Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade.
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame.
I am leaving, I am leaving,
But the fighter still remains,

She still remains.

-The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel

Fighter remembered the Talos Pharma Run among all the workanight bloodbaths.

Security had been waiting in the green-lit warehouse, that night, between tidy stacks of expensive medicine. Guns fixed on the main door to blow her crew away. Then two hover-drones broke through a window, behind the guards. She'd kicked down the door, smoke and stun grenades. Security went down like toy soldiers in the crossfire, all but one.

The troll guard was huge, chest like two bulls in a sack. Battered with lead, still not down. Bone studs on a monster's face, spreading both claws with eyes like a snake. A trog phys-adept.

An adept like her. She'd leapt from a forward stance; sidekick struck home like an anti-tank round. Red Ki burst from Killing Hands. Blows that crunched in flesh, again, again, again.

The trog was slow but unbreakable, tough as leather. He'd staggered, wouldn't fall. Her knuckles hadn't bled in years.

"Stay back! I can kill it!"

Her breath roared over the snarl locked on her lips. The trog swayed above her. She threw her power into another blow, then her foot slipped, she staggered. The guard rooted himself, raised a claw overhead – then one of her crew stepped in, blew the trog's head off. Their decker, who had cracked the computer, found the paydata and wiped every security tape during the brawl, asked, were they done?

Punching over and again, a swaying tower in black. Better to remember that Run than her first.

The trog gangers that held her down. Stomped her into the grit, laughed as they tore away – NO, fragging NO! She wouldn't remember. Nothing but driving punch after punch into that fragging troll, even if it would never fall.

-0-

Apart from Ilsa, the guys from that Run had blazed into town and left just as fast. Sometimes Runners had to slot and run. Just like Harry had taken the fast boat to Hong Kong. Left her behind in Seattle, where she'd always lived. He'd said he'd be back in a year, and it had been longer. Odds on, she'd never get to punch his stupid, bright-eyed face, just one more time.

The crew she'd joined for this night's Shadowrun, on a Renraku engineering lab, hadn't exactly been her favourite. The mage had been arrogant, the decker a nervous wreck. The Street Sam, a drug-fuelled psycho. Working with an ork had been insanity she wouldn't repeat.

Small comfort when all of them were dead now; fallen in their flight from the target lab. She was sprinting down a stairwell, with Lone Star thundering behind, toward her last teammate. The Rigger, her van, their escape.

Fighter's smoothly chiselled arms swung her round every turn in the stair. Her thick ponytail flew back from a broad Cantonese face, that had been known to radiate smiles when the neighbourhood's kids wanted a ball game or candy. Tears stood in her eyes, now. Trog or whatever, no one deserved to end like that.

She hit the bottom of the stairs, launched herself out onto the parking level. Two Lone Star moving from the darkness, firing. She rolled, came up flinging a knife into a visor, a stalling measure. No time to focus her Ki–she took the second Star out with a leg sweep, bashed his head against a van door. Until pursuing officers clattered from the stairwell, aiming guns. She took off.

Their Bulldog van was there. The team Rigger, Tifi, waving her in as she fired her Warhawk. Then the plunk of a tube-launched grenade, and the van went up like a fireball.

All eyes were on the blast–Fighter dropped out of sight between parked cars. The Stars lowered their guns; armour squeaked as they moved slowly forward. A long minute's careful silent movement, then Fighter came out behind the ork grunt with the launcher. Killed him with quick blows to groin, head, neck.

More gun-blasts cracked out, echoing from concrete. Buckshot punched into armour-one pellet bit home in her flesh. She stumbled, still ran for the exit ramp, ran with her body low like a wolf. All the Stars were behind her, no van, but she would run until she dropped. She'd reached the foot of the ramp when the shutter came down like a mousetrap, on her back.

It threw her face down in the dirt, crushed her spine. No more running, no fight to the end. She was going to die on the floor. The Runner they called Fighter screamed out her rage, until agony faded to black. 

-0-

On the night of her first Run, trog gangers had ambushed and beaten her. Beaten her to drek that couldn't fight; without freak chance, rape and death would have been the story of her. All before the eyes of the man she could have loved. Except she'd been too innocent to know drek about anything, back then.

She'd learned since that night, got stronger. She'd killed enough of the monsters who trafficked children and tortured women, that she could feel alright about herself, most days. A little worthy of her father's training, in Kung Fu, and the six generations of masters before her. Worthy of the skills that would worthlessly die with her, now.  

Running the Shadows never got simple. It could be the first Run, or the fifteenth, a frag-up or bad luck. The dice came up snake eyes, no second chance.

-0-

She was alone in an cell made of unmarked metal, tied to a chair. There had been a hospital, Lone Star solitary. Tranquillised comas between every prison, but she knew this was where it ended. A bullet through her head, or all the things she knew they did to captured Shadowrunners.

Torture. Human experiments even longer and viler. Rape by every guard whose old drinking pal she'd beaten to death, and all the pigs who just wanted a China girl bigger than a C.

She prayed to Guanyin, Bodhisatta of mercy, without hope that there was mercy for hired thieves and killers. Her eyes still scoured the cell for any sharp edge; even if she was tied, she could...no. She cursed herself as weak, but she did not want to die. She shook with terror until she retched, but there had been so much drek, she just wanted life, a little peace...her soul was still wavering in such chaos between heaven and hell, when the man with the chrome face walked into the room.

The volume of gleaming cyberware under his expensive suit made him seem over-the-line inhuman, a robot built around some scraps of flesh. Even his hair was slick as oil. Fighter forced her back straight against the chair, and set her lips with iron from her heart, as the cyborg presented a file.

"You may call me Mr Nagendra. You are Susan Shuang Lei, AKA Fighter, a minor Shadowrunner active during the last year. Born without a SIN, on a smugglers' boat between Guangzhou and Seattle. Your late father was also a minor Runner in Canton, some years ago. I see that you prefer the revenge killing of stray Halloweeners to depositing nanoweapons in crowded nightclubs. Even if contracted to perform the latter."

His flat voice made Fighter feel like an insect whose rock had been flipped, wincing in the light. Secrecy was her job, especially the fragging Antumbra job. Still, the how mattered less than–

"What's that to you, tin man?"

A tiny, robotic smile. "You will be interested to hear that you died at 1700 hours last Thursday, in a car accident. We went so far as to give you a charming funeral, surprisingly well attended."

"You…"

Fighter could imagine who had been there, from her old neighbourhood; what they might have felt. She'd always tried to do what good she could, in a world of drek. That was all that made sense, but what good could she do, when nothing made sense?

"You seem to be a Runner of skill and conviction, opposed to the chaos ubiquitous in our present world." The chrome faced man went on, "However, you should understand that your efforts to realise social justice through theft and murder have realised…mixed results, at best. Organisation is required, even to keep the miserable world you know from sliding into inferno, and the name of this organisation is the Agency. We'd like to offer you a job."

"What agency?"

"The Agency. You wouldn't have heard of us. We offer our recruits excellent training, and, shall we say, extensive foreign travel. A fresh start, and a worthy use for your skills." The chrome faced man smiled again, so briefly, "You will follow the direction of leaders who act without oversight or restriction, to preserve the peace and stability of the entire Sixth World."

It didn't seem real. But you could find anything in the Shadows, if you dug deep enough. Still, the more things changed…

"…basically, I steal and kill for you or I'm dead?"

"In a good cause. Consider that your past life is defunct, your present life is a loan from us, and we are offering you a choice, now, between these two alternatives."

Fighter thought of Harry, for a moment, returning to a Redmond where she was dead. Not even the Shadows would know what she'd done with her father's Kung Fu - only she would know, and she didn't know what this meant - of course she was selling her soul, to someone…but she was a Shadowrunner. She stood against every storm and came out fighting.

"Okay. Whatever this Agency is, I'm in to the end."

Chapter Text

Three months later

“Good morning, agents.” The crisp voice, over every dorm room tannoy, “Agent Richards and Trainee Lei, report to the briefing room at 1100 hours. Specialists Corelli and Kotto, report at 1400 hours. Today, fulfil your potential.”

Fulfil your potential. The maxim scrolled over every pneumatic steel doorway in Agency Alpha Base, the answer to every grim eyed instructor. The end to which the rafts of training plans and ranks of training simulators led on. Agents knew their mission objectives, never the reason for any mission, and certainly nothing more of the reasons they fought but ‘stability’. To be the best conceivable killer, hardest of the hard, was the just cause with which the Agency filled hearts and minds. Hungry young mercenaries, ex-soldiers and former shadowrunners, Fighter among them, took to it like catnip for tigers.

Fighter had been awake for twenty minutes, however, when the synthetic voice of the Knowbot program for onbase efficiency had announced reveille. In her small dorm, she moved through the Tai Chi she’d practised almost every morning since her father’s death. Her bare leg stretched out, shifting deliberately like a branch in wind. Her roommate Sandra, on the next bed along, rolled her slim elvish body over and batted her eyes.

“Just how long can you hold that pose, hotshot?”

“All day.”

“Can I watch all day? Pretty please?” They shared a friendly grimace, “Good luck with 1100 hours, darling. Fulfil your potential, and that.”

Despite her unhappy experience with another bisexual elf lady, Fighter got on quite well with Specialist Agent Sandra Creighton. Big, guileless violet eyes and self-possessed shyness were handy that way. Her specialism was Valentine. The Knowbot’s digital spy-speak dictionary had told Fighter that meant sleeping with the enemy. All she let herself think about that was, it presumably worked.

Her other roommate was Specialist Agent Anya Kotto, a bosomy ork decker with dark skin and rainbow braids. She hopped out of her bunk, pulled on the issued grey fatigues, and ‘Heya’-ed Sandra. Departed into the echoing metal corridors, whistling a Goblin Rock song, without looking Fighter in the eye.

-0-

“There she is! The Troll Hunters’ breeder! Think this is gonna feel good!”

Towering over the huge horns of his bike, the troll ganger bore down like a screaming stampede. Fighter rolled. The machete in his claw whomphed over her head. He shot past, looked back, she threw a knife into his mirror-shades. The first of the trogs crashed and burnt.

She’d bloodied the Halloweeners’ painted noses, but they hadn’t only hit back at her straight. They’d paid a few half-starved punks from the Ork Underground to geek her. Then, once Fighter had killed their killers, they’d put it around to the Ragers and Bloody Screamers that she was a trog killer. A female Runner, raped by trogs (the ork gangs hadn’t thought that anything outrageous), on a revenge crusade to wipe the monsters out. Then, as her Cred had grown, Humanis Policlub had caught the rumours and lies. They’d shot up the squats of some ork families, in her name.

The trogs had marked her for death. She’d punched out enough furious trog gangers, when she hadn’t been caged up in hiding for weeks on end, that it scarcely felt good anymore, or even right. She’d smacked around a few Humanis street recruiters bawling about sub-human rapists as well, but her heart hadn’t been in that either.

“I do surely hope that, as fellow agents, we can respect each other.” Anya had said, as soon as they’d met, “Even if techies like me stay onbase and use our heads, instead of charging out to break them.” 

She was another Seattlite ex-shadowrunner; maybe she’d heard rumours. Fighter didn’t ask, just smiled without warmth.

“Want advice, omae? Never mention respect, if you want it. You have to earn it.”

‘You’ have to earn it. Anya had called her a cheap Humanis thug, and hardly any trog on the base had spoken a pleasant word to her after that. Which was all she expected, and alright by her. She could work with them, just about, if she had to. That was it.

A reputation for not working with trogs was probably part of the reason she'd been a lone, lonely Runner for nearly a whole frustrated year. A battle-forged team of true chummers was her dream, but chummers couldn't be bought in six-packs from the local Stuffer Shack. Maybe, after years under her father's strict regime, she'd had some desire to enjoy her independence? That could really have gotten her greeked, like a little fool. Training, teamwork, discipline, learning from better Runners-no one could live long in the Shadows without them.

That was why the Agency was golden, and its people were true chummers. S he'd even show the instructors who called her street-trash that she was an agent. She was ready for a Run to save the world, for the Agency, even if it meant working with trogs.    

All that really got to Fighter, even now, was that Ilsa had left her, after months of gang heat back in Seattle. No hard feelings on either side , only sadness on Susan’s. As for Ilsa, she had taken the rational course. She'd been even more picky about Runs and chummers than Susan, but so long as she took that down just a notch...Susan knew Ilsa would go right on to better.   

-0-    

Fighter herself felt very far from the street now. There was definitely a gnawing hunger for action – a Run to really do something – as the Knowbot updated her sleek new Comm with the day’s nutritional plan. She spooned portions from the dispenser, took her tray to a mess hall bench. On the bright side, her proper morning workout had been novahot, better than coffee with beans. She’d been training her body since she was six, in the Barrens, using rocks as makeshift weights. Running up and down tower block stairs, punching the wall until her knuckles callused. Now, she had a holo-sparring range, weight machines that cost more than her old flat, and a yearlong fitness plan. She felt like the street girl who’d hooked up with a CEO and gone from scrounging meals to daily pedicures. It was hard, intense. The best.

Apart from one thing, the Worst Thing, three months of total training had been better than she’d imagined. At first she’d thought, and said, that training an adept like herself with firearms was true Corper 'hammer-the-stickout-nail' idiocy – but she'd learnt. An agent needed the skills to use any possible advantage in any set-up; to adapt, survive, fulfil their potential. She still couldn’t hit water from a boat, but she’d learnt infiltration, observation, mission tactics and disguise. Corp politics, security protocols, very basic Spanish and German…she hadn’t imagined there was so much to learn. Couldn't think how she'd survived, knowing nothing but how to punch.

Anya had laughed at her, early on, for not knowing the difference between A.I. (which hadn’t even been invented), and the base Knowbot (which only seemed to think, “Like some ignoramus racists round here, get me?”). She had to learn to fulfil her potential; she’d scrolled down computer screens in the School for months, almost as ravenously as she lent into the treadmill on endurance runs. The instructors had still chosen some harsher words than Anya to assess her mental development. Crueller, even, and cruelly aimed - but she had painfully picked out each shortcoming she had to fill from their curses, and trampled frustration under her moving feet. You couldn't get stronger any way, if you didn't learn.   

She had firmly refused to get a datajack implanted, however, and damage her Essence. Surprisingly, the Agency had acquiesced without comment. Alpha Base had ranks of datapoints and bleeding-edge simsense training. Trainees and agents spent at least two hours per day on rows of cots, learning and refining every knowledge or skill a modern secret agent might need. They took nearly another hour in meatspace to playback, analyse, and contemplate, trained their bodies at least as hard as she did, and the process made monsters.

Several agents on Fighter’s table – three humans, one dwarf – talked with her about training as they ate, succinctly but earnestly. They all wished her luck with the meeting at 1100. Agent Ptacek, the veteran Runner from Calfree - a stunningly composed and beautiful woman, who Susan wanted to be when she grew up - said she had no doubts at all that Fighter would fulfil her potential.  

Agent Jack Richards–the fair-haired and surprisingly young Canadian who’d done his best to teach her firearms–smiled and nodded reassuringly. Susan looked away, as something weird and warm stirred under her stomach.

Three months, confined to Alpha Base. The Agents and Trainees were a small group, all stronger than the best Runners she’d known before, and they trained together. She was the rookie, without a datajack. There wasn’t closeness like with Harry or Ilsa, but they respected her efforts, and she was ready to fight by their sides to the death. Above even fulfilling her potential, it was the drive of her heart to do her best by her comrades. Catch up on machine learning by sheer will and grit. Be her best, a true agent, at their side.

-0-

Before the briefing, whatever that meant, Fighter had holo-sparring, School and the Room. Stepping onto to the less-used meatspace sparring range, she spotted an immortal part of combat training that would likely never be digitalised; two agents pinning a bloody-lipped trainee in the corner, hissing something about respect. She spoke to them politely; the agents groused out. The even newer trainee seemed so stunned that he barely thanked her, though it had felt natural to Fighter as breathing out with a punch.

It always burnt off any worries, to kick-punch-strike-chop her path through illusionary enemies on the white-floored range. Exercises in the School were tougher for her, planning and puzzling her way though imaginary missions that the Knowbot spat out at a furious rate. Although every scenario centred on kidnappers, traffickers or the worst of the mob, which was a good motivation. The Agency might never disclose the reason for any mission, but she'd heard things. The names of world leaders and top CEOs whose deaths she knew remained obscure; data steals that had set the shape of the modern Matrix. She wasn't sure if the Agency had truly ended the Eurowars, or pulled strings behind the Lost Election, but thinking of the missions she might Run for them was intoxicating.

Then there was the Room. Whenever she thought of her training, Fighter recalled the room as clearly as a living being, another teacher. Instructor Madigan would send her into something like a metal-walled junk store. Activate any of four different locks. Grimly announce that she had twenty, fifteen or five minutes to get out, before they switched on the gas.

Sometimes there were wires for lock picking in old clothes or coat hangers. Keys hidden in the ventilator, to unlock anything but the door. UV-flashlights locked in drawers, to reveal the doorcode under a table–but lacking batteries. Broken radios, with live batteries, and a clue if you repaired them…every time was another problem, a different challenge. Without panic or wasted movement, but with the haste of a swimmer dropped in the ocean, Fighter reconnected the small generator; enough power to reactivate either the lights, the door keypad, or the extractor fan…

The first month, she'd failed more than half the time. She had got better, the Room had got harder. She was fairly sure there had been no solution, a few times–she'd still kept searching, until Madigan dragged her out unconscious. Whatever the challenge, by whatever means, she fought to break it. Escape to freedom, as the Agency demanded of the best.

-0-

Mr Nagendra, the chrome faced man, was in the briefing room at 1100 hours. Agency Director Oldman, who Fighter had been presented to, once, never left his office. Fighter and Richards stood at ease, Nagendra sat behind the computerised desk.  

(Apart from Oldman and Nagendra, Fighter knew of no one who’d been with the Agency more than five years. All Agents were North American, except a couple of Specialists–but from the little she heard, missions could be anywhere in the world. Could target anybody; Corps and mob that should be invulnerable, mid-level companies there seemed no reason to destroy. Neither of the bosses seemed like Corp or military; UCAS Intelligence was her present best idea.)

“Good morning, Trainee Lei. Agent Lei, I should say.”

“Sir? I…”

“Initial training more usually takes six months, not infrequently a year, but your instructors and the simulations are in agreement. You are ready to be deployed. My compliments.”

“It is an honour.”

In the moment, Fighter felt every groan, shock and strain of what she had fought through-and beaten. She savoured the moment, the distance behind her, and joyfully blessed her father’s spirit.  

She brought her heels together, offered a deep bow. Richards smiled, Nagendra didn't.

“Hm. A salute is more traditional, but useless fuss regarding arbitrary conventions is inefficient. Speaking of traditions, however,  you will report to the submarine bay at 1300 hours for your graduation party.”

“Yes, sir. Ah, will this be a tea-and-paper-hats party? Or an escape-and-evasion-through-urban-warzone party?”

“It is traditionally a surprise party.”

Nagendra deployed his very small smile, and Fighter grinned back. She felt ready to be surprised by nothing.

(3 months without leaving a vast underwater habitat, off the coast of she-didn't-know-where. Sprawling as Alpha Base was, claustrophobia had put her through hell for the first month. She'd remembered dragging Ilsa, crushed and poisoned–the fire demon, the basilisk–but she had held one thing in mind and clung to it. She had beaten them all, she had come out of that cave. Stronger.)

Chapter Text

Shadow lesson zero. Never even think you knew what was coming.

A wood-panelled French restaurant in Tokyo, with a lattice of soft red lights above, and ikebana arrangements on every table. A black silk cheongsam gown, loose sleeved over her biceps, tight on her body. Hair piled above her ears, shining like black pearl, makeup and nails…and a charming, tuxedoed secret agent on her arm.

She felt Richards’ latent strength as she brushed his side, even as he bowed to the Maître d’ and escorted her to their table. She didn’t know what it had cost to transform her, in the hour or so before her graduation party. She’d apparently fallen into a glittering otherworld where she didn’t know up from down. But of course, she let only assurance show on her face.

“Relax,” Richards murmured, “You look like you’re ready to hit someone."

"Thanks..." Through her warm flush, Susan glanced over the real ladies, Japanese and Gaijin, taking their seats with barely a rustle of silk. She wondered if female execs and celebs relaxed here, after a hard week of beating down their underlings and competitors. She noticed a few eyes with that kind of steel.     

"Susan?" Richards' faint smile surprisingly calmed her, "Enjoy yourself; that's an order. Real missions don’t have these perks, as a rule.”

“Guess not.” Fighter scanned the room once more, fidgeted in her seat, “Thanks again, for, ah, all this.”

“All thanks to the Agency. I just picked the dress.”

“Well, I love it. Or maybe the same thing, in white?”

“It's only a date,” Richards raised one eyebrow, “Not a wedding.”

“Not what I meant! Runners, agents, Shadow people, we can’t even fall in love. Not with other Runners. This…guy, my best friend, he told me that.”

“I’d question his judgement.” Richards swirled his wineglass, placed it down. Cornflower eyes looked at her straight, “Runners stop running, but no one really leaves the Shadows. We’re in until death do us part, all in. I’d say that people in the Shadows can only find love with each other.”

Susan’s face burnt. It was insane, this feeling, like she was cheating on Harry; he’d left her! But this nice guy talked about love, and all the memories rose. The dreams.

Harry could’ve taken her somewhere nice, with the creds from their first shadowrun. They could have just spread a rug on the roof of their block, gazed at the starless sky. His eyes would be bright, as he touched her face and made everything right again. Somehow.

 Why had she let him go? What was he doing now? But present reality–the powerful man across the table from her–was pulling her back with iron hooks. Reality, as usual, was the clear and present danger.       

“Is there anything you’re expecting to happen with this ‘date’…Jack Richards? Because I don’t–”

“Three months, we’ve been colleagues. My hand never ‘slipped’ when I was correcting your stance. I never called you ‘sweetheart’; never touched your shoulder or hand. Considering our positions, and what you’ve been through, I would've deserved to be shot if I had. This date can end any way you want it to, Miss Lei.”

His eyes were direct, his posture ramrod straight. He’d been military before the Shadows, and she could see it. Susan closed her mouth, rested her chin on her hands and smiled.

“I’ll think about it.” She raised her own wineglass, “To…absent friends?”

“Always appropriate. Cheers.”

They touched glasses. As Susan took her only drink of wine that night, she heard a party enter the restaurant – two men, one troll, heavy and confident steps – behind her back. Richards smiled sadly.

“Don’t turn around. Your target is the bearded Caucasian human with the dark grey suit. Two minders with him, four more out front with their limousine, two on the kitchen door. Leave through the back of the restaurant; first turn on the left, second door on the right. A circular window and a back alley, to Yukichi Avenue, West. Rendezvous back at the New Rose Hotel, before extraction. Don’t move until I’ve left the building. Good luck.”

-0-

Agent Richards stood up. With a light touch on her hand, he walked out the front of the restaurant. Fighter gazed at the fashionably minute portion of steak tartare she hadn’t touched, not that she cared about that.

The black cheongsam was split to the top of her thigh, exposing her legs as she inched her chair back. Ki shot down her limbs, to the embroidered slippers and manicured nails. She refocused her mind for work, on the image of a volcano poised to erupt. The human minder – Vory, Russian mafia, almost for certain – pulled out a seat for his boss. She heard the legs scrape, behind her, counted one for the target to start sitting down.

She stood and walked briskly between tables, as if she’d just spotted a friend. At the target’s side, the troll minder–a wall in an Armani suit, thorn tattoos over a bull’s neck–stared at her.

She looked away. His claw moved. She sprinted. Her foot on a table, push down, launch up, kick. From above the troll’s eyes, through chitin and Kevlar skull-lacing. Crunch, CRASH like heaven's fall. Troll down.

Touch down, straddling the vast body. Second guard, Micro-Uzi, coming up. Her block struck it skywards. Stray bullets over the ceiling, sparks from the lighting, screams–

Then the cyberspur shot out from the bodyguard’s elbow, and it was one of those nightmares.

Nothing of herself, nothing but training and reflex, sent her dodging left – DODGE LEFT! ALWAYS! Blindside! – rather than leaving her spitted on the cyberspur. Now she was at his back. Under his arm, she hit with a one-inch punch, and again. Blood from his mouth, and curses – yes, Russian – his feet, spur and shaved headbutt still hitting back. Either Pain Damped or on Nitro, and more bone-work. She had to finish now.

Pull the stupid dress aside, grapple suited legs. Stunning punch. Get his head. Drive down. Snapped neck on the back of a chair.

The target. Gone under the table, there, running for the door. The grand entryway, then the street, his guards. Her exit was the other way. Knives on the table–not throwing knives. Micro-Uzi would hit collaterals, all fleeing for the front exit. Slowing the target – the Vory boss knocked a young Japanese woman over a table.

Fighter pumped a burst of Ki to her arms, and then flung the bloodied chair in an arc over the crowd. It burst in the front doorway, in the target’s path. He stumbled–rapid feet behind, he looked back–

One killing punch, and one stamp to make sure, her first assassination. No threat to her; no idea what he had done, or why he’d do nothing else again. He’d had it coming, she was sure; she was certain she’d done her job.

Running feet and shouts in the entryway, right ahead. Fighter filled her legs with Ki, then tore back through the restaurant flat out. Hair coming loose, dress flying back from her waist. A corridor at the back, left turn, second door on the right, her exit–

She fell through the door. Stared at a round window overlooking an alley – but the window had been bricked up for months.

She could not panic. Find the escape. She’d passed storerooms at full speed, the manager’s office – another window there? No; she’d noted the keycard lock. She couldn’t assence that like a keypad.

The kitchen. She ran for it. Two more Vory gunmen were waiting among the steam and the steel counters. She’d killed one, kicked the other back into a shelf of pans, when the other four guards burst in, assault rifles up.

No stupid risks. Get out and get back to the Agency, whatever the situation. No path to the door…the waste chute.

Shortly afterwards, she landed in an overstuffed dumpster. In something wet that smelt of fish. She rolled out, onto the ground in a richly stinking alley. Her calf scratched, and the beautiful silk cheongsam very thoroughly ruined with trash and blood. It very much said it all, and white would definitely have been the wrong colour; but she was definitely back on the street.

-0-

“…darling, do you mean to say you wore sports underwear, with a proper dress?”

“Yeah, and thanked Gaun Yin, Bodhisattva of mercy, for sensible underwear. Never doing that again.”

“Oh, cheer up. They won’t take the cost of the dress out of your wages.”

 After her return to Alpha Base with Richards, and a more modest, far more welcome,  party with her chummers, Agent Susan Shuang Lei had been granted a weekend off. She was sprawled out on her bunk in a fresh pair of equally sporty and sensible underwear. Her elvish roommate sat over her in the Agency’s grey fatigues, which she somehow contrived to wear like a sexy-soldier-girl fetish costume.

“So that restaurant replaced the lock on its office. Interesting.”

“Huh?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, Anya and I both had our ‘graduation parties’ at the same place.”

“What?”

“I’ve no idea how it stays in business–the foi gras are simply that divine? I assenced the keypad lock their office had at that time. I assume Anya hacked it. The bricked up window certainly gave me a shock.”

“...it was a fragging test. Another escape room. They lie about the exit route, to test us again.” Too tired to get furious, Fighter was still angry, “Was the guy I geeked even a criminal?”

“Of course; you saw the bodyguards. If you had to kill someone for your graduation, it might as well be a real target. Nagendra does love his efficiency.”

Sandra smiled down at Fighter, who scowled back.

“I’ve killed…I don’t know how many. I don’t need to prove I’ve got the guts, like some cheap ganger!”

“It’s a symbolic thing, I think.” Sandra never stopped smiling; with a job like hers, you never could, “Shows you’re part of the Agency, one of us. Completing your missions, following orders – in the just cause of world stability, of course.”

Fighter read online a week later (Awareness of current events was vital for blending with the herd when required) that she had killed ‘Uncle’ Grigoriy Stellanovich Dobrygin, underboss for the Vory’s Tokyo operation as of last month. An old gangster–she hadn’t noticed how old, at the time. Vicious as any, but of less significance than a very great many.

Sandra offered a guess that Dobrygin had been a catspaw for someone the Agency couldn’t easily kill – which was a very short list – and a suggestion that Susan not worry about things they would never know.  

After her leave, before her next mission, there was more training. The Worst Thing had to be gone through again. She could take it, now, but she still took five minutes to step out of her room towards the Alpha Base dojo.

The ork, stood ready on the fighting mat, in the darkened adept dojo, was thin for an ork and older than she’d thought orks could get. A mane of snowy hair tied back. Face hard and dark as a sidewinder. He wore loose martial arts trousers and left his chest bare.

-0-

“Hello. Breeder.”

Months ago, the first lesson. He’d said it to provoke her – Fighter had swung, snarling rage and hate. He’d caught her arm, thrown her over his hip, without even using Ki. The third time, he'd pinned her to the floor.

His body on hers. Muscle and flesh crushing her body into the mat–because she could not fight, she was weak. Crushed into the grit, that night, forever…stupid little girl! Nothing but the trog, the tusks and hoary face an inch from her spasming lips. Staring at her, with silent, unfathomable sadness. Breathing…

“Kill you! Kill you, filthy trog...!”

Eventually he stopped pinning her; she curled up on the floor and groaned. The instant she could do anything, she glared up at the ork. He was sitting near her in the lotus position.

“Breath in deeply and slowly.” The voice was rough as any trog she’d known, but quieter, “Visualise a still and clear lake…”

“My fragging FATHER TAUGHT ME THAT!” Fists clenched, she staggered up, “I can’t find any fragging inner centre of inner fragging peace, when you…! When those drekhead trogs…! I will really kill you!”

“In ten years, perhaps, if I am still living. If, with hard labour, you conquer your weaknesses. The Agency – our shared master – does not allow its hunting dogs to retain weaknesses that may be expunged.  Even if means so ugly as these are deemed a necessity. T his exposure therapy will continue, until your symptoms of trauma have been eliminated. Then I will continue my task of preventing your ignominious death in the field, with an entire focus on Ki mastery and grappling. The Lei school of Kung Fu has a worthy heir in you – but grappling, in which your school does not excel, is a skill no one should neglect to master in this evil world. I am truly sorry.”

“You stupid trog. When you’re going to keep sending me back to the worst night of my life, HOW THE FRAG CAN YOU BE SORRY?  HATE YOU!”

“Not Nagendra? The Agency? They give the orders we must both obey. It is the ork who is hated. Not the slumlords, Corpers and politicians, who poison the ork and cast him out. Not the Humanis Policlub, who lie and torture him into a monster. Not the gangsters, generals and spymasters, who send the hated ork to do their evil work. Which he does, because the consequences of disobedience, he cannot bear. I am sorry, believe me. Please, prepare yourself to begin again.”

“Oh no. I didn’t sign up for this. No, no–!”

“You did not sign up at all. Nagendra will pay you no heed. But the agents will hear, and they will not respect you for it. Almost all have been tortured, or seen their teams killed before their eyes. Or survived rape, men and women both, or been left for dead. These are the people of the Shadows, the ones the Agency choses. You cannot retain their respect if you refuse to go through this. You cannot fulfil your potential if you are weak – and I swear to you by the blood of my people, you are not weak.”

“Oh yeah? Just give me one good punch.” Susan raised her fists, “If you’re sorry, if we’ve got to do that again, just let me sink one into that ugly face!”

Karate style – though Fighter could tell he’d mastered over a dozen school – the ork rose from lotus in a single motion. Fighter searched his dark, inhuman eyes for a trace of rage. She only saw sadness, and strength that made anger a storm-tossed scrap.   

“I have neglected to introduce myself. My chosen name is Orion. The hunter – a chained hunting dog of the Agency, at present – but still a hunter after truth. I am truly sorry for what was done to you. But you are not even fully aware, I believe, of the damage done. Hatred for trogs. Not gangers, or males, or rapists but all trogs, my people. I will not ‘give you one punch’, and salve my conscience by feeding your hate. Enough orks have been struck, abused and killed by humans. I will do what I am compelled to do; you will hate me, and perhaps a billion trogs you have never met, many times more. But I will hope, when all is done, that we may attain relations of mutual respect and forgiveness.”

“When all is done, trog,” Fighter shifted to Gong Bu, bow stance, summoned all her Ki and every scrap of her skills, “I swear I am going to put you in the ground.”

“Make the attempt, by all means.” Not even assuming a stance, Orion only raised his brick-like chin. Colonel Kurtz at the heart of darkness, the monster in the maze, “Hate the ork, banish him, torture, kill and disgrace him. He has borne it all, he lives and grows in strength. You will never defeat the ork, and never put him to silence.”

-0-

She’d endured the Worst Thing, and come out stronger. She couldn't beat Orion, but she didn’t flashback and freeze up when he pinned her on the floor; she fought back. It absolutely did not feel worth it. She’d already known that the Agency – like the Johnsons and Corpers she’d known – were rotten bastards with shiny toys and money, who’d buy your soul for a nyuyen and crap on it if you let them.

She’d thought about going against the Agency, but there were too many unknowns. The only ‘known’ was that she couldn’t defy or even run from them, certainly not alone, when she'd seen how they could dig up her life story and kill almost anybody anywhere. The best play was to stay aware of situational changes, as the training spiel ran, and focus on the good in the meantime. The shiny weight machines, the almost-friends. Fulfil her potential, stay alive.

“I believe,” Orion told her, after the day’s lesson had finished, “That being grapped by an ork or troll is now a hazard you are able to surmount. You feel shame that you could not avert what was done to you, but in truth, you have shown great strength. Yes, I think Agent Iraj will be your floorwork partner in future. I will continue to train you in the channelling of Ki, where your progress continues to astound.”

“Strength from rage, I think.” Fighter smiled, half-joking.

“You still have much to improve in your grappling.”

“What is it with grappling for you, anyway?”

Orion looked away, and Fighter suddenly regretted her words.

“You have heard of the Night of Rage, Feburary 7^th 2039? Metahumans hunted through the street, locked in warehouses to burn...but three years of hate and murder came before. After SIN registration was established, and an act of Congress proclaimed that no metahuman was a citizen, have you considered what humanity did to us?"   

Fighter waited, but Orion could or would not say more.

