, their hunger overcoming any distrust they might have for the strange man. Tads tutted as she saw the state of their coats, and went to work, casting spells to sterilise the area first, then targeting the diseased flesh of the two donkeys, before going to work on their wounds. When she was done she set to work dissipating the strong magical residue that permeated the hut now after her chain-casting of spells.
With that done they left the creatures eating and moved outside to deal with the contaminated water. Aswon had to call Hunter, sharing his video feed from his commlink with him to get some engineering advice on the inflow point, but eventually managing to get the feed unjammed and working, letting fresh water into the trough.
"If we find out who owns these creatures, I think we ought to have a word." Tads nodded in agreement with him, then went back to clearing out the muck from the trough, ensuring that the fresh water wouldn't just become tainted straight away.
Over at the tilt-wing, Hunter orc-handled one of the barrels down the ramp, muscles rippling as he moved the two-hundred litre drum down towards the fuel inlet, shaking his head as the two team-members fussed over some random creatures. With the barrel in position, he pulled out his tablet, synced it up to his deck and started a matrix search running. With the other hand he grabbed the handle and started pumping, beginning the fuel transfer and getting a bit of a workout at the same time.
The other three headed down the main road, walking through the gathering gloom and looking around them with interest. One side of the road seemed to hold free-standing apartment blocks, four or five stories high, each set in their own small set of grounds, while the other side of the road held good-sized individual houses, often with a couple of cars parked outside each one. But, scattered amongst them were a number of much smaller, older and less desirable houses, some of which were better described as hovels. One just seemed to be a triangle constructed of sheets of roofing material and odd parts of other houses – none of the doors or windows matched each other, and the breezeblock walls were lumpy, uneven and badly constructed. A goat was tethered in the front garden, chewing on weeds and gave them a baleful stare as they wandered past. Next to the hovel was another large detached house with a covered pool and pleasantly sculpted gardens, the polar opposite in terms of comfort and desirability.
They reached the wasteland area, skirting around it and Kai pulled out his commlink, dialling the number given by Halys.
"Yes?"
"This is Kai. We have a delivery for you. We are at the correct place."
"Wait there, then, someone will come to you, soon." The call disconnected, and Kai put the phone away, then started looking around the area. They were on the edge of a hill, and looking north they could see the centre of the city, built up with the typical high-rise buildings, both offices and apartments, and a congested road grid that snaked around buildings in an organic pattern, with suburbs radiating out like spokes from the centre. The town wasn't that big, but appeared to have just the same problems as any other city in the modern age – choked with traffic, difficult to navigate and with drones, security and corporate presences everywhere…
Shimazu coughed to attract their attention, and then gave a subtle nod down the road, gesturing with his head at the two men that seemed to be walking towards them. Both were dressed casually – but they were also armed, the barrels of their machine guns or pistols hanging down below the bottom of their jackets. They didn't seem concerned about this, though, striding their way whilst they smoked cigarettes.
"Oh – that's bad timing…" Kai said, as he saw a police cruiser come around the corner of the hill, about a hundred metres away, heading their way. They couldn't see how many people were inside, but it was rare that the police went anywhere alone these days, so there was a good chance that there was at least one extra officer in the car, who wouldn't be distracted by driving. He checked his own pistol was concealed and then glanced at the other two, confirming that neither of them had any weapons showing either.
The police car slowed a little, but then drove right past the two approaching men, regardless of the gun barrels on display, and seemed to ignore all five of them, continuing to the top of the slope and then turning around the tight corner next to the wasteland before disappearing out of view.
"You are Kai? Come. Cosmic is expecting you."
Kai just nodded and followed the two men, Shimazu and Marius trailing along behind him. It wasn't far – just down to the corner, before they turned into the driveway for what looked like an old villa. The main residence lay ahead of them, with large barn-like structures to either side, formed up around the courtyard. A few more men were lounging around the place, guns visible beneath their coats or jackets, but they didn't give the team more than a cursory glance, instead keeping an eye on the main road or the perimeter of the compound. The two men they were with escorted them straight up to the main entrance door. One moved to the side, pushing the button and then standing square in front of the camera built into the wall.
