Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption Read online

  “I’ll be fine,” Bannickburn said.

  “Really? Mind if I ask where you’re going? What you’re doing?”

  Bannickburn pulled his chin up a little and let arrogance fill his voice. “As a matter of fact, I do mind.” The driver, unfortunately, had spent too much time among elves to be put off by haughtiness.

  “Oooo—secret stuff! Is it government-secret? Business-secret? Wait, I know—magic-secret! You’re doing research!”

  “Secret-secret,” Bannickburn said, anxious to end the conversation.

  Thankfully, the driver was put off. The rest of the ride was quiet, leaving Bannickburn free to watch covertly for the security forces that undoubtedly had been alerted to his presence by now.

  At the end of the grid, Bannickburn stepped out of the cab and threw the driver as normal a tip as he could, so he wouldn’t be memorable. He waved, and then headed north to the Clackamas River.

  Now it was time to break out some of his resources. First thing was the narcs. He wasn’t happy about having to spend two of his jazz poppers on Spargoyle, but he still had a few left. He squeezed one into his mouth and felt the instant rush moving from his heart to his legs and arms to the tips of his fingers and toes. He started to run, keeping a pace significantly faster than he could maintain without the drugs, but probably much slower than anything the TDF was using.

  The police’s most recent intelligence said the Finnigan associates with the water were planning to head down the Clackamas toward the Willamette. What they’d do then was anybody’s guess, but passing through the gate at the Clackamas River Bridge seemed to make the most sense. Hopefully, Bannickburn was traveling the exact same route the Finnigans were going to take, only in reverse. With any luck, he’d run right into them—and both of them would manage to stay clear of the TDF.

  Bannickburn thought the logical thing for the smugglers to do would be to stick close to the Clackamas, maybe even sail on top of it, until they came near the gate. He didn’t expect to find them within sight of the river—it would be too obvious, the TDF would be watching the water closely. While studying the maps, Bannickburn had come up with what he thought their real plan might be, and he based his route on that.

  About seven kilometers east of its merge with the Willamette, the Clackamas took a turn to the north. It ran that way for almost two kilometers, made a short jog west, then headed back south, only turning west again at a spot less than a kilometer due west of where it turned in the first place. If Bannickburn were on the run and headed west, he’d get the hell off the river when it made that first big turn north, and he’d make a beeline for the Willamette, a distance of about seven kilometers over land. The trees and hills there would provide a lot better cover than the open water.

  He didn’t think he had much time. The urgency Bailey had conveyed—he’d practically pushed Bannickburn out of Seattle once Bannickburn finally accepted the mission—indicated that the Finnigans should be making their way out of the Tir at any time. In fact, they had been supposed to meet with Spargoyle days ago. Something had clearly held the Finnigans up, but Bannickburn couldn’t believe they were that far from their goal, assuming they’d lived this long.

  He ran almost northeast, staying on top of the hills and bluffs near the river, watching left, watching right, practically swiveling his head three hundred and sixty degrees, so he could keep an eye on everything around him. His legs kept churning, the jazz making anything less than a dead sprint feel sluggish. He’d already traveled more than a kilometer, and was making excellent time.

  Back in ancient times, probably before the disintegration of the old U.S. of A., this area had been more developed. Trees sprang up all around him now, but the ground seemed as much concrete as dirt, old foundations that were slow to return to nature. Occasionally, he saw other remains left by the former inhabitants—an old tire, a corner of a reflective green sign, unidentifiable rusted metal—but there weren’t many of these. The elves kept their nation clean, and these items were likely only visible because the rain and tree roots had worked to uncover them from the dirt grave that had housed them for many decades.

  To his left, the Clackamas hurried on, slowly narrowing and quickening as Bannickburn moved farther from the Willamette. The gurgling water would have sounded soothing, except it was too often drowned out by the blood rushing in Bannickburn’s ears.

  Only a kilometer to go. He felt like he had enough energy to run for days, but in an hour or so that would change completely, and he’d be little more than a limp rag. Unless, of course, he dug back into his narc stash to keep himself going a little longer.