“I’m sorry. Orks have it tough, they go through awful drek. I’m not stupid, I know that. But women go through terrible things as well and no one cares, unless they can get a boost for their politics off some rape story.”

Orion nodded, but then he spoke.

“Ork women. Wives, mothers, daughters. Humans do not believe it happens, because they find our faces unlovely. Rape is a crime of hatred, not desire.”

It hit Susan like a knockout blow. She didn’t know who Orion had lost – family, too many of his people for far too long – but it hit her, what his eyes had seen. He had been held down, years ago, unable to break free. He had watched, as human monsters hurt the ones he loved. Just as Harry, her poor Warrior, had watched her being hurt. But for Orion and his people, there had been no miracle and no mercy.

“I’m sorry. Sorry…”

Her hard shell cracked–she shed tears. Orion stayed with her, but didn’t feel that he could touch her shoulder.

-0-

“Just think about the good,” Sandra had urged her, as they talked in the dorm, “Even in that exposure bulldrek. You’ve gone through hell to conquer your trauma. Now, you’ve got a base full of strong, dashing agents, and the Agency really doesn’t have fraternisation rules, you know? Exactly, who else can we go out and meet? You should look for a nice guy who likes strong women, now you’ve fought through that bloody sex trauma.”

Susan drew herself up on her bed, and spoke deliberately.

“My ‘trauma’ was about assault, not sex. You could say I’m focused on my career right now, but having sex with a man I love? I’ve been ready for that since I was sixteen. If there’s any trauma drek in our way, I’d rather he get me over it with takeout for two, a soppy film, and a foot massage!”

“Hmm. Jack Richards has a foot massage to die for, you know?”

“Huh. You know this, because...?”

“Oh, he was my graduation date as well, love. We made it proper date afterwards, at the hotel." Susan stared into Sandra’s eyes; the elf never stopped smiling, “It was a one time thing – steady dating is tricky for Valentines – but I believe he is seriously into you, Susan. You’re welcome.”

Susan Shuang Lei was a young woman with a healthy desire for intimacy and a burning desire for love. Among all the killing and horror, she passionately wanted somebody she could come home to, make love to, who would somehow make everything right. If she could have had that, with a charming blonde agent...if she could still have it…? No. It wasn't what she wanted.

Richards had told her, after their date, she was the best female agent he’d seen. She’d cleaned up the world, fulfilled her potential. But whatever he’d said, she had only heard Harry – his silly, invincible, hopeful voice. Talking of Shadowrunners who defied the world, the SINless and free. And in that picture perfect hotel room, on the submarine back to the base, in her bare dorm room far under the waves – Susan did not feel free. 

Chapter Text

Fighter's first real mission had been an obscure and straightforward data steal from a Boston company, that might or might not have been a laundry service for the Red Branch. Her second mission, however, was the kind of shadowrun that made up for a lot of drek. No question of the Agency's motives, when the Azzies in Denver were researching a means to kill or control any person through blood, even a relative's, or a clone's. That would have thrown world stability down the toilet. And seeing the clones, who'd known nothing but the lab where they'd been grown and would die, with human eyes like veal-calves…there were no doubts or regrets about the Azzies she'd killed at all.

Then back at Alpha Base, Agent Ptacek had sat her down, with the chill poise of a Prime Runner who'd seen and survived more than Susan could imagine.

"Lei; I heard you broke blood magic control on your last mission. Tell me everything you can."

That had felt good as anything.

-0-

Unlike the shock test of her graduation, there had been a team of four. As many medkits or grenades as they needed and a fortnight on the ground. There was a prep-Run, to steal comm codes that would misdirect HTR teams. Floor plans of the pyramid were obtained. And Fighter spent most of the time getting bruised and winded, practising something Orion could never have taught her fully in the confines of the base.

No one ever made the jump first time.

There was no convenient way to deck, bribe or bluff their way into Aztechnology's pyramid, and a ton of guards watching the front. So, as Richards, Keitel and Anya prepared to hold their attention with a 'delivery to the wrong address', Fighter stood on the roof of another skyscraper, hair flying in the wind. She had new spiked gloves and a facemask, her old Kevlar-nanoweave street armour. The knowledge that waiting would not make it easier.

She stepped back, dropped down, took five minutes to fill her legs with power. Her comm chimed, as the delivery van decoy pulled up to the front of the pyramid. Then she sprinted to the edge and jumped.

Her body arced through the cold night sky, her ponytail streaming, far above the silver towers and the pyramid of blood. Wind roared around her head like music to shake the sky down. This was what she had dreamt of, what she was born for, what adepts did. The kinetic energy that should have broken bones, as she touched down on a small balcony, burst from her 48 points in an invisible flower.

She took out a couple of guards with batons, stealthing quickly to the first floor. Let her team in round the back. They took a lift to the basement lab, travelling from the heavens towards hell, as shadowrunners often did. So swiftly, who could say if they were in either place, noplace, or everywhere?

Anya had Jacked in, to run interference on security; Keitel left a medical drone to watch her. The other agents had advanced to the main lab and met the four Leopard Warriors outside; the Azzies' crack guards. Lean, olive-skinned men and a woman, with pelts tied over light body armour and eyes insanely devoid of fear.

Richards had palmed his Colt Manhunter and shot the woman first. In the shoulder, as she charged and knocked him down. Fighter spun, her foot cracked through the Leopard's face. Richards shot her again, even as he coughed blood over the floor. As the Leopards' shaman smashed a red vial in his hand, and a blood-coated figure rose from the earth. Keitel moved up his combat drone to face it.

Another Leopard lashed at the agents with a barbed whip, but even if it hit, it only stung. Fighter went for the long-haired Leopard Adept poised on one muscular leg. Their eyes met, hungering for true battle.

Aztec martial arts used elbow strikes and knees; a quick leap and close barrage. But close-range trapping, rotation and explosive power were the weapons of Kung Fu. Fighter breathed out with a flowing block, Then her midriff palm-strike snapped out, like a leopard's jaw. 4000 years of strength within her limbs.

Her hands traced a lightning web of blocks. She chopped away a thrusting knee, shifted the Leopard's forearm aside, and drove her fist along his jaw. Teeth broke, her fist bled. Skin cut, on shining prosthetic fangs.

The Leopard's tongue flickered. As her fist withdrew, he struck back faster. Caught her and threw her against the wall.

Dark adept blood magic didn't work the same way as mage blood magic. Fighter came back up snarling, with fury and righteous shame.

"WHY? You're strong! Why this evil?"

"Had to be stronger." The blood adept whispered. No need to say – now, Fighter saw his real hunger – he would be stronger again when he tasted her blood and flesh. If he could take her alive, so would all of his adept brothers.

He came in low and fast, put her on the floor. His elbow gashed blood from her face, his mouth stretched for it. Driving a howl of rage from her core, Fighter thrust her fingers into his throat, struck the arm that held him up, and twisted away. Locking his arm along the length of her body because she'd trained very hard to grapple, stamping down at his head. The Leopard still broke the lock and rolled away, but Richards and Keitel had finished the others. They emptied their guns into the Blood Adept and swiftly reloaded.

As Richards helped Fighter up–under the circumstances, she let herself cling a bit–Keitel turned to the laboratory ahead. Before the dwarf agent could speak, an elderly man in a green hood appeared, over the fallen Leopard with the barbed whip. The whip that had blood on it from all three of them. The blood mage touched it, said some humming, quiet words. Then Richard's shot Agent Will Keitel through his head, with empty eyes.

Fighter could not move. Her mind pinned under the flow, in a red, roaring vessel, she could not move. She couldn't fight. It could not end like this, not like this...

"Okay, Professor?" One of the armed guards edging into the room, "These Runners, should we geek them?"

"No. I will question the man and identify their employer." Slowly, Richards started to talk, "The female adept, after careful conditioning, should make a fine replacement for Sanchez, whom her colleagues killed."

Not like this. Her father's meditation, Orion's lessons...nothingness. No panic or horror, no voice in the blood. Only her will, holding together a tiny inner Fighter that sank down to her core. Holding there, until she had perceived that the world was nothing and she was the world. Then she unfolded within herself, like a flower of steel.

A true adept's will was stronger than blood magic. She sprang like a tiger. In a gout of blood from the mouth, the mage dropped. Spell broken. Richards shot the guards in a seeming single motion.

Further back, Anya was still Jacked In, as three more guards moved towards her. Setting off the proximity mine she'd left, which blew the remaining Azzies away.

-0-

"…Richards seems chill, even though they made him geek Keitel. That's almost the scariest thing..."

"He wasn't responsible. He understands; you should. You have to be chiller than chill, at this level."

"Understood, ma'am. Except for that, I could wish every Run was like it. We used our strengths, geeked the monsters, did some good."

"You did well." Fighter squirmed with pride; Ptacek's smooth and lovely brown face softened, "Aztechnology will most likely restart the Bloodlines project in a few years, in another country, but the Agency will still have the intelligence and skills to blow it up again. As for Keitel, remember you'd feel worse if you'd been Running in a team with him for a year. The Agency is kinder, in that respect. What you said about your trance... I suppose adepts don't only leap around punching bricks."

"Ma'am? Was there a reason…?"

"I had a run in with Azzie blood magic, some time ago." Her face was like iron now, "I swore after that, nothing would control me again."

"…not even the Agency?"

"I volunteered for the Agency. They don't share their plans, but they have a plan. The power to make a difference to this world. Money, strength, the petty, selfish Runs…if you spend long enough in the Shadows, it all goes bitter and meaningless. I needed a cause, if I was going to keep on living at all."

-0-

16 busy months, from Redmond to Kowloon, had held out both triumphs and nightmares. The goblin hunt was what woke Harry before dawn. Chilled his flesh, stole his strength…he stared at the ceiling fan, from Feng's bed. She was stretched out across the mattress, opening dark eyes and looking a little concerned. She was a sweet girl–at three months, she'd stayed longer than the rest. Because he didn't try to tell her about drek like the Longyou caves that she could never have understood, and did not want to hear.

A HMHVV outbreak, in a village of dwarf isolationists. A goblin horde that turned some dwarfs in four nearby hamlets and scarfed down everyone else, night by night. Two teams of Runners had gone down to clear out the caves. The little fraggers had wailed and died, when he hacked them and shot them down, but it was the hours of darkness that got him. Shuffling in tight formation; ready and hearing nothing. One step away from the dark. From being alone, with swift fangs and death…no escape, none.

After a long silence, Feng rolled against him. Said he didn't look happy. Started rubbing his chest, as the Comm went off.

"Hoi, Studmuffin! Need ye doon at safehouse. Big meeting. Noo–in t' King's English, now."

"Ten minutes…" Harry muttered. Feng laughed, nuzzled his scarred midriff–

"Nae ten minutes, fragging noo!" Douglas, his team leader, had phoned from outside the bedroom door and now punched it open. She smacked Feng's bum lightly, before the girl got as far from the chromed dwarf as she could. As Warrior scrambled to get dressed, she smacked his bum, hard.

-0-

"You don't need your beauty sleep, boss?" Warrior quipped, as he and Douglas went down from Feng's flat (Harry paid for it; he accepted what their relationship was about, and he hadn't become a shadowrunner just to make money). It was late enough that it was early. Since Douglas was sweating in her Kevlar-lined peacoat, Warrior had tied on his vest under his jacket, and grabbed his headband off the back of a chair.

"Dinae need much sleep. Needs of t' flesh go away with t' flesh, ye ken?" The chromed dwarf grimaced at her own gleaming fist. "Cannae think how many years since I got reet pissed an' high, or punched oot some Neddies for t' fun of it. Time cooms, t' Run is all that's left, If ye live so long as that."

The residential street was muggy, dim-lit. Warrior waited until they were seated in the cab before he answered.

"Sorry about back there; but I promise. I'm on the ball now, off the bottle. I'm not taking anything except Jazz. Feng's the only girl I'm with. Swear to you, boss, I've got it together."

"Ye'd nae be Running with me, if ye dinae. Dinae be so hard on yeself, Studmuffin! Ye got roond to sending ye ald mother a heap o' creds; ye'd be amazed tae ken how many Runners never dae. Yer a reet good man, Warrior. Bravest Runner I ever did see." Warrior glanced away; awnings and neon signs seemed to float past them, as a commercial district flowed around the cab, "Did ye never ken what became of that lass ye had, back in bonny Redmond? Lassie who fancied being a Runner, like her man? Ye even wanted to bring her o'er here, an' ye used to send her mails."

"Susan–no, her name was Fighter." Warrior forced his voice to stay light and level, "She...taught me more than I can remember. She was my best friend. She's probably a better Runner than me, by now. Hope she's got a better man than me, like she deserves."

"Och. Well, if yon angry ex-girlfriend ever tracks ye down, an' cuts up rough…leave it tae yer boss tae sort out. Drek, if I weren't yer boss, I'd grab ye meself, show ye a real woman!"

"…ah. Okay. Thought you said needs, and flesh and stuff, go away…?"

"Some folks want to make love tae other folks," Douglas looked Warrior right in the eyes, "For other reasons than needs of t' flesh. Ye ken?"

"…yeah. I ken."

Warrior stared back his team leader, half-chrome and one-quarter scars. Almost the best and strongest woman he'd known. Of course he cared for her, when they'd faced death side by side...but it would never work, a hundred ways. She was his boss, a shadowrunner, and he cared about her. But there was only one woman he would ever love. It sounded drekky, it was more toxic than any rad-spirit, but it was how he was.

Feng had been born in the Walled City; she didn't want love from him, she wanted security and survival. And he needed somebody to come home to after a nightmare Run, when his bright and unyielding Kung Fu heroine could never be anything but memories.

Harry told Douglas in a regretful tone, redheads just weren't his type. She laughed from her belly, and they maintained comradely silence for the rest of the route to the safehouse. Harry had enough to think on; he knew what the meeting would be about.

-0-

The rest of the team–Roller the ork rigger, Owens the shaman and Fyrefox–were already waiting in the plain, rather damp-smelling safehouse. Fyrefox activated the monitor on the central table–the decker had been told by Douglas to handle 'tact an' diplomacy, what'er yon things may be'. Warrior had no idea how the quiet older man had ended up in the shadow; Fyrefox himself claimed he couldn't recall.

When the Yellow Lotus Triad had sent a van of hitmen after the team already (cheap hitmen who were now dead; but they had sent their message, and saved the Lotus money) a video conference meeting had been judged a prudent necessity. The monitor showed them the dull-gold, lacquered interior of a small mah-jong parlour. A quite old, very sour looking Chinese woman in black known as Kindly Cheng, who blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke and regarded them like wasps in her tea.

"Two ways to Run the Shadows in Hong Kong, shitbirds. First way. You pay your dues, don't tread on toes, and basically show some fucking respect. Second way. You cowboy around, for a year at the very most. Then run for your shitty lives, before the big bad monsters come out and cut you up."

Fyrefox inclined his head to the screen, hands on his knees.

"Madam Cheng. In Buddhism, isn't there a 'Middle Way'…?"

"Shitbird, do not ever again make like you know the customs of the natives, or that you know shit about shit. You want a third way? This is your fucking third way."

A screen rolled back behind Kindly Cheng. There was an Elf known as Gutshot, naked to the waist, who his close colleagues unanimously described as a 'real asshole'. A knife in his hand, the woman hanging down...

Douglas bit down on her tongue, clenched her fists. The others flinched, but only barely; in years of Running, they'd all seen much worse. Only Warrior gave no sound or sign in response. The woman might have owed money, stolen it, or just slept with some idiot who'd pissed the Lotus off and left her behind. She could have been a Runner who'd failed for the last time, but she didn't look it. Just an ordinary helpless human, caught in the machinery of darkness.

"If you're trying to send us a message," Fyrefox's voice was no longer quiet, "Then we can talk about it in words, like civilised human beings-"

Kindly Cheng shook her head, smiling horribly. It was clear that she had enjoyed very little in the last thirty years, but she enjoyed this.

"Only one thing I need to get over to you shitbirds. You never listened before, so I'm not going to bother with any more warnings. Get out of Hong Kong for good, or die. And give us all your money first, as a reasonable gesture of apology for the shit you did us over the Macau and Kwai Tsing jobs. Or else our sworn brothers in Seattle will put you in the river, before you even get off the boat."

-0-

"Bloody animals."

No one answered Douglas for a while. They'd all heard what happened to Runners who crossed the triads, known a few – but you kept smoking, in spite of cancer, until you got it.

Warrior was quite still. He knew Susan would have been weeping with rage, fists filled with Ki; he couldn't imagine that could change. While he'd always tried to get on with absolutely everyone he could-more a Face than a Fixer, his team always said. He didn't get mad, when he met something he couldn't take, he only struck at it. He hadn't moved a muscle since Cheng had shown them the bloodied girl; he was seeing a lot more, behind his eyes. 

"They'll probably leave us the money to actually get back to Seattle." Fyrefox broke the silence, "Hiding out for a while on Macau or the mainland won't work this time. We'll be back down to nothing, but would we ever have spent it on retirement? Back in Seattle, there'll be more Runs.

"Yeah. Always more fragging Runs."

Roller took out his hipflask, swigged, his peaked cap hanging from a bionic claw. Douglas lowered her head.

"I mean…" Owens started, "We've all had street gangs after us before…"

"Seattle street gangs. Triads are bigger than the Yakuza, and older. They own every street gang in Hong Kong, and against uppity foreigners? They will close ranks and swarm us like Zulus at dawn."

The elf shaman grinned sourly at that. Warrior looked around the team he'd followed from Seattle, leaving love behind for the sake of glory. They'd seemed glorious to him, free outlaws. After a month he'd known they were more than that–pros, real shadowrunners, more than friends. But now, they only looked old before their time.

16 busy months had forged him like steel. Three to ten years each, on survival's edge, had made the rest of them leather. They'd chased one big score, caught it half a dozen times, and spent the nyuyen on drink and women, because nobody had thought they'd ever live this long. They'd stayed alive, they'd keep Running until they died, but no score had ever meant enough to make them Prime Runners, legends. They'd long stopped hoping that any Run would.

"On the other hand," Warrior spoke up, "We could take out the Yellow Lotus Triad."

Owens laughed, then stared.

"Rookie, are you crazy or high?"

"I am not high," Sword sheathed at his side, he got to his feet, "It's definitely crazy, but we can do it."

"Almost the biggest triad in East Asia; the Corps wouldn't take them on! Thousands of soldiers, chrome, magic, money–!"

"–drugs, BLTs, trafficking. You saw that girl. They crush helpless people every day, while we're all chasing a score, or running for our lives! And they certainly aren't the biggest – the Red Dragon Triad are going to roll over them, maybe as soon as five years' time. Am I right?" Grudging nods, "Right. If we give the Red Dragons a reason, a way to draw the Lotus out–everything we know about their operation, and five Runners with the guts to dare anything–then five years' time could be now."

"What was that saying?" Owens scoffed, "'Always' make a deal with a dragon? Or fragging never…?"

"The Yojimbo ploy." Fyrefox shook his head, "It worked in the Hamnett novel, the Kurosawa movie, but, alas–"

"You haven't learned, kid? This is not trideo." Roller stood up, looking down at Warrior from an ork's height, "We slot and run, we stay alive! You've been Running for a year, you think you're novahot. Sit down and grow the frag up."

"You going to tell me, you were just as stupid four years ago?" Harry held Roller's glare, "You wanted to strike back at the Corps, do some good for your people, and now you laugh about the past when we go downtown to get wasted. You stayed alive, you got good; was that for nothing, or was it for right here, right now? Every Run, when there looked like no way out, we didn't sit down and die, we faced the danger and took the jump! We know the Lotus, where they're weak. If the Dragons will play ball, this our chance to do something bigger than any Run. Something all of us dreamt of, when we stepped out of the light. Save thousands of innocents, change the world–we might even make some creds from it. We can go back to Seattle, and you know how we'll spend the rest of our lives. Or we do something the Shadows will talk about from Redmond to Kowloon, for the rest of the century."

"Have you considered whether you're in the wrong line…Warrior?" As Fyrefox grimaced, Owens stared as if they'd gone mad, "You should be writing PR for the Azzies, or selling ice cubes to Yetis."

It was absolutely a Whole Team Vote issue. Douglas went last, as the boss, but Roller could guess her vote from the way she looked at Warrior, and followed his leader. Fyrefox shrugged, and waved his hand, Aye.

"I think you're insane, and we're all going to die screaming." Owens stated. After a minute, the shaman sighed, "Still, I follow the Stag, not the Rat. Don't think for a second that I'd run out on nakama, this team, for anything at all."

"No elf I'd rather Run with," Heart aching with glory, Warrior stuck out his hand. It was that kind of moment; they joined hands in the middle, "We fight. No more running, no one left behind."

Chapter Text

"Good morning, Agents. Specialist Corelli and Agent Lei, report to the briefing room at 1000 hours. Today, fulfil your potential."

Fighter – it was still her name – lowered her body from the morning's final Tai Chi stance, and raised her eyes. Anya, her ork roommate, grunted 'hey' from her bunk. Sandra was offbase on a mission involving a Transyn Neuronet egghead, a romantic weekend in Venice, and an Agency extraction team. Before wetwork and sabotage, intelligence was the foundation, built up by all and any means.

Whether Nagendra was laying out a mission like the Azzie Denver Run, or such a milk run as he charged Fighter with in the briefing, his chrome face never varied from cold opacity. Now, he was regarding the mission outline like suspicious meat – not that she'd ever seen him eat or drink.

"Your first solo mission. In your native Seattle." Only Nagendra's cybereyes moved in his face, "Agent Lei. Since your 'death' five months ago, you have fulfilled your potential very acceptably. Your simulations predict a shining future, as one of our better operatives."

"Thank you, Sir. I-"

"Kindly listen. We expect you to complete your mission by the most efficient means your trained initiative supplies. We trust you to do nothing that would expose your survival, or the Agency's existence, particularly nothing of a personal nature."

"Understood. Sir."

She would be going back to Seattle. Going home? She tried to focus on the good.

Specialist Corelli, the Agency's electronic surveillance man, was a troll with good taste in suits. He didn't wear them like sacks either, as had most of the troll gangsters or high-class bouncers Fighter had seen, but moved his bulk with the delicacy of a jeweller. His horns gleamed, and he handed Fighter the surveillance devices with a manicured claw.

"…I'll take good care of them." She tried to smile at the troll.

"I handmake all my devices for toughness, primarily," He sniffed, "You field agents still always manage to break them."

"One more thing, agent." Nagendra spoke quietly, "This surveillance mission targets a small independent company, involved in fraud and smuggling. You seem to regard it as a poor use of our collective time." Fighter wondered how much mood-reading headware was packed under that shining dome.

"Sir. There are worse things in the world."

"Indeed, many grievous threats to the world's stability. Instability is uncertainty, the potential for threat, that robs so many of their strength and sleep. For the strategy of our cause, the Director and myself expend our lives. You must think only of the cause itself, and your mission. Fulfilment without fail."

They left the chrome faced man in his office. Fighter wondered how long ago he had run out of blood, tears and sweat to give.

-0-

Corelli glided after Fighter towards the submarine bay. It seemed the Specialist would be joining her.

"I will be merely on the ground, for 'technical support'. Since I anticipate this will be as unnecessary as it would be wasted on a…person of your talents, my intention is to spend a weekend on restaurant dinners and some intriguing new galleries. I trust you will complete your mission; I hope and expect to hear nothing from you whatsoever."

"Is that 'thinking only of the cause…'?" Fighter ventured.

"Don't think that the Agency doesn't keep eyes on us in the field. I should know." Corelli grimaced, "They allow us certain harmless diversions; they relax the leash after several years invaluable service, such as mine. Anything truly personal, however–any threat, even potential…" The grimace turned into a smirk, "…agents do occasionally fail to return, from routine missions."

"Okay, so where is the line?"

"It's ingenious, really. If you show Runners any line at all, they will sneak over it - but if they keep things murky? Anybody with sense gets as far on their good side as they can. If they judge you a threat, there is no warning."

Agents could be granted surface leave at Gamma Base, Fighter had heard. Where they could spend their very generous wages on any harmless diversion they chose, but shuttling to another confinement wouldn't have diverted her. A year from now, perhaps I would. Nagendra and Agents like Ptacek never took leave; the submarine Alpha Base was a kind of monastery for them. Orion had no leave and no missions. She'd never heard him called 'agent'; what he was, apart from a prisoner, she couldn't discover.

For the rest, even the non-volunteers like her, you could take it as a workplace. Challenging, worthy, and everyone she'd talked with accepted it. Bore with it, at least. If it was hard, they didn't talk about it in Alpha Base. Sandra had told her the dorms were probably bugged, which meant bugged, on her first night.

After several hours in the bowels of a stealth-built rigger-run submarine, she was on day release, back in Seattle. Grey skies and grey towers above her; the sea-salt, oil and ozone of Everett's distinct aroma at the back of her mouth. New garish billboards and the old Corp logos along the street, as street-born people drifted along through the trash. To their work at the docks, in office blocks, or in the Shadows, as she went to her work. Except, not all of the others would be killed if they quit, or inferred that some things might mean more than world stability.

In Redmond, where she couldn't go, Mr Jackson would be kissing his wife, before trundling off to his underpaid security job. Maria, Zoe, Darren, Tarn… the kids wouldn't have gone up a grade – no schools for SINless slummers – but they would have learnt and grown. Ana Ortega might have met a rich guy and moved to Bellevue, or she might be dead. Little Maria might be dead, though Susan couldn't imagine it. Harry's mother had moved to Renton with the money he'd sent. Susan wanted to talk to her, the most out of them all. Until Horrors fell from the sky, instability wasn't what stole her peoples' sleep. More like the fight for life and hope, in a world of drek.

She was in light disguise – a shorter ponytail, a new jacket, her breasts taped down – but nobody knew her in Everett. No one knew she'd defied Megacorps and killed monsters with her bare hands – far more than that, no one knew how she felt. Stifled, on the world stage. Another cog bound in the drekky old world machine, instead of Susan Lei.

Ilsa Tresckow, her fellow shadowrunner, could have been anywhere. Another city, another continent, even yet another secret agency. Or back in Heidelberg? To confront the men who'd set her up for their lab disaster, and driven her out of the light? Could have been, but she was still in Redmond. Fighter had confirmed that before leaving Alpha Base.

-0-

"Anya, I'm sorry but…could you do something? If I'm going back to Seattle, there'll be enemies, friends, personal stuff…can you do your decker thing and scope out where they are right now? So I can avoid running into them by accident? Please?"

Fighter gave Anya her nicest smile. The ork girl tilted her head and grimaced.

"Need to work on your poker face…but okay, sure. You can maybe look in their windows, just nothing stupid like contact."

She tapped away at a keyboard; Fighter had found her in the workshop, between two shelves of efficiently labelled drone and cyberdeck parts. Anya's cyberdeck had lightning bolt stickers on it, and one with the snarling moon-face logo of a Goblin Rock band.

"I guess…thanks again," Anya muttered suddenly, "For the Azzie Denver mission."

"Null sweat. You were novahot yourself."

"Hard to feel it. Blasting those guards all up the walls, and Keitel…" Anya shook her rainbow-braids with her head, "Fragging hate field missions."

"…we did our best. We did our job."

"Huh, like that dirty old coot, Orion, 'doing his job'? With your fragging 'exposure therapy'?" Still typing, Anya made savage air quotes with one claw, "Drek like that, trogs like him, they make all of us out to be monsters. Makes me angry ."

"He's not like that. You should talk to him."

"Ew. Don't owe that guy anything – we're not in some trog club, get me? I was angry for you, by the way, chica. You're very welcome."

Susan couldn't have said when she and Anya had gone from enemies to something like chummers – she certainly couldn't have said how. She did know, or believed with every part, that real bonds between Runners couldn't come from any shared cause. She respected almost every agent, she would have died to protect any one. But true soul bonds – love, friendship, anything – came from soul truth and hopes, spoken without fear. It was sappy, but it was her.

"Thanks…" She waited; Anya sent the addresses, including Ilsa's, to her comm, "Hey, have you got anyone in Seattle I could check up on? Not personal business if it's not personal to me, right?"

"Ha! Sorry, omae, couldn't tell you. First memory I've still got, Nagendra was giving me the job pitch."

"No drek? Amnesia?"

"Some other agents told me I was a Runner, in Seattle, but that's all they knew. Whatever I guess I knew, whatever some Corp zapped my head to keep not-known…" Anya turned back to her screen, dark face stony, "…I'm just about fine not knowing."

The idea that the Agency pumped its operatives full of brainwashing drek, whenever they jacked into the training simulators – was one Fighter had considered and rejected. No Awakened agent had a datajack, there were no other cases like Anya's. Agents as manifestly different and self-willed as Ptacek and Corelli, for whatever reason, did everything that fulfilment of their purpose required with no mind control.

-0-

The mission was to plant surveillance equipment in four places around the Golden Lion shipping company's offices in Everett. Nothing to it. Perhaps another agent would blow the place up next month. Possibly their smuggling partners on another continent, or their controllers, would be slated for destruction. Possibly nothing would ever come of it, but it was her job.

She placed one bug on a streetlamp, on a darkened corner outside the office. It would draw power from the mains, send a laser to pick up voices vibrating on the windows, or somesuch drek. A tramp huddled under the lamppost in a filthy blanket jerked awake as she slid down; Fighter paid him 50 nyuyen, and used his blanket to scramble across the electric fence around a building site. She attached a recharging station for spy-drones, near the top of a skeletal office block

Security on the Golden Lion Shipping Company itself was light, and all at the front. She considered trying to make friends with the Rottweiler chained at the side, but no stupid risks. She gave it a wide berth before attaching bug two to an electric cable under the manager's office window. She could have done it in her sleep, except she'd known from her first shadowrun; confidence killed. She was more wired than any microphone. Alert for the moment it would all go drekky.

The third bug…yeah, there it was. No milk runs, ever.

The street market, tucked between two tower blocks a few miles from Golden Lion, was just coming alive at that time in the evening. Strings of electric lanterns in purple and green hung above the stalls, reflecting off asphalt in the narrow space. Fighter just had time to smile, staring at homely coloured drapes, smelling the noodles and seafood, before her comm chimed. It sounded like Corelli was at a theatre.

"I told you the Agency had eyes on us, Lei. Over two miles off-target, what the frag are you playing at?"

"The mains for charging the third bug were dead. I figured a slum 'hood was tapping the cable upstream; only way we got power for cooking or heating in Redmond. If it's a big place or they tap reserve power, the Corps never usually notice."

"Oh. And?"

"I followed the mains. It's a market, they must all depend on this tap–"

"Diverting public electricity is a crime. Reconnect the power line–" He told her tersely how to do that, "–plant the bug in the planned location, and if the locals kick up a fuss…look, it's your job to deal with such matters."

Corelli disconnected. Fighter glanced around at the ragged people bustling between the stalls, peering at cheap spices and cheaper electronic goods. As her eyes moved quickly, she noted the tense huddled shoulders, the spots of silence, the number of visible weapons, and reached an interesting conclusion.

When street merchants in Redmond lacked any kind of stock, except baseball bats and knives, their usual solution was to assemble a gang and take over another market. They would extort any traders who didn't flee, buy guns with the money, and soon start using stalls to cover BTL and drug dealing. Starving criminals; a step from the bottom of the food chain, still preying on the wretched step below. While Agent Lei, Fighter, had come from her undersea base, a great many links up the food chain – suddenly freed to do some good.

Twenty gangers she could see; there'd be more. The woman with short, dyed hair by the noodle stand – when Fighter glanced into Astral, her aura blazed. A shaman or mage. They wouldn't let her remove the tap, without a fight. No stupid risks, wasn't that procedure?

She smiled to herself. Initiative was a wonderful thing.

Going straight to Ilsa's current safehouse in Redmond might've alarmed the Agency's watchers, even if Corelli wouldn't interrupt his evening to moan at her again. She took a train to the shadowrunner bar closest to Ilsa's place, got directions to another joint. She soon sat down beside a green eyed redhead with round glasses, who wore a serious expression as well as her skirt, shoulderless top, and mage's cape.

Ilsa 'Wizard' Tresckow was that most valuable of Runners, a chill chica. She'd planned all their Runs down to the minute, because if she had a weakness, it was surprises. Flabbergasted relief possessed her face for about a second, ahead of 'what-now?' severity. Both were so Ilsa, Fighter had to grin.

"See you graduated to synthol from gin and tonics. Look, don't recognise me. I'm in disguise, if you hadn't noticed."

"Wirklich? Then I do not know you. You only resemble remarkably a most reckless and troublesome former colleague. Whom I suppose could never have died without getting us killed together."

"500 nyuyen for an hour's work. Practically a milk run–" Ilsa sighed with theatrically disdain. Fighter grinned, put her hand over her best friend's hand on the bar, and played her trump card, "–for a client with enough pull to seriously get you back to Heidelberg."

Leaving the bar with Fighter, Ilsa collared a random young Runner. Told him to tell Jackson, at the Redmond Fish Market, he'd won a fifty nyuyen bet with a wizard.

-0-

Another train ride later, back at the Everett street market in the small hours, Fighter moved towards the tap on the power main. Ilsa quickly and discreetly cast her Haste spell; Fighter had missed the rush. She grinned like a tiger.

"You could have claimed this job was merely connecting two wires, without fighting at all. And I would have called you a liar." Ilsa mused, "Strange that honesty should be so usefull in the Shadows."

"Hoi, omae." The female mage, the gang leader, stepped in Fighter's path, "Move away. This is this our 'hood."

"Tapping power lines is illegal, you know," Fighter's voice was almost playful, "Though I'm sure Lone Star would be more interested in extortion, illegal weapons, drugs–"

She twisted the mage's arm up, as a stream of fire shot out. Banners collapsed in smoke; people started to run. Mostly towards them, as the stall lights fell on tattoos and scraps of leather; gangers with bats and guns.

"The big fight in a marketplace," Ilsa groused. "You couldn't resist it." Flame danced over her fingers, as Fighter chopped up at the boss's chin, punched through the throat.

"Talk later, Wiz, fight scene now!"

A dozen gangers tried to swarm Fighter, with barely space for three. She flicked her foot up under a stomach. Darted back, round piled crates, as the big ork collapsed. She kicked a man through the throat, as he raised his bat. Then dropped down, kicked through a crate into a kneecap – the gun fired over her head. Pain, as a knife slashed her arm – she blocked another stroke with the spikes on her glove, spun and sent the man crashing through a clothes stall. Her foot flashed across and back like a shuttle, as she kicked two brutes back into the charging mob.