"Three to see Cosmic, expected." A moment passed, then they heard the clunk of a solenoid, and the scraping sound of multiple bolts pulling back to release the door. The lead escort pushed it open and moved inside, then beckoned them into the foyer. The room was large, probably four metres across, with a large and ornate staircase ahead and to the right of them, stretching up to the first floor, while an equally wide passageway ran parallel on the left, leading to the back of the house and more rooms. Artwork hung from the lemon-yellow walls, gently illuminated by wall lamps, which also cast a soft glow on the detailed floor mosaic that covered all of the foyer. Small ceramic squares were neatly laid out, depicting some kind of winged angel standing guard over a man, demons cavorting to the side of the room.
The second guard closed the outside door behind them, and only when it was sealed shut and the bolts had engaged did the first move to the first door on their left, knocking on it politely and then pushing it open, before gesturing the team inside. Kai nodded with absent-minded courtesy to the guard, and then headed into the room, Shimazu close on his heels with Marius bringing up the rear.
The room was a library, a fairly large one at that. Antique wooden bookcases lined all of the walls, jammed with books that appeared to be ancient. Like the foyer outside it was lit with soft lighting, the candle-shaped bulbs casting a warm and soft light over the room, reflecting off of the deep red cherrywood shelves. In the centre of the room was a large wooden desk, dominated by a green leather blotter, along with a few pads of paper and some loose stationary. Behind it sat a man, who was just pushing himself to his feet, extending a hand in greeting towards them.
Kai examined Cosmic, and was slightly surprised. He didn't know what he'd been expecting – but it wasn't the man who stood before him. He was somewhat short and slender, definitely below average weight and build. He wore casual trousers and a shirt, but somehow managed to look uncomfortable in them. His watch was a no-name functional device, his belt was pseudo-leather, and the shirt was more similar to something a school-child would wear than a businessman. He smiled, and even that looked nervous and slightly out of place, and there was the faintest gleam of perspiration around his neck. Kai finally realised what it was that was odd about the man – presence. Or in his case, a complete lack. If someone had shown Kai a picture of the man and told him he was being cast in a trideo series as a low-level bank operative, or a junior admin clerk, he would have accepted that without hesitation. He was just… average.
Kai reached forward and shook his hand, finding the handshake matched the persona – neither limp nor aggressive, just perfunctory and eminently forgettable.
"May I offer you refreshments? Coffee?"
"Thank you, a drink would be lovely." Kai smiled, bobbing his head in thanks. Just because Cosmic wasn't charismatic, didn't mean he had to be rude, so Kai turned on his smile and gave him his full attention, tuning his body language to try and portray openness and honesty. Cosmic, for his part, nodded at one of the guards, who left the room, while the other moved back into a corner, leaning against the bookshelves and doing his best to fade into the background.
Cosmic asked them about their journey in, and the weather, and even his small talk seemed somewhat forced and laboured, as if he had a mental shortlist of things to ask about to satisfy customs. They were saved by the return of the guard, bringing in a tray loaded down with a coffee pot, cups and saucers and a small tray of biscuits. When he laid it down on the desk, Cosmic proved at least to be a good host, providing each of them with a drink to their taste and a small plate of biscuits each, before sorting his own drink out and settling back into his chair.
"Thank you. I must compliment you, by the way, on the mosaic out in your hallway. It's a beautiful piece of art, and I've never seen one quite like that before."
"Ah. Yes. It is old, many hundreds of years. The house has been in my family for generations. We used to be farmers, of much of the land around here. Now we do other business. And some farming."
"I'm sure. Speaking of other business, we have something for you. Kai moved slowly and reached into his inner pocket, turning slightly so he was more visible to the guard in the far corner of the room. The guard watched him, but didn't seem too worried as Kai pulled out the package and then handed it over to Cosmic. Their host put down his cup of coffee to one side, and then opened the bag, pulling out the small package from within and unwrapping it. As he unfolded the wrapping paper, Kai saw a quick wince of annoyance or pain cross his face, quickly banished. Behind him Shimazu saw their host's shoulders tensing slightly, and his body still as if he was holding his breath for a moment.
Cosmic laid down the package, then opened his desk drawer, retrieving a pair of white gloves which he quickly donned and then smoothed down the fingers of, before reaching into the wrapping and removing the pistol.
"I assume this is your first time retrieving such an object?" He seemed distracted by his examination of the gun, and his voice was less stilted then it had been when he was trying to be sociable.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. And we had an opportunity that required quick action to retrieve it, so we had limited opportunity to make arrangements for a box or bag to place it in. Sorry about that."