  A feather tickled across his brain. He recognized what it was instantly, and felt nauseous. Someone was reaching out with magic—looking for him, or someone else, but looking. And they’d spotted him.

  This would have been easier in the old days. In the old days—

  Who the frag cares, Bannickburn’s brain shouted at him in fury. This is now, not then. Figure out a way to survive with what you have.

  He stopped in his tracks, took a deep breath, and looked around. Let those damn elven eyes do some work. He couldn’t see a trace of any intelligent life nearby.

  Could be a lot of things. Could be a mage with invisibility. Could be someone detecting him at a long range. But Bannickburn had gotten caught up on the latest Tir security procedures, and he knew their first line of attack in a situation like this, which was to send out the spirits. The denisens of Tir had plenty of spirits at their disposal, and they were reliable if single-minded and unimaginative. Give them a job and they’d usually do it—that, and nothing more. Bannickburn knew the TDF didn’t have much information about him. Right now, all the spirits would be looking for was an elf fugitive. So Bannickburn would transform himself into an elf who belonged here.

  He thought the thoughts of a Tir elf. He pondered the glories of nature, the evils of those who despoil it, the fact that he was likely superior to ninety-nine percent of the intelligent life on earth because he was so damn enlightened. He made himself feel at home here, in his element, beside a river he’d walked next to thousands of times because it soothed his soul.

  The feathered fingers tapped in his mind for a few more seconds, then flitted away. He’d been seen, it was clear, but whatever saw him was leaving him alone. The spirit, if that’s what it was, hadn’t seen a fugitive. It had seen a Tir native.

  The thought that he’d passed as a native (even though he’d only fooled a simple spirit) made Bannickburn feel both triumphant and disgusted. The last thing he wanted to be was one of them. He let his distaste for the Tir and the urgency of his mission come back into his head.

  Then his legs, which had started trembling from the strain of not moving while under the influence of jazz, carried him off again.

  Ahead of him, slightly to his right, sprang an opportunity: A hilltop, higher than the surrounding area, with a small rocky outcropping that would serve as a good lookout point. Maybe he could finally spot what he was looking for.

  He climbed the hill. The outcropping was well situated, near enough to trees and bushes that he could jump back into shelter if necessary, but open enough to give him a view of the area for several kilometers. He reached into his backpack for a nice, mundane piece of equipment—a pair of binoculars. He set them to their highest level of magnification and started scanning.

  The good news was, he didn’t see anyone who looked like they were following him. The bad news was, he didn’t see anyone who looked like they might be his quarry.

  He had some loose descriptions of the smugglers from the Portland police. There were three to five people in the gang, all elves except for one ork. They were pros— you don’t penetrate the Tir with amateurs—and so were probably older and not flashy. So Bannickburn was looking for a group of average, ordinary-looking folks staying off roads and running for their lives. He figured he’d know them when he saw them.

  The distant sound of rotors drew his attention. Time to move back
a little.

  The noise came closer, and Bannickburn caught a few glimpses of an autogyro flying low and coming closer. Sleek, black, and shiny, it reflected sunlight back at Bannickburn no matter which way it turned. It seemed to be a series of hard facets, and it was heading straight for him.

  He was carrying a jammer in his backpack, and he thought this might be the time to use it, to keep the gyro from spotting him. Trouble was, sometimes the noise from a jammer was different enough from regular white noise that a team with decent equipment could detect the existence of the countermeasure. He was probably better off as a lone person on the ground, especially if he could find a thick pile of leaves to duck under.

  His feet slid on loose dirt as he sidestepped down the hill, listening to the approaching craft. He scanned the ground, looking for roots or rocks, then glanced up to the sky, wondering just how close the autogyro was going to get. It sounded like it should almost be overhead. Then he saw what he was looking for—a pile of leaves stacked in a small hole. Bannickburn dove in, hoped for the best, and waited.