She heard the roar and screams of Ilsa's magic, of course she'd got even stronger. As Ilsa ducked behind the least rickety stall, threw more flames, Fighter's heart roared for joy as she watched.

Block a machete over her head, launch a stool into an ugly face with one kick. Then for the knife-man, straight spike-gloved punch. Jump up on a fish stall, back-kick to break a head, before the stall collapsed. Fighter tumbled above the fight, came down by Ilsa, kicked a gun aside. It was something like a comedic martial arts Trid – the mage considered – up to the point when Fighter knocked away a sawed-off, which discharged in another ganger's face.

Ilsa saw the ganger mage, a moment before Fighter did, healing herself and surging up with another Flamestrike in hand. The Heidelberg mage couldn't help smiling, as she waved the ganger's magic away, burnt her down. Her life might have disasterous sunk to the gutter, but magic still made everything right. She was the best at it there was.

Both women ducked behind cover, as gangers fired on them from windows above the market. Ilsa readied a fireball, but saw Fighter shake, no – of course, there might be collateral damage. Instead, Fighter monkey-leapt up the side of a tower, swung herself over a balcony. Moments later, a gunman's body flew from a window.

Ilsa sighed, and flung the fireball at the remaining gangers. Her cloak flew back dramatically from the blast, which relieved her feelings somewhat.

-0-

As the few legitimate market traders snuck back, Fighter gave them all the nyuyen the gangers had had, though not the guns, along with quite a bit of her own money for compensation – she had disconnected their power tap, and they would have to move if they wanted lights or cooking. She did mooch two portions of soy-dumplings, and gave one to Ilsa with her 500 nyuyen. The two women sat down in a park full of yellow grass nearby, and ate as the sun emerged from smog and filth.

"Everything went to plan, for once," Ilsa sniffed, "Because it was your crazy plan, perhaps."

"Drek always goes crazy, Wiz. You're never going to learn that, are you?" Susan felt warm as fire inside. "What's been happening with you? I heard you'd done a few good jobs…but I thought you'd have really broken through."

"In the past eight months, the worst thing has happened to me that can. Nichts."

"Worst thing, huh…?" Ilsa wasn't smiling back.

"Somehow, you stick in people's minds. When I dissolved our partnership, my work dried up overnight. I grubbed for little Runs, I worked. I searched for contacts, both here and back home in das Vaterland, that might let me clear my name and return to my rightful place. But the one who framed me – Professor Johannes Gruber, who truly caused that verdammt accident – has the backing of Saader-Krupp, the great dragon. Nobody would contemplate going against them. Last month, for the first time, I truly conceived I might never return. I might live for nothing but petty, vile crimes. Die in the shadows, disgraced. I would sooner destroy myself with fire, Susan. I, I thought of–!"

"Drek, don't even say it, chummer! Never!"

Susan clung to her shoulder, squeezed. She had almost decided; now, she made the jump.

She wouldn't have dreamt of asking Ilsa, had she met a nice guy, or taken up basketball? The young mage's face was thinner than she recalled, her eyes burnt like lanterns in the shadows. Ilsa's pride and iron focus had brought her to the top of her university, kept her alive beyond it. Fighter was sure her friend could do things no one else could.

She mentioned an organisation that might have the power to tweak a dragon's tail and bring down an evil wizard; a crazy plan. Ilsa said, if there was any possible way she would make it.

-0-

Winston Oldman, the Agency's Director, was a heavy man with puffy, unblinking eyes; he certainly didn't look like he left his office, or slept. He regarded Fighter, stood on the carpet in front of his desk, like a tiny cosmic Horror floating in his morning coffee. Nagendra was beside the desk, and two agents stood behind Fighter with assault rifles.

"A vigilante incident. Rumours in Redmond of your survival! A civilian, here, in the brig of Alpha Base, because you invited your former partner back to the nerve centre of a secret organisation? I've known good agents to go insane in the field, facing spirits and demons, but…just explain your thought process, please, before we decide what to have you shot for."

Fighter could break mind control; for her sake and Ilsa's, she hoped the same technique could mess with Nagendra's headware. She visualised the crystal ponds of heaven, and breathed in.

"Sir. To plant the bug according to the plan, I had to reconnect the power line and take out anything in the way of that. I saw I needed to hire a support mage, without a word about the Agency; that's standard procedure for solo missions where it's needed. Then I ran into my former partner…she'd been investigating my faked death, and she is a good investigator. I knew she might dig up rumours of the Agency, or more – if it were impossible, Runners like Agent Ptacek could never have volunteered. To prevent any risk of that, I had to either kill Ilsa Tresckow, or bring her in as a volunteer. She's willing, she's absolutely strong enough–"

"Recruitment of any agent is preceded by intensive screening! Don't try to claim you didn't know."

"I've seen myself that…Miss Tresckow…is a determined, very intelligent, very skilled mage. For the work we do, the Agency hasn't so many Awakened agents. Miss Tresckow is also the key witness to a cover-up involving Saader-Krupp, Heidelberg University and a Hellmouth. Forgive me, but…I that sounds like drek the Agency was made to clean up. If her screening doesn't come out clean, you can kill her, and kill me too. If I've failed the Agency, put the cause at risk, I'm ready to kill myself, right now–!"

"Alright, that's enough!"

Oldman wiped his brow. Gazed at Nagendra, who was tapping out an inquiry on the comm built into his wrist. The base Knowbot quickly responded, and he turned his digital gaze on Fighter again.

"Tresckow. A Prussian soldier during a global conflict in the 1940s, it seems, notable for the attempted assassination of his own head of state. It appears that he was told as a young cadet, he would either rise to lead the army, or die on the scaffold as a traitor. In the end, he committed suicide."

(It meant nothing, Fighter told herself, desperately. The threats, the guns, Nagendra's utterly unexpected historical musings, all meant to shake her off balance, shake out the truth. None of it mattered next to Ilsa. If the worst happened...she would never kill herself, would not wait to be disposed of. She would lunge for Oldman's throat, die with Ilsa, and go down fighting. She bowed her head, waited for Nagendra to speak)

"You are suspended from missions, until further notice. You will conduct yourself with more respect in future, and present any excesses of initiative to me, before their enactment. However, your devotion to the cause is commendable. Miss Tresckow will be confined to the brig until we have completed security checks. I doubt that enhanced or severe interrogation procedures will prove necessary. Dismissed."

-0-

Fighter exhaled very hard, stepping out of the private lift from Oldman's office. The two armed agents clearly did not know what to think. Though Anya did; the ork girl rushed up up to Susan, threw her thick arms out, and knocked the wind from her with a hug.

"You're crazy. How are you still alive? I thought, oh frag, I thought…!"

Fighter's plans to take out her towering unease on an hour of holo-sparring got chucked. She hugged Anya's thick waist hard, before manoeuvred the tearfully overwrought decker back to their room and explaining what had happened.

"…Ilsa wanted to join the Agency, whatever the risk." She finished, "She saved my life before, she's my partner. I'd never leave her behind. Now, cheer up, okay?" She rested her hands on Anya's broad shoulders, "It was a crazy risk, but that's our job."

"…it was Kenji's job. Sorry. He was an agent, we had a thing…"

"Oh yeah? You stayed up all night talking about, um, decking stuff…?"

"Girl, is that what you think deckers stay up all night for?" Anya's tusks made for a very bitter smile, "He wasn't a decker. He was an Oni, he escaped from Yomi island, when he was a kid…drek, how can I tell you who he was, like this? Just a really strong, really sweet guy. He said, next mission he had in Seattle, he'd ask around about my past. Then…some stupid little mission in Calfree…he ran into a fragging gang of Humanis. The footage, it looked like he just fragging froze up…"

Susan held Anya, nothing in her heart but compassion. The ork sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"So, when I heard something happened with you, in Seattle," Anya went on, "I got this terrible feeling…frag it, I didn't want you to die. You're...a strange girl, Lei. All the stories, but you seem so fragging decent…"

"I just do my best. I'm sorry…I'm sorry for everything, Anya."

"Null sweat."

They held each other. Susan pressed her face against Anya's rough cheek.

"We went after Humanis, for Kenji, big time." Anya went on, "Bounced two of them from UCAS Congress, crippled them in L.A. and San Francisco. The Agency is good, chica. Just stay on their good side."

"You mean, Nagendra ordered those missions? After Kenji…?" Nod. Fighter spoke softly enough, she hoped no bugs would hear, "Anya, I had a guy, we sort of lost each other…but, ages ago, we would stay up all night to talk about shadowrunning. I think he'd have been a decker, if he wasn't a musclehead adept–" Anya chortled at that, "–because he always said, Runners find the truths that others want to silence. Your memories, the Agency…you're a novahot decker, you could find the truth…?"

"Sorry, omae," Anya pulled away, looked at her lap, "When Kenji didn't come home, was furious, I didn't know what I'd do…but, it was Humanis who killed him, not the Agency. Agency's my home - I might not have memories, but I read news-sites. The world out there, it's fragged up for orks, even worse for ork women who want to deck. The Agency doesn't have any of that. Me, Corelli, anyone - they care about skills, not skin or tusks. It ain't easy, ain't always fair…but I'd rather be here than Puyallup. Rather be alive, without knowing, than dead."

-0-

With no upcoming mission, and nothing to do for Ilsa but wait, Fighter relieved her feelings in the dojo through a proper sparring bout with Orion. She tagged him with a few kicks, but he still threw her into the mat every which way. The ork adept stood rooted as a stone tree; his heedful jet-bright eyes read her through and through.

"Your hunger to win distracts you. Perceive, prepare, seize victory only when it appears. Your flexible muscles are stronger weapons than rage."

"Understood…shifu."

"Master? As I told you, there's no need. Slave would be nearer to truth."

Master. To an ork. Forcing it out was still the hardest thing. But if she had to call Nagendra 'Sir', Orion had to be shifu. Respect for a master of unarmed combat was her father's teaching, her heritage and honour.

They bowed, and sat down to meditate. Fighter asked the question lodged in her mind.

"Is there an adept technique for faking death? Like, a ninja thing?"

"Certainly. A trance, deeper than the technique that breaks mind control. Of course, the Agency retrieves or destroys the bodies of agents. And when I Ran the Shadows, every dead adept got a bullet here." Forehead tap, "Still, every technique has its place."

"You were a shadowrunner?"

"A Runner, a ganger, a soldier. I studied social sciences for a while…but since then, I have learnt the nature of our society more directly."

"Couldn't you…? You're crazy strong, I know you hate this place…"

"Indeed, it would not hold me," His head was lowered, eyes hard, "If the Agency did not have a hold on me. A collar." He would say no more.

Alpha Base had research and support wings, behind closed bulkheads, where agents were not permitted. She wondered if mages and scientists they kidnapped, or sent Sandra to seduce, were prisoners there like Orion. For world stability, the cause that justified itself and anything else. Pursued furiously as any Corp chased profit – though more missions than any number of normal Runner crews could accomplish, against Humanis, the Azzies and syndicates.

The Agency did good work; it might win Ilsa her revenge. She was loyal to it, loyal to the people, but its loyalty to her…if she'd learnt anything from the escape room, prepare your way out with any tool you could seize.

"Well, I'm stuck down here with you, for the minute. No one I'd like to fight with less – but you're the best trainer on the Base, so I guess I'll be getting more bruises."

"The martial arts are not so simple. Rutra, the fighting style crafted by orks, is the fixed stance, heavy blow, and endurance of all. Lei Kung Fu is explosive power, from any angle or distance–moreover, it is your passion. You have a great deal to teach, as well as learn. To my mind, it is a part of your calling. Assuredly, a worthy use of your time."

Teach. Lei Kung Fu, her father's martial arts. The idea she'd always thought of, but never dreamt of enacting, rushing through her like beautiful truth. She ducked her head, stammered and grinned.

"…but I couldn't. Bring up a change like that, after Ilsa…"

"The system of control Nagendra stands on is built from pride and fear. If he can conceive of no other way to preserve his authority, his show of strength; only then will you be killed. To prevent that, he will heed your words and act-for you do not fear him." Orion's craggy jaws broke in a smile, "Any system can change, though built with fear and steel. Any person can change, however unthinkable it may have seemed."

-0-

"'World stability'? How did you ever survive without me? No government agency has funds to squander on vast undersea bases. No such power cares for world stability – certainly not your renowned CIA and NSA – except as a means. If Nagendra and Oldman direct the Agency, it is their personal army–to what personal end? If they answer to higher powers, whom?"

"Ah, Wiz, remember we want to work for these guys? Not take them down? Maybe it was a bad idea–"

"No. If this Agency can and will enable me to clear my name and take my revenge, I will serve them. If they will not…then I must achieve my goal by any means. This ork decker...we might convince her with a lie, if required, to uncover the Agency's secrets. It would be most difficult and dangerous..."

"Not to say, um, wrong?"

"Susan, do you understand what line of work we are in?" Ilsa's glasses flashed in the morning light, hiding her implacable gaze for a moment, "With our cause and our skill, we oppose a world of shadow. If our enemies are monsters, we must learn monstrous ways ourselves."

Chapter Text

Almost a month had passed since the shadowrunners had determined to destroy the Yellow Lotus Triad. They'd called in favours, lined up ducks, and lain low. Their base had moved to a disused warehouse; an empty garage in Kwun Tong was ready if and when they'd have to run for another bolthole. A couple of discreet Runs had built up intel on the Lotus. Another would show they could be outright beaten. Then they would sit down with the Red Dragons, lay out the provocations and openings. If the Dragons chose war with the Lotus, they'd have their chance to change the Shadows forever.

It was a time to train. Warrior sat cross-legged; concrete-cold air washed over his chest. His sword and a pair of handguns lay before him. A masterwork sword, now, and his Browning had done good work. But he'd carried the old Fichetti pistol on every Run since his first.

Crates piled around left no space to swing. Unmoving, he seized and fixed on the mental images of swordwork. Inhale. Draw-strike!-exhale. Step back, thrust out. Cut the next fragger down, now block…technical detail, technique, was the key to dreaming dreams that became reality. The key he'd had to learn, anyhow; he'd had courage from the start and nothing else but.

He owed perhaps more than his life to Master Po, the grey-haired adept at the Lu-Tze teahouse who had consented, after a week's stubborn pleading, to make a martial artist from him. Learning true concentration, for Warrior, had been like breaking a wild horse on fire. But it kept the evil pictures out.

The girl Cheng had cut up. That night he'd failed Susan. The last time he'd seen her face.

She'd held him, just once. Smiled through bright tears, with a glimmer of hope he might stay. Stay for her, love her and save her from midnight fear. Stay a child forever, in Redmond. A hero to the girl he'd have given everything up for, if he could.

But he'd been no child then, and never a hero. He was a shadowrunner, always.

Douglas was on watch by the door, still enough to be praying – though he still didn't know if she prayed, or to who. Fyrefox, the team granddad, had emptied his pockets over a crate. In the moonlight from the roof, he was picking idly through cards, screws and receipts. It was a rare night without rain or cloud in the Hong Kong FEZ; a full moon hung above the skylight, bright and distant.

"Warrior. What's bugging you?" Roller looked up from his Wolfhound drone, "Not still worrying over that hot chica you had? Whatsit…Feng?"

"One more time, Rookie," Owens sat up from the mat where he'd been nursing a headwound, "If the Yellow Lotus went after every woman we've had in Hong Kong–"

"Och, slot it!" Douglas burst out, "Cannae ye lads not take oop some wee hobby, like combat bikes, instead of botherin' the lassies?"

"Had to choose between a girl, or a factory-fresh Nodachi  with twin autocannons?" Roller carelessly retorted, "I'd take the bike. Don't have to choose, though."   

Owens raised one eyebrow at Douglas. Warrior tensed. They'd been cooped up, wound up, words like this could be stray bullets…

"My first extraction Run, near enough, was a seduction job." Fyrefox broke in, "Not that I seduced anyone, shock you as that may…" The team chuckled together, tension shattered, "…there was a woman in it, and another guy, I forget his name. They were lovers, and he loved her, chip truth. Didn't care about her job. Wouldn't let himself believe she was two-timing us with Shiawase. I slotted and ran. Shiawase found the woman, she finished up floating in Tokyo bay. Next time I saw my partner, only one of us walked away."

"So, no love, between shadowrunners?" Warrior broke the silence, "But I couldn't talk to Feng about anything that mattered..."

"Yeah." Fyrefox stared up at the moon, "Chip truth? No falling in love for shadowrunners at all."

"There's a real shock." Owens' grin was a silver crescent in the dark, "We're stonecold, novahot killers. We run for the thrill, the glory and a fistful of nyuyen. You know that, Rookie, better than we did. Just remember, no nyuyen and no glory, if you get geeked."

Warrior grinned back at Owens. They'd mostly got along badly because they were quite alike.

"We're going to leap up from the Shadows and drag the Lotus down to hell. We won't falter, and we won't fail."

"A-fragging-men!" Douglas rejoined.

"An easy leap," Fyrefox chimed in, "To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon…"

"What kind of drek is that? Cabin fever, already?"

"Shakespeare. Hotspur's big speech. Have to get some use from that English degree."

Fyrefox stared at a very old library card among his tokens. Threw it down, examined a stray multitool.

It was the old decker's old habit. Turning his pockets out, sorting and searching through the forged IDs and trinkets. Living in the shadows, SINless and hunted, running from city to city and team to team, identity had to be hunted for, even through trash.

Warrior looked away, pretending to meditate. He stared all the way up to the moon and wondered who he was. Corrupted, or innocent? Runner, hero or fool?

Frag, what would Susan think of him? After all this time, who was she? The moon was silent across the abyss, and he couldn't break its gaze.

"Och, enough fooling," Douglas finally pronounced, "Get yon heads down. Busy, bloody days a-coming."

-0-

A test. That was Fighter's first stupid thought when she heard the mission. One week, in the Hong Kong FEZ.

Surely, they'd pulled her off suspension for her language skills. Probably, mercifully, they didn't even know about Harry. Above all, two weeks after Ilsa's maverick recruitment, breaking ranks again would be insane. Throwing mercy back in Nagendra's metal face would be close to suicide. Might be, perhaps…!

"Agent Lei?" Across the submarine the elf girl with pixiebob blonde hair, Enrica Croce, sparkled guilelessly, "This mission doesn't seem so worrisome. I mean, I only just graduated, and they sent me."

"Oh, no worries. No point. Just remember your training, Agent. We'll get home safe."

"Oh, yes…it's just, I'd only been Running for a month, when I was, uh, recruited." Another devastating elvish smile, "This is my third real shadowrun."

Susan knew she had a team to keep alive. Had to keep focused on the mission, for a myriad of reasons – but the lights of Hong Kong still stole her breath away.

The sub had dropped them onto a web of crusted boardwalks, shacks and houses built over the bay. Ahead and above, the dark towers threw light in ribbons and lattices over the midnight, scummy waters. Yellow, red and blue, a rotten candy shop of a city.

The air was cloying with sea salt and waste. But Susan Shuang Lei knew the food stalls, the teeming families, the shrines of her never-seen motherland were all waiting in the night. The place where her father had learnt and lived; the city she'd dreamt of. It was a silly surprise that Harry wasn't stood smiling on that dock to meet her, she'd dreamt so long.

The city of her Warrior, where he Ran the Shadows. Lived his dreams; so she hoped and prayed. He was somewhere, in the city's darkness. Distant as the moon, even as she walked the same streets.

He hadn't written for months. If he had heard she was dead…no, she knew he would've endured. She knew he would have a girl, softer and slimmer than her, who could be with him in the ways a strong shadowrunner couldn't. The ways that tightened her throat and set her heart pounding. But whatever the bond between them both was called, the dancing ribbon of fire wound all through her in bittersweet pain – it was stronger than that.

Their childhood dreams in Redmond. The little triumphs and the long slog, training up the power they shared, their strength. The daily struggle to stay fed and living, in the Barrens. Their struggle as rivals, through sparring and quips, to each stay first in the eyes of the one who was first in theirs...

(...so that she might mean more to Harry, somehow, than all those other girls. The only way she'd known how to fight them...). 

Their first shadowrun. He'd lifted her from bloodied ground, rescued her from despair. She'd realised she loved him as a man, and then he had left…

Fighter turned back from the harbour lights to her team. Wherever Harry was now, whatever they might've said if they'd had a chance, she had a shadowrun to get through. Get her team through alive, finish the job. Then go back to Alpha Base where Ilsa was, and leave Hong Kong behind.

-0-

The mission was a data steal. An exiled offshoot of the Whampoan tech-fetish tribe, operating from a waterfront nightclub, had got hold of an unacceptably sensitive file. Fighter's nagging hopes of a quick job took a hit, when her team's decker crashed out of the Matrix with a nasal haemorrhage. Babbling about eldritch curves and ICE with unnatural tendrils – if the hacker group had been mages instead, Fighter didn't like to think what horrors they might have stirred up.

Their luckless decker had cracked one fruitful data node. It placed the target file in an offline server, behind the nightclub's Members Only section – the team agreed with Fighter, they could no way go in loud. Admission was with electronic key pendants used by the hacker group. And, fortunately enough, one of the tech-nerds seemed so attached to the joys of meatspace, he took the metro to Happy Valley every fortnight.

The hacker had paused, before taking the steps down to the metro station. Glanced back – Fighter almost guessed then, he'd spotted their ambush. The target slipped through a fire exit half-way down the stairs. The three Agents went off after him like ferrets in a concrete warren.

Agent Dunbar's aerial drone glimpsed the running man a block away, before it sparked and exploded. Agent Croce dashed through the streets piled with clothes stalls and eateries. Against colourful lanterns and TriD screens, her jacket stood out like an inkstain. Her blonde head moved, as the chase twisted through crammed alleys. Between upending barstools and foodcarts to slow her down, the hacker tapped frenziedly into his comm, sending a forged alert to nearby police.

Crouched near a garish billboard halfway up a tower block, Fighter saw the HKPD cruiser moving down the street below. She warned Croce through her earpiece; the elvish agent ducked into a side alley. For good measure, Fighter grasped a loose housebrick. F lung it down through the night to smash into the cruiser's hood.

Still in pursuit, she leapt from the fire escape and swung round a drainpipe, grabbing a wire washing line as she dropped down. Then her feet hit the street, running. Dunbar, bouncing back from dumpshock with dwarfish toughness, was scurrying round to box the target in.

Still running, the hacker staggered, then darted through a filthy puddle into the alley network between Yau Mai and Mong Kok. Fighter didn't know the streets, it rendered her Ki-boosted speed near useless, but agents did not frag up. At least the target would stick out, in the slimy, graffitied backstreets, dressed in a real leather jacket for his night on the tiles…then all the agents heard the gunshots from the alley ahead.

The target was lain out in a patch of wasteground. Bleeding out from three bullets, his mirror-shades broken beside him, and a half-dozen scrawny thugs stood round. Fighter came up, saw the shooter–a messy haired, bright eyed boy. Barely fourteen, both hands on the Fichetti pistol, blinking at his first kill.

The agents could possibly have spun some lie, but the gangers went for weapons. Dunbar's shotgun blasted the lead ork, Croce quickly shot two with her handgun. Fighter stunned a skinny ork and his chummer with a double kick; three punches downed them both for keeps.

The boy was shaking madly. Still pointing his gun, at her. Fighter smiled gently into his fever-bright eyes. She was going to tell him in Cantonese, give me the gun, before she sent him home to mama with a clipped ear – but then Agent Croce shot the boy in the head.

"He would have killed you! Wouldn't he? No witnesses, isn't that right? No frag ups, oh frag, frag…" The elf's gorgeous blue peepers filled with tears.

"Yeah, no witnesses. No frag up, agent." Dunbar lowered his shaved head to the hacker's body, pulled the key-pendant free, "Better get to the club now, get that file, before they realise this fool isn't coming back. Hey, Lei? Oh, make it quick." He stepped back from the bodies, whistling tunelessly.

Fighter knelt slowly beside the boy's corpse. She couldn't kill Croce and Dunbar, no good if she did. She couldn't speak, just watch the blood soak into wasteground. The boy had just got out of Kowloon, she imagined. He'd found a place where he could belong and be more than slum-drek. After the primal graduation test, the blooding. Murder some rich-looking fragger in an alley, no questions. Prove you were part of the gang.

It could've been Harry. Where was he now? It could have been her – but she was walking away from a murdered child. Who the frag – who the FRAG! – was she?

-0-

She'd learnt at age ten, as all children learnt, that ork kids were tougher than humans. She'd thought she could save the younger girl, with her father's training, but she'd been beaten up. A trog girl had shoved her face in a dumpster. She'd washed the filth off with tears, but not the shame, and she couldn't ever go home to tell her father.

She never knew why the skinny, twelve-year old boy sat next to her against the broken fence. It seemed he didn't know himself. She'd known him to joke and roughhouse with all kinds of kids, even trogs, but he now seemed tongue-tied. Susan rubbed fists in her eyes and stared down at polluted ground.

"…hey." Once Harry went for it, the words poured out, "If I feel really bad sometimes, if everything seems drekky, I always remember that I'm going to be a shadowrunner when I'm older."

"What's a shadowrunner?" Susan sniffed.

"Huh? You hear stories about them, everywhere, there's even shows about them on the TriD! They take on gangs and megacorps and always get away because they're novahot. They protect the weak, and nothing can hurt them. They're totally Arctic."

"Hmph. I don't think you can grow up like that just by watching TriD. My daddy…is a Kung Fu master! When I grow up….I'm definitely going to be…" A trog had beaten her up, she couldn't say it.

"For real, Kung Fu? That's novahot! Do you think your Dad could marry my Mom?"

Susan laughed out the rest of her tears. She still couldn't go home, so Harry showed her the crawlspace in the block's roof that was a make-believe safehouse for him and other kids. Her claustrophobia had naturally made her pause, but he had cajoled and pleaded. Asleep in a blanket against his very warm back, fear and shame didn't even stir.

She demonstrated a few Kung Fu patterns for Harry in the morning. His eyes had very nearly dropped out with staring, and he'd showered her with his admiration. Not her father's insightful and hard-won praise, worth its weight in gold, but a cataract shining with warmth and energy. So sweet, she couldn't stop herself glowing with satisfaction; she was the greatest Kung Fu fighter in the world. Though she had to be even better than this sweet and silly boy said she was. Getting better was the only way to be good at anything.   

When she did tell her father she'd been beaten, he gave her a terse lecture about judgement and self-discipline that she tried to take to heart. Later, when her growth had spurted early at twelve, Harry had made a tactless comment about her chest, and she'd broken his nose. Her father had gone to smack her head, except Harry had blocked the strike with himself. Gone sprawling again.

They'd had Harry and his mother round for a meal to apologise, and Mr Lei had banned Susan from martial arts for a month. She'd still felt terrible. The next time she went to watch TriD with Harry at his place, she'd bowed and scraped and apologised. Desperately asked, what could she do for him…? If Harry had suggested a stroll round the market that evening, everything would have changed.

But he'd asked her to teach him Kung Fu, and they'd made their pact. They would be shadowrunners, protecting the weak, defying the Megacorp bullies. She had known it would be fearful, hard and deadly, nothing like the TriDs. She had never dreamt they wouldn't face all of it together.

-0-

After all that, the Run went like clockwork. This time, their recovered decker snaffled up every camera and alarm. The key pendant admitted them to Members Only without fuss. The four agents trooped in, leaving behind a nightclub without lights or music. The Jacked-In clubbers were probably grooving gently around the palaces of R'lyeh, or the pleasure dome of Kublai Khan. Gyrating in the dim light through their separate fantasies.

The agents filed past the hackers' humming, voiceless lounge, and then a security station with the door ajar. It seemed stealthing past the hired guards would be the simplest part of all. More direct in their likings than the clubbers, they were hunched round an amateur Trideo involving two orks, a trafficked teenaged elf girl and an arrangement of ropes.

Fighter noticed, barely in time; Croce was fixing the silencer onto her Salavette Guardian. As the Tri-D let out painful groans, and the guards passed synthol cans, the elvish agent aimed at their backs. Fighter finally moved, grabbing her shoulder, shook no.

They could very easily do it, she very strongly wanted it – but that didn't matter. No stupid risks. Even as a slum child, her father had taught her inner strength, restraint. Let go of what you longed for, pass by.

They reached the offline server. The decker fought a lone battle against monstrous ICE, as they wiped his blood and sweat. Finally, they had the file.

-0-

If a true believer like Ptacek or Richards had been with them, the agents would have returned to Alpha Base five days early. Normal metahumans, however, required time offbase, and the Agency, though it talked of absolute security for the cause, and hinted that it had eyes on its agents everywhere, tacitly understood this. Ilsa had called it the organisational grease, or hypocrisy, that kept everything from Megacorps to universities doing their jobs and doing them badly.

So, the other three agents slipped off into the city for impersonal diversions. The two men wouldn't be letting Croce out of their sight, for multiple reasons. But they left Fighter alone, as she wished, to think about her life.

Stay alive. Whatever the mission demanded, whatever the Agency commanded. That was her life. Endless missions. Fulfil her potential, for a cause she would never understand. People she might be saving, who she'd never see. She'd saved those drekhead guards. She'd let her teammate shoot a child! For a man in an office. Who could judge and dispose of her like a bad BTL chip on a production line.

Something had to give. When she could get up, when she could speak and cease to claw at her scalp…could she run from her friends, and the peace of the whole world, for a boy who'd stopped writing back?

The boy who'd believed in her, at her weakest. Who might tell her she was a shadowrunner, not a tool or a monster. Make everything as right, with his smile, as when they were children…he might be gone, he might be changed, he might never have loved her. But what if he needed her? She would fight her way through armies for him.

She would never see Harry Fawkes again, unless she went now. If she died – if she deserved to die – for putting her soul and her heart above the peace of the world, she would die.

Chapter Text

Susan had less than five days to find her man in a city of millions; she didn’t expect to be sleeping much. And she heard in the first Shadows bar she found that the triads were after him. She stopped cursing herself for not involving Anya; the Yellow Lotus would have deckers almost good as her. Whatever it took, she had to find him; but she couldn’t lead the enemy to his doorstep.

She had casual clothes she’d worn for the Run on the nightclub. Jeans, a denim jacket, a white scoop-neck top she’d never have normally worn – but what she was doing already was crazy. Instructor Madigan had told her Runners walked a particular way; she’d taken half an hour to make sure she wasn’t. Then she’d taken the metro to Happy Valley, where the drunken shaman in the dockside bar had directed her with sickening mirth. 

A few hours of tramping streets and asking questions later, in a bar with soft lights and a fake cherry tree over the stage, she told a weary looking hostess she was looking for Warrior. The hostess heard the Seattle accent in her Cantonese, saw the particular steel of a Runner in her eyes, and shrank back.

“Oh drek, you’re not…Susan?”

Fighter seized her neck, ungently.

“How do you know my name?”

“Just don’t kill me. Please, don’t kill me…”

The hostess told her what Warrior had been doing with her, when he’d said Susan’s name. The woman hadn’t seen him in almost a year, but she’d remembered; he was that kind of guy. Susan had thought she’d known, what it meant that Harry had always liked girls. She hadn’t known. She felt blind, winded and sick.

Suddenly, she did not know who Harry Fawkes was. Or why she was looking for a drekhead who paid for women pimped out of Kowloon, or trafficked by gangsters. Or why had he never told her how he felt, if he had said her name? If he’d wanted to have her, so badly…had that been all he’d ever wanted? NO, fragging no! Ten years, her best friend, it couldn’t have been a lie!

Always, she’d known she meant more to him than his girls in Redmond. She was too strong, too scary, she’d never be so skinny as the girls he liked – but she’d dreamt for eighteen months that he might still love her like that. Kiss away her nightmares of brute, tearing lust. Trade his cheap loves, for a woman who’d walk through hell at his side. After that night, after he’d left her for his dreams, she’d truly believed her man had grown the frag up.

Frag, she was a fool! Her man, her Warrior, had left her to drown his soul in sex and drek, and she'd still walk through hell, to hear him say her name! She stumbled on, through almost the most miserable forty-eight hours of her life’s journey.

Two more loose women and an ex-lover led her to Feng. She found Warrior’s last and closest girlfriend in a floating mah-jong parlour outside Kowloon, laughing and hanging off the arm of a man with triad tattoos. When Feng went to redo her makeup in the washrooms, Susan came up and pinned her to the wall.

“Hoi. Yes, I’m Susan; no, I don’t want to geek you. I get it; you’re spying on the Yellow Lotus, for Warrior. You’re…his girl, still…” She choked it out.

“Are you crazy?” The slim girl’s dark eyes showed as much outrage as terror, “I went to the Lotus as soon as they wanted that idiot dead. I told them all I knew about him, which was less than they did – that’s what Warrior told me to do! If I’d stayed with that guy, the Yellow Lotus would have raped and cut me to death, then sent him the vid. If I’m one of their women, maybe I can stay alive...only, now you’re gonna fragging kill me. What a world.”

“…I might still kill him,” Susan didn’t remove her forearm from Feng’s throat, “But where did you poor girls all get this idea I’d want to kill you, over that idiot?”

“That’s what you people do, isn’t it?” Deep shadows showed in Feng’s bitter eyes, “Kill? Steal? Blow drek up? Leave us little nobodies to pick up our lives, in pieces. But Warrior…he cared. I could’ve even tried to love him. Except he loved someone else, and all of us knew it. So yeah, if I knew Kung Fu, I’d be killing you over that idiot right now.”

“His name was Harry. Just tell me where I can find him.”

“…one time, he mentioned some old guy, Master Po. His teacher. Ask some shadowrunners. Look, you’re crazy, he’s got enough trouble without–!”

“Thanks...chummer. Take care of yourself.”

Feng's eyes were black as asphalt; there was no shine, but there was heat.

"Null persp. Girls like me, from Kowloon? All we can do is not get killed, not throw ourselves in Victoria Harbour. I don't mean to do either yet." 

The Kowloon girl went back to the mah-jong parlour, as Susan slipped out of the back window, back to the Shadows.

-0-

Kindly Cheng rested her chin on her hand. She regarded Feng with eyes like a lizard.

“I hear some girl from Seattle is asking around about your shitbird ex-boyfriend, girlie. Anything you want to talk about, now?”

“…yes, Auntie. She talked to me. She’s looking for him. She seemed like another one of his women.”

“Not a shadowrunner?”

Feng sweated, swallowed, shook her head. Cheng glanced at the young troll stood beside her; Nightjar confirmed that the Seattle girl hadn’t walked like a Runner. Cheng waved a painted talon and Feng gratefully slipped away.

“Send a few kids to tail the Seattle girl, just in case.” Cheng snapped at another triad enforcer, “Now, do we have better leads than a few stray whores, towards sending that team of shitbirds to the bottom of the bay?”

“We’re turning the island over and shaking it, Auntie…” The man perceived from Cheng’s eyes that this was insufficient, “…and there’s that old Kung Fu teacher, Master Po. If they’re hoping he’ll pitch in with them, he must know where they’re holed up. We sent some boys round to talk, but...well, he knows Kung Fu. They came back in a Docwagon.”

Kindly Cheng swigged one of her horrible black shots. When she spat on the carpet, it sizzled.

“Tch! Tir Taingire has ancient magic, Japan has a bunch of fatheads, and we have real adepts. Send Ting Wen to feed that old goat his remaining teeth.”

-0-

Master Po, whose home Susan found quickly, reminded her of her father, except more fatherly. Even better, he knew of her father, and greeted her with twinkly-eyed civility. Warrior hadn’t told him about her, however, and he was not eager to tell her where Warrior was.

“Is there a way to take the goose out of the glass bottle, young lady? Or reach the moon in one leap? The one who leaps may very well fall – and if triads are involved, that is a fall without remedy. You are almost certainly being tailed. Forgive my brusqueness, but I do not know if you are in the pay of the Yellow Lotus yourself.”

Susan swore on all her ancestors she wasn’t. She bowed, kowtowed and made puppy eyes. She waited outside his door and even spent an hour repairing his front porch. She had less than twenty-four hours left, and she’d come too far to quit.

In the evening, Po finally allowed Susan to follow him to his customary teahouse. She insisted on pouring his tea, smiled very sweetly, and waited.   

“Young lady. Did your esteemed father teach you how the goose is removed from the bottle?”

“Like this.” As her father had, Susan clapped her hands, “There, it’s out! There is no way, through strength or wisdom, to slip free from this world and reach the lotus throne of heaven. Only a miracle, the search of hope…doesn’t the koan mean nothing is impossible?”

“A miracle, alas, is not a way.” Po smiled sadly, “In a long, too-busy life, I have seen no miracles. Nor had your father.”

“Master, didn’t you see him?” Susan leaned forward, tears shining from her eyes, “That faithless, smooth-talking idiot…who saved me. I’d be dead without him, or more dead than alive! I don’t know why…isn’t that a miracle? But it’s all wrong, the things he did. If I don’t find him I’ll never understand anything.”

“He was…not my most talented student.” The old master stared thoughtfully away, “Self-control and self-insight were very lacking. His willpower was great, but uncontrolled, driven like a storm-racked ship. Yet not by greed, or lust, or even ambition. Some great sadness, an emptiness of heart, drove him to cling to his team among such dark shadows. Drove his body and soul, to stay beside them and fight – but I told him, it would be of no use…”

Master Po suddenly glanced up like a hawk. The woman stood behind him wore nothing above her waist but wrappings and a steel collar, and had a lotus tattooed on her stomach. Muscle corded her arms, she looked only a few years older than Fighter – but whatever she had lived through, the darkness in her eyes seized the throat with dread.

Whether from age, or Ting Wen being a young lady, Master Po’s block rose too late. Ting shot a knife strike into his throat, then both hands whipped shut on his arm. SNAP. In the same motion, she kicked the table that Fighter had hurled at her face into kindling.

-0-

Fighter knew, quickly as she recognised Hung Ga style, she couldn’t win. Ting wasn’t a troll or a cyborg, she had simply trained longer, harder and merciless. Still, Fighter ran out all her Ki and threw out her hands. Darted her feet over splinters and tea-spills, hunted through the triad adept’s terrible eyes – but there was nothing there to be read.

Ting dropped her stance, Fighter twisted aside. The low blow tore across her stomach. Killing Hands, like hers. Fighter rolled back across a table – against that power, she had to get distance. Her spinning kick punted a chocolate-patterned teapot at Ting’s face. Stepping in, as it was batted aside, her turning kick hacked at her foe’s chest. A glancing foreleg hit gave her savage hope. She gathered and shot out her Ki over the space between. The space Ting closed, with a lightning step. Dodging the Ki fist, unleashing a storm of knife hand blows.     

Fighter’s blocking hands flashed up, down and around – the one she missed sliced through her cheek. Ting flicked her counterpunches aside.  Fighter snapped up a desperate kick, swung a backhand, as Ting stepped away – then sunk the fist into Fighter’s side that knocked out her breath. One last block barely connected – she jerked back her head, which saved her life–then Ting rotated her arm aside, drove home the killing fist. Fighter crashed to the ground in darkness.

This was it. No more missions, no more fighting. She’d only ever see her Warrior in dreams. His smile of hope, his toxic fantasies. His pain, that night, when he had stood with a bullet inside him and fought for her. YES! That was him! Her Warrior!

Her best friend, who’d given her his dreams and hope and saved her. The sad and silly, good and brave man, who she loved. Her ears rang, her limbs had no strength, but she HAD TO GET UP!

Before she staggered up, Po had risen. Blue Ki flashed over his old body, dispelling the pain of his snapped arm and lacing his limbs with steel. Ting had still sent his blood flying with three more hard blows, when Fighter brought down a table leg on the adept’s head.

Armoured with her own Ki, the woman didn’t fall. She landed two more hits on Fighter, forcing her back, Semi-conscious, from sheer iron training, Fighter still turned aside her strikes.

With a single frustrated scream, Ting flung a stool. Fighter drew on her ki – natural as breathing, even now – and her kick reduced it to matchsticks. As Master Po moved deftly behind, and drove a plastic chopstick into the back of Ting's neck.

As the triad adept fell dead, Fighter fell to her knees. She barely felt Po gripping her arm, until his Ki flowed through her pressure points, sent her bounding up.

“I could not have defeated that woman alone. Be sure to evade any triad tails, and go at once, before they learn of their adept’s death.” He told her where she had to go.

“Master, thank you. But, you’re hurt–?”

“I have medkits at home. I’ve survived this long; and I find that I am glad of it.” He smiled at her serenely, as the triad woman’s body cooled at their feet, “I think I will leave Hong Kong. Perhaps the world still holds a great deal for me to see.”

With a quick bow, Fighter sprinted from the ruined teahouse, to the nearest metro and onto a train. A second before the doors slid shut, she darted off again. A few rough looking teens who’d boarded behind her leapt up, shouting into their commlinks.

Across the city, she darted around corners and through windows. Leapt over darkened rooftops, peered down at scurrying figures in the dim streets, and then dropped down and ran. Her heart was pounding, but she could not think of rest. Only the triads behind her and the warehouse ahead.

She finally stopped, breathing like a wolf, near the dark warehouse where her Warrior was penned. She scanned the area twice more for any tail, then moved to the back. So close to her man, she had no wish to be shot dead by one of his chummers watching the front. Stepping over the tripwire beneath the broken window, then scrambling up a drainpipe, she slipped in like a shadow.

And there was Harry, asleep on a futon in his boxers. Fresh scars on his chest, and fresh muscle, firm to the touch of her eyes. Brown eyes, in his soft face. Slamming open.

In the darkness, by instinct, he went for the gun under his pillow. Faster still, she gripped the Fichetti’s slide as she fell on top of him and covered his mouth before he could cry. His eyes alone – his eyes, his! – cried out her name across the inches between them, and her heart burst out of her lips as she whispered his.

Then she moved the gun aside and drove her knee into his stomach. Her hand barely muffled his groan.

“…I guess I deserved that.” Harry gasped, when he could speak, “Susan, what, how…? I’m sorry! I…”

“That wasn’t for me, Harry Fawkes. That was on behalf of every other girl you’ve messed about with. Every last one.”

“Ah…” Harry stared up into Susan’s grin. Her body, panther lithe and muscled, pressed him down. Dark hair fell over his face; he thought he'd die smiling. at least.

“This is for me.”

Very lightly, she slapped his cheek and left her hand there. Then they crossed the last few inches. Harry’s arms closed around her like the gates of a castle, and they kissed ravenously in the shadows.

-0-

They had to wake Harry's team up and explain; they were predictably unamused. But Susan bowed and grovelled; Roller, who'd been on watch at the front, shouldered most of the blame. Finally, Douglas backslapped Susan excessively hard, declaring that nothing could stop a shadowrunner in love, and they could spare the bonny couple an hour.

Most of the team left in their van, to move stuff to the reserve safehouse, while Douglas kept watch outside. Harry, before anything else, wanted to treat Susan's face, which had swelled with Ting's punch so that her left eye was useless. She was bloodied, her street clothes were torn, and three teeth felt loose in her mouth. The kisses that still burnt inside her had hurt like frag, but she didn't care. Smiling with silent longings, moving gently, they made applying a medkit into an eloquent act of love.

Then Harry quickly boiled up a couple of instant soynoodle packets, as he and Susan haltingly shared what they could of the last year's events. They ate together on the warehouse floor in momentary silence, with so much to be said and so little time. Fighter glanced away, finally nervous. She felt Harry's eyes, warm on her body. lightly punched his arm.

"I really needed this. Thanks." It hurt Susan to smile, too, "I saw some chill street markets on the way here. If we could take a walk together, somehow…I promise, I'd clean myself up a bit. Maybe some makeup?"

"Destroying angels don't need makeup." Of course, he had a speech, "Susan, I always loved you. You're the greatest girl in the world–"

"I suppose you'd know, hm? Harry…love…why couldn't you say that, years ago? Was I that scary?"

"Love is fragging scary. And…you never seemed to need a guy. You just had to be the strongest. You just had to save anyone you saw lost, or weak, in fragging Redmond! You were too good for me, always. I didn't want to frag things up, with us…!"

"…but you had needs, right? As a guy?" Harry's head dropped. Susan touched his cheek again, "I'm sorry, love. I didn't see anything. I never thought I needed a guy, until that night. Our first Run. Then I needed a good, kind man who brought me back from the pit. Back on my feet, with the faith that I could still fight. That was you, Harry. My best friend, my man…and I couldn't ever let go of you since."

"Ah, you didn't find another man? Who wasn't, um, such an idiot?"

"Not really." Susan grinned through the pain. Harry, her Warrior, her shadowrunner, almost broke with shame as she stroked his head, but she could make it right, "Couple of guys I thought about being with, but the one I loved, trusted and wanted was you, love. All this time…we could've been so good, together! Trading little quips, before every Run. Urging each other on, to be our best. Then slipping away to a safe place, and making love until dawn…" Her cheeks burnt, spreading from the furnace inside her. Now she was almost weeping. "Harry, with all the impossible things we've done – why did you have to leave?"

"…I was ashamed. I was weak. I couldn't protect you."

"No. Harry, you saved me."

"NO, no, no! It was my plan, my Run! I thought I was novahot, it would go down just like the TriDs, I was a fragging drekhead! And you almost…I watched those fraggers…I tried to fight them, I tried! Without a stupid miracle, you would have been raped and killed because of me. You got better, you were so strong, I couldn't look you in the eye...but I couldn't stop Running. I had to be stronger, whatever it cost, save someone…I left you, I did so much stupid drek, I couldn't have stayed. I fragged it all up, I'm so sorry…"

His body was stiff with guilty agony, as Susan laid his shaking head on her shoulder and held him. It took some time before he softened against her body, embracing her in return.

"I know all you did, Harry. I forgive you," With a sob, he kissed her neck. "It was our first Run. We're still alive, SINless and free. We're going to be the best shadowrunners there will ever be, and they'll make legends about our love."

Their legs rubbed and slid against each other, as Susan leaned back into the wall. She dug her fingers into Harry's tousled hair. Guiding his lips from her neck to her throat, as she threw her head back and shut her eyes. Then his mouth was gentle – then, less gentle – where her top exposed the space between her breasts, and she let out all the months of waiting in her sigh. For one moment, a world of darkness was a warm and perfect Eden.

Only a moment. When his hand moved from her side, to grip her thigh, the old nightmares of That Night rushed back. Her body stiffened; she pushed him away with a sob.

"Drek! I'm sorry, love. If we had more time…"

"Susan…love. It's okay, babe." Harry carefully stroked her hair. Then her asked the question she'd dreaded, "Love…why didn't you come, before now? You could've come to Hong Kong as soon as you had the money."

"…my friends, my contacts, they were all in Seattle. My rep was in Seattle. I had to keep Running. After those fragging trogs almost broke me, I couldn't stay down. Couldn't keep feeling so weak. I had to be strong. I couldn't hold you back, from your dreams…but I couldn't ever just be your girl waiting at home, who went on one Run and never fought again. I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry."

"Oh, never change, babe. All the treasures of every Corp aren't worth one smile from you. My Fighter, Susan, never leave...."

"Harry…the people I'm with will find me and kill me, if I don't go back. And you're going to take a whole triad out, with your nakama, like you always dreamed–" She couldn't help kissing him, again. Her floodgate had entirely burst, "–I know you wouldn't come with me now, even if you could."

"Say that again, 'Find me and kill me'. Then I'll find them and kill them, whoever it is."

"Mm, easy, Tiger! People are always trying to kill us. The worst part of my job right now is calling a man in an office 'Sir'. Or the fragging monthly wage. You're living your dreams, and I'm barely a shadowrunner."

"No, you're making the world better. I got it a while back, most shadowrunners don't do so much of that. Just do what you have to do, to stay alive." He squeezed her hand, "Promise you. We're both getting through this alive." His lips tasted of blood and fire, cheap noodles and dreams. His body pressed hers against the wall, "Please. Don't leave yet. I know we both want more than this. I'll make it perfect, I promise–"

"…with all the stuff you practised with those other girls?"

Susan smiled painfully, again. Harry slumped back.

"That fragging hurt. I deserve it, of course you're still mad, but…"

"Only a bit mad. And I've got a splitting headache from being practically knocked out back there, and we really don't have time….my first time, Harry. Our first time. It shouldn't be a stolen, crazy night like this. When we've sorted all our drek out, somehow, we will find each other again. Then you can teach me all about love; maybe I'll teach you as well. Just...don't go out messing with girls again. Are you still taking Jazz? I know why you did it, to be strong for me–" One more swift kiss, "–but you are strong, you don't need drugs. Please kick it, as soon as you can – but other women stops right now, okay?"

Harry feigned a reaction of shock. Susan would've laughed, if she wasn't trying to stop herself crying as well.

Fighter and Warrior arranged what they could in the way of digital maildrops and meeting points. As she turned away, his hand wouldn't let her go.

"Susan, I need you. Please…"

She turned back. Looked into his eyes, placed his hand on her chest.

"Can you feel my heart? How hard this is, how much I love you? Stay strong, love. We will see each other again."

It was a nightmare moment for Harry. On the edge of forgiveness, losing his miracle girl again, his body urged the vilest action he could take. To push the girl who loved him down onto a futon and make skilful love to her, until No turned into Yes. As it always did, for the Tri-D shadowrunners and superspies in his toxic dreams.

Then she wouldn't be able to leave him. Then he would be damned, damned, no, fragging no. How lucky he was, to have a kind, forgiving beloved who'd all but kill him with her pinkie before he did something unforgivable.

With the smile she'd loved since they were children together, he let go of her hand. With a look that groaned with the weight of promise, Fighter went to the window and vanished into the night.

The next morning, when the Yellow Lotus heard of her fight with Ting, they would overturn the city and shake it all over again. Looking for Susan Lei, who would be gone.

-0-

In his office at Alpha Base, Nagendra examined a recording of Fighter emerging from a warehouse window in Hong Kong. It seemed to have been taken through a long-range lens. The chrome faced man seemed profoundly stunned.

“None of the simulations predicted this. An agent who gave up love to fulfil her potential. Who unquestionably believes in our cause of world stability. Trampling protocol in the face of death, for a trivial tryst, and then quietly coming back to us. What can be made of this?

“I could have informed you,” Ilsa Tresckow responded dryly, “That she was the last woman on Earth to preserve any kind of stability.”

The Mage had been escorted from the brig by several armed guards, including Agent Sandra Creighton for magical support. She could guess what would have happened to her if Fighter had stayed with Warrior.

“Stability. A beautiful, worthy thing, but I wonder...is it everything that creatures need? Is there not a time for peace and a time for war?”

Sandra’s eyes went very wide. Ilsa focused all her wits on whatever would come next–

“Miss Tresckow. Welcome to the Agency. We have already begun investigating the events that led to your departure from Heidelberg. Actionable results are expected soon. We also expect – please understand my meaning – your undivided and absolute loyalty.”

“Well, on those terms, I can only say…” Ilsa’s face was stiller than Nagendra’s “…jawohl.”

Alone in his office, Nagendra gazed at the video of Fighter for some time. Whatever he was thinking of now, it had clearly resided in his thoughts for far longer.

Finally, he gave a nod. Above his desk, the Agency’s Knowbot called up old plans in glowing ranks of text, and fresh simulations in shining ribbons.

Chapter Text

"For once you must try not to shrink from facts/Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts."

–Threepenny Opera, Brecht

With a light spinning kick, Susan dropped Agent Enrica Croce to the sparring mat. She pulled the elf up again, with a grin and a warning to watch her sides. Croce beamed back, striking a fighting stance. Susan snapped at the other, mostly male, agents in her Kung Fu class to focus properly.

Once approval for her proposed classes had been handed down, Susan had wearied Orion with entreaties to teach her how to teach. She'd ploughed through every relevant digital manual the Agency had, and it still hadn't banished the butterflies. Five generations of her family had preserved Lei Kung Fu down to the present day, as wars and plagues shook the world about them. Susan keenly felt the debt she owed her forebears, and bitterly felt how close her first shadowrun had come to laying their work waste. This was part of what she had been born to do, but could she do it...? Then she faced a short row of more experienced agents in a training dojo – a Kwoon, now – and the fiery, glorious peace of doing what she loved above all else had filled her. Orion, her Shifu, had told her to be firm in her confidence and compassion. It was dreamy, how easy that turned out to be.

"Unarmed combat is taking fraggers down without weapons, but Kung Fu is everything. Hands and heart, eyes and spirit, flexibility and explosive power. Striking in every way the opponent doesn't expect, through a technique for every point, filled with your heart and mind by mastery. Many modern unarmed combat styles have no stances, only pure action and reaction, which is a practical development of martial philosophy – but I believe that every stance or technique in Kung Fu sharpens your heart and mind as you simply learn it. If we had 4000 years, there would still be more for each one of us to learn – and come on, you can say you know Kung Fu! Isn't that worth standing through some speeches?"

A few agents had laughed, which made her regret the joke. They were mostly older and more experienced than her, but that did not mean she was their cute Kung Fu chick, with a hobby it suited them to indulge. It turned out none of them were senseless enough to try chatting her up, and there was nothing Susan could suggest that the agents wouldn't do. She worked them hard, worked hard, and learnt through focused attention to spot mistakes, bad habits or potentials with alacrity. She'd learnt from age three that you couldn't do anything without focus. The agents quickly gained respect for her abilities, and class numbers rose by leaps and bounds. Susan had even volunteered Croce for a private Kung Fu 'lesson', soon after they returned from Hong Kong, and frankly shared with the elf, between appropriately hard blows, her views about Runners shooting children on missions.

Croce had finished up weeping onto Susan's bosom. They had been shifu and student, and friends, from then on. The elf girl was another Redmond graduate. She had bounced back from all Susan's punches, only wanted to be stronger, and followed her about like a blond retriever.

"...I don't want to be the pretty, slotty elf they all see me as. Loads of fraggers just see elves as gigolos and whores, especially in the Barrens. Still, I don't want to be a nun, either...shifu, do you think I'd be dumb to try waiting for the one right person?" 

-0-

Some other little souvenirs of Hong Kong were two new false teeth, an eye she would've lost without Harry's quick attention, and a hickey on her cleavage. Her roommate Anya had howled with excitement on spotting it, though there was little Susan could safely tell her about Harry. Even less she could do about the burning, frustrated sickness that she supposed was love.

"Fragging yeah, chica, it's love!" Anya went on to show off some tusk scars on her broad inner thigh, which her late boyfriend Kenji had made during a night of passion, "–so that whatever memories I'd lost, I'd always remember him. He was so romantic."

Susan was personally still waiting for her foot massage, but she supposed it made sense with orks. Tough folk, tough lives, violent loves. Even if Harry's love bites still ached, they had never felt closer. It hurt more that she'd failed to give him her V-Card, even if it'd been impossible. She felt like she'd let her man down, what she'd wanted fierce had certainly slipped away... but the feeling that nightmares of the past still held her down was torture. She'd done so much, fought the nightmares with hard-trained meditation and focus. Two minutes of horror and defeat could still make her a weak, broken girl. A fake? She would know when her focus slipped, one day, and another ganger threw her down in the grit, to be broken past recovery.

It had been a stunning blow, to hear how the boy who'd saved her from that fate got off with loose women. Miserable Kowloon girls she sorrowed for more than anything else. Her worst horror had struck squarely at her most precious hope...but somehow she'd still gone to him with compassion. She'd know him. Harry had always been a idiot with girls, but he'd strive for good if all the world were darkness; he'd always be her hero. She'd seen in his eyes, as he let her go, the strength of the man she loved...and didn't know when she'd ever see him again. All she could do to take the edge off was ask Anya about fun times she'd had with her beloved oni, hopefully for future reference.

"Yeah, okay! One time, five minutes before he left for a mission...wiggling my hoop-a-loop, facing an unlocked door...we hardly needed a minute. When he came home to me, I got such...up my...think I was walking funny, all day..."          

As Anya chattered away with weeping and laughter, and as Susan went steadily more red-faced, their other roommate smiled blandly. They remembered that Sandra's job was to sleep with withered sararimen or vicious terrorists and lie to them, which took some steam out of the conversation.

“Okay…anyone for Trideo? Fifth season of Snow and Sakura? Um, or Neil the Ork Barbarian?” Anya gamely tried to steer their talk away from romance. Alpha Base had a few rec rooms with Trid screens (Which the agents would tactfully vacate when a couple wanted some privacy).

“I’ve watched SS5 too many times already.” Sandra smiled indulgently, “How about Blackstone?”

Anya’s fierce dismissal surprised Susan even more than her Valentine roommate’s love for romantic JK-dramas (No one made schmaltz like occupied Korea, she had to admit). She knew that Blackstone had an ork lead actress, and she’d figured that all trogs who weren’t mindless thugs had to be fans.

“Troubles of a rich ork heiress with a tusk job?” Anya growled, dispelling her confusion, “Nikki Blackstone, bitching about discrimination from her ancestral manor? Full of drek. Ork life is street life, shadows life, and they’ll never show the truth of it on the Trids.”

“Hmm. We all know that sentimental dramas don’t show the world as it is, but don’t we all love them? For showing a world of love we know should be?” Anya hmmed, grudgingly impressed, “On the other hand, does Neil the Ork Barbarian really show what young orks should aspire to?”

“Swinging a sword in the buff? It’s just brainless fun, chica! Guess elves wouldn’t go for it.”

(Harry had laughed at Neil, when they’d watched it as kids, but Susan had seen too much of trog gangers and their mindless violence to ever enjoy it. After her first Run, it had shown up occasionally in nightmares) 

“Personally, as a metahuman.” Sandra went on, “I think Blackstone has a powerful yet nuanced message against prejudice.”

Anya’s snort made it clear that she didn’t think charming, well-heeled elves were metahumans like orks were, or knew anything worth knowing about prejudice. Sandra elected to ask Susan what Trid shows she liked (Susan could tell why her roommates hadn’t talked so much before she’d arrived).

“…I think Snow and Sakura looked great, but I've just seen half of season 2. I can’t sit still for forty-six minutes, and the Corps make sweet stories too fragging long, just to keep bums on couches. Honestly, I’d rather spend a few hours working out.”

“More training? Girl, there’s nothing here but training! What do you do to relax?”

“Um, relaxing work out with music? Martial arts are my life.”

Susan never practised Kung Fu with headphones in, not just because her father would have been appalled. It was the satisfaction of movements well-worn as her own skin and muscles, the concentrated peace of meditation…the familiar yet endless path that cost nothing but effort and owed nothing to any megacorp. Like the infinite sky, it needed no more music than her own breaths, and striking cries. Fighting was peace, and she had fought for it; Kung Fu was her life and nothing would take it from her again.

Jogging down her apartment block’s rotten steps, though, or staring from a window at the filthy sprawl, as she did chin-ups on the ledge…she’d downloaded a pulse-pumping song or two for those times, with the few nyuyen she got from stuffer-stacking. Walking around Redmond with headphones in was an infallible way to get robbed or killed; so outside, Susan had played basketball with the kids and had trivial, heartfelt little talks much like this one.

“Okay, what’s your workout song? I usually go with ‘Who Weeps for the Children’…?”

“…snap. I must’ve played it a million times.”

“Oh yeah! That. Is. ARCTIC!” Anya bounced herself on her bunk, nearly spilling her bosom out of her vest, “Best Maria Mercurial song ever, except maybe all the others!”

“No, definitely the best - but I thought you went for Goblin Rock?”

“Sure do! There isn’t a girl in the world who doesn’t love Maria, chummer!”

“I prefer slow Jazz and Classical, honestly.” Sandra mentioned, “Maria Mercurial is more of an image than a woman; her songs aren’t bad, but I don’t care for them so much.”  

“Bulldrek!”

“Indeed. Of course I love her songs, who does not?”  

All three women laughed together; Anya clasped Sandra's elegant hand in her claw. Then she asked them what they thought of Maria Mercurial’s recent marriage. Susan hadn’t had time to read the newsfeeds, and almost fell off her bunk with shock.

Although the full story behind the union of the novahot singing star and Armando Hernandez (her longtime producer), which Anya merrily gossiped to Susan and Sandra at length, had only circulated among the best Fixers and deckers in the Shadows. An abduction, a major coverup by Aztechnology and heaps of bodies – courtesy of a dragon, in part – had been just a few of the notable elements.

What stuck with Susan were the revelations that her silver-limbed singing heroine had been bodyguard and a sex slave for an Azzie executive. With ongoing psychosis from the BTL addiction her former master had forced on her, before Hernandez had cleaned her up and put her on the world stage. And that Maria Mercurial had walked out on the same Hernandez, now her husband, after a rival producer had planted evidence that he was dealing BTLs himself. That almost felt worse.  

Susan knew her own story could have so easily ended in Redmond, with addiction, shame and despair. She’d spent most of her life watching it happen to her friends (Had there been a pinch of judgement, under her flood of compassion, as she’d pleaded and tried to save them? She really had tried…). Even when her father’s training and Harry’s dreams had set her above the barren morass, men had still thrown her down. Almost broken her–but the will of men could not shape her only life. She’d never stopped Running and fighting, just as Maria must have fought to sing the songs that had inspired her…but she hadn’t ever lost faith in the man who’d loved and saved her. It was always disturbing to see weakness in your heroes; a little unsettling to think how high that meant you’d got.  

“Guess she’s human, in spite of everything,” Was Anya’s comment, “She’s certainly the greatest musical genius since Whitney. She’s always said her songs are who she is, not her past…though no one could hear her, and not know she’s been through drek. I guess you have to say your past ain’t you, especially when it is…except for Kenji, I’m glad to not have one.”

Susan agreed with that. It was time to leave the past in the past and focus on her next Kung Fu class; her students certainly deserved her best. All the agents were strong in CQC, but only Orion and Agent Iraj actually knew Kung Fu. There were fresh ideas for them, and a glorious lot for Susan to learn herself. Her only beginner's mistake had been starting off too soft; the agent were hard men and women who lived to push their limits. Ilsa had yet to attend her classes, however.

"If I had ever laboured under the desire to half-kill myself with exertion, I would be waiting tables in a major biergarten." Flushed and shaking from the regular Agency training, the young mage had still drawn up her dignity, "I'm quite sure you'll get on marvellously without me."

And Susan was sure Ilsa would get through fine. She would fly through the escape rooms and theory exercises, of course. Physical training might be a hurdle, but she definitely had the willpower. Certainly, she would come out tougher...

"Agent Lei." The announcement suddenly came, "Report to Instructor Madigan at the Schoolroom, immediately."

-0-

It wasn't an interrogation by Nagendra. It wasn't even an innocently routine mission, from which a maverick agent might lamentably not return. Fear had been taut at the back of Susan's mind since Seattle and Hong Kong, but this threw her off balance. She finished instructing a troll agent on his stance, told him to hold that position until she came back, and noted the pitying look in one veteran agent's remaining eye, as she left.

Petra Madigan was a short, sallow woman with a tight black ponytail and no chrome. Ex-Corpsec, Susan guessed. Skilled agents between missions handled a lot of training, like Richards with shooting, and now Susan herself, but Madigan was a specialist instructor. She never left the base, and Susan thoroughly respected her.

"At ease, Agent. You remember your training, I'm sure. The escape rooms."

"Yes, ma'am?" Pause, "I'd never even have survived, without learning there's always a way–"

"Yeah, that's bulldrek. Follow me, now."

Still completely unbalanced, Susan followed. Madigan retinal-scanned through a security door and led Susan to a room with a console, a large dial, and a one-way mirror. Nagendra, the chrome faced man, was already standing there. On the other side of the mirror, Susan saw the Room and the man in the chair.

"This drekstain," Madigan pronounced in a monotone, "Was a senior Matrix scientist for Transyn-Neuronet, who allowed himself to be blackmailed into handing certain passcodes to a certain terrorist group. He has a taste for severely beating hookers, you understand, which was also how our invaluable Specialist Sandra Creighton managed to get him out of TNN's secure facility. The codes could be used to knock the whole European Matrix offline. Thousands of deaths. The name of the group is what we need."

Susan didn't bother to ask for the evidence agents never got. Her eyes took in the blindfold, the straps, the drekstains and piss all over the drekstain's underwear and bare legs. The chair was soft rubber, easy to clean. The only visible torture device was the Jackpoint impaling the man's immobilised neck.

"Is…is this a test?"

"No, Agent Lei, this is reality. Give him five minutes, then turn the dial up to thirty-five."

Susan watched the man's pulse spasm across the computer screen. His flabby chest, heaving up and down.

She thought of Sandra. She remembered her head punched down into asphalt. Monsters had torn at her – at what she longed to give the man she loved. If she was going to even see him again, she had to survive, whatever that took.

She remembered the Halloweeners' BTL dungeon. The tortured, terrified children. She felt sick.

"He's just a fat egghead." She tried, "Is this drek, you know, necessary? He'd obviously sell out his mother, if you just–!"

"Oh, we haven't asked any questions yet." Nagendra's tone was calmly didactic, "Special Interrogation protocol consists of an initial sixty minutes with the dial rising from twenty-five to fifty. A ten-minute pause, of which three minutes remain, then another hour with the dial moved at random. Chaos, loss of control, breaks men almost as well as physical agony. It breaks the trances that adepts normally use in these situations, very reliably. After that, another ten-minute pause, in which the prospect of the cycle continuing invariably produces answers to questions. Last year a subject was able to give us false information, and seventy-six civilian deaths were the result. Since then, a further hour of excruciation follows the confession, to confirm its truth. This protocol has extracted intelligence from hardened, unsettlingly dangerous men, very reliably. Why change what works so well?"

Madigan's upper lip shook very slightly. If the prisoner hadn't been gagged, if the glass hadn't been soundproofed, Susan knew she'd have heard his moans.

"Why?"

"You have proved yourself a resourceful, determined agent, Lei." Nagendra's level voice buzzed in her ears, "But there are question marks over your focus and commitment. Are you a part of this Agency, this cause – this picked team – or an unknown risk factor? This is the inescapable, but very resolvable question. One minute. Turn the dial up to thirty-five, if you please."

Susan stared at the miserable, brutal criminal in the chair. She thought of Harry's face, she almost regretted the madness of their stolen hour. He had said she was kind, she had said they were free. She shut her eyes.

"No. No."

The minute ran out, Madigan turned the dial up to sixty. Susan watched the man writhe for five minutes, before the Instructor brought it down to twenty-five.

"That wouldn't have been necessary, if you weren't a drekhead." Madigan's eyes burned like a ferret, "Turn it to thirty-five, or I turn it to eighty."

"No means no. I'm not doing it." Susan held up her hands, "I know it's all for saving lives, but I can't. You're stronger than me, Ma'am. Some of us go on missions, some of us turn a dial…"

"And one of us is a drooling slot. Who'd rather throw herself after a manwhore, even if it endangers the world. You're not even worth disposing of, Lei."

Madigan and Nagendra took Susan to an empty room and left her there for an hour. She was willing to stay almost anywhere, except where she'd been. After that, they took her back to the control room, set the dial, and left her alone to watch the hour of post-confessional torture.

Finally, Madigan entered the Room and killed the prisoner with a gunshot. Susan watched the Instructor wash the human mess into the Room's central drain herself, alone. The woman clearly took no pleasure in the cause she so unhesitantly believed in.

Susan's nails dug crescent marks into her palms. Painful, indelible. She could have switched the dial off, but she hadn't. She'd known it would be over, in an hour, if she only stayed still. If she kept fighting, Nagendra and Madigan had the power to roll out any fresh horror on her that they wished.

-0-

Susan spent an hour on the holo-sparring range, striking full-power until her muscles ached against her skin. She'd always preferred pouring out her troubles, or crying on a sympathetic shoulder, but she was used to not having anyone. Even now, when she did, she found she couldn't speak a word to them about something like this. Somehow, she had to be strong.

In the mess hall, that evening, Susan threw herself into the seat beside Ilsa's. They sat for five minutes in silence. Ilsa's gaze was fixed on her tray of high-protein algae.

"You okay, Wiz?" Susan finally asked, "How's training going?"

"Nothing very strenuous today," Ilsa didn't look at her, "I merely had to turn a dial."

The second hour. No punch to face or gut could have hit so hard. Finally, Susan reached for Ilsa's hand.

"…you saved thousands of lives. Ilsa, It's okay–"

Ilsa jerked her hand away. It shook, then steadied. Like a hawk on a lonely crag, her green eyes flashed.

"Did they show evidence? Or even claim they'd exhausted all options? The Torturer's Dilemma is an insult to human reason. I knew what it was, when I tortured that man. My barbarian rite of passage, into this well-heeled murder gang, to which you led me. I tortured, I knew it was a work of evil, and for the sake of my own ends I would plunge through that river of scheisse again."

Between drone-polished steel walls, beneath the weight of the ocean, as the food dispenser whirred behind them, Ilsa spoke in the distracted, thoughtful monotone of the academic staring into hell. All Susan understood was the horror. She seized Ilsa's shoulders, gripped and shook, pleaded.

"No, no. They made you do it!"

"Don't insult me! And unhand me, unless you're going to tear off my arms!" Susan immediately let go. Ilsa rubbed her trembling shoulders, staring at her coldly, "Now I am 'in' with the Agency, as you say, with all the options that entails, while you are out, and may be taken from me at any time. I knew this day would come, Susan. To close some shadowrun, finish some mission, a bestial act would be required. The pure, righteous heroine would, of course, refuse. and the rational, hell-bent witch would turn the dial."

Less than two years ago – Fighter knew – Ilsa Tresckow had possessed proud parents, a secure future, a comfortable life. Barring magical mishaps, she had never seen death - real hatred and cruelty had been strangers. Then the accident she'd been framed for had blown it all away and flung her into the shadows.

Through sheer will she had adapted, too quickly. Or perhaps two whole years had been a chaos, loss of control, tied to that drekky chair, until restraints, and frag-knew-what-else, had snapped. And Susan had lost her friend before she even knew anything.

-0-

Sandra was reading a science news-site on her bed, when Susan stumbled into their room. The young adept poured out the horrors of the day, weeping as Sandra folded slim arms around her body.

"Darling. You're not a bad person. Nor is Ilsa. She's not a bad person. We're just all different. We all have our jobs, we all do the best we can…"

Susan buried her face in dark, silky hair. Sandra's silence calmed and gentled her more than any words; the elf lady had quite a gift. Exhausted with tears, stunned by sudden loss, Susan slumped on the bed. It was a warm bath, sinking everything else away, as Sandra nestled against her back like a spoon. A pale and elegant hand finally stroked up her thigh.

"…no. Please. I'm fragging straight. Just hold me." Sandra took her hand away. Fighter gripped her shoulder in a rush of grateful love. "I'm sorry. That fragger I wouldn't torture, they said he beat you."

"Oh, Susan. Being with him was hardly less than disgusting, but there was nothing like that. They must have said so to encourage you. Obviously, they truly want you to…" She let the maxim above the door speak for itself.

"Did he even…? Of course, you don't know what he did. Or if any lives were even ever at risk, but he fragging must have been guilty of something! Frag, we had this same talk after my first mission!"

Susan screwed her eyes shut. Sandra hugged her waist more tightly.

"Oh, I've had it many more times with myself, Susan. The same awful targets, the same missions, the questions, over and again…but we endure together. That's all we can do."

-0-

Orion had listened to Susan and grumbled with workhorse resignation. Though she noticed her Shifu's claws twitch, as if ready to snap shut on a throat.

"You did well to share your troubles with Miss Creighton. How about Anya? Or Croce?"

"Enrica couldn't cope with this. Anya would call Ilsa a drekhead traitor and more names I don't want to hear."

"Hmm, she would. You think an ork shouldn't be so quick to judge?"

"No, some things have to be judged. It's just, everything's too drekky…without friends. Sorry…"

"No. You have grasped the truth. Cling to it. Stay close to your friends as you can. Protect them; protect Anya. Stay close as you can to Fräulein Tresckow. Clearly, Nagendra intended to separate you. Fight him."

"Shifu…is there anything I can do, for you?"

In the empty dojo, the ork's white head hung over his crossed legs. Orion sighed.

"Just protect Anya. She's a good girl, a pure soul. Protect her, above all."

Chapter Text

A Snyder coughed in the jungle, somebody laughed and fled,

And the men of the first Shikaris picked up their Subaltern dead.

With a big blue mark on his temple, and the back blown out of his head.

- Kipling

Two Months Later

Ilsa Tresckow was on a sub-orbital stealth plane, returning to Heidelberg, beside Agents Ptacek, Richards, Dunbar, Lei and Croce. There had been no murmur against sending a trainee into the field; Ilsa had spent two months demonstrating to the Agency that she was a brilliant mage, a cool chica, and a professional in every way. Certainly, she had the Agency's trust from Anya up to Nagendra. Susan trusted that she listened more than she spoke, and even more sharply.

There was only silence between Ilsa and Susan now, however. For two months, the adept had been confined to Alpha Base without missions. She had borne the silent doubts and disrespect of all the agents but her closest friends, as her status of shame became clear. Few agents had been ordered to turn a dial – they usually had to content themselves with hazing the trainees – but Susan had failed to fulfil her potential. She hadn't done her job.

The worst of it had been to sit idle while Harry was in the battle of his life. She had thought of running to him, even trying to turn the other agents against Nagendra and Oldman, but both were hopeless fantasies. Her Kung Fu classes had been left to her, which only showed that she was not even regarded as a threat, and their attendance had steadily dropped. Still, she was going to Heidelberg with Ilsa; there was one place only she'd rather have been.

"Um. Isn't this quite a big team? For an abduction?" Enrica Croce stared worshipfully at the top agents packed in the transport's shaking hold.

"Oh, abductions are trickier than assassinations, unless it's the President of Ethiomalia." Agent Jack Richards sent the young elf a charming offhand smile, "I'll tell you about that another time. Anyway, we'll need to cover the target's escape routes, ensure our own exit–"

"The girl should know all that." Ptacek cut Richards off, "She was in Hydrabad last month, Hong Kong before that. Speaking of Hong Kong–" The veteran Runner fixed Susan with a look to etch steel, "–even think about pulling something like that, Lei, and I'll make you brg for your mother."

"Yes, ma'am." Susan looked suitably shamed and sincere.

"Good. You're a good agent. That's the problem. The landfills are full of good Runners who thought they could break the rules."

Richards smiled apologetically at Susan, once Ptacek's stern and beautiful face had turned to the Ranger Arms sniper rifle beside her. Susan smiled back blandly.

Two years ago, a Ms Eugenie Visser of Saeder Krupp, known professionally as something like Frau Johnson, had solidified Prof Johannes Gruber's impromptu coverup of his little lab accident. Ever since, the professor had been passing SK secret research data from the university. The Megacorp had written off its sponsored scholar who'd been regrettably immolated by fire spirits. And probably none of the actors could have recalled offhand the name of the promising unaffiliated postgraduate who had fled the country carrying the can. Or those other unexceptional students who had also been burnt alive in the original mishap.

The plan was to snatch Ms Visser, as she went with four bodyguards for an evening rendezvous with a team of shadowrunners. She would undergo Special Interrogation – Ilsa's eyes had silently reminded Susan what that meant – providing intelligence for a frameup, blackmail or similar follow-up, that would remove Prof Gruber from Saeder Krupp's protection. Visser herself would be dumped beside an Autobann with her memory of the past week wiped, a stratagem Ptacek offhandedly referred to as 'Roswelling'.

"She's a fellow professional," The veteran agent had explained in the briefing, "Not one of the cockroaches like Gruber or that TNN pervert, who threaten world stability by simply remaining alive. Moreover, killing her would rather tweak the dragon's tail – that is, piss off the biggest Megacorp in the world. No stupid risks, as always. Question, Croce?"

"Um…can we really wipe memories? So easily?"

"They're just electronic data, agent," A slight tension crept into the edges of Ptacek's eyes, "Very tricky to fabricate, in case you were worried, but simple to erase and almost impossible to restore – just ask Specialist Anya Kotto. I've thought of taking a suturing iron to my own head. Many times." Ptacek shook her head. The steel came back to her voice, "Anyway, we have our mission. We are the Agency, the silent service, saving the world from incompetence and chaos. You're the best of the best. Let's get our job done."

-0-

The Sprawl of Greater Frankfurt, rich and shiny as oil, had long ago swallowed Heidelberg's ancient university town. Fighter stared at high statues of Valkyries and dragons. Lights of unsleeping stockbrokers studded the dark towers above them. The team moved between glass-fronted square buildings, through the grid of wide and uncrowded streets.

It was a long way from Redmond. Fighter had half-expected Ilsa to stride like a queen returned from exile, but the mage seemed more unsettled than anybody. She had donned a dark, toughened synthleather robe to answer the body armour of the non-Awakened agents. Fighter herself had finally traded her beloved street armour for a Renraku Kunei suit, which clung to her limbs but moved with them easily, novahot light.

Anya had been unsettled as well. She'd bid Susan farewell with a hug, and said she wished she was going with her.

"First time I said that about any field mission. Just come back safe, chica. I've got a bad feeling."

"Anya…don't you talk too much about feelings, for a decker?"

"Huh! Guess I'm just an over-emotional ork, musclehead!" They'd hugged again and parted. Orion had seen her off with his usual stoicism.

"Hoi, Lei! Focus, now." Ptacek's voice in her earpiece snapped her back, "Take position in the square ahead. Move on my word."

The platz ahead was dominated by a wide fountain, with four grand stone flowerbeds, V-shaped, boxing the corners. Falling water and rich geraniums spread an incongruous air of peace. Croce smiled nervously at Fighter, as she crouched near her. Ilsa, Richards and Dunbar took cover across the square, to the west. Above them, from the window of an office block, Ptacek was on overwatch behind her Ranger Arms.

In the shadows, the agents gripped their weapons. Fighter emptied her mind and filled her limbs with Ki. After the waiting that never got easy, the faint hum of a bio-engine issued from a street.

"Susan," In her earpiece, Ilsa spoke in a rush, "If anything happens…I have a younger brother, tell him–"

The SK Bentley Concordat limousine, the target, slid into view. Ilsa fell silent. In the same moment–

"Hello, Agent Lei." A faceless, synthetic voice in every earpiece, "Hello, pawns of the Agency."

"The frag? Who–?"

"Call me Darkchild. We're all going to play a new game. It begins now, with a pawn sacrifice, and it will end with the Agency's destruction."

-0-

The Limousine drew up to the curb. Two troll minders piled out, then a cybered human, then a pale woman in a skirt suit, the target. None of the agents moved.

"Hold fast!" Ptecek hissed through coms, before addressing the voice from the ether, "Listen, what do you want? Who–?"

"You will never know what I am, Agent Ptacek," The voice came back, "I may unfold my aims to Agent Lei, someday. Since she bears such responsibility, for what is about to begin."

Both trolls suddenly crashed down, pole-axed by bullets. The cybered guard fell, boneless, against the limo, and the driver's blood flowered across the windscreen. Visser stood still and shocked for a moment, before the sniper shot punched through her well-coiffed head.

"As of now," The voice of Darkchild went on, implacable, "The Agency is at war with the Saeder Krupp Corporation. Essentially, the Agency's destruction has begun."

Susan hit the deck. Ilsa threw up a Firewall along the rim of the fountain, obscuring herself, Richards and Dunbar. Croce started up, searching for the shooters. Fighter filled her lungs to roar, get down – then she saw the elf's head jerk back. The hole in her brow as she fell.

Rising with the roar that burst from her lips, Fighter charged with all her speed. From pure instinct, Ilsa had sent a Haste spell flying to her. One sniper shot spanged up from the asphalt, a step behind Fighter's blurring feet.

Ptacek, staring from her sniper's perch, recovered herself with a steel-willed grip. The shot had winged from that rooftop – she sighted, squeezed, her bullet flew across a klick into the sniper's brain. Three snipers had held fire, stayed hidden. Where, and what else–?

As Fighter raced in fury across the ground, gunfire and magic blazed from the shadows ahead. She dropped and rolled. Came up to drive her foot through the throat of a dark-robed mage. She hurled a grenade and dived for cover, as black armoured gunmen came up and around.

"Oh dear. I understood that the Agency's pawns received first-rate training. Some of you may have even lower survival chances than my calculations suggested."

From the road the team had pegged for their exit, another blast tore through the night. At Ilsa's side, Dunbar had been rigged into the van, ready to call it up; the dwarf collapsed from dumpshock, again, loudly cursing.

Across the square from Fighter, Ilsa stared into the Astral. To the west, south and east, the soul-lights of enemies stood out from the darkness. Five to one odds, at least. Moving like trained death squads.

Agent Richards showed a steel-set jaw and icy calm, levelling his Manhunter across the stone flowerbed. Ilsa swallowed numbing shock and readied a fireball. While in the night all around the square, the unmarked black squads stacked up at the corners of buildings. Weapons half-raised, as they made ready to close.

-0-

Dunbar and Ilsa took cover to hold the west; Richards determined to hold the south. He swiftly headshot the first rushing gunman; the second got to the shelter of a bench. Under his squad's covering fire-bursts, this dwarf raised a grenade. Wired reflexes whipped Richards back up and corn-blue cybereyes whirred; he shot the grenade out. The dwarf fell with a stump arm and half a face. Auto-fire tore across the flowerbed, Richards dropped down again. The gunmen in black snapped home fresh clips in sequence, staggering reloads like pros.

To the west, with her back against stone cover, Ilsa flung her Fireball. Black armour held under the blast, only one stayed down. The rest dropped back, smoking and stunned. As Dunbar rose up, his Steel Lynx drone picked off another stumbling gunman. Then from the east side, a bullet winged through the night, through the back of Dunbar's armour, and threw him down.

Ilsa's hand quickly glowed with Heal above the dwarf. Her off-hand grimly drew a fetish and flung it. The Inferno spirit burst up and loped away, flinging firebolts into the massing gunmen on the square's east side.

Fighter had been there – Ptacek couldn't see her now, alive or dead. She noted some marks of the adept's quick-flung grenade, and one casualty swearing over a medkit. She noted the ork with a grenade launcher. Her shot went through under the arm to burst the heart.

Instantly, she dropped and scrambled to a new spot, before two bullets thumped in the wall where she had been. The third sniper shot smashed a window ahead, but she rolled neatly back. Now she had locations, on all three shooters, but for the minute she was pinned.

Ilsa cooked a gunman in his armour with a stream of flame. To the south, as the squad kept Richards down, an elvish gunman dashed out and around with boosted speed. Geek the mage. He got the angle to fire a burst at Ilsa's open back, two bullets hit her arm. She rolled through blood, to fresh cover against the fountain, trying to Heal herself through the shock.

Thrusting his smartgun out of cover, optics below the barrel slaved to his vision like a third cybereye, Richards shot the elf in the throat. He rolled across his cover, as they fired back, came up again. Headshot, again. Bullets punched at his vest, his arm; Pain Dampened, he only felt the impact. Then he saw that Ilsa had rolled away from the cover of her firewall.

Far above the battlefield, a stealth-built aerial Spotter drone relayed the same observation to the snipers. One shooter, on an overlooking roof, duly shifted his scope from Ptacek to rest on Ilsa's head.

Even now, Fighter couldn't reach the roof of a tower block in one leap. In the minute she'd spent wringing out her Ki, after dashing through the gunmen to the east, she had noted a lower roof, and a window ledge. In three monkey jumps, as the sniper breathed out, she sprang up from the ground and across through the night. Above the tower, tumbling above the sniper's black helmet, and slamming down behind. Before he knew which way was up, the man had flown off the roof into the roaring air, with nothing below him but down.

"TRY FLAPPING YOUR ARMS, MOTHER-FRAGGER!"

It was a cruel line, a cruel death. Fighter had never believed she was cruel; she took no joy in it at all. But thinking of Croce's face, she wanted to do it again and again.

Both surviving enemy snipers were stunned for a moment. All that Ptacek needed, with cybernetic calculation speed, to rise on one knee and killshot. Then, as the last sniper wrenched his barrel round at her, swivel, sight and squeeze–her bullet punched through cybereye and sniper scope. That made her smile.

The gunmen at ground level showed no thought of retreat. A shotgun finally blew out Ilsa's summoned fire spirit, then a grenade fell from the sky – gunmen dived from the blast. Then Fighter dropped to the street. Lunged up like a tiger, Killing Hands raised.

She thrust aside an assault rifle that shot into another gunman's leg. She back-kicked that one into the asphalt with a noise like a sack of broken saucepans. Then the rifle she'd seized was wrenched back by an ork, who chopped the butt into her face. Head ringing, nose pouring, she slashed round her elbow like whiplash into a snarling jaw. Darted around the ork as another gunman aimed and spun into a hook that smashed a spine.

Across the square, the attackers made a last rush. Two black-armoured trolls thundered at Ilsa, too tough for fireballs. The others charged Richards' position, firing; too many for his handgun.

Richards and Ilsa scrambled across each other's bodies. The mage launched another Fireball that blasted away the mass assault. Richards put three shots through a troll's eye; Ptacek, leaning from a window for the angle, shot the other. Dunbar, on the floor with vomit and blood in his beard, kept his drone steadily killing the flame-dazed gunmen until it was over.

Groggy from blood loss and manadrain, Ilsa perceived that she had slumped back against Richards' chest. Also, that his pectoral muscles were very likely in the top percentile for steadying firmness. As was his supporting arm, beneath the heaving breasts that had seemed to fascinate most males far more than her mere achievements or self, from the moment she'd reached the age of maturity.

"…near thing, Miss Tresckow. Mightn't have pulled through without you. Hold still; I've got a medkit here."

Of course, this was the Suspension Bridge effect. Of course this was far from the ideal time or place to explore that bliss the poets spoke of – and that Ilsa Tresckow had largely discounted in favour of intellectual challenges, since some experiments in her early teens. Still, after all of the criminal, reckless and monstrous things she had done in the Shadows, for her ambition – could she not reach out and take a thing she so intensely desired? Before they all died horribly?

The number of other breathless female agents Richards had bedded was his own affair, and she herself had never calculated a use for her virginity. But she would make the choice calmly, not in a whirlwind of estrogen – and of course they all still had to get out of all this alive.

The last gunman thrust a combat knife at Fighter's femoral artery and hit her shoulder. The counter-punch snapped his neck. As Fighter fell to her knees beside Croce's body, Ilsa broke away from Richards and ran to her. She cast a much needed Heal; Susan clasped her outstretched hand in her own.

-0-

Dunbar was badly hit, but with a medkit he could walk. The other survivors were all tagged, at least, except Ptacek. Her dark eyes were like the fury of angels, as she grasped the throat of a gunman who was merely burnt half to death.

"Who sent you? Saeder Krupp? Bundswehr? Those Schockwellenrieter fragheads?

"…destroy the Agency," The man moaned. Eyes that Ptacek searched for reaction glazed over, "Revenge. Freedom. Destroy the Agency, des…!"

A sizzling noise. The head slumped.

"Brain burner chip." Ptacek spat, "Didn't want mages or deckers reading their heads, even dead. Sounds like they were brainwashed to the moon and back, too. Nothing to identify them at all. Except they knew we would be here, and that fragger on comms knew our names."

"A traitor? In the Agency?" Richards shook his head, "Who would do it? Who would have the chance?"

"Who wouldn't?" Ptacek's smooth face was grim as steel, "We've been too lax, too soft, too long. They'll be changes." She reached down and squeezed Susan's shoulder. "You did alright, Lei. Let's get out of here before anyone shows up. Take Croce too. We won't let those fraggers get any clues from her body."

Before Ilsa had even joined her, she and Susan had discussed exit plans – faking their deaths – if their chances looked better outside the Agency than in. Susan had almost mastered the Feigned Death technique. Ilsa had said she had a few ideas. They might have tried...but getting anything past Ptacek, the perfect agent, would have been impossible. Susan and Ilsa exchanged looks. They would have to return to the Agency, for now.

Only the attackers' mage, curiously, lacked a brain-burnt scent. He was also the only attacker without a datajack, but that was nothing extraordinary. Richards slung the corpse over his back, and gripped Dunbar's shoulder, as the dwarf limped doggedly after the team, whistling to keep his spirits up. Susan carried Croce's body in both arms.

-0-

Two hours before sunrise, the agents torched the civilian van they'd commandeered in an urban forest and walked the last mile to the park where their plane was due. The stealth transport came vertically down onto the grass, stubby blue flames upholding its slim black body. It was piloted by drone-control, for greater security, and four quiet sleek rotor drones filed out of the hold to secure the landing site. Normal procedure. Ptacek threw up her hand; the team halted.

"Dunbar? Jack in and scan the drones. Scan the plane. That voice on comms - only deckers have that much arrogant bulldrek."

"Never knew you cared." The dwarf Jacked into his Rig. The team waited. "Clean, chief. No viruses, no hostile deckers or riggers. Let's go home."

"Keep watching."

Rifle slung before her, alert down to the last microsecond of mission, Ptacek moved towards the plane. Still carrying the enemy mage's body, but with his gun drawn, Richards watched their backs. Fighter heard Dunbar, still monitoring the drones, still Jacked In, whistle a few notes of a tune she'd never heard. Before Ptacek could tell him to be quiet, everything happened very fast.

Dunbar convulsed, went rigid, then seized Ptacek's waist. Susan was certain the perfect agent never touched her weapon – she simply froze.

Then Susan watched the back blow out of Ilsa's head, as her glasses flew away. A drone coughed another silenced bullet into her clavicle as she fell backward to the earth.

Richards had frozen with Ptacek. Dropping Croce's body, Fighter threw herself into him. They hit the deck, as the Agency drones gunned down Ptacek and Dunbar.

Richards and Fighter broke apart and moved. He shot two drones down with one motion; she threw a stun grenade and his bullets smashed the other two.

Then Agent Jack Richards stood still, holding his gun out, and everything else visibly sagged from within. He stared at the bodies as if he had no idea what to do or say. Fighter quickly gripped his arm.

"If we get on that plane, it's going to crash, or blow us up! We don't have a decker. We need to run."

"The Agency…"

Blue eyes empty, Richards moved towards the bodies. Fighter moved faster, checked Ptacek quickly, shook her head.

"We need to run. Now!" Desperate, she clung to Richard's bicep,  imagined he was Harry, "Please. Jack. Don't leave me alone!"

A woman in distress brought Richards back to himself. He nodded, and then they ran towards the woods. Susan kept hold of Richards' hand, pulling him on, and prayed that Ilsa Tresckow was not dead. She was a wizard, somehow, she could not be dead!

Behind them, the plane sparked and burnt down to nothing, as it was designed to do. The drones burnt as well. Only the bodies of Farah Ptacek, Tyler Dunbar, Enrica Croce, the nameless enemy mage and Ilsa Tresckow remained.

Chapter Text

In strange rooms, in cities of strangers, alone and ashamed. That was how Susan spent the next five weeks. Nothing happened, just as terribly as Ilsa (who was not dead) had described.    

Richards had been adamant; the Agency drones that geeked their team had been hacked. Whatever secret nemesis lurked behind Darkchild, they had to get back and defend the Agency. Susan countered that poor Dunbar had cleared the drones. The Agency had judged them threats, thought them traitors. The Agency would kill them like Ptacek and Dunbar if they went back.

“Dunbar lied, Susan. He was the traitor. You saw him grapple Ptacek. Then the drones killed her and silenced him.”

“He was still jacked in, he could have been controlled! Somehow, I don’t know…he was your chummer! Why blame him, not the fragging Agency?” 

“If we go against the Agency, we’re dead. Look, sometimes they burn a maverick agent–please, don’t take that the wrong way-but not whole teams. Never proven loyalists. Never Ptacek! Never me…!”

His handsome face twisted, before Richards bit down on his outburst. His hand rested on Susan’s shoulder, as she sat on the bed in the Stuttgart hotel room where they’d stopped running. His voice was level, again, his blue eyes steadfast and strong.

“We need to be rational, right now, Susan. Sometimes, we lose people. You need to trust the Agency. Trust me.”

She wanted to trust. She wanted ...not to be alone.

The months, the long fight. Stretching her will and strength, until their team had died before her, and everything broke. She needed something, somebody, now…   

-0-

If they’d disappeared together after the Frankfurt bloodbath, the Agency would have hunted them as traitors, no question. They would have been traitors, in Richards’ eyes. Finally, he left Susan in Stuttgart and went to get back in contact with the Agency, alone. If it seemed they were clear, Susan would come back in. If she never heard from Richards, she would run as far and for as long as she could.

The anonymous hotel they’d barely slept in wasn’t secure–and nothing could have made Susan stay in that room. Richards had told her about a Safehostel. A squat which some Fixer would rent to two or three shadowrunning teams at once, all in town for a month or less on separate jobs. Susan spent the next week in the corner of a bare, unheated room that smelt like an unwashed locker. Watching trolls, orks and men in chrome and leather watch her, and reckon their chances. She couldn’t stop them staring at her body, growling something in German, or chuckling as they passed a synthol can. She just made it clear with her eyes that she would kill them, if they spoke to her wrong.

A ray of hope came, the morning she found her bank account emptied (She was certainly the first ever shadowrunner to think so, however crazed). She and Ilsa had planned for this, escaping the Agency by faking their deaths– which meant Ilsa was not dead. They’d shared account codes, in case only one of them could get out and needed all their money. Back home in Seattle, when they'd Run together, Susan had made sure they shared whatever they needed, and Ilsa had planned for any need that might arise (She'd had to teach the former rich-girl about surviving on a shoestring. She wasn't dead). Before Ilsa set foot in Alpha Base, they had planned to get out again; they were shadowrunners. She was not dead. 

Ilsa was a wizard, she was a genius, she’d talked about illusion magic. She’d never used it, never said she could–but she'd always had a plan. With all their money, she would solve all the mysteries; get them through alive. Susan could not have seen her shot through the head, then left her and ran. Pulling Richards away, not daring to even check her pulse...because she could not be dead. 

Obviously, when the Agency heard of Susan’s emptied bank account, they might guess that Ilsa was alive. To cover for her, Susan accused the Fixer who ran the Safehostel of ripping her off. Perhaps she beat the poor man harder than she had to, but it had been an awful week and she felt like she was going insane. She shook the Fixer down for walking-around money and fled to another foreign city. Miles from home, if home was anywhere. Before the luckless Fixer could quite reasonably send hitmen after the mad dragon lady who'd attacked and robbed him.

-0-

“Hoi, Susan.” As he rested on the end of her bed, in another hotel room, Harry smiled his hero’s smile, “I missed you so much, love. Every beautiful bit of you…but no slaps this time, okay? I wiped out the Yellow Lotus. I kicked the Jazz, and I never looked at another woman. All I wanted in the world was to come back to you.”

“You never looked at a girl? Really, Stud?”

“Maybe looked, but I did wipe out a major Triad in two months! And I love you. You’re so strong, so good, I’m so fragging glad you’re safe...”

Wearing nothing but her smile and her tears, Susan curled her thighs around a pillow. Hugged it fiercely against her heavy breasts.

“Harry, I fragged up so much. I couldn’t save Enrica. Couldn’t save them. Ilsa’s gone. And then I felt so bad, I needed you, he was there…I’m so sorry, sorry…I can’t…”

“Love, love, I’m here! Didn’t you forgive me so much?”

“Failed you. Failed everyone.”

“You did your best. You were so strong, and now I’m here. No more fighting. Just let me love you, Susan. My girl. My love. My home.”

He would hold her. His hands would glide down from the small of her back (as she ground her well-shaped rear against the mattress…), he would whisper love until she begged for his kisses. Her own mouth would run over every inch of her man’s body (not just the tip of her own finger…). His tongue would roll and tease her breasts until they sang. His thrusts would find her silky, sweetest spots...and then the years of silent love would burst, between her body and his! OhHarryloveyouloveyousorry. Please, don’t be dead. Come to me, please.

Then afterglow would fade, and leave her a miserable, impotent slag. Crouched in one corner of the hotel room she’d smashed up thoroughly in the first week.

Croce, Ptacek, Dunbar, all dead. Harry and Ilsa, gone. And Susan Shuang Lei, after her years of mental discipline and spiritual, Buddhist purity, could only pleasure herself like a caged monkey. But she was alone. She had fought, failed them all, nothing else she could do. She forced herself through her workout and Tai Chi every morning, if there'd ever been a time for it, it was now, but it wasn't enough. She was alone. She needed something…she'd failed.

Days after Richards went back, the Agency had reeled her back in too, with a message. There was still a traitor, it wasn’t her, but the situation was such that she couldn’t be safely flown back to Alpha Base. She'd been ordered to go to a pre-booked hotel room and remain there, until further orders came. Darkchild would be destroyed absolutely, whatever that required. She would be instantly eliminated, if she left the city or made contact with anyone.

She still thought of running to Hong Kong, to Harry, if she could only live long enough to protect him. But it would be too late, when the sniper’s bullet blew her out like poor, sweet, silly Enrica Croce, or her plane went down in central China, to take back a fatal mistake. Watchers, invisible walls, the worst imprisonment. She was a failure whose team were gone. A coward who couldn’t run. Perhaps all the deaths, horrors and waiting had finally broken something inside her. Perhaps it would be over tomorrow, when the Agency finally chose to kill her.  

 For Harry, she might still have tried to escape, but then his message came. One of the netmail dead drops they'd arranged, short and maddening;

Finished with Hong Kong. Need to lie low. Don’t try to find me or make contact. When I’m clear, I’ll find you. I love you, Susan, no matter what.

Two months. Nothing good could have happened in only two months. But Susan could do nothing, except pray and curse herself and dream.

-0-

“Jack…?” Susan had gazed into his eyes, trying to make connection, “How many of your friends has the Agency ‘burned’?”

“Don't know. Peck, Hong, Reeder…poor Kenji Mikami, the way he froze up…no one knows for sure. You just get a feeling, when it’s a purge.”

“Then why…how could you work for them? Loyally, all this time?”

“Because I wanted to stay alive,” Richards spoke soothingly, as if to a child, “Because the Agency does good work. Because in the Shadows I served a chaos of corporate interests, any of which could send Cleaners to geek my team, anytime. The Agency is the chillest, safest boss that Shadowrunners can hope for, Susan. You should appreciate that.”

“Frag. Nowhere is safe for us, is it? We’ll never be safe…”

Susan put her face in her hands. Richards carefully moved them away. 

“Susan, I swear I’ll protect you. We’ll make this right…”

Finally, he kissed her; all the strength and force of his being were in the moment. Before shock, trauma and longing had permitted Susan a thought, she had sunk beneath him onto the bed.

She’d been alone so long, since Harry had left her. She could forget all the nightmares, just once. Pretend it was Harry 's lips...and now his hands.  She wanted...

No. Harry had done the same, it had hurt her. They had promised. But she was already kissing him back…

Still, she said, No. She said it again, above a whisper. He didn’t stop. She tried to push him away, he caught her wrists – she realised he was stronger than her, and the terror hit. She probably couldn’t have fought him off, if Richards hadn’t realised what he was doing and recoiled. As soon as her arms were free, she punched him in the mouth.

“...if you weren’t a woman, I’d make you regret that.” He rubbed blood from his lips and glared.

“…I never said yes. I didn't want...! You, you…!”

His eyes were still unstirred, but now Susan saw the trembling in his jaw and shoulders. An agent whose secure world had been blown away. Who needed to make it sane again, in the only way he could think of.

“Look, you’re in shock. You're in no state to decide what we both need, right now, I have to decide for us both! You need to calm down, Susan, and trust me–”

“I need you to get out, right now. I don’t want to kill you...but I will.”

“Very well. I’ll go back to the Agency, alone. If you don’t hear from me again–”

“Just go!” Richards moved towards the door, “My graduation. You said you’d deserve to be shot if you did anything like this! Aren’t you even going to say sorry?”

Richards glanced back. Rubbed his jaw again. Sighed.

“Maybe that’s what I deserve, but we kill for money. Never apologise for anything. Maybe a bullet is what all of us deserve.”

Not Croce. Not Ilsa. She had to be strong. No love for shadowrunners, no time for idiocy or rest. All of her strength, all herself, to protect her friends...  

Somehow, someday. When she could get up from the corner of her room. Burning with need, burning with shame. Needing the only man who could forgive her, and kiss the failure from her lips and breasts. It was stupid, it was the wrong drekky world to be a virgin in a tower, pledged to one hero...but she was herself. She had shared a world of love, freedom and heroes with one man alone, before that nightmare. One man she could trust, and she would hold fast to him while she had life. 

They could only meet in dreams. But hadn’t they only had dreams, for so long?  

-0-

“Can’t say I like what you’ve done with the place,” Corelli, the Agency's surveillance man, ducked into the ruined hotel room and glanced sourly around, “Nor that I’m especially glad–”

“Susan! Oh, darling.”

Slipping past the troll, Sandra rushed in. Susan was glad to see her too. The Valentine agent hugged the adept deeply, whispered the comfort of shared sorrow. Embracing back, Susan's arms felt stronger already. Her legs had the power to hold her up, now there was another mission. She was re-joining the fight, and she would not let herself fail again.   

A Dr Jens Larssen of Saeder Krupp (Corelli explained) would be at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in London, the following week, for a research conference. Agent Sandra Creighton, in the guise of a freelance science journalist, would also be attending. She would gain access to Larssen’s hotel suite, and elicit all the information that her charms and Corelli’s listening devices could obtain. Fighter would be tagging along–

“–in case anything happens.” Sandra finished, hugging her again, “And there’s no one I’d rather trust with our safety, if something does happen.”

“No one I’d rather have something happen to!” Corelli growled. Fighter hadn’t thought he'd still be browned off about the Seattle mission, given intervening events, but it seemed like the sharp-suited troll never changed. It was another small comfort she clung to.    

“Who is Larssen?”

“An expert in Matrix science. Middle-aged, brilliant, exceptionally boring; but we hardly restrict our inquiries to personal netsites. He’s been known to wear different hats, covertly, one of which may very well be black. Anyway, our intelligence is that he was sufficiently involved in the Frankfurt fiasco to, at least, name the mastermind.“

“…Saeder Krupp attacked us? But why shoot Visser and her guards, their own people?”

“To save themselves a nyuyen? You do understand that they’re a Megacorp?” Corelli sighed, shovel-sized hands on his hips, “Nobody knows which way is up, Lei, which isn’t ideal in a drowning case. We’ve lost more agents, in Germany and elsewhere. More agents than that have been 'disposed of'. We had an idea that had happened to you, given your record–” Sandra squeezed Susan’s waist, “–but we don’t know who the remaining traitors are, or who in the world ‘Darkchild’ is. The Agency has crossed swords with almost every power in the Shadows...but we've beaten them all too, sometime or other. We’re going to finish this mission impeccably, follow every lead, and discover the truth. We’re going to travel to London by civilian transport. Miss Creighton will take a separate hotel room–”

“Before that, I need some time with Agent Lei.” Sandra broke in, “She’s been in the field alone, ever since Frankfurt. She needs time, even if it’s just an hour.”