"Well, for the future, I would advise a lint-free cloth to act as a barrier, then for it to be placed in an airtight bag from which the atmosphere is evacuated, then sealed in a sturdy travelling box. That will ensure the item is kept as clean and intact as possible." He laid down the pistol, then stripped off one of the gloves, reaching back down into the drawer and pulling out a large plastic bag with a press seal along the opening. Carefully sliding the pistol in, he smoothed out the bag and git rid of as much of the air as he easily could before sealing the opening, and removing his second glove.
"Again, my apologies. If we do any further business, we will certainly be better prepared. As I said, we had an opportunity arise that allowed us to seize the item without the former owner knowing about it – and as far as we can determine, they still don't know it's missing." Cosmic looked up from his examination at that, a question forming on his lips – but he was distracted by the sound of the main entrance door opening and then being slammed shut, the muffled noise carrying through the library door. A moment later, the library door opened, and Cosmic turned to face it, along with Kai and Marius. Something in Cosmic's body language tripped Shimazu's senses though, and he resisted the urge to turn, instead staying position behind Kai and mostly blocking his body from whoever might enter the library, but keeping his attention on their host.
He was glad that he did.
As the newcomer entered, Cosmic's whole demeanour changed. It was remarkable – the smile grew wider and larger, elongating from something forced to natural. The eyes twitched up in the corners as his cheek muscles formed his grin, making them seem to come alive. Tiny micro-expressions all across his face changed his expression completely, and rather than the unremarkable and somewhat dour man they'd met a few minutes ago, he now seemed to have a vitality and animation that was endearing and captivating.
Kai and Marius examined the man who entered, first noticing the bright and bold colours of his clothing. A deep red jacket with orange trim covered his white shirt, while smart trousers with a sharp crease down the legs led to a well-polished pair of smart leather shoes. The newcomer's face was dominated by a pair of large and widely-spaced eyes, giving the impression of being somewhat startled or surprised. Their gaze flicked to Marius, Kai and Shimazu, before ending on Cosmic, and a huge beaming grin burst from his face.
"I'm home!" It should have been a fatuous and redundant statement, but it carried an edge of warmth and joy with it that stopped it sounding inane. The figure walked around the desk quickly, then bent and grabbed Cosmic's chin, gently pulling their head round to face him and gave him a short but sensual kiss. As he broke contact, he let his fingers slide along Cosmic's jawline, before suddenly twisting to face the team.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know you had visitors. Oh, Cosmic! Darling! Just the cheap biscuits? This just won't do! And I'd have worn something nice if I knew we were having guests – from out of town, no less."
"This is Ruso, my husband." Cosmic said, looking at them carefully. Kai nodded, and then stood, offering his hand and introducing himself. Ruso shook his hand carefully, then repeated the introduction with both Shimazu and Marius. "Now. I believe that Ruso is going to correct my lack of hospitality, so I should arrange payment for you while he's doing that." He reached back into the open drawer and withdrew a cred-reader, then held out a hand towards Kai. Ruso, meanwhile, let his hand run down the back of Cosmic's head, smiled at him and then headed for the door out of the library.
Kai pulled out a credstick and passed it over, watching as Cosmic inserted it into the reader, keyed in payment of thirty thousand Nuyen and then authorised the transfer, confirming the updated balance on the stick. Kai retrieved it and murmured his thanks, and then twisted around again as Ruso entered, carrying another plate of biscuits – larger than the first and mostly dipped or covered in chocolate.
"Thanks, Ruso. Now, Kai – you mentioned that they won't realise it has been taken? How?"
"Well, we took with us another 1911. We'd seen the gun was up for auction a little while back as it happens, so we got hold of the picture from the auction to use as a reference, and then tried to modify the one we found to look identical. Obviously the serial number won't match, and it won't bear up under close scrutiny, but from a casual examination it should pass muster." He nibbled on a chocolate biscuit, took a sip of coffee to wash it down, and then continued.
"So the guns at the location were all in sealed cabinets – kept at low pressure. It looked like they were being stored to be looked at, rather than handled. Marius here managed to defeat the security system well enough that we got into the cabinets without any alarms going off, so we were able to exchange the guns and escape, without being detected. We've monitored the situation as best we can, and as far as we can see, there's not been any mention or rumour about the theft, and no alarms from the former owner."