  The autogyro passed overhead. It was so low that Bannickburn could easily read the craft’s identification number. He watched it go, and for one brief, welcome moment it didn’t reflect sunlight back in his face. Then it passed on, and he was watching its tail.

  He started to take a deep, relieved breath when the autogyro stopped and hovered. It held steady for a while, looking, looking, looking.

  Then it left as quickly as it had come.

  He sat up a little, and leaves rustled as they fell away from him. The autogyro was looking somewhere else. They were close to him, but not quite close enough. Which meant one of two things—either they were looking for him and didn’t quite know where he was, or they were looking for someone else.

  That second possibility was the one that interested Bannickburn, since he had a pretty good idea who that someone else would be. His mind raced. How would the Finnigans react to the autogyro? They might hide, like Bannickburn, but that was likely only if they were on foot, and Bannickburn didn’t figure they were. If they had wheels, they’d keep an eye on the autogyro and stay away from it. They’d be skirting to the south right about now.

  Bannickburn moved, running to the hill’s south face. If the autogyro was in the right place, Bannickburn probably only had one shot at this, and it would be coming up extremely quickly.

  The autogyro had seen enough and it headed north. The smugglers would have a moment to breathe, and how they used that moment would decide how successful Bannickburn was going to be.

  He sprinted down the south face of the hill at full speed, hopping over rocks, skidding every other step, but staying upright. The jazz, thankfully, was still working, and it felt almost like invisible hands on his back, shoving him forward.

  He found a path, maybe three-quarters of the way down, that had been invisible from the hilltop. Not as wide as a road, certainly not paved, but still clear of plants and rocks. This was probably how the smugglers hoped to get to the river, and this was where the TDF autogyro was looking for them. For the moment, then, the smugglers were somewhere else. But hopefully they’d come back here.

  Bannickburn took out his binoculars again—not looking behind at all, focusing a little to the south of the general direction the autogyro had been traveling.

  There! In the trees, movement. It was slow, probably a full kilometer away. They were off-road, trying to get back on. If they got back before Bannickburn caught up to them, they’d be gone, and he’d have lost them.

  He dashed forward, trying to get a look at the smugglers as he ran, but the lenses bounced too much. He couldn’t fix on them, couldn't see what kind of vehicle they had.

  He was getting closer, three-quarters of a kilometer, then half. They would’ve heard him by now except they had an engine rumbling, some kind of motorbike. Too loud to be an Offroader—maybe a Growler.

  Time for a stealthy approach. He’d resisted using this next toy—it would send all sorts of flares into the astral plane—but he was also longing for it like nothing else he carried. It was a small vial of mercury, specially mined near an astral rift in Wales. He’d bought it from Twist, and half the fun of using it would be the thought of inflicting a little drain on the pompous weasel. And a small astral flare in a place like the Tir wasn’t likely to draw much attention. He grabbed the vial, triggered it with a small rub, and vanished.

  He felt nothing. He couldn’t see any part of himself, but he felt nothing. How could he feel nothing? This was his life’s blood! He was back in the game, using magic again—couldn’t he feel at least one damn thing?

  But he didn’t. That part of him was cut off for good. He got the effect of the spell, but the feel of the magic— the exhilaration, as well as the drain—belonged to Twist. That bastard.

  Even while his bitterness distracted him, the jazz kept him running toward the people on the cycle. He could see them now. There were only two—one sitting on the bike, the other walking alongside. The one on foot only had to jog to keep up with the bike, since the driver was being overly cautious of the roots and rocks on the forest floor.

  They’d never see him, hopefully never know he was coming. He scanned his targets, looking for obvious weapons, then saw one on the jogger. He wore a gun on his left hip. Bannickburn couldn’t make out what kind, but it was still a lot better than anything he had. His first job was to take that weapon.