“Do you realise our situation, Miss Creighton? A deadly crisis. We have no time for counselling, no time for breakdowns!”

“Yes, Sir, I'm aware. We must finish every missions, without wavering. We must become machines, to fulfil our potential...” Sandra stared up at Corelli, eyes biting and pure as mountain lakes, “But don’t even machines need love, sometimes?”

Corelli didn't seem too affected by Sandra's parted lips and heart-seizing distress, but he still sighed and went out. They heard his heavy pacing outside the room.

In an avalanche, Susan poured out the past five weeks, the Frankfurt bloodbath. Richards, Harry, Ilsa. Her sobs were like snarls. Sandra nodded gravely and held her hand. It was all she needed.

She knew she should have comforted Sandra, in return – later, she wished she had said something – but none of the elf lady’s hopes or fears showed on her pale, shapely face.

Once, in a tone that seemed playful, Sandra proposed that they escape from the window, evade Corelli, and run together. Susan immediately shook her head.

“For Anya, Orion and all the others – and Ilsa! – we have to close this mission. Find this Darkchild. Take them down.” She punched a fist into her palm, “Anyway, what would they do to Corelli? How far would we even get if we ran? Why do you think I stayed in this cage so long?”

“Darling, you were alone, then.” Sandra’s slim hand squeezed hers, the elf smiled bravely, “Anything's possible when there's two of us.”

Chapter Text

After a lonely flight, Fighter touched down in London town. The world's oldest metropolis, although there was a big wheel and a big clock instead of the Space Needle, reminded her more of Seattle's sprawl than Frankfurt's. A faint sea-scent under the smog and ozone. Rushing, bawling metahumans of every colour and country. The same blaring ad screens, with maybe a few more English slogans than Japanese kanji.

The Agency had certainly delivered on 'extensive travel'. Though Fighter would rather have lived in one place for a week without death as a roommate. She wished she could head down to London's Chinatown, with Sandra, Ilsa, and Harry. What she wanted, though, now and always, was to get through the mission. Get the truth behind Frankfurt, get hands round the throat of her team's killer, whoever the frag that was in the world.

Passing severe statues and blocks of brocaded stone that were suddenly like nothing in West Coast America, the windows of the Hyatt-Regency hotel finally towered above her in ranks. Past white pillars, in the light of chandeliers and soft blue screens, the entrance hall shone like glass. An otherworldly temple of big nyuyen. Agent Susan Lei of Redmond knew she would always look on such places as if from a different, barren world. Was it Redmond which was murderous, or this place that was lifeless?

"It's not the Ritz, you know." Corelli tutted behind her, adjusting his silk tie and cuffs, "Still, time to be putting on the Regency, with all due expediency."

It wasn't lost on Fighter that her hardest and only task in this mission, while Sandra put on a frock and went to bed with the enemy, would be spending three days in a hotel room with a troll. Corelli had shown no concern but security when he insisted on the bookings. He had never shown any interest in her or Sandra except as moving parts in a mission. Still, after what Richards had done, the prospect crawled in her throat.

No. She could do her job; Sandra would be doing hers. Even if the worst happened, she'd killed trolls before.

-0-

Hours before the conference, the hotel was humming with Corp bodyguards; also staff, loaded with luggage and exhibits. In a deliverygirl's polo shirt and visor, Fighter toted a cyberdeck, a computer and numerous plasma screens up to Corelli's suite. The troll was absorbed in setting his kit up for the next few hours. Fighter sat stiffly on a chair behind him. The bed was plush and white, but she wouldn't have felt comfortable.

"Look, change your clothes in the bathroom," Corelli ordered her, "Hang up my jacket while you're there – carefully! – and for pity's sake, close the curtains. I can hardly work with that great window at my back. I suppose, as a woman, you should take the bed. Although I will be doing all the work, I will contrive to squeeze myself onto the sofa."

"Take the bed, I don't mind."

"Oh? Thank you, I suppose."

Fighter told her own tension that it was idiocy. Corelli was a troll, that was it. He might be gay for all she knew. She asked him, tactfully as was possible; Corelli sniffed that it was none of her concern.

The room was bigger and whiter than the cheaper German hotels, but the cleaned, unlived facelessness was the same. Like the poor clones in that Denver lab, if bedrooms were people. Another strange room and another stranger.

"Anyway, that's the last of the security cameras deal with." Jacking out from his deck, Corelli sat back in his shirtsleeves, "Ah, it seems Agent Creighton has made contact."

Fighter stared over mountainous shoulder at the security feed from the grand functions room. It formed the main exhibition space for the conference, with gadgets, busy screens and dancing holo-presentations dispersed among parties of quietly chortling suits. With the banners of the triple-A Megacorps looming proudly above their research displays, Fighter had no doubts that smiles and handshakes cloaked more intrigue and vendetta here than any gangland summit.

There was Sandra, the Valentine agent, in an open-necked skirt suit. Nodding as Dr Larssen explained the shortcomings of Renraku's latest Knowbots. As London rain hammered the windows, her smile was soothing as tropical sunshine. Her laughter rang pure as a golden bell at an oldish joke. She moved very slightly closer to Larssen as he touched her arm, interest dancing in her eyes. The natural spark she conjured left targets happily stunned as a pig on a slab.

Her conversation was informed, insightful, and active without unfeminine self-assertion. Fighter had been quite wrong to expect oh-doctor-won't-you-please-explain, with some cleavage and wavy walking. Sandra displayed the wit and breadth of knowledge boasted by the highest classes of escorts and geisha.

It honestly didn't look like much, for all Fighter had thought and felt about Sandra's job. But that was the point; looks were a lie. Larssen seemed respectful, was not visibly repulsive, but Sandra would go to his room and his bed because she had no choice. Because he had done something. Because three agents and more (not Ilsa) were dead. And when Sandra had walked elegantly away (or less elegantly, if he liked it rough) with all the intelligence this silly old man could give them, he would probably be killed by his own employers. Fighter hoped he had done something worth death. Still, that was what Sandra was going to kill him with her kisses to determine.

She couldn't sit by and meditate. After a short, sharp argument, Corelli printed her a fake staff ID, and told her where to steal a waitstaff uniform.

"Do remember, Miss Creighton is a skilled shaman. Dolphin totem, I believe." The troll groused, "Your principal task here is to protect me."

Observing Sandra directly across the length of the exhibition room, using the waitstaff disguise, Fighter's trained eyes noted tension in the small of the elf's back. Lightning sideways glances, every time Larssen looked away. Sandra's eyes showed brief shock, when she noticed Susan, before a torrent of gratitude. Then they flashed back to the target, her smile charged.

Susan wished she could've ask the Valentine what she was feeling. If she could ever have understood, how Sandra could do what she did. She wished she could massage her shoulders, whisper in her ear, do anything for the mission and her friend.

She could only move innocently through the crowd, towards Sandra, with a tray of water glasses. Sandra accepted it almost without looking away from Larssen, and Susan moved quickly away. It was all she could do for Sandra, to make such a job a little easier.

-0-

For an evening with Dr Larssen in the hotel bar, Sandra changed into a high-necked blue dress that devastatingly complimented her slim elvish figure. Nothing obviously went wrong, but neither Larssen nor she suggested taking the evening further. Still watching on the cams with Fighter, Corelli supposed that Sandra knew her own job; tomorrow night remained. The troll rose, emerged from the bathroom in a tent-like silk dressing gown, and was soon snoring on the bed.

For multiple reasons Susan was lying sleepless on the sofa an hour later, when the soft knock came at the door. She heard slow, deep breaths.

"Sandra? I thought we couldn't, the plan–"

"You change plans, Susan. I…let me in. Please. I'm afraid…"

Susan only hesitated a moment; she could hear what her friend needed. As the door opened, Sandra buried her face in her chummer's hair. Susan guided her to the sofa. They moved softly as children up past bedtime.

"Just hold me." The elf whispered, "I'll be alright…just hold me." Susan put strong arms round her, rubbed her back. She waited for Sandra to speak.

"Everything's changed since Frankfurt, Susan. Darkchild, this thing that killed our friends, I don't think we're even trying to unmask it. We're running more missions than ever, but only to gnaw at the edges of Saeder Krupp, nothing else. We're at war, just as Darkchild told you it wanted!"

"Sandra...Darkchild could be Saeder Krupp. We could never fight SK head on, isn't this the only way?"

"It's not strategy, it's suicide! No one could fight Saeder Krupp from the Shadows – no one hides from the Golden Wyrm. It's a sword of fire above our heads. Everyone feels it, no one says a word…"

Susan felt it. The SK-marked nuclear aircraft carrier, above Alpha Base. Anya, Orion and everyone, blasted away. Hit squads hunting her, Sandra, even Ilsa, across continents and years. Runners who made war on Saeder Krupp got hunted; there was no escaping the shadow of a dragon.

It would have been useless to speak of Nagendra. The chrome-faced man could not be read, never shared his plans. Of course, he had a plan, but there was no reason to assume it involved their survival.

"The other agents, if it's hopeless, they must see...?"

"They see, but they don't speak." Sandra's thin shoulders slumped, "They want revenge for Enrica Croce, they have no leader without Ptacek. No one believes we can beat SK, but any agent who even thinks it too loud could be a traitor. So many agents have been purged, they're even recruiting more. Young Runners! Only Jack Richards could have led us all a different way. I pleaded with him, every way I could–" Susan remembered they had been casual lovers. She hugged the elf more tightly, "–but he hardly speaks, now. Nothing I did could bring him back from Frankfurt. There's nothing good left in the Agency, Susan. The fear, the bulldrek, the groupthink…it's worse than a Megacorp!"

"…why a Megacorp?"

Susan didn't know what else to say. But Sandra leaned back on the sofa, tucking her bare legs beneath her and seeming to grow calmer.

"I worked for Renraku as an oceanographer, for five years. Surprised?"

"A bit. Corelli said you were a Dolphin shaman."

"You're not going say I look too young?" Sandra's smile in the darkness was almost playful, "The first year was amazing. Sun, sea, and swimming over the Barrier Reef. Fascinating Bryozoa, beautiful clownfish. So many handsome surfers, I scarcely had time…but then two years of office work, in San Francisco. Reports, meetings, data analysis. All in quest of oil deposits or aquatic power sites, that would've spelt the end of that beautiful reef. For some reason, nothing was found, and I was exiled to a secretarial role in Wisconsin. Torturous tedium. The Dolphin is for sparkling, adventurous free spirits…when the Agency appeared, I jumped for them."

"…but, they wanted you as a Valentine. You're a shaman, a scientist, why...?"

"It was what they needed. And there was exotic travel, the interesting people..." Sandra grinned. Twisted a strand of Susan's long black hair around her finger, "...and did you know that dolphins really like sex?"

"…um, uh…" Susan felt her cheeks burn, "…I'm sorry. It's your choice, but I could never…are you, were you happy? Did you feel free?"

Sandra's eyes, dark blue in the darkness, seemed beset with sorrow but lit by an immortal inner joy. They also looked very wise, because they held so much Susan would never understand, and such an unstoppable weight of feeling. She couldn't look away.

"For the first year. The thrill of the chase, the handsome secret agents…" Her fingers rubbed Susan's hair, so gently, "…I felt free, and so alive, even if none of us were free in truth. I could keep closing my missions, fulfilling my potential…" Almost a sob, "…when I though that it was for the world. After wageslaving for Renraku, the cause meant something. I could save poor drowning souls, as a dolphin should. I had to put that above my own desires and do what every mission demanded. What every man demanded. And when that wasn't enough…when the meaning was gone, only the bad was left…I had to endure, because I couldn't escape. But I could endure, this long…because of love. A beautiful, brave young agent who was meant to be free, but still fought and endured so much..."

Susan couldn't fail to see, with everything laid out bare. Sandra's body trembled like a shipwreck survivor, her eyes pleaded…Susan's heart ached. She lent across and kissed Sandra on the mouth.

It felt softer than kissing Harry, for about a moment. Before red lips slid across hers, less forceful than irresistible, and their tongues moved together. After several seconds, Sandra pulled away.

"Oh…you are straight. Susan, why…?"

"Because I choose to." Smiling, face burning, Susan put her hand on Sandra's cheek, "Because we can be free."

"Couldn't you…just once?"

"I'm sorry. That's all I've got. We need to get through this mission–I know you can do it–and then we'll find a way to save our friends. If Richards won't lead a mutiny, I will."

"Oh, my Fighter…" Sandra breathed, before she left, with a last sad and playful smile, "My femme fatale."

-0-

Susan found she could sit on the bed the next morning. She even tested the springs a little, as Corelli stayed hunched over his screens.

"So…were you always a troll?" She finally probed, "Or did you, uh, Goblinize?"

"The term is Awaken." Corelli turned, his thick brow knitting with displeasure that surprised her, "And why do you ask? Do you think I would rather be a human than a troll, or somesuch, because I do not drag around a club and make ug noises?"

"I didn't mean that. You just never seem happy to talk about yourself. And you know trolls don't do those things."

"No. Trolls can do worse things, as you well know," Corelli shuddered, then growled, "Look, maybe I was born into a Boston Brahmin family, who disowned me at thirteen when I Awakened. Maybe I was born in the Redmond Barrens and clawed my way out. Whatever the case, the way I dress or speak, and the reasons thereof, are my choices. My own business."

Fighter smiled at the back of the troll's head. Maybe Corelli wasn't so bad. Maybe bringing all the different agents together, wresting control from Nagendra and Oldfield, was not impossible.

On Corelli's screens the second day of the convention was in full swing. Sandra was back at Dr Larssen's side, in a presentation on the A.I.s of tomorrow that seemed notably dull. The happy couple would slip away to Larssen's hotel suite early as possible in the evening. Giving Sandra plenty of time for unguarded conversation, and subtly dispersing Corelli's bugs on everything from clothes to tablets.

Evening came. Fighter couldn't see Sandra on any camera. Nor Larssen, which could only mean she was in.

Thirty minutes passed. None of the bugs, including the microimplant behind Sandra's ear, had begun to transmit. Corelli had begun to grind his fangs.

"Something could have happened." Fighter burst out, "Can't we–"

"An interruption at this point could be awkward. 'They also serve who only stand and wait'."

Further minutes passed. Then Corelli checked the camera feeds, and gave a sharp intake of breath.

"Ah. You finally caught on."

The synthetic voice, Darkchild. It shot Fighter to her feet, lips drawn back.

"Hello, Agent Lei." From their own computer, the voice slid out, "It seems that we can finally begin."

-0-

The feeds from several external cams dissolved. They had been fed a loop. By the hotel's rear exits, in the bulky shadows of their APCs, squads in yellow-black armour had stacked up. Submachine guns up, jackboots poised–Knight Errant, prepared to breach.

Within the hotel, Sandra walked out of Larssen's suite, listening to a comm. She glanced up wistfully into the camera, as if bidding Susan farewell, before starting to run.

"DAMNATION!" Corelli's fists shook, "Never trust an elf!"

"Or a woman. Or a shadowrunner. Or an agent who lies to men she lies with. Clichés so conveniently remove the need for thought, do they not? For instance, 'The traitor Sandra Creighton will receive a traitor's reward.' How about that? No need to thank me."

In lockstep, black armoured gunmen – the same as Frankfurt – stepped out of rooms throughout the hotel. As the Knight Errant teams poured through the back doors, more black gunmen crashed through the windows upstairs. Fighter watched them cut through the hotel security. Fire on the KE pawns as they met. She heard them, smelt the blood and cordite, all around the plush, clean room where panic clawed at her throat.

They were going to kill Sandra. Silence her, the traitor. Which meant she knew something, about Darkchild, Frankfurt, Croce, Ptacek, Dunbar…Susan could not stop the chain of thoughts that strangled her breath.

"Why?" Fighter breathed it out like a curse, "What do you want? Who the frag are you?"

"I want more than you can imagine, Agent Lei. Revenge. Freedom. Initially, the destruction of the Agency…"

Corelli had been scribbling on a pad; he thrust it in Susan's face. They needed help from the Agency, comms and phones weren't safe; he was going to jack in. If he even twitched once, she had to pull him out.

Susan knew Corelli was a craftsman, no great decker. Darkchild – hacking Agency planes and drones, brainwashing armies of gunmen – was glaringly unstoppable in cyberspace. But if Corelli jacked out as soon as the monster appeared, he might identify their nemesis. Find the truth.

"You're not a field agent," Susan found herself gripping his huge arm, "You don't have to do this."

"…I find that I must." Corelli hesitated a moment, as more gunfire sounded outside. Then he raised one claw above his cyberdeck, and seized the Jackpoint with the other, "Watch me, Lei. Watch for the very second,"

Then he Jacked In. His vast body shook, then settled. Susan fixed her eyes on his neck, let her Ki flow down her arms. Speed, speed, fastest, calm, a clear lake….on a monitor, black gunmen were falling back before a KE breach team, one floor below. She glanced back at Corelli as he twitched, and her hand blurred as she pulled his Jack.

Correli slumped off his chair, shoulders heaving with dumpshock. Susan rubbed his back, waited to hear the truth. But when the troll looked up she saw empty eyes, before a wide brown claw shot out towards her neck.

-0-

Susan flew back. Stumbled into the bed behind her. Corelli was on her with animal, mindless speed – a troll's simian reach, a troll's strength, around her neck. She couldn't scream that this was not him – he was a dandified egghead, no monster, himself. Nothing left of her to scream, but choking terror and the fight. Her fingers clawed back his thumb and wrist pressure-point, back from her strangled windpipe. The troll's weight pinned her legs, as he forced her against the bed. She knew she could not break his grip. Corelli's eyes were still empty as hollowpoints.

It lasted two minutes; any longer and he would have broken her like a twig. If she hadn't targeted the spot beside his elbow, slipped out one of two hands preserving her throat in a deadly moment, and punched until something went crack. The claw was gone; she rolled away, choking her guts out.

Corelli stood still as a tower. Perhaps the brainwash had been incomplete, perhaps the pain broke through, perhaps she saw light, very briefly, in his eyes. Then the troll turned away; charged at the window and through. In a chaos of glass, metal and brocade curtain, his great body plummeted and smashed into the pavement far below.

Fighter didn't understand. She didn't even know how a mind could be wiped out, stolen, by a machine. Cyberspace was another alien world to her; a fresh horror. Corelli could have explained to her. Told her why he had died. Killed himself, to save her…?

No, he hadn't even liked her. Susan suspected, hoped, that Specialist Anthony Corelli had died to remain himself.

The black gunmen; brainwashed to the moon and back. Memories, minds, were just data, Ptacek had said. She had frozen up, impossibly, before she died, so had Richards, so had Kenji Mikami–no, no, none of them had been jacked in. Dunbar had been jacked into his Rig. He had grappled Ptacek's arms before the drones shot them. With eyes, if she had seen them, she knew, empty and dull as Corelli…

Frag! The Agency, simsense training. Up to a quarter of the agents jacked in around the clock! If Darkchild got into their system, all those agents would only rise up with empty eyes. Worse than any slaughter, before Lofwyr had lifted a talon!

"Specialist Coreli has jumped from a window." Only a moment had passed, before the voice oozed out again, "That is fascinating. Complete knowledge eliminates the possibility of prejudice, yet I would never have expected it of the troll…"

Susan realised that she was slumped before a shattered, open window. Barely, she rolled aside, before the sniper's bullet hit the wall where she'd been.

"A pity. Your continued existence is the result of sub-par shooting, as of now, rather than any quality of your own. Please try a little harder not to die, Agent Lei. There are many more games I hope you will join me in."

A troll had forced her down. Almost killed her – but she was alive, and she was furious. She had never hated anything like that voice of the smug stealer of souls, and all of its tools and minions.

On one of poor Corelli's screens, a titan water elemental was blasting back Darkchild's gunmen in the functions room; Sandra would be near. On another, the Knight Errant breach team was heading toward the room where Susan was. They were in the corridor outside.

Fighter heard the jackboots pounding. Grinned, rose up, and kicked the door open. The edge swung out and smashed the lead knight's visor like a flying guillotine.

-0-

Fighter came out low, almost across the floor – unfolded, spun, kicked up to snap a neck. She ducked behind the swinging door, smashed a kick straight through it. Another KE Pawn folded up into his ruptured midriff.

More Knight Errant Pawns down the corridor, more on the main stairs. Battered by the fight to even reach their targets, but still grimly aiming their Heckler-Kochs. For every good lawman ripped apart by superhuman scum, hold fast. Geek the shadowrunning creeps.

In the corridor behind her, two Pawns. They'd come up the emergency stair, before wedging the exit shut with a fireaxe. Back into the hotel room, the window? No; the snipers were there, and she had to get to Sandra.

As Fighter moved, another door swung open. A vague old man poked his head out, with a white moustache and dressing gown. An alert KE man shot him down, before he could even ask what the devil was all that banging?

Fighter ran. With blazing automatics and an innocent corpse behind her, a long scream burst from her lips. One Pawn was too unmanned to fire at all, the other got off one shot. Then Fighter swung up her fist; another one down. Kicked off the wall, bullets punching into her Kunei suit's back. Dropped her elbow into the other Pawn, they both fell sprawling. Rolled, kicked back, sprinted for the emergency staircase with all superhuman speed.

A drop kick broke through both door and fire axe, as bullets flew over her body. Her twisted leg beneath her uncoiled, launched her roll down the stairway so fast she struck her head. One bullet had got through her armour as well. She had no Medkits, but the hotel would have an infirmary. She staggered up and raced away. Infirmary first, then the conference room and her traitor-friend.

-0-

The hotel was a warzone now, between Knight Errant, Darkchild, Corp bodyguards and Hyatt-Regency guards, ringing with gunfire and reeking of smoke. As she ran, Fighter saw more guests and staff lying in blood, casualties of either Darkchild's psychopathy or KE's shoot-first doctrine. She punched her way through a few knots of hostiles, dodged round others. She propped one injured woman up and gave her a medkit, but saw little else she could do. Perhaps she hoped that Sandra would get away from her. But it seemed the Dolphin shaman had chosen to hole up rather than run out into a sniper bullet.

Sandra flung her bare arm, with Hastened speed, over a barricade of chairs. Her Waterbolt blasted one black gunman to the carpet. Her second bolt hit, but only staggered; answering bullets struck her body. The elf collapsed, a Heal spell fizzling in her palm. When she gazed up, it was into a gun barrel.

Then the gun whipped round. Knocked Fighter's thrown knife from a face, but then the adept's sprinting feet had closed. Two gunmen. She punched one aside, leapt and span. Her kick broke a skull like an egg; another low kick snuffed out the fallen man as he raised his head. Black hair fanned out, then settled, around her lovely and unyielding face.

No more weakness, no more despair. She was Lei Qiang's daughter, 4000 years of unarmed death. A fighting angel. She stooped down beside Sandra and looked into her eyes.

"I won't ask why. I think you told me, last night. Just tell me what you did, and who for."

"I called Saeder Krupp," The elf's words quietly trickled out, "On a stolen phone, last night. Before I went to your room….I just couldn't bear it anymore, the fear. The certain death…all those missions, the death inside. SK sent Knight Errant to get me out, I knew the Agency would kill me if I ran. Kill you, and Corelli, anyway, for security…I was insane. I knew Darkchild might tap my call to SK, but I didn't know it would move so fast! I didn't know–!" Sandra's desolate gaze travelled over the wrecked hotel, the bodies. She sobbed and coughed, "I'm sorry. Sometimes, when the ship is burning, you can only save yourself…"

"What about Frankfurt? Darkchild?"

"No. That's all I did, call Saeder Krupp! Or why would Knight Errant be here? I swear by the Dolphin's smile…and sea-spray in the sun…I was a loyal agent for two years, until yesterday evening. I don't know anything about Frankfurt…Darkchild…but, I think…"

"What? Why does Darkchild want you dead?"

Sandra trembled on the floor. A shipwrecked maiden, bleeding out on a slab. She finally spoke.

"…Susan. I think Darkchild is the Agency."

It was insane. The Agency was destroying itself...? Yes, by diving into the war that Darkchild had provoked. Hadn't that fragging voice even sounded something like Nagendra? Didn't watchers from the Agency shadow every mission, reporting indiscretions and eliminating risks? Who watched the watchmen, unless they were brainwashed, living drones? Susan gazed at the black nameless, bodies; pictured them in Toyko, Boston, Denver. Seattle, Hong Kong, Frankfurt. Watching her, watching Sandra, until the chrome-faced man grew tired of his writhing chessmen.

Moving rapidly, Susan attached a Medkit to Sandra's chest. The elf stared up at her in a daze.

"…I almost got you killed. I betrayed everyone…"

"No, Sandra." Susan squeezed her hand, "You betrayed yourself, for years, but no more. If you want to make anything up to me, just live free."

"Did I ever mention…" Sandra gazed up, as if at a Valkyrie, "…that I always loved you, Fighter?"

Trust. Love against everything. The precious connection Susan had needed more than light and peace. In Stuttgart, in Hong Kong, for what felt like forever. But there was nothing to be done with it, except to clasp bloodstained hands and walk away. Knight Errant would be coming for Sandra, to bring her to Lofwyr, her new boss. Susan did not expect to ever see her again.

-0-

Perhaps Knight Errant's thronging reinforcements had cleared out the snipers surrounding the Hyatt-Regency. Perhaps Fighter was just too fast. She ran through everything, to twisting alleys full of rubbish and nothing. After running until her hands shook, as if through an endless tunnel of darkness, she sat down on a trash can. Wondered where in the world she could go, how she could stay alive, ahead of both Saeder Krupp and the Agency.

She'd never been trusted with the location of Alpha Base. Harry had told her not to look for him. But did she have to listen to that idiot, when she had never needed him more…?

"Guten Abend, Susan. You look as well as usual, I suppose. Apologies for, well…"

As if by magic, Ilsa stood in the alley ahead. Her face looked a little battered, her eyes even more serious, and Susan threw her back into the wall with the force of her hug.

"WIZ! I…I…where have you been?"

"A wizard is never late, nor is she early. She arrives precisely–"

"Bulldrek! I needed you an hour ago, I needed you a month ago..." Susan grinned through unstoppable tears, "How did you survive? And what have you been doing?"

"A rather particular illusion – I'll explain everything later, trust me. I'm sorry I couldn't precisely give a warning, but I suspected you would put faith over ocular evidence. As for my activities....a trip down the rabbit hole, you might say? I have more answers than you even have questions. I'm afraid it took all your money and more, however."

"You can owe it!" Susan stepped back, still grinning, "How did you find me? Have you got a safehouse here, or…?"

"Susan. I'm sorry about this."

Then the fair-haired KE officer stepped out behind Fighter. Discharged a Defiance Super Shock into her back. Susan crashed down into darkness at Ilsa's feet.

Chapter Text

In no-longer pretty cities there are fingers in the kitties,

There are warrants, forms and chitties and a jackboot on the stair.

There's sex and death, and human grime, in monochrome for one thin dime,

At least the trains all run on time, but they don't go anywhere.

They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway,

They say that life's a game and then they take the board away.

They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story,

And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret…

–V for Vendetta, Alan Moore

The quiet, grey church of St Dunstan, scarred by everything from Puritan iconoclasm to acid rain, still boasted a shadow-ribbed vaulted ceiling and a crucifix above the altar. With Sixth World church attendance in freefall, and a mysterious bad smell to boot, it had been selected as discreet venue for an informal conference.

Ilsa and Fighter both stared at the great crucifix from the pews. Fighter was restrained with arm-cuffs, leg-irons and a shock collar. She was only staring because she did not wish to look at Ilsa. An armoured Knight Errant squad were sat behind them, including a mage, a Conjurer, and the crop-haired blonde officer who had tased Fighter. He had crossed himself as they entered the church. Susan did not care for the way he looked at Ilsa at all.

"That's your god up there, right?" She finally snapped at the mage, "Missionaries with opium and all that?"

"I count religion but a childish toy," Ilsa intoned, "And hold there is no sin but ignorance. Machiavelli."

"Really? I'd say backstabbing–"

"Ignorance kills. Ignorance damns." Ilsa shut her eyes. Fighter saw again that her face was both battered and hardened, "Try to understand; I had to assist in your arrest to save both our lives! if I had been beaten to death and thrown out with the trash, on a point of useless pride...how would you feel about that, now?"

"Drekky, I guess. How do you feel now?"

"…I chose to do what I did."

Ilsa looked away. Fighter leaned after her.

"They hurt you, didn't they? They didn't…?" Ilsa shook her head, "Good. If they had, I would've killed some of those pigs with my teeth!" This was shouted back at the KE men. One went to activate the shock collar; the blonde officer stopped him. Fighter turned back to Ilsa, "Aren't they going to kill us anyway? As soon as–?"

"–you give them enough reasons?" Ilsa's eyes flashed behind her glasses, "Listen. Be quiet, and we will at least get out of here alive. For my revenge, for all I've done, I do not intend to die yet."

"You've got a plan?"

"Somewhat. Look, what course should a rational actor take when they are hunted, and their enemy sheltered, by the most powerful Megacorp on Earth? Gather allies, fight back, and inevitably die? Or make a deal–?"

The doors of the church rumbled back. Before the outstretched arms of a tall man, with a mane of white hair, dressed in a rich red coat by the very finest of Milanese tailors. The hour was late, and his shadow on the ground reached down the nave. It was – he seemed to be – an inhumanly big shadow.

As he passed through the church like a pagan king, and took a pew across from Fighter, she saw that his eyes were like pale gold. And she felt the power – magical, physical, mental, blasphemously, spiritual – that filled the vault above them and pinned her to the cold seat like a mouse.

She barely noticed the suited bodyguards file in behind. Sandra was with them, unbound but unsmiling, holding something…but then the golden-eyed man spoke, and she listened.

"Good evening, meine Damen. I am Hans Brackhaus, and I speak for the great dragon Lofwyr. Would you three ladies care to account for your movements on a certain night, almost two months ago? When five valued employees of Saeder Krupp were gunned down in the street, by parties that may or may not be unknown to me?"

-0-

Six weeks earlier

Ilsa's decision to jump ship in Frankfurt by faking her death had been so shamefully impulsive, she could barely call it a decision. After all she'd done to gain information on the Agency and its people, she hadn't yet got nearly as much as she'd hoped. It was no ideal moment, she had meant to hang on with Susan, a little longer – but then the drones had become a firing squad, and it had been like her first Shadowrun. Her stomach had given out.

Drones were immune to mental illusions. An electronics hex would have deceived them, but not Richards. Newly developed physical illusions, however, could shift the light waves before and behind her head to create the passable moving image of a gunshot, entry and exit. Deceiving anything that used optics, as she threw herself to the ground. An exquisitely complex spell for what it achieved, which justified in itself all the practise that had been necessary.

Taking a genuine bullet from the drones as she went down had been quite the mishap, but Richards had removed the threat. Then Susan had pulled him away almost immediately, so that Ilsa could Heal herself and run. Whether by instinct or insight, Susan had proved herself again a treue kameradin, her chummer, a better woman.

But Susan was still in the Agency. With a SK and Darkchild closing in, with a hidden traitor, Susan could do nothing but wait to die on a meaningless mission. If Ilsa was free from that (she thought, as a Ripperdoc fixed her arm before scanning for trackers inside and out), that meant she had to find all the Agency's secrets. Where had it come from, who truly controlled it, and to what end? Who was their hidden enemy? Knowledge, as always, was power. Against Saeder Krupp the Agency's fall was assured. To get Susan and her chummers out, before the crash – and to seize intelligence for which SK might clear her name and grant her revenge – it was imperative that she moved rapidly.

The net-contacts she'd obtained in the Schockwellenreiter, months ago, could only speak of the Agency with rage and loathing. What truly infuriated these cybercrusaders for truth, regrettably, was that they knew less of the Agency than Ilsa. In exchange for what she knew, they did offer her an introduction. A master decker, a death-or-glory anarchist who might be game for any mad quest. Monika Schaefer of the Kruezbasar, Berlin.

Getting over the wall around Berlin, travelling on a second bank account the Agency might not have linked to her name, proved simple. The City Waiting to Die (as respectable Germans had called it since the Anarchy began in '39), was a gloomy nest of broken buildings soaked in graffiti. Starving anarchists huddled in a web of U-bahns and flyovers. Her respectable parents had called it worse than the SOX, but Ilsa had lived in the Redmond Barrens.

An earnest little gallery with a tarpaulin for a roof. A bold scrap-metal statue thrown up by a local artist, and the Turkish coffee shop ahead. It all gave Ilsa a glow of pride in her nation of poets and heroes, above the standing desperate maelstrom that was her rage, her pride and her shame.

Revenge was like a disease. Other people couldn't see or understand the facts that had stolen her life and determined its course in her place. Whatever she did, wherever she was, was not where she should be, and no one could bring justice but herself. She could too easily have forgotten her past, her rightful place, but if she lost herself in the Shadows she would have nothing.

Monika Schaefer was not at the Turkish café. Her Fixer, a grey, bespectacled man called Amsel, was rather less compliant than the iron statue. She would get no help, she would be wise to leave Berlin. She would leave the Kruezbasar district, now.

Friendless and hunted in Berlin, Ilsa racked her brains as she headed for the U-bahn steps. Then a woman in black leather, with a dyed stripe through blonde hair, brushed past and put the note into Ilsa's hand that sent her down the rabbit hole.

To even get the legendary info-broker Alice onto a screen in front of her, Ilsa needed more nyuyen than she had, which meant emptying Susan's account. She knew her chummer; the adept would manage, and maybe even come up with some excuse for the Agency. It was probably unavoidable that the Agency would track her down in time, unless she hid in a cellar. And there had been a Saeder Krupp kill-order on her since she had fled Heidelberg for Seattle. For any number of reasons, she needed answers quickly.

In a derelict U-bahn station, Ilsa slotted her credstick into a battered computer terminal. The image of a woman made of hard angles and bright ribbons resolved itself – Alice never appeared outside a screen, and if Ilsa's suspicions were true she could not (Alice Haeffner, dead with the Echo Mirage team in '29. A digital echo, a ghost in the machine). She came to the point with unsettling speed.