"Interesting. And you said there were other cabinets? With other guns present?"
"Oh, Cosmic. You and your guns. They're so dull!" Ruso gave Cosmic a little shove, that turned into a lingering touch. Cosmic, in turn, just seemed to melt a little, staring up at Ruso with obvious emotion for a few long seconds before he shook himself and turned back to look at Kai.
"Yes, there were several other pieces, all quite old as far as I could see. I'm no gun expert, but I think Marius can tell you about them."
"Indeed. And we also have high-resolution images of them if you would like to see them?" Cosmic nodded to Marius, who dug out his own tablet, pulling up some of the stills that Hunter had extracted from the drone footage, along with the list of guns.
"In the same cabinet as the 1911, there was what appeared to be a LeMat eight shot revolver, with a single shot 20-gauge shotgun barrel mounted underneath. In the next case was a Winchester model 73 lever action rifle. Then there was an M1 Garand, original pattern – so we believe from the first production run. This picture shows the 9mm Luger, which looks to be in pristine condition, and next to that was an empty space – presumably for another pistol-sized acquisition at some future time. Then there was an MG42 machine gun, mounted on a very sturdy-looking tripod that allowed elevation to very high levels. Next to that was a M1A1 Thompson submachine gun – we think it was something called a 'Savage' model. And last of all was a Krieghoff FG-42 8mm heavy machine gun. That was all of the firearms – but there were also two suits of armour as can be seen here, and some broadswords and falchions on display as well."
Cosmic examined the details, skipping back and forth through the images a few times, then looked up at them.
"Tell me about your entry method?"
"Well, we have a very competent mage, who got us in through a tunnel, right under the building. We dug in from a house about a kilometre away, though that house may have been compromised – we did run into some of the local guerrillas, who wanted to use the route to assassinate the admiral. Hopefully we persuaded them not to do that, and it's better to monitor the admiral and spy on him, than get him replaced. So, with any luck we'd be able to get in the same way. If not, we have other options…" Kai smiled reassuringly. "And as I said earlier, Marius here managed to totally compromise the security system, so we should be able to just deactivate the alarms and get into the cabinets very easily to remove anything else."
"And are you interested in further work?"
"We are…" Kai could feel the stares of the two others and proceeded quickly "But we have a very urgent appointment in France that we cannot miss, and we're contracted for some work in Poland afterwards. Once we have those resolved though, then provisionally yes."
"And how long would you need?"
"I think we should be able to conclude all our previous commitments in about a month."
"Unfortunate. Too long." Cosmic pulled a face, indicating his disappointment, then cleared his features. "Well, if you already have arrangements, then that cannot be helped. If you were provided replicas for all of these items, could you repeat your trick?"
"I think it would depend on the timing, but in principle – yes. I don't see why not. I'd have to check with the rest of the team, but we should be able to do something."
"Before you deal with your companions – I want these guns. I am willing to offer two hundred thousand if you can retrieve them all for me. Just so you understand what level of reward is on offer, when you discuss this."
"Perhaps you can give me a moment – I think our radios will reach back to our aircraft, and I can ask them for a quick answer?" Cosmic waved for him to continue, and Kai made a show of 'adjusting' his radio and switching to the team frequency, and then repeated the offer and mission specifications.
"I'm happy to go again." Aswon responded quickly. "Even if they have discovered the tunnel, we can go again and just try an alternate non-lethal insertion and recovery. We know what we're after, and the layout of the place now. Should be much easier."
"Potentially, if we sort out the timing – I can just dig a tunnel from wherever we land to the church. Hunter can guide me, and there's no need to ever appear in the city then. It'll take longer, but I'd rather take a day, day and a half digging a tunnel, but limit our risk."
"I can guide you, Tads, no problem."
"Right, that sounds like nobody has an issue." Kai looked up at Cosmic. "It sounds like a yes – as soon as we're done with our current assignments."
"Good." Cosmic closed the drawer in his desk, then opened a smaller drawer closer to the top, pulling out a small plastic business card with an embedded chip. "This has contact details and an encryption algorithm to use when communicating." He slid the card over to Kai, releasing it as Kai's fingers trapped the card, then sat back in his chair, smiling broadly. He reached an arm around Ruso, giving him a tight squeeze and then rested his hand on him while he returned his attention to Kai. "Do your other work, then get in touch. I will arrange a location for the handover of the fakes. Then you can secure all of these items for me." Kai nodded, and behind him Shimazu studied Cosmic carefully. It was intriguing to see how different he had become with the presence of Ruso, and as he watched he could see the warmth and empathy they had for each other.