  They finally heard him when he got close, the pounding footsteps in the woods cutting through the sound of their engine. They looked frantically for the source of the noise—finally saw the line of crushed leaves and broken twigs that showed Bannickburn’s trail—but it was too late. Bannickburn caught the jogging man with a quick left to the solar plexus. As the man doubled over, Bannickburn yanked the gun from his hip holster. It was a light pistol, but it would do. The guy on the motorcycle had his own gun out, whirling around, looking for Bannickburn, but unable to pin down his location. Bannickburn got off three running shots before the motorcycle driver could draw a bead. Unfortunately, they all missed.

  The driver traced the sound of Bannickburn’s shots and unloaded a few rounds of his own. But he’d been so focused on tracking Bannickburn’s sounds that he’d forgotten to pay attention to his friend, who abruptly straightened up just as the driver fired.

  A round caught the man in the cheek, and the exit wound turned half of his head into pulp. He spun around, and fell limply to the ground. The motorcycle driver cursed and gunned his engine. The bad forest-floor traction threw his front wheel to his left and nearly spilled him to the dirt. He recovered, and now Bannickburn was in trouble—if the motorcycle got up to speed, Bannickburn would have no way to catch him.

  But at least now he could take a set shot. He squared himself, braced his right arm with his left hand, and smoothly fired four times. The driver slumped and fell before he could get the cycle into second gear.

  Bannickburn ran to it. The engine was still running, which was all he needed. He would be ready to go after he checked one crucial thing. On a hunch, he reached under the cycle’s seat, found a latch, pulled, and lifted.

  He found a black cloth, thick like a towel. He quickly unwrapped the bundle, and there it was. Blue glass, with an oval label that read heart springs water, with a picture of a mountain stream, which, Bannickburn thought absently, really wasn’t a spring. He rewrapped the bottle, closed the seat, hopped on the motorcycle, and was off.

  He felt every bump in the forest floor beneath him, and stood as he drove to let his legs absorb the shock. He couldn’t go full speed, but he could get it up to thirty or so—fast enough to leave the two bodies behind him.

  Then there was the path, and he was on it. He gunned the motorcycle to near one hundred, not caring who saw him, because he hoped to outrun any pursuit.

  He flew southeast, aiming for the Cascade Highway. That would get him back to 205 just south of the bridge. Then he just had to figure a way to get back into Portland, and the
n out the north side. Piece of cake.

  He hit the highway at full speed. He could get to the wall in about a minute, and he hoped the TDF wouldn’t be able to set up a decent roadblock in that amount of time, since they hopefully didn't know where the water was. If anyone had followed him on the flight to the highway, though, he’d be in trouble, since the Tir had plenty of vehicles at their disposal that were faster than the Growler.

  He glanced at his instrument panel. It looked like a bare-bones model, but it had a scanner. He tuned it to Spindle’s frequency.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “Between the highway and the wall,” she said immediately. “Haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “I’ve got the bottle. Get on the highway, north of the bridge. Don’t call any attention to yourself. I’ll be there soon.”

  “I can’t just sit on the highway waiting for you. Other cars won’t like that.”

  “Right. Okay, go about a kilometer north, then get on the highway and move south. Don’t go too fast. I’m on a bike. Look for me, I’ll find you.”

  “Got it.”

  Bannickburn checked his mirrors, and didn’t see anything that looked like security. So far, it looked like no one knew he had the bottle. That should be enough to get him to the gate safely. After that . . . well, he had a minute to plan.

  He threw the gun he’d lifted from the Finnigans away, and it skittered across the highway. It was more hindrance than help—something that would set off too many alarms at the gate.

  There wasn’t much of a line at the gate, with only a few trucks ahead of him. He knew he was already under the influence of various detectors and sniffers, but he guessed the one chemical of note that he had, whatever the water was, was sealed tightly enough to avoid detection. He could feel the touch of magical detection on him, which was good. He was counting on there being plenty of magic in the area.

  When the truck ahead of him pulled through the gate, Bannickburn moved his cycle ahead very slowly. A security official waited ahead, ready for a full scan and identity confirmation. Bannickburn grinned insolently at the man, and kept the motorcycle chugging forward.