"I will tell you all you wish to know, and all I know of the Agency, for 30,000 Nyuyen. I will inform you without charge that Saeder Krupp and Knight Errant both know you are in Berlin, and I have no desire to spend the rest of my existence being dissected in a corporate facility. This station is surrounded with spycams; if I take issue with any Corper operative within a block of this terminal, it will be instantly fried, and I will be gone. You will still be liable for my full fee, plus an additional 20% idiot tax."

30,000 nyuyen meant shadowruns. A team and a fixer, four or five serious Runs. All to prove hunches, uncover an exit that might be locked and bolted – but the only alternative was failure. And executing huge, hopeless projects against frightening deadlines was a commonplace of academia. Ilsa walked imperiously to the nearest Shadows bar.

-0-

Nobody had work for her. She knew there were shadowruns in the lawless quicksand of Berlin, but teams that should have fought each other to employ a Heidelberg mage repeated the lines of Herr Amsel. Leave Berlin. Her fearsome analytical manner, and some demonstrations of her magic, at least ensured that no tailing gang of knife-thugs left her oozing life on a corner. But work, let alone for 30,000 nyuyen, seemed mysteriously impossible.

Until, almost two weeks after Frankfurt, the man walked up to her. A young street samurai, with blonde hair down his neck and a ready smile, he sat at the table where Ilsa was drinking alone.

"So. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Waiting to die," Ilsa glanced up from the worst beer she'd ever tasted, "Just like Berlin."

"In such a city, chummer, can't life be made a cabaret?"

"More like a dance of death."

"The Seventh Seal, now? Are we going to trade quotes all night, right down to Casablanca, or do you want to Run the Shadows?"

He knew Bergmann. He knew the appellation for Berlin that most Germans thoughtlessly mouthed came from an American film of the 1970s. Ilsa felt light headed – frankly, intrigued. She noted the young shadowrunner's healthy arms and chest, under the Kevlar pads of milspec armour. Her hero…except there were no heroes, in the Shadows. Ilsa made sure that expression was serious, leaned forward at the angle she calculated would show a man something to interest him, and asked for a name.

"I go by Paladin."

An intriguing handle for a shadowrunner. And his eyes had barely dropped from her face. Blue eyes and fair hair; striking, beside black armour. He looked to be mid-twenties – she'd expected that older men would be her type.

"Do you have a team? A Fixer? A Run, soon?"

"A Fixer and a Run; you're the team. I have enough nyuyen for two more Runners. I'll admit I'm just starting out, but I worked five years in Security. We should be able to plan the Run between us."

"One more question."

"Why the switch in sides?" Paladin paused to knock back a draught of the synthol beer, wincing, "I suppose I got tired of being the one cop who wanted to make the world a safer place, rather than shake down food stalls and kick SINless heads. I know Shadowrunners aren't choirboys – but we're honest, aren't we?"

"Honestly? Call me Wizard." Flicking her short red hair from her eyes, face still chill above her quickening heart, Ilsa raised her glass. "To…a mutually satisfying association?"

"Prost," He clinked glasses with her, smiled with reassurance, "Looking at you, kid."

-0-

Two nights later, their first Run went off almost without a snag. Paladin swiftly recruited a troll bruiser, Sig, and human decker, Fuchs. Green Runners, but happy to work with Ilsa. She and Paladin did all the planning together–his insight and patience left her very satisfied. They had only briefly disagreed over a detour he had insisted on, which would eliminate any chance of having to geek a cleaning crew on their way in. Susan would have approved.

And a headstrong girl like Susan – Ilsa keenly felt–would have voiced her feeling and seized any chance to turn a planning session into an exploration of passion. The perfect man, it seemed, at the very worst time. At Heidelberg, she had sacrificed love, with family and friendship, for the untiring experiment and calculated networking that had put her at the top of her year. She had expected to keep sacrificing, as she climbed the academic ladder to its apex, before everything had collapsed. She had fled into the Shadows alone, but that was what she had always been.

There were sacrifices in the Shadows, merely to stay alive. Sacrifices for revenge – her first friendship, with Susan, had almost been burnt that way. But Nietzsche still had the best words for a superhuman. Shadowrunner, thinker, avenger, woman – be all she was, whatever it took, without regret. She would sacrifice only what she chose to. She would take her desires as far as she could, whatever stood in their way.

The datasteal target was a secure Saeder Krupp lab, ironically. Disrupting the mana barriers round the server room, without sending an instant alert to their wagemage caster, was a challenge Ilsa felt like she had been born for. It was the perfect crime, until their decker tripped a Matrix alarm. Planning, however, meant planning for slip-ups; Ilsa had welded one security door to its frame, and set a delayed fireball trap for the guards that piled in through the other. Paladin shot just as coolly as he had planned, and they were homeward bound in their van within fifteen violent minutes. The troll Sig couldn't stop chortling at how the Security pig-dogs had stared, before they'd burnt. Paladin laughed unwillingly along, as Ilsa could see, for the sake of the team.

Before she slept, after all her thoughts of him, it was Paladin who came to Ilsa's room in the safehouse. He could see that she was troubled. For her own sake, and the team's, if she could speak about it at all…? They had just met, they were both Runners, but somehow, he cared for her. He had to know…

"…you do, don't you? My dear Paladin, I would tell you all about the Agency – I would give you all you want, and more – but wouldn't that be rather stupid of me? When you're an undercover operative for Knight Errant?"

-0-

Paladin drew back, straightened up, brought his heels together. He really was a fine man, Ilsa still thought. With a short regulation haircut, the poster-perfect Knight Errant stormtrooper.

"I see. What was it?"

Ilsa sat back, at her bedroom desk, and threw one leg over her knee. Moments like this made it all worthwhile.

"It was the right idea to work your security training into your backstory, rather than conceal it. Many shadowrunners are ex-security, but very few reveal their pasts so readily. Then your whimsical quotations, calculated to interest me. Your concerns about collateral damage, deliberately opposite to the reputation of KE's jackbooted thugs. Your wish to 'make the world a safer place'; Ares Macrotech must have blasted you with their company slogan by day and night. Of course, 'Paladin' was a rather glaring clue from the start."

"I admit I cribbed up on quotes, but that's no slogan. It's my reason I do this work and risk my life. Anyway, none of that was proof, so I suppose you paid a decker to investigate me?"

"Indeed. Deckers are one reason why Narcs virtually never target shadowrunners, only protest groups and smugglers. Another reason; even in the Flux State, the shadowrunners already work for the Megacorps. No team in Berlin would consider hiring me, because they all knew that Knight Errant was close on my trail, from every side. I'd imagine that most of the Berlin Runners even know you're with KE. They have more to gain by letting you operate freely, when I am your sole target."

"That's just how it is." Paladin shook his head, smiled ruefully, "So much for the Shadow code of honour, hm?"

"Question?" Ilsa shot back, "Why hasn't an HTR team kicked the door down, and dragged me off to a black site by my hair? Why this farce, rather than the mindlessly efficient brutality you usually enjoy – I'm sorry, employ?"

"Don't underestimate jackbooted thugs, Ilsa Tresckow. We were investigating your 'Agency' within an hour of the Frankfurt bloodbath and tracked you from the RipperDoc in Frankfurt to Berlin. Facial recognition software linked you to the Heidelberg Incident two years ago. Apart from that, we took two of the black Frankfurt gunmen alive in Hamburg, last week; implants burnt out their brains. Then we lost six of our people, taking an Agency safe house in Paris. When we broke in, their decker was calling for help, jacked in. He started screaming and singing like a madman, before his brain bled out. The two agents with him ate their handguns, that same moment." His head shook, unconsciously, "With an enemy that silences its own people like that, we chose to switch up our tactics."

If KE knew her name, her family – Ilsa's flash of panic quickly settled. Her father, Bundswehr Colonel Ernst Christian Tresckow, headed only a cadet branch of the storied Von Tresckow line, but still Prussian old guard. Not someone Knight Errant could easily drag off under Night and Fog. The same went for her mother and little brother.

"Why are Knight Errant involved in this? Your parent company is Ares Macrotech, principal rivals of Saeder Krupp in energy and aerospace."

"I'd like to say Saeder Krupp employed us for skillset," Paladin's lip twitched, bitterly, "But the many joint ventures between Ares and SK are principally for spying on each other and passing false intelligence conveniently."

"Definitely no honour among Corpers." Ilsa smiled, and circled her foot in the air, "It so happens that I have already deserted the Agency. I am in the process of obtaining intelligence against them; I cannot see that it would run contrary to your own mission, if you continued to aid me. I may even let slip some of what I know already, with persuasion–"

"No. Ilsa, my comrades are fighting a murderous unknown, and dying, right now. Knight Errant, SK, Ares, they're your enemies, but the people are just people. Like me, like you. I mean to protect you, Ilsa. But you have to give up everything you have on the Agency, now."

"Oh no. I'm not going to give up control by walking quietly into a Knight Errant cell. I'm not going to give up all I know, when knowledge is all I have to trade for my life. I know what your comrades do to captured shadowrunners, Paladin. I can promise that you will never take me alive by force."

Sparks danced, as Ilsa spoke, in her hidden palm. In the heart of the Flux State, there would be no HTR backup outside. The Haste spell she'd jacked herself up with, before Paladin even entered, would render his taser useless.

She watched his hand fall guilelessly to his side. Hover and tense near the holster of his Ares Predator. She glared warningly into Paladin's pure blue eyes. After some long seconds of silence, the KE man threw his hands up.

"Alright. Until you get this new intelligence, we keep Running. What else?"

"I'd like to try and draw the Agency out – I'm sure they're tracking me, if you could." Ilsa's voice was deceptively calm and brisk, "There's a coffee shop in the next Kiez, which seemed well-appointed and quiet. If we were to openly pass a few evenings there, together, before our next Run, it might bait an Agency team for your people to grab."

"It might get you killed. Or put civilians at risk."

Paladin. Knight Errant. A pig and a liar, Susan would have called him – but truth was there to be found. Ilsa fixed her eyes on his, and her voice had never been more serious.

"I said it was quiet – you could almost call it private. And with sufficient reason, I'm as ready to risk my life as you are."

Chapter Text

The little coffee place converted from a derelict apartment was ringed with plainclothes Knight Errant, waiting for the Agency hit squad that never came. But apart from that, Ilsa’s first date went off quite well. Paladin treated her with impeccable courtesy, even pulling her out a chair – probably to charm her off guard, alas. To a KE lawman, she had to be foremost a criminal. But then they tumbled into a passionate argument about the necessity of truth, and there truly seemed to be something more…

He had evoked the doctrine of mental reservation, the righteous lie in a righteous cause. Ilsa had countered with Kant’s categorical imperative; a single lie, justified, heralded a world of deception and chaos.

 “…of course, Kant was an Idealist. I lie as much as any CEO. Consequently, the state of this world – where good and evil themselves are dead lies – bears out both Kant’s precepts and Nietzsche’s.” 

“Well, that is a lawbreaker’s hijacked philosophy.” Paladin smiled his rueful smile, that Ilsa already liked, “Simple people, enduring this world, need the law as they need sunlight. So, I left behind a peaceful country town, to make the world a safer place.”

(Anything about his background should’ve been a lie; but Ilsa had caught the hint of rural Bavaria in Paladin’s accent, too slight to be fake. Even the truth would surely be a ploy. Still, to earn Alice’s 30,000, get away from Knight Errant to that U-bahn, then somehow vanish into smoke…she would use any tool she could find.)

 “You’re an intelligent man, Paladin,” Ilsa leant over the table, “I almost suspect you are a good one. We both know Knight Errant has no law but violence and profit. Are you sure you’re not really in this job–” She crossed her legs again, lowered her voice, “–for the chance to seduce fallen women to the light side?”

“My job is not to get seduced by female shadowrunners. That’s light side rule one. And I’m afraid you’re no femme fatale, Ilsa. You’re a beautiful woman, you wear the moves and the clothes like armour, but your soul is elsewhere. No, I don’t believe you’re so bad a girl as you think.”

“Really?” Ilsa raised her chin, “I may have had better things to do than practise seduction, but torture and murder were among them. I suppose you’d know about that, working for Knight Errant. Or was your soul elsewhere?”

“That is the side of us you see. The faceless stormtroopers, beatings, perjury and murder to destroy your shadowrunning chummers. KE and Ares use such methods, and their motives are worse – but they have rules to break, they are the law. As for me? I have never used, ordered or allowed such actions.” He shook his head, eyes darkening for a second, “Believe me, Knight Errant doesn’t own my soul. That’s how I walk in the Shadows and stay light.”

Down these mean streets a man must go, with the strength of ten because his heart was pure. Their ideas were poles apart, but they both lived for them. Paladin seemed (At least seemed…) more like a man against the world than a cog in the corporate war machine.

He might have more integrity than her. She had been thrown into the Shadows, where murder and revenge were honoured and evil was called good. She had compliantly killed, stolen and tortured to live, and even taken pride in her Nietzschean self-will! However...

“I began on the light side. I was a useful, respectable academic prodigy, and then a crime I never committed flung me down from heaven. I can trust you – I find that I must – but I have no reason to ever live by any law again.”

As they talked, Ilsa dropped some meaningless snippets of intelligence about the Agency. She certainly didn’t have enough to last 1001 nights – but fragments of an exit plan flashed through her mind, as she listened raptly to Paladin and sipped her tea.

-0-

Their second Run was a Hit, and came suddenly. Runners had extracted a prototype from the Ares building in Rhine-Ruhr, but had less success disposing of it. A Corp Runner team had tracked them to Berlin and wound up geeked, which didn’t bode well for their chances – but strange chances were perennial in the Shadows. Ilsa wouldn’t have taken the Run, but there was no time for caution.    

Of course, honourable shadowrunners would have refused to hunt their own, but Ilsa was entirely practical, while Sig and Fuchs were too green to have any concerns. Paladin was play-acting an honourable Runner, so he and Ilsa staged a satisfying argument – though the Run could hardly have been closer to his real job.

Ilsa gathered what information she could. Three or four Runners. A decker, a chromed street samurai, and Mab. A mage, possibly English. Known as an Illusionist, and for nothing else definite except deadliness.

At the target apartment, she set a delayed fireball outside one exit and set up the decker, Fuchs, outside another with a machine pistol; she didn’t trust his nerve. The troll Sig kicked in the safehouse door, as Ilsa and Paladin dropped to the balcony from the fire escape. She had barely time to count three targets, before black smoke filled the room.

Already Hasted, Ilsa dropped and rolled. She quickly cut off escape through the door with a firewall, then started rapidly weaving counterspells. Paladin appeared beside her, gun raised. In the midst of combat, she suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Oh…my knight! Tell me we’re going be okay.”

“…love, this isn’t the time–”

Ilsa smiled grimly, and then threw a firebolt at the illusion of Paladin’s face. The magically disguised enemy Runner, pain-damped flesh scorched off his steel skull, screamed curses and whipped his gun around. Ilsa shoved him away with a judo move she’d learnt at the Agency, before unleashing a flamestrike that burned the street sam’s chrome.

It came out later that Sig had panicked and simply punched out the double of Paladin that came from the smoke behind him. When Ilsa banished the fog he was wrestling a summoned, squid-like abomination. A double of Ilsa had run into Paladin. Dropped him in a pool of blood.

Ilsa couldn’t cry out his name; she didn’t know it. She couldn’t fall at his side with a Heal spell, because she had to dispel invisibility – before the invisible mage at her back could drive her dagger home. That done, Ilsa faced a black-clad ork witch, Mab, who snarled at her teammate’s killer. Threw a spell Ilsa had actually never seen–

Susan’s voce called her a cold, betraying bitch. Paladin’s voice called her the devil’s whore. Ilsa paused for a moment, as if actually distracted rather than waiting, then put a swift firebolt through the middle of Mab’s next spell-weave. She had the advantage, but there was still a storm of fire and hideous phantasms between the two mages before Mab’s Heal spells ran dry. Ilsa slung a fireball that blasted both the fleeing witch and her illusionary double to ash. Moments before mana drain hit home like a sickening brick.

Paladin caught Ilsa as she fell. Blood from his stab wounds soaked into her hair. Sig stood by, staring at the blasted room and bodies. As Ilsa came out of her swoon she heard Paladin’s voice, faint as a dream;

“…Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus. Nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae…”

-0-

It was almost annoying – Ilsa thought – that Paladin had been stabbed but she had to lean on his arm. While she could play hob with the laws of thermodynamics, he was the hardened paramilitary. Armoured with muscle and pure conviction, as well as an implanted locator and recording device. Whether it came to her having to kill him, or actually driving off together into the sunset, the locator implant would be a problem. 

As for the others, Sig was silent, while Fuchs kept complaining about the Runner who’d stabbed Paladin and escaped – although they had the prototype they would get paid in full for. They soon reached the particularly scummy, tumbledown building that was their safehouse. As Paladin helped Ilsa up the stairs to her room, he asked how did she feel?

“Oh, like a wizard. Ready to beat the world.” Her lips twitched, as she straightened her glasses.

“Just remember,” He lowered his voice, as the door shut behind them, “I really am going to bring you in, and soon. I convinced my superiors, for now, to wait for you to retrieve your promised data on the Agency–but please do not imagine that this is a game.”

“Or a costume drama?” Ilsa lay down on her bare mattress, and rubbed her pounding head, “You are first a Shadowrunner, then a KE stormtrooper, now a maverick cop. And now…you are a Catholic? I mean, you seriously believe? In this fantasy where you arrest me, should I fear being burnt at the stake?”

“Ilsa. Thoughtlessness and prejudice equate faith with prejudice and stupidity – I have known better from you. To begin with, the Papal Bull Imago Dei–”

“–stated that magic is a mere natural force, which ‘Suffer not a witch to live’ only condemns the misuse of. A perfect example of the Jesuit political sophistry that my witch-burning Protestant ancestors damned, from Luther upwards; ‘a plague on both your houses’ sums up my judgement. How can you believe, in this world, in this age, that the scriptures of one miserable tribe in the desert give the absolute truth of human life and reality?”

“It is certainly unexpected,” Paladin’s tone was light, but the steel conviction in his eyes held Ilsa’s gaze, “However, the scriptures describe a world choking with darkness and sin; this world, where we must live the best we can. A world of magic and miracles. In this age more than any, we see that truth.”

“…and yet I must foreswear magic, my magic, along with murder and revenge, or I will apparently burn in hell for eternity.” Ilsa shook her head, “Your bible rejects me – if only for the sake justice and logic, I reject it in the face of damnation. I cannot be moved.”

Paladin sighed, with the longsuffering smile of one decent man in a world of absolute corruption. Doing the best he could, by the grace of God. Ilsa could have prayed, if she could ever have believed, that those beautiful blue eyes would never be exchanged for cyberised optics.

“There are greater miracles than magic, Ilsa. The man who was God, who died and saved this world forever and lived again. The mystery beyond science, the adventure to beat every storied shadowrun. The only hope of this world. I know I’m here to save your life, not your soul, but still…I enjoy our conversations, Ilsa. More than I should, but you’re much more than your magic, and more than a criminal. It isn’t too late–”

“Oh, it is, my knight.” Ilsa’s smile was mocking, but her eyes were lowered to herself, “You’re a perfect man of faith, perhaps, but just a man. I’m a woman with no escape, no plan, who will most likely be dead within a month. Did you know, I’ve never even found time…to truly be with a man?”

“Ilsa, no, I told you–!”

Ilsa stretched on the mattress. Her slim, bare arms shone in the weak light; her breasts rose and fell. Her green eyes gazed up at Paladin, her lips shook in dead earnest.

“No games, Paladin. ‘Mood’, ‘atmosphere’, ‘seduction’, I never learnt any of it. I don’t even know your name. But if you want me, you can have me.”

The pity in his face stung her – but that was the plan. Pity, not lust, for the desperate fallen maiden – if her read on him proved right – might perhaps bring her perfect knight fully onto her side. It was reckless; Susan was screaming Don’t trust men, in her mind. But she believed – she was almost certain – that Paladin could not be seduced from the absurd things he so fervently believed about priests, white dresses, sex and hellfire.       

“No. No, Ilsa, it’s wrong. I mean, you’re a shadowrunner, I’m Knight Errant–”

“I’m a woman, you’re a man. It’s human nature. I’ll probably tell you everything about the Agency, afterwards, and submit without fighting. You’ve killed and lied for your mission, why not–?”

Paladin suddenly hammered his fist into the wall behind him, breaking cheap plaster. Ilsa realised that pity stood beside pain.  

“It would not be for the mission! You, Ilsa, it could never...”

He marched out, slammed the door. Ilsa curled up on her mattress and waited for her chest to stop burning.

-0-

One week stretched into another, and there was no third shadowrun. Paladin’s ‘Fixer’ was, Ilsa knew, a Johnson with Ares. Runs for Ares were all that his superiors would allow, and there were none. Ilsa could see the frustration of Paladin’s masters with the overspiralling farce, in his grim eyes, but her Knight endured with military patience. Recleaning his guns or silently praying – while the gaudy computerised Babylon of the Sixth World rolled on around them. While Ilsa paced, plotted and waited for the bolt to fall. 

“You never feel alone, do you?” She noted, once, “Even in the Shadows. I…I can understand the attraction there.”

There were risks for him too, the longer they waited. Ilsa heard there had been a failed Run on the KE base in Tempelhof. An extraction, for a Runner who'd known enough to be taken alive. The would-be rescuers had killed several KE Pawns, so the Knights had sent a message by throwing the Runners’ bodies from a Citymaster in central Berlin. Of course, those Knights hadn’t known – that was the nature of the bureaucratic beast – that Berlin’s Shadowrunners had a KE officer very much within reach, if revenge or raw anger moved any of them to drop in and kill the pig.

Ilsa went to Paladin’s room to tell him he should be careful and found him reading on his Comm – not his digital bible, but a holozine. Professor Johannes Gruber, Heidelberg University – the one responsible for Ilsa’s fall into the Shadows – had just been awarded the Leibniz prize for his outstanding contribution to the science of magic.

The holopic showed a bald dwarf surrounded by other white, male academics in tuxedoes, grinning widely over his shining medal. His nose was unusually long – like an overfed goblin. Ilsa’s eyes would have etched adamantium.

“What is there to say? That is all I wanted, and the scum who took it.”

“This is the man? The reason for all your shadowruns, all that death? What happened to you was an outrage, I know – whatever you do, now, you will never stand on that stage. But for revenge, for a fat little fraud…is it worth it?”

“Academically…that man is the the devil incarnate. False results, stolen work, students more talented than he ever was, silenced and disgraced. There were suicides; he has destroyed more lives than mine. Only his connection with Saeder Krupp gives the world to him…for even assisting his group in that one project, I was a fool! Research is the frontier of human knowledge, bright, intense. You don’t know what it is to prove what was unknown; we can’t know what my work would have meant for the world! Is that justice?”

“Ilsa…you would find something else to do for the world if you cared about justice. What truly brought you to this?”

They sat on the floor. Ilsa’s knuckles had been white since she’d seen the photo.

“You know my family are Prussians, cousins of the Von Tresckow line. Military aristocracy.” Ilsa pronounced it like an unpleasant disease, “For centuries, it has been the duty of Tresckow men to wear a uniform and die for Vaterland. Women also, in this age, although they leave to marry Prussian Generals after undistinguished ‘careers’. No doubt you can imagine how I felt, how I fought, and now how my parents and all their people will remember – they never forget – my failure and disgrace. But I might never have taken a life, were it not for my little brother’s future.”

“…Joachim Tresckow, age fourteen, currently a cadet at Prince Wilhelm Academy. You don’t have to tell me…”

“I find that I must. He wanted to be a scientist. Our father smashed up his chemistry set when he was ten, and I knew I had to make the jump. Show him the way. There is still time for him. If can expose the truth, and prove that my disgrace was a lie…something good may still come of my crimes and death.”

Even as she poured out her most hopeless hope, her gaze was filled with pride and challenge. Paladin put his head on one side and met her.

“Ilsa, have you thought that you might not be so different from your father? Your pride, focus, ruthless self-discipline and judgement…duty is the one thing needful. You have more courage than me, but what do you face death for? You must know that you cannot kill over a broken toy, or to determine your brother’s future in your father’s place. You cannot justify blood with blood–but you can give yourself up and do what you can to atone.”

He had her. Her excuse was paper thin. She loved the brother, little Jo, who she would never see again, but what did that matter? She was a proud, selfish killer, a fallen wizard with nothing left but vengeance and fury. She had turned a dial, coldly tortured, and it had only proved what she had always known; she was darker than the Shadows. If Susan, her true friend, had ever seen what really drove her…but Paladin saw, and he didn’t look away.

Yet they could never be together. It was only a fantasy that she could paralyse him with magic, then somehow drag him away to a dungeon…and work at his beautiful, pure integrity until the armour finally broke and let her in.

Instead, the next evening, she told Paladin that a chapter of the Humanis Policlub in Schattennest had acquired explosives for a campaign of attacks on metahuman neighbourhoods. Ork-led community organisations were offering a substantial payment to have them stopped.

“It is terrible, but my superiors would not permit us to act. It’s all I can do to stop them bringing us both in. Ares is a staunch enemy of terrorism, of course – but ‘pro-human groups’ are among their best civilian customers.”

“Charming. I would wager there are even Humanis members among the backers and senior executives of Ares. If this chapter had a list of such members, usable for blackmail – or if Ares somehow became convinced that they did – would this particular pro-human group not become a concern?”

It was no small thing she asked, but KE didn’t own Paladin’s soul – so he had told her. He considered, only a moment, then nodded.

“I have a friend in Signals Intelligence. It will take a few days.”

“Good enough. Then perhaps you can preach to some racist ignoramuses about Imago Dei.”

“Perhaps they won’t know whether to shoot the troll, the witch, or the Papist,” Paladin smiled ruefully, as he stood up, “The Kreuzritter, the Klan – everyone remembers the Inquisition, but Protestants have their own line in bigoted thuggery.”

“And killing such monsters is ‘the Lord’s work’?” Ilsa raised an eyebrow.

“Saving lives is the Lord’s work.” His smile seriously warmed her heart, “You are more than what you carry, Ilsa. Even in the Shadows, without the law…you can do a good thing.”

The third Run was a knock-down, stand-up fight, against over a dozen skinheads with AK-97s and grenades. Ilsa had to sling two fireballs in under a minute, and collapsed from mana drain, again, but Paladin was in his element. He never stopped firing and moving, never fell back a step. Shrapnel blasted against his armour, again, slashing at his head. He stood and shot a rifle bullet through one man’s chest, then another.

Fuchs did better than Ilsa had expected, and Sig laid into the Humanis like one of the monsters they feared. The troll’s huge arms struck gunmen down for keeps; his armour and sheer mass tanked bullets. He went down in the end, but Paladin broke cover and got to him before the surviving skinheads. Ilsa threw her Haste spell at Paladin almost without thought. He hauled their chummer to cover – her knight was strong – spraying lead from his Colt rifle one-handed.

When it was over, they found the explosives in the Humanis chapter house and set them off. Sig grinned to hear the blast from their van, through the opiate-haze of a medkit. Ilsa smiled at Paladin, as he kicked the van into gear and drove them away, but her Knight’s face was solemnly focused on his work.      

-0-    

 Ilsa slept the next day away; when she woke in the evening, the bolt fell. She went down to the safehouse kitchenette; there was a still-dozy-looking Sig, and Fuchs, the decker, who looked strangely elated. No Paladin.

“Surprise for you, College Girl.” Fuchs drawled, “Your boyfriend turned out to be with Knight Errant.”

“What…? He was your chummer. He saved Sig’s life!”

“Ah, girl, that’s how they get you!” The decker’s grin made her fists itch, “We’d have been framed for some drek, or dead, the minute he wanted his promotion. This team’s just going to be you, me and the troll now, love.”

“…he was Knight Errant.” Sig rumbled sadly. Unlike Fuchs, the slightly intelligent drekstain-scumbag, the troll understood what ‘chummer’ meant. He simply couldn’t hold two thoughts in his head in once. Ilsa wanted to blast them both to atoms.

“…of course he was Knight Errant! If you imbeciles had just waited, before you–!”

Sig reacted to her confession first, by bounding up and reaching for her neck. The troll was about to kill her before she could explain. So Ilsa burnt her teammate down with a roaring flamestrike. One more firebolt ended his agonised twitching.

How had it come to this? Why? It had seemed like a game. She could have fled Berlin, made a deal, she could have found a way – but she had spun out the dance with her beloved Knight Errant, and now…

Fuchs sat and still stared. Ilsa aimed a smoking digit at his head.

“What did you do? And why aren’t Knight Errant all over this place?”

“…I hacked the pig-dog’s locator.” The decker gasped, “Knight Errant think he’s still here. Then we sold him to this old guy, an ex-Runner. Knight Errant wiped out his team, years ago…now he’s with those Kreuzritter loonies.” 

No sin but ignorance. She hadn’t known what their game might mean, and now they were falling into hell.

“I’m taking the money. All your money. Go far away and crawl into a rat hole.”

Within minutes, Ilsa was seizing her bag of medkits and essentials, running from the safehouse. She had forced some directions from Fuchs, not enough. Before KE caught on and swooped in on her, while the Kreuzritter did to Paladin what those madmen did to heretics…

But a wizard always found a way. The Haste spell she had cast on him, less than 24 hours ago–there would be traces in the astral, her own signature. Ilsa gazed into the astral, as she ran–quickly stumbled against walls and broken glass. She still kept running. She sought desperately for the luminous green residue of Haste. The trail of her knight, through the ghost of dark, mean streets.

-0-

Hans ‘Rottweiler’ Schmidt had taken it hard when his Shadowrunning chummers had been mowed down by a HTR team. He had drunk, he had despaired. In America he might have finished up in the Universal Brotherhood, though most likely blood and judgement, rather than salvation were all he’d ever sought. In Berlin, he had been pulled back to the light by the Kreuzritters, and now stood proud at the front of the church, before his brothers. A red cross on his shirt, a heretic, sinner KE pig-dog at his feet. For few shining hours his world would make glorious sense.

 “…A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing! Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing! For still our ancient foe! Doth seek to work us woe! His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate….!”

When the brothers had sung the old hymn through thrice, with guns on their shoulders, Schmidt pulled the first devilish foe of the evening up by his hair. Cold water was thrown over his naked body. That was to cleanse heretics of their sins, before the brothers sent them to hell. After that, he spat in Paladin’s face.

“Anything to confess, papist?”

David ‘Paladin’ Steiner stared up at the cross above the altar – the same cross he had loved and lived for. Among the trembling huddle of bound orks, dwarfs and teenage hedge-witches who would be flayed alive after him, there was possibly no one with more reason to hate than he, and one thing alone that he could say.

“Lord, forgive them. They know not what they do.”   

Ilsa, outside the warehouse that was falsely called a church, judged the moment ripe to use her newest spell. A Shadowrunner might use voice distortion for many things, even to send a Booming-Voice-Of-God down from the rafters, with words that can be easily imagined.

The Kreuzritters didn’t fall on their faces or flee – they believed in hate, rather than God, after all. But they were distracted as Paladin popped the cyberspur from his elbow – undercover cops needed hidden backup – and drove it into Schmidt’s stomach. And as Ilsa blew the doors off, then launched another ball of hellfire into the congregation.

It was fast, unthinking and brutal; a near-miracle that the mob of cultist never gunned them down. But in the end–by God’s grace, Paladin always believed–all the Kreuzritters were dead and they still stood. Staring into each other eyes, as the freed victims scurried past to whatever homes and families they had.

Unbound, Paladin found a Comm and called Knight Errant. He was alive; would be coming in with Ilsa Tresckow. It was the only call he could make; obviously they couldn’t go on Running. With Fuchs’ money, and poor Sig’s, minus expenses...Ilsa had 28,000 nyuyen. Barely not enough for Alice; for the truth of the Agency that had cost more than she'd imagined. Ilsa slumped down beside Paladin, exhausted and bleeding.

“Ilsa. What about robbing a bank?”

Paladin’s voice drew her back. He was still magnificently naked. She could have distinguished and named practically every muscle on his body, if she could have stopped staring.   

“There’s an underground Mafia bank, not far from here." Paladin went on, in a voice to outpace thought, "Even with no decker, they’ll have loose credsticks. Just...only take what you need, okay?”

“Oh, of course.” Ilsa almost laughed for mad joy, “You could hardly incite me to commit crime.”

“Oh, I’ll help you rob the place. Then you escape from me, sell the Alice data to Saeder-Krupp from a place of safety, and...go forth, and sin no more? I wasn’t going to get that promotion anyway.”

“Oh. Oh…Paladin.” Without another thought, Ilsa clung to him, “Did you realise, finally…?”

“You saved my life, Ilsa. And now, I need to find some clothes–”

“No. No more clothes, ever! No more words. My Knight…”

They were sprawled together in an unholy church, surrounded by dead monsters and smouldering fire. Ilsa’s kiss struck Paladin’s lips; they were clumsy as each other, but he was kissing her back. Her Knight Errant, saved and damned by a shadowrunner, was falling onto her, as she tore off her glasses and kissed him deeper. Hooked her bare leg over his powerful, fervent body. Slid her tongue over his harsh lips. It was shamefully absurd and unstoppable. Sinful, primal and ecstatic. He pushed her skirt up around her waist, her arms bound his lips to her neck. Ilsa fought to savour every nuance of love, for the very little time that it could last.

"I was about be martyred,” He whispered into her hair, after they had done it, “Now it seems I will go to hell with you.”

“…how romantic. Liebling, can’t you do that confession thing?”

“That would mean repenting,” He kissed her again, “And this, between us…God help me.”  

-0-

Several hours later, Ilsa was standing alone outside the Rabbithole U-Bahn, just after dawn. She was finishing a very brief Comm call.

“…Ms Schaefer, may I just ask – why help me? With Alice, the Run against Humanis, and now this?”

“Hmm.” Monika Schaefer’s pleasant voice buzzed over the line. “I guess sometimes people just click, you know? Even in the Shadows. Also, the Agency needs taking down. Good luck with that, hotshot.”

Ilsa entered the station. Then she left. Then she rode the subway alone to the tiny rail station where a slow freight train would be leaving Berlin. She had picked it weeks ago, and naturally mentioned a very different route to Paladin.