"Well, it was nice to meet you and do business with you, Cosmic. And it was lovely to meet you too, Ruso – and thank you for the biscuits. I'm glad we rated the nice ones, and I hope to see you again." Kai flashed a wicked smile at Ruso and winked, getting a giggle in response. As they stood, the guards opened the door to escort them out into the hallway, and then out into the courtyard once the library door was closed again.
It had gotten dark while they were in discussing the situation, and a light drizzle had started, cold rain threatening to turn into sleet – but fortunately the journey back to the tilt-wing wasn't that long, and they made it back before the rain intensified.
Once they were in and settled, Kai called Marius over the comms, grabbing him while he was performing the start-up checklist.
"Hey, do you want to call your mate Halys and let him know it's all good?"
"Ja. I will contact them shortly to advise."
"We got a route planned and stuff?"
"Of course Kai." Hunter responded. "From here to a place called Suceava, about fifteen minutes flight time. From there we get up into the highlands and get some better concealment and real terrain to hide in. Thirty five minutes or so to get to the Slovankian border, then the same again to get across country and to the Austrian border. The hills are starting to turn into the Alps by that point, so sensors will be all over the place. Flit across Austria to the Swiss border, another forty-five minutes. The Swiss border is likely to be tougher, but once we're in, we've got about twenty-five minutes to get down to where we're crossing into France, and then another forty-five minutes to an hour or so until Paris. Should get there about ten ish."
"Ok – cool. So we've got some spare time, and might want to either slow down a bit or find somewhere to stop?"
"Yes – but I'd say push on, and find a stop in France. Just in case we need the time earlier to avoid border patrols. Better to have some slack in the schedule up front."
"Makes sense to me. And can someone tell me why there's a bunch of weird-looking carrots hanging from the cargo netting over here?"
"Ask them two! They're the ones that have been taming the local wildlife."
"Hey!" Both Tads and Aswon called out. Tads waved at Aswon to speak up, and he nodded to her. "Hunter is exaggerating somewhat. We checked on the donkeys in the corner of the field, and they were in a shocking condition. So we gave them some food, water and cleaned their wounds. It would have been immoral not to." Kai looked at him and then made a show of looking around the interior of the tilt-wing, peering into the corners. "What, Kai?"
"Just making sure you've not snuck them on board and covered them with an invisibility spell…"
"If anyone brings a donkey onto my plane, the donkey can stay – in their seat!" Marius called back, finishing the checklist and starting the engines. "We may even get better conversation out of them." The team descended into good-natured bickering, their voices raising or switching to their sub-vocal microphones to cover the mounting engine noise as they smoothly lifted off into the darkness, before Marius dropped the nose and headed westwards.
They flew through the gloom, staying low to the ground and following the path Hunter had laid out, gradually climbing into the mountains and slicing across borders like thieves in the night. The radar absorbent materials that coated the airframe performed as designed, soaking up most of the sensor sweeps aimed in their directions, and for the vague returns that were unavoidable, the electronic deception processors augmented, duplicated and transformed the returning signals creating ghostly shadows, flocks of birds or other artefacts that thoroughly confused the crews and computers monitoring the borders they were crossing, while Marius sought every valley or chasm, low lying ground or sensor dead-spot he could find along the way. Even the Swiss border proved to be no problem, and they crossed into France ahead of their projected schedule, not long after nine in the evening.
"Maybe we can contact the guy at the zoo? See if he can take the bird earlier? There'll be more traffic to hide in, and we can just be one more air-taxi in the sky?"
"Maybe. I'll give him a call and see." Kai dug out the number and called, but it rang for a while and then went to voice-mail. He hung up rather than leaving a message, not wanting to commit anything to a recording medium, for his sake as well as the contacts. "No answer at the minute. Hunter – can you look for a location to land somewhere near Paris? Far enough out to avoid the corps and too much attention, but close enough for a dash in?"
"Sure. Let me look." It fell quiet for a few minutes, while Hunter checked over the maps he had available, trying to download better quality ones without signing up to corporate owned sites or having to install software onto his deck that was no doubt full of applications that would slow down his performance, or report back to their corporate overlords. "Ok – I've got some farm land about thirty klicks south of Paris, with a big set of woods, looks like a clear spot in the middle… oh, hang on – maybe better. How about the Aerodrome de Melun Villaroche? Local airport, got adverts for things like a gliding club and instructors for flight training. Two small runways, about one point five clicks each – but tarmac, and according to the advert they have a local tower controller. So it's not tied in with either of the big international airports."
"The concept of a paved runway sounds pleasant right now. I would prefer that to a VTOL landing."
"Ok, let's go for the airport then." Kai instructed. The plane barely twitched as Marius adjusted heading by less than a quarter of a degree, to follow the new beacon and flight information from Hunter, and they continued to race across the French countryside. As they got close, Marius shut down the stealth systems and Tads thanked the spirit and released it from its current service, allowing them to pop up from behind some hills on approach to the tower. The tower called out to them, and despite the majority of the world accepting English as the primary language of the air, the local tower babbled at them in high-speed French. Fortunately it turned out that Hunter was as fluent here as he was with a number of other languages, and was able to chat to the tower controller quickly. After a minute of back and forth, he muted his transmissions to the tower, and updated the team.
"Right, so this guy is Thierry. Night shift at the tower, and he's a bit pissy that we don't have the right paperwork and access codes. But we've got an understanding worked out – we just need to give him the equivalent of about eight hundred Nuyen and he'll help us out with our 'computer glitch' that stopped the paperwork being filed right."
"Go for it Hunter, doesn't seem too bad as a bribe. If it makes life easy for us anyway." Kai checked his credstick, realising that with the pay from Cosmic, they were back up over a hundred thousand in their account. "Yeah – let's just go for the quiet life." Hunter switched back to the tower frequency and chatted with his new friend, thanking him for his forthcoming assistance with the required permits and plans, and then started to feed approach information to Marius for a landing on runway two-eight, and a gentle turn off onto the taxiway to stop before the main hangers near the tower.
When the engines had stopped, they saw a lone figure approaching them from the direction of the tower, and Hunter headed out to meet him, having a quick chat and then coming back to Kai.
"Got a problem, Kai. He can't take money off a certified cred-stick. No reader. He was expecting cash – a thousand Francs. He's not happy."
"Can we trade him something? Have we got anything he might want? Spin him a story that we're traders?"
"Truffles? They like their fancy food here. Might be worth a shot?" Hunter ducked back out of the aircraft for another chat, then came back and asked Tads for a sample, which seemed to be received exceptionally well. Shortly thereafter, an exchange took place, with a whole jar of truffles were exchanged for certain discrepancies with flight plans and insurance certificates to be overlooked, and the team got to relax a little. "Oh, I asked him about fuel – but they ain't got none. It's a real small airport, and apparently it's external companies that supply all the gas. I asked for the number, and he gave it to me – but says they'll not be open until tomorrow morning at the earliest. So we might wanna empty the barrels into the tanks while we're waiting…"
Kai tried Pierre once more, when the refuelling was complete – this time the call completed and the very irate-sounding keeper barked at him down the line.
"What?"
"We've made good time, and we're a little way south of Paris at the moment and I was wondering if…"
"Non non non! Too early! We will be ready at the agreed time!"
"Right, fine, not a problem. We were just checking. We'll see you tomorrow morning then…"
Kai heard him shouting at someone, identifying them as an 'idiotic son of a b…' before the call terminated, and he just told the rest of the team that they'd have to cool their heels and wait, as the zoo was definitely not ready for them.
Aswon and Shimazu went for a jog up and down the runway, enjoying having a bit of space and good footing to work with, and the rest of the team relaxed or cracked on with their studies. The bird was still out cold, lying on the bottom of the crate, breast rising and falling evenly and beak slightly open as the drugs they had laced the meat with continued to do their job.
"Oh, hey Hunter?" Aswon barely sounded winded as he loped along the runway. "Got something for you to check up on, if you can?"
"What?"
"The thing we're going to do for Germaine. The team she hired, that has gone rogue – they were doing some kind of art heist. Can we check for any recent news on art heists, see if we can get more information?"