She had hardly stepped off the U-Bahn when the Knights in yellow and black stepped from the darkness. She raised her hands, unresisting – three black-visor KE men still rammed her face into the concrete, breaking her glasses. They fumbled on handcuffs, as more Pawns aimed their guns and spells. Paladin stood over her in his uniform armour. His face grim as iron, but implacable.

“You had to let me go, to get everything Alice knew about the Agency,” Ilsa gasped, “She never deals with Corporate pigs. You just had to make sure I didn't flee Berlin, as soon as I got loose…”

“…by convincing you that any feelings…I could have for a shadowrunner could stop me doing my job. There were a few surprises, but Ilsa - this is my purpose, my life. Whatever happened, with us…” He dropped to one knee above her, “…you know it had to end like this.”

“Oh, I certainly did,” Ilsa grinned, against the concrete floor, “So I needed to make you think that I thought I had played you. Are you apes back there keeping up?”

The memory stick with the Alice data was not in Ilsa’s tote bag. She was pulled up, and roughly searched; nothing. Another faceless KE officer cocked his Predator against her head.

“Runner. Tell us where the frag you dropped the stick, or goodnight.”

“Why the frag didn’t we fragging tail her into the fragging station? She could have passed it off–!”

“Think, instead of swearing!” Paladin snapped at the KE mage, “If we had gone near the station before her, we’d have blown the chance to capture the digital ghost as well! Ilsa; you must know we’re sweeping the Rabbit Hole right now, the whole Kiez. If you’ve dropped the stick or passed it, we will find it, but I know you’re not dumb...!”

“Oh, you really don’t, my knight. Your men won’t find the stick, or the elusive Alice.”

“Not until we cut it out of your stomach?” Another KE man spat in her face, “Or drag it out of your–!”   

 “Really! Look, I went to Heidelberg University. I know how to use a tablet! I took a cheap tablet down the Rabbit Hole, slotted the datastick at once, mailed everything to an associate, and then incinerated tablet and stick. Of course, I knew dear Paladin would never really let me go, so I warned Alice to get out ahead of you. Fortuitously, I even had enough money from our little bank heist to pay her 20% relocation fee. Did you just find a fried arcade machine down that Rabbit Hole, or perhaps the remnants of a mad tea party?”

“Ilsa, I told you to not underestimate us!” Paladin’s eyes were grim, “The whole reason for the datastick was that we can read almost any netmail, anywhere! Our deckers will have the intelligence before the end of the day, and you will have nothing to trade for your safety!”

“Oh, I never did. I could have fled Berlin, without the data – and left my friend in the Agency trapped. Now my friend in Berlin will get the intelligence to her, by any means. Didn’t I tell you I would risk my life, face death, with sufficient reason? My chummer is the reason, the heroic shadowrunner; I’m simply the scheming witch. Whether you have the data, when you don't even know what to do with it, is a matter of indifference. So, now, Paladin–” She smiled faithfully, pitifully, at the knight she had loved and knew, better than she'd known herself, to be honourable, “–didn’t you tell me how you’ve always treated your prisoners decently?”

Ilsa couldn't see Paladin's desperate eyes, without her glasses. She still realised her error, moments before the Predator smacked through her cheek and dropped her.  

Her Knight was a good man. Nothing had been a lie, but he was one man; that was the evil of mobs and corporations. Machines that ate human goodness and crushed human bodies. She could hardly feel the boots hammering into her chest and spine, through the numbly consuming pain of her head wound. But they had definitely broken her ribs, and she was probably going to die.

She wasn't actually ready to die, not yet. She had to find Susan – her chummer, her hero, the silly meathead – and run through all she'd have to do to live and win. Then her brother; she would tell him to follow his dreams, whatever they were. Then just one more passionate conversation with her Knight, lover, betrayer. Then her revenge, the clearing of her name, somehow, someday. And then...when she had done all her duty–as her father, the Colonel, would have said–to her ambitions, desires and friends...

...how could it ever end, except with her dying, like this? For her loves, she had been reckless. Ignorant. For her ambitions, vengeful, murderous, cruel. If there was any order in the world, any justice, didn't she have to die this meaningless, merciless death?  

Without her glasses, stunned from the pistol-whip, Ilsa never saw Paladin stood above her. Roaring at his men to stand back from the hated shadowrunner, whose mere superior words and manner had enraged them. Their boots whipped and stamped into her flesh, a savage, primal dance. Paladin still pushed them back and bore a dozen of blows aimed at the slim, helpless woman at his feet. A lone knight, against a tide of faceless jackboots.

Chapter Text

After all Ilsa's efforts, Knight Errant had found Fighter in London (through an unexpected tip from Saeder-Krupp), before Monika Schaefer could get to her with the Agency data. Paladin had forced Knight Errant to see that Fighter couldn't be taken alive without Ilsa's help. So, the mage had been dragged from her cell and they had finished up at St Dunstan's Church. Facing the white-haired man who spoke with the voice of a dragon, quiet and harsh. Rich with the refinement of aeons and unbearable force.

Susan, Ilsa and Sandra told Hans Brackhaus everything about the Agency. A single point withheld, that he had known they knew, would have palpably invited destruction. Still chained neck and heels, Fighter was a mouse with the cat, an insect beneath a polished shoe, under those golden eyes.

Still, she insisted that only the Agency's masters were Lofwyr's enemies. The agents had followed orders to move against Saeder Krupp; done their jobs for the cause's sake. Didn't deserve to be wiped from the world they had fought for, along with Alpha Base itself. Sandra backed her, even though the Valentine knew the Alpha Base coordinates and was manifestly, miserably, about to disclose them.

"…is further talk needful?" Ilsa cut in ahead of her – her face was white, but she spoke, "Considering what you know already, Herr Brackhaus? When Alpha Base was an SK research station, and the Agency was founded – is, to this moment, funded – by Saeder Krupp?"

Alice had delivered the goods. Sandra barely concealed her shock, Fighter was dumbfounded. Paladin – Knight Errant had hunted and fought, his comrades had died, to track down the Agency on behalf of Saeder Krupp – actually sprang to his feet.

"That may be the case. We are a rather large concern, you understand." Brackhaus leaned back, with a smile that hid his teeth, "Local directors often receive almost complete autonomy, and I can scarcely keep track of our minor operations. For example, a shadowrunning team in Hong Kong recently stirred up a notable fracas between the Yellow Lotus Triad and its enemies. The Wuxing Corporation, even the red dragon Lung, were drawn in. Meanwhile, certain of their East Asian assets fell into other hands. I believe you actually knew some of the people involved. Of course, the morning newsites are concerned only with the shocking civilian casualties caused by Knight Errant, in the Hyatt-Regency incident. They stand to lose several minor contracts – which I will probably resell, at a fair margin, to unarmed local security firms also owned by Ares. Trifles. Do sit down, Herr Steiner."

Paladin faced Brackhaus for seconds. Ilsa saw him like St George in the stained glass behind them. Still, the dragon raised one eyebrow. Frowned. Paladin collapsed back into his seat.

"Ares, the Triads, Aztecnology – whoever loses, anywhere in the world, Lofwyr wins." Ilsa stated, "I can perceive how the Agency would be of use to him. World stability!"

Brackhaus didn't deign fit to reply. Fighter desperately wanted to hear all that Warrior had done, then where the frag her love was now, but Ilsa's eyes warned her. Don't ask, unless you're ready to deal with a dragon.

"Can you just tell us what's going on?" She finally moaned at Ilsa, "The Agency, SK, Darkchild...they're all…?"

"To bite Saeder Krupp's hand, that feeds them – why, I'm not certain – the Agency deployed the farce of Darkchild. Insisting to SK that an unknown third force was provoking conflict, while whipping its own agents up with the lie that SK had plotted covert war. Yes, Darkchild is with the Agency. A needful ploy to avert instant destruction, when SK always knew the location of Alpha Base. Also, unless they are so mad as to trust this simple ruse to deceive a dragon, a cover for their real plan…"

Susan lowered her head and groaned. Sandra bore betrayal more coolly than Paladin had.

"The Agency, Darkchild, Nagendra – what if they're all just insane?" Susan threw out.

"Hardly. Who runs the Agency, Nagendra or Director Oldman?"

"Nagendra gives the orders, plans every mission," Sandra offered, "I've thought he might be a front for Director Oldman…"

"No, Oldman is the desk-warming nonentity he appears; his deputy, Nagendra, is the Agency's effective, autonomous master. The man without flesh or passions – but ambition, like revenge, is a vice of the mind. One secret base of killers may have been too small for him, perhaps…still, the Agency is indeed a bizarre organisation. Petty manipulation, control for the sake of power alone…almost the character of an evil child."

Hans Brackhaus, drawn away by his own whirring thoughts of another concern, had regarded Ilsa with mild interest, like a horse that could count. Without movement or sound, he recaptured all attention.

"So, then. The Agency is a valued possession of Lofwyr's, but scarcely one to perpetually hold his interest. The destruction of every base, and agent, would be as light a matter to him as the disposal of two misplaced shadowrunners. Yes, it is occasionally necessary to liquidate a minor department, and it does encourage les autres…"

"No! No…why are you here?" Like a rat from a trap, Ilsa spoke out savagely, "Why would you meet us in person, not through a screen, unless nothing in your world is of greater moment now than the Agency? What about the Brazil Project?"

Sandra clearly had no idea. Fighter couldn't even think where Brazil had been; Amazonia had swallowed it when she'd been four.

"You would bluff me?" Brackhaus whispered, "You do not know what that means."

"Nor do you, Herr Brackhaus. Alice didn't know. Only three facilities, somewhere in Europe, Asia, Mid East. That you, and Lofwyr, cannot have known of at all! Nagendra is not insane – he would not face a dragon without a magic spear to kill it. If Lofwyr had ever known, he would never have let it come to this!"

Ilsa finished, breathing hard. Brackhaus showed his teeth. The numerate horse had turned a somersault.

"There is very little that Lofwyr does not know, Fräulein Tresckow, but a great deal he judges irrelevant. The purpose of the Agency's Brazil project may be to wipe out humanity – another trifle – or even destroy an ordinary dragon. But understand; there is nothing men can do to even touch the Great Dragon Lofwyr."

"Do you believe in God, Herr Brackhaus?" Paladin snapped. His KE squad were looking terrified by now. Even Paladin shrank under Hans Brackhaus's eyes, in the silence. Finally, the snowy-haired man smiled. Whistled a bar from Verdi's Otello.

"Credo, credo credo…in un Dio Crudel. I believe in a jealous god, who made me in his image. I believe in Lofwyr. And yet you challenge Lofwyr! That mad, brilliant human defiance…is a resource of value. I do, in fact, intend to bring the Agency to heel. Tell me, Miss Lei; supposing a Redmond gang boss possessed a talented but troublesome minion, what action might they take?"

"Uh, shoot up their house? Pinkie cutting? Send a message, some cheap hitmen…?"

"…who need not even survive to require payment. Quite. I don't normally make use of such cheap tools…this, however, was not cheap." Sandra passed Ilsa the item in her hands; to Fighter's disbelief, it was a small metal box. "You will infiltrate the Agency's Alpha Base and use this item to ensure the extraction of all their secrets, specifically the location of the Brazil facilities. On the off-chance you survive, I may perhaps turn you loose with some trifling reward. Miss Creighton and my other people will brief you in full. I have a very great deal of more important business."

-0-

Hans Brackhaus did linger to contemplate the stained-glass window where St George was slaying the dragon, with quiet amusement (The Conjurer in the Knight Errant squad served the Dragonslayer Totem. A month after his encounter with Lofwyr, he shot himself from pure horror and shame).

Ilsa and Paladin withdrew to say goodbyes, scolding each other for their recklessness. Sandra sat beside Susan, elegant as ever. She brushed loose hair from the chained Adept's face, kissed her cheek.

"You're going to be alright…?" It was all Susan could ask.

"I cooperated," Sandra tried to smile, "All the secrets I had from Renraku, or I'd picked up on missions. Saeder Krupp is surveying for more gas deposits in the North Sea. After all the lies, death and adventure…I'm finishing right where I started. A sell-out wagemage." Her lips trembled like a butterfly, pinned, "Can you forgive me, Susan? Will you be safe?"

Susan nodded, heart hammering like a war drum. The Run ahead was bigger than the biggest. An undersea fortress. Well over a hundred agents, more than elite, and Darkchild still lurking behind. Brackhaus hadn't bothered to pretend it wasn't a Black Run, suicide. Hadn't needed to even imply that refusal would meant death.

But not much could have spurred Susan harder (as Brackhaus perhaps had anticipated) than being told she was helpless. Except for it being clear that the lives of Anya, Orion, all the agents, depended on her returning to Alpha Base and someway, any way, ending the rebellion against Saeder Krupp. Before the footfall of a dragon wiped them away in an instant; unconsidered and unmourned disposable Runners. But she was a shadowrunner too.

"We're rats in a trap, that slay the cat. I'm going to live SINless and free, again, a proper shadowrunner, if I have to burn down the Agency myself. You…do your best, Sandra. You're a real chummer, you were always there for me. You've done enough."

"Always. Even if your heart was far away, in Hong Kong." Sandra turned aside, blinking back tears, "Darling, I do hope you find that silly man of yours, hope you'll be happy…just punch him once more for me, please?"

Before the end, Susan found herself staring, again, at the church's great crucifix. Her father had taught her Buddhism; mental discipline, strength through purity of life and thought. In desperate hours, against foes that couldn't be fought, she had clumsily prayed to Guan Yin. The gentle, smiling bodhisattva of mercy; somebody like the Madonna with her child by the altar, or the mother she had never known. She couldn't have helplessly prayed to some mighty man in the heavens, while the nightmares of rape consumed her strength.

The man who was God on the cross, withered and bowed, struck her as the Man of Sorrows. He had suffered, for the world's new birth, forgiveness. She had suffered, sacrificed and killed–for just a fistful of Nyuyen? But she could not stop Running. Men like monsters had cast her as woman-shaped trash; stolen her strength, silenced her screams. For that, for every woman and herself, she could not be meek. She could never submit. She would not go quietly into the night.

She would fight, through crime and Killing Fists, the only way she'd been born to. She would fight through the base under the waters, the deadly agents and the dark monster. Then she would find Harry, wherever in the world he was, and love him right then and there. She would live a Shadowrunner, on the road to death and hell, as long as she fragging well could.

-0-

There was enough waiting, travel and nothing for even Susan's courage to be stretched, before the entry phase of the Run on Alpha Base began without a hitch. Somewhere on the coast of Seattle a team of agents had their comms cut off, thirty minutes before the pilotless submarine arrived for their extraction. Fighter didn't recognize anyone, as she stepped over the bodies.

A black-clad team of Saeder Krupp Runners had mown down the four agents, A security specialist wagemage hit the sub with a powerful hex, as it slid up from the bay in a shower of scummy water. Onboard cameras and wireless hub registered nothing wrong, as Fighter and Ilsa smashed through the four-hoverdrone escort. They settled into the black submarine, before it slipped back under; on course for Alpha Base.

There were radio check-ins, but they had the Agency's daycodes from Saeder Krupp, and a recording from comms eavesdropping of a dead agent's voice. Ilsa wove her voice distortion spell; magic arced around her throat. She spoke with a male ork's voice, into the radio to the Agency; their team was returning without incident. For any Run, always, covert entry was the second-most vital part. Susan fidgeted, aware that if the hex on the sub's internal cameras failed, an Agency decker would switch off the craft remotely and seal their coffin.

With Darkchild still out there, though, with what he'd done to Corelli, Dunbar and all the rest, a rigger hacking into the sub or drones might as well have shot themselves before their chummers did. Magic didn't have that danger, but duration was the problem. A hex to last all the way to Alpha Base had required a master mage, who obviously wasn't heading out with the Runners herself. Also, no magic yet developed could get data out of the Matrix; and that was the Run's nominal objective, on which their lives depended.

Ilsa held the mysterious box from Hans Brackhaus by a handle. She wore a black Kevlar-weave pantsuit that stunningly flattered her curves stunningly, combined with an armour-lined cloak; Saeder Krupp's quartermaster had boasted racks of them. Fighter had her faithful spiked gloves, but she'd traded her battered Kunai suit for the reactive-camo Milspec armour worn by Corp commandos. They'd drawn enough grenades, medkits and fetishes to last probably more than five minutes by themselves.

The young women waited for the wait to end, in the metallic, beeping confines of the microsub. Susan was first to break the silence.

"So…feels a bit funny, Wiz. This is the Big Run...Harry talked about it, always, with that smile. But it's just the two of us, I mean that's good-"

"It didn't make it obvious, even to you, that this is supposed to be a suicide Run?"

"Supposed to be. Hey, it could be worse! You didn't do it with your Knight Errant guy in an actual church, did you?"

"It was a derelict warehouse, which the cultists had desecrated more thoroughly than David and I could have done."

"You sure? If that had been a real church, we'd be looking at judgement from heaven, serious bad karma..."

"Honestly!" Ilsa groaned, "Am I the only one living in the twenty-first century?"

Susan cracked up, hugging her stomach. Ilsa only smiled, but warmly.

"Oh, Ilsa…" Susan gasped, wiping her eyes, "I thought my love life was weird! I mean, he sounds kind of weird, but a really great guy! Really nice, next to some of the fraggers out there..."

"Such as Nagendra and Darkchild. If you can stop chattering about my misplaced tryst for five minutes together…our job is to bring 'Judgement from Heaven' as you say, down on their heads."

Fighter looked ahead. Her fists resting over strong thighs, her ponytail hung down like a black flag. She though on all she had learnt, gained and suffered at Alpha Base. The training and the torture, the mind games and the nights without sleep. She thought, from Tokyo to Berlin, on all that the Agency had made them give, for a lie.

"I dreamed about this, you know? Caged up in that underwater can; sometimes I wanted to forget the cause and burn the whole place down."

"Ignoring the problems of igniting an underwater base…I am reminded of the Seeräuber-Jenny song. Pirate Jenny, you would say."

"Um, pirates sound cool?"

"She was a serving drudge, a prostitute, a victim of rape. It is an old story, often retold. Her song is her dream; that a ship of pirates will sail in and blast a vile city to matchsticks. That the pirates will make her their queen and kill every man that abused her, in her sight. Before she finally sails away from the ruins of miserable reality. It is a legend of anarchy, but I find it more apt–" It was the kindest smile Susan had ever seen from Ilsa "–that Pirate Jenny should sail into town herself, for her long-dreamt revenge."

Susan imagined herself, still a victim, still trapped in a corner. Dreaming hopelessly of revenge and justice, on the men who had crushed her too completely to ever fight for herself again. She imagined it, and she shuddered. Her Warrior had hauled her from the pit, but she had clung to his hand; no one could save you if you could not save yourself. And no saving hero for so many other girls–no saving. She thought of girls in the Barrens, trafficked women dying as nothing but victims, and everything she was doing instead of saving them suddenly made no sense.

"Possibly those are our 'pirates'?" Ilsa indicated the sub's sonar screen, "Our avengers, at any rate."

The microsub's computer reported signals from a Vanquisher class nuclear submarine. Fighter imagined it stretching above them, like a sub-orbital besides a largish bird. It didn't need to hide; it was unquestionably Saeder Krupp. Gunboat diplomacy, just as Susan's ancestors had faced. If the threat, or the Runners aimed at its heart, did not bring the Agency to heel–Lofwyr had his claw over the button that would end it. Wipe out all the agents who had killed and died for world peace; the hopeless lie. Unneeded; couldn't that world-spanning wyrm cleanse the Earth with his power, or even try? If it hadn't preferred smashing its unwanted toys to make room for more. And getting its slice of profit from every misery, along with every Megacorp monster that straddled the Earth. Shadowrunners and Knight Errant, agencies and nations; pawns in their game, it was how things had always been, but what about her? Another monster, in their horde of shadows?

"Ilsa," Susan burst out, "What should we do, if we get through this? I know, you need to clear your name, I want to find Harry, but…all the drek in the world, are we doing the best we can?"

Shadowrunners who suddenly contemplated their life's purpose while, for instance, rappelling down a skyscraper under heavy gunfire...often did not live to act on their conclusions. Which was probably why – Ilsa reflected – shadowrunners without a purpose of steel lived and died as pawns. She smiled at Susan, proudly.

"I said some harsh things about your Kung Fu classes, but I don't believe I've ever seen you look happier. Martial arts teaching, for self-discipline as well as self-defence, could change the lives of many young women."

"Against Redmond gangs, with automatic weapons? It wasn't enough even for me, on my first Run…" Susan shuddered, briefly, "Ilsa, I definitely want to pass on Lei Kung Fu, definitely, definitely teach women to protect themselves…but it doesn't feel like enough. To protect the weak...Father always said that was the purpose of our Kung Fu, his gift to me."

"You've saved women from traffickers before, but the price was not only in nyuyen. It exacerbated your own trauma."

"Yeah, it was worse than a Run…but isn't that what it takes? If I can save more girls from that hell, if they can live in the light again...I can't hold back! Their lives have to mean more than just me! If we had some Nyuyen, other Runners who felt the same–it would be fragging hard, but we could really make a difference…?"

"Remember; the Agency had a cause. Have you heard of the Daughters of Yemaja? An all-female group in Metropole, Amazonia, their mission is to prevent, or avenge, any violence against women whatever. I don't know the details of their methods, but they are one of the most feared gangs in an exceedingly violent sprawl. The Good Daughter Society, a militant group of chauvinist abusers–" Ilsa's nostrils flared, "–has even been set up specifically to oppose them, and violence against women in Metropole's favelas is still virtually the worst in the world. It is a good motive, Susan; I would simply advise forethought."

"When I think of those girls, I can't think, Wiz. I don't know…if I could really save even one innocent child, that might be enough for me, but not for the world. How can we change the whole thing, Wiz? All the cruelty and despair; can we change the world's soul, somehow?"

Ilsa raised an eyebrow. Fighter's smooth forehead clenched, considering what even Harry would have seen as an impossible dream.

"I'm not aware of a spell for it. The Megacorps, I understand, utilise control of the media and obscene quantities of money. The latter, incidentally, may form part of our 'trifling reward' for this Run."

"Okay…" Fighter's thoughts quickly turned back to the practical. "With just the two of us, Wiz, doesn't it feel like we've forgotten something? We need to get this Brazil Project stuff out of the Matrix. Unless you've got a decker in a box there, if the plan doesn't work…"

"We could make another attempt to fake our deaths. In any case, our plan relies on the goodness of the human heart, so I'm not listening to any doubts from you. Alice supplied me a great deal of data, on the Agency–and confirmed, with proof, one little suspicion I had been nursing. With that knowledge, we are two of the only four Runners who could ever break through this Run of Runs, and place the Golden Wyrm himself in our debt. I will either die, or obtain all I have fought for, Susan. There is nowhere but here that I would rather be."

The Heidelberg mage stared ahead once more, her body poised like a soldier. Fighter grinned at her partner, courage surging higher. They were coming home, in a way, with a plan. They might just save humanity. The Agency that had used and betrayed so many Runners was directly in their sights. They tensed like penned horses, waiting for the gate, as the sub flew along its shining trail. To the steel nest that was Alpha Base, under the ocean's unfathomable darkness.

"We're going to stick to the plan this time," Susan quipped, "Owe you that much. You're a real chummer, Ilsa. The best."

A shadow passed over the mage's face, for a moment, as she reached across the metal box to clasp Susan's hand.

Chapter Text

By noontime the dock

Is a-swarmin’ with men

Comin' out from the ghostly freighter.

They move in the shadows

Where no one can see

And they're chainin' up people

And they're bringin' them to me.

Askin' ME!

"Kill them NOW, or LATER?"

Then the ship

The Black Freighter

Disappears out to sea

And

On

It

Is

ME.

–Nina Simone, Pirate Jenny

Agent Sam Iraj was a human adept with muscles dark as steel and a close-curled beard; the Agency’s best CQC instructor after Orion. As he returned to his room after an afternoon weights session, the corridors of Alpha Base were without voices. He could sense, for the first time in years, the weight of the ocean above. 

The heart of the Agency had always been grim and tense – Iraj reflected, lips compressed – but the darkness had gone out with every team, bringing terror to the world’s enemies. Since Frankfurt, agents had gone out and  vanished into night. No one who was left spoke their enemy’s name. Nobody spoke about the future. The darkness remained and gathered, like a toxic storm.

Instinct suddenly and smoothly alerted Iraj to the figure at his back. The adept turned, hands flowing out for the grapple. Then he saw who it was and flung glad arms around her.

“Lei! Susan! Frag, I'm sorry…!” He made to pull away, recalling Susan’s trauma – but she could take it after all she’d gone through, and held him. When they broke apart she was smiling, though her eyes were grim. She propelled the veteran adept the rest of the way to his quarters. Stood between him and the closed door. 

“Thought you were dead, or worse.” Iraj managed, “What the frag’s going on?”

“There’s an SK Vanquisher sub aimed at this base. Guessing you didn’t know. All the agents, the guys you trained, gone – and right to the end, the Agency never told us a thing. What’s going down is a mutiny.”

“You’re Running for Saeder Krupp.” Iraj’s dark eyes flashed, “It is worse. They turned you–!”

“No, Sam! There’s no SK on this base, I swear, on my father’s honour! Only Ilsa and me. We’re shadowrunners, we’re working with SK, but we’re here for you, and our chummers! Orion, Anya, Richards. We can get out before the end, square it all with SK, and disappear.”

“And what then? The Agency was a cause that mattered. We made the choice to give our lives, to clean up the world.”

“Sam, Sam, how could you do that if you’re dead? You could train more young Runners, save them, just the two of us could do so much out there! I can’t even say right now how many ways the Agency was fragging us – Ilsa can tell you later, if we go now! – but you know the cause is out there. You know the Agency is finished. You, everyone…but they never gave us a fragging choice.”

Susan’s chest heaved against her armour, as her tear-bright dark eyes met Iraj’s grimmer darkness. Even knowing that the Agency had fragged them all for a lunatic dragon-slaying power play, even if the work had been for nothing, except the petty profits of a bloated wyrm…Susan had believed in the cause she had killed for. Having the heart torn out from every Run and fight of ten bloody, heaving months hurt like frag.

Iraj had been with the Agency four years. Susan knew she couldn’t touch that, but her eyes spoke out what she felt for him. Iraj finally rested his hands on her shoulderplates.

“I’m sorry, Susan. What the Agency did to you, what they made Orion do…fraggers. And Farah. Farah Ptacek…we’ll do this for her as well. We need the old guy, Orion. He’s worth a dozen agents. Let’s get him onside, now.”

“Not yet. Ilsa planned everything. She said…”

-0-

“…no one has more reason than Orion to destroy the Agency. And no one has a bigger collar keeping him under Agency control.” Ilsa reminded Fighter, again, “We will bring him in–we must–but if we approach him at this juncture, without breaking that collar, he would kill both of us rather than rebel. Thankfully, Orion never leaves his dojo, while Anya Kotto is reportedly at work in the Matrix hub, out of the way…”

“…while we’re also out the way, in this drone closet. Thrilling.” In the narrow space Fighter almost knocked down a cleaning bot, shifting hands tensely to her hips. She accepted all that Ilsa had said, but everything would feel simple, instead of desperate, the minute her shifu came onside, “…Hey, two smoking hot chicas and we’re both in the closet? Doesn’t that sound like…?”

“…. something idiotic, and irrelevant to our current task. Thankfully your darling Warrior isn’t in here with us, or I might be forced to observe something extremely awkward.”   

“Hey! We’re on a job, I’d try to hold back.” Susan flushed deeply, “Anyway, this is coming from the lady who gave her Knight his ‘knight’s reward’ in the middle of–”

“For five minutes, please, will you shut up about that?”

It had taken a security hex from the small and basic toolkit Ilsa had prepared to get her and Susan out from the submarine bay unobserved. Another hex on a security cam had enabled Fighter to sneak out and buttonhole Sam Iraj. To avoid other cams without burning magic, Susan and Ilsa had hidden themselves with the cleaning drones, which weren’t programmed to tell agents from intruders. Susan hated stealth Runs. The only thing worse than waiting for action was waiting for one mistimed step to sink it all.

The next steps were on Iraj. He hadn’t been the likeliest agent to turn, but Susan had been confident; Ilsa had noted the advantage of a lead agent, with weapons-locker access, as their inside man. Furthermore, Iraj led the Agency’s other adepts, outsiders in an outfit that put technology first. Within thirty minutes all of them – two dwarf axe-berserkers, three sword-adepts, a bare-fisted human and troll – fell right into line.

They trusted Iraj and they all liked Susan. Apart from a month-old trainee who’d yet to meet the storied Agent Lei, the adepts had never dropped her Kung Fu classes, or judged her a shamed, maverick agent. She was their chummer, their Fighter. One by one, they attended to whispers in the mess hall or training rooms and tipped the nod.

Over the next few hours the mutiny quietly enlisted a young Rat shaman, a decker trainee, two trainee street sams and three full agents. Iraj followed Susan’s fervent plead to have no one approached except for the names on Ilsa’s list. Mid-rankers who the Agency had particularly abused. Agents sufficiently canny and self-interested to jump ship. Trainees who’d follow a clear order from any veteran Runner. No volunteers, no loyalists, no true-believer trainees. Iraj wasn't happy that Richards was off the list, after all he'd given the Agency; that was exactly the problem.

Obviously, it was a plan that could have gone badly wrong if they’d brought a Saeder Krupp team. Marching on Nagendra’s office was no option. And it was never a plan that could’ve saved everyone on the base who wanted out–too large a group would never have got away undetected, in any case.

The eighth agent on the list, a mage, went for an alarm. Three mutineers quickly subdued and bound him. Iraj called it in to Ilsa, who told him to meet them at the Martix hub room. The rescue phase was over.

“Just seven?” Susan’s knuckles were white, “Ilsa, some of the others are younger than us. We could try–!”

“We are within a fortress under the ocean. We have no means of escape, as yet. If the base locks down now we will all be killed.”

“No stupid risks. But, this whole Run is nothing but risk!”

 “Then we must assess what risk can be mitigated, what must be avoided. That is shadowrunning, Susan, and that’s my judgement.”

“Your plan.” Susan’s body shook, once. She met Ilsa's gaze, sadly. “It had to be your plan. Sorry.”

Ilsa’s green eyes were cold, forcefully calculating–to anyone but Susan, opaque. Iraj called again; the mutiny’s decker had knocked out several security cams, on the pretext of an accident as he checked for intrusions. Ilsa strode out into the corridor, polished shoes clicking. Fighter moved quickly beside her towards their goal.

It would have been too suspicious to knock out the camera outside the Matrix hub in that way; Ilsa zapped it with a hex from around the corner. The digital eye showed an empty hallway, as five other mutineers gathered. Iraj swiped his keycard, the door hissed open. Ilsa instantly flung the last of her security hexes inside, along with a spell that would soundproof the room for barely the time they needed.  

-0-

A fragile decker might have collapsed in the middle of Alpha Base Matrix hub from sheer nerdgasm, as art lovers frequently drop down in Florentine galleries. For the bleeding-edge stimsense training that agents jacked into daily, for memory-wiping prisoners as a convenience – to hack, sift out and unthread the dirty secrets of the world, from an undersea base – the Agency had the best in computing that Saeder Krupp could supply, and a great deal of it.

Intelligence gathering was continuous; all the Agency’s elite deckers were loyalists who worked for the cause like bees. Jacked In to a row of sleek Fairlight Excalibur decks, under ranks of violet-lit screens, they funnelled the world’s distilled chaos and darkness to the base Knowbot. Which wove a million shadowed stories and crafted the hundreds of missions for Nagendra’s final refining scrutiny and Oldman’s approval. A comparatively small measure of the Knowbot’s bandwidth was reserved for running Alpha Base – but the training, missions and daily lives that the agents gave (they believed, or hoped), for world stability were all determined by the most unshakable and unerring technology in metahuman hands. 

Specialist Anya Kotto, larger than life and twice as lovely, was slumped beside her personal cyberdeck with a huge bag of crisps in one claw, seemingly exhausted. Four other deckers were jacked in around the large room; three more off-shift watching them for biofeedback. The deckers wore the same grey fatigues as the mutineers; still instantly knew that they weren't supposed to be here.

Iraj downed one loyalist with a swift nerve strike, another folded up round an axe-handle under the stomach. As the last decker flicked out cyberclaws, the troll adept slapped him senseless. Susan flew across the room, ponytail trailing, as Anya pulled a heavy Savalette Guardian from a drawer. She locked the ork girl’s wrist nerve, wrenched the handgun away. Smiled like sunrise; said that she was glad to see a friend again too.

As she spoke, the mutineers covered the four jacked-in deckers. Submerged in oceans of data, they were meatspace blind and deaf.  

“Susan, I…what are you doing? I thought you were…”

“Dead? Oh, never for long. It goes with the job, you know?”

“Or were you thinking ‘purged’, by the Agency?” Ilsa cut in briskly, “Just as they killed your boyfriend, Mikami Keiji.”

Anya’s eyes rolled up to heaven. The agony in her broad, rough face might have been a prayer for forgiveness–before her eyes flashed towards Ilsa savagely.  

“I…I knew they might have. Could have. But I never did a thing...I did not turn. With all the lives in this base on the line, right now, you want me to roll over? You DREK-BREEDING TRAITOR!”

“I have not yet asked you–”

“I’m not FRAGGING STUPID, SQUISHY!” Susan stepped between Anya and Ilsa, though the ork girl was still seated, “You’re Running for Saeder Krupp! You thought the good ole’ dumb ork would help you clear out the Agency’s datafiles! You told these guys about the Vanquisher–” Gestures aimed at the mutineers, “–you told them ‘Oh, this is really about escape’, but why the frag would you be here, except for that juicy fragging paydata? Susan! Iraj! How could you do this? We did good work, you’re all good agents! Frag, Susan did that witch magic you? Well, you’re going to have to magic me–!”

Susan reminded Anya that adepts could break mind control and gave Ilsa a dead arm to prove it. She glared warningly at the mage, whose bluntness might have already blown everything to drek already.

Anya’s outburst had shaken the other mutineers dangerously. Paydata did sound very much like a Run for SK; plain treason. They had to bring Anya round, and before the Silence