"Hmm. Not much to go on. I'll give it a go though." He jacked into his deck and rode the carrier wave from the sat-link up into the matrix, then started searching around for information. As he expected, with so little to go on, it was an uphill struggle – but he did find out something that might be related. The details were somewhat vague, but it sounded like it might give them some better questions to ask.
"Ok, I've run a search. Nothing really about art-thefts that have hit the news recently down that way. But there was a major fire at an art dealers down in Oman the other day. Huge fire – pretty much trashed the entire building, set the neighbouring buildings on fire and nearly got out of control and torched the whole block. Insurance companies are all over it like flies on shit at the moment, but they're saying phrases like 'total loss'. Strikes me as a pretty good way to cover up the theft of individual items – even if it is a bit messy and high profile."
"Does sound a bit extreme." Aswon responded.
"Yeah, but so was stealing that scroll from the museum in Iran, and look what kind of shit that kicked off!"
"Fair point. Ok – probably worth looking into to see if we can get some more details."
"Something to do when we get to the Netherlands, and we're waiting for Marius to recover. It's gonna take me hours to piece together, particularly if I need to get into the systems for the insurance companies to get the inside line."
"And at least that way if they track your signal somehow – that'll lead them back to an Ares facility!" Aswon pointed out, causing a few chuckles in the team as they imagined what kind of response that would trigger. Unless someone had some serious pull in whatever corporate hierarchy they belonged to, nobody was going to willingly pick a fight with one of the big ten.
Time crawled by, but eventually it crept past midnight, and they fired up the bird, taking off from the same runway and then swinging north to head to the zoo. As expected, Pierre had cordoned off a couple of the air-taxi pads near the entrance, giving them plenty of space to land in. Initially the group of keepers looked like they were going to head straight over, until they realised just how close that was going to take them to the engines and propellors – at which point it seemed sense broke out and they sensibly waited for Marius to finish shutting down the engines. When the blades had finally stopped, the group of keepers headed over, with Kai hopping down to greet them while Aswon and Shimazu moved the warded box close to the entrance to facilitate the transfer.
"Hello Pierre, I'm Kai. We have the delivery for you – in good condition, though still very sleepy."
"Sleepy? What did you give them?" Kai just reached into his pocket and pulled out the diagnostic slip from the medkit, showing the concoction that had been administered. Pierre pulled out his phone and used the torch to scan over the chemical formulas, scratching his head as the tried to make sense of them, a small cloud of white dandruff landing on his shoulder as he did so.
"So, she's all ready to go. We have her ready to transfer now. We've also spent the last few days getting her used to being around people, and to eating nearby. She's been running between people to get thrown food, so she should react well to you if you have food for her."
"Maybe she won't be too much of a bitch then." Pierre shrugged and waved his crew forward, opening the crate and getting ready to transfer the bird into their custody. Aswon and Shimazu checked the box out, spotting that it wasn't warded and both thought about saying something – before shrugging and deciding to just let it be. If they wanted hailstorms, lightning strikes or the bird dicking with their mind – that was up to them. By the time the Eagle woke up, the team should be in another country and it wouldn't be their problem.
Once the bird was moved over, Pierre sent a message to Ganesh, advising him the delivery was complete, showing Kai as soon as it was sent. Kai in turn sent a message as well, checking to make sure Ganesh was on top of the paperwork to show it as a 'legitimate import' for the zoo. Happy that they were going to get paid, as soon as Ganash woke up and checked his messages anyway, the team climbed back aboard and started the engines once more.
Getting to the French-Netherlands border took them another half-hour and proved to be ludicrously easy to cross. There was almost no sensor coverage of the border worthy of name, and Marius didn't even bother engaging the stealth systems, choosing not to put any unnecessary wear on the components if he didn't have to.
"Eindhoven is on sensors. Another few minutes, and we should be contacting the tower for approach instructions." Marius shifted in his seat – it felt like it had been a long and hard day of flying, probably because he was so unused to operating manually. It would be good to get out and know that he wasn't going to get cooped up again for a little while – but then the reason why he wouldn't sent a chill down his spine.
At least he had the team to support him now – he wasn't throwing himself at the mercy of Ares and their black surgeons without backup.
He activated the transponder, and waited for approach control to recognise his presence and send a challenge, so Hunter could pass over the flight plan details he'd been working on during the day, and tried to quell the butterflies in his stomach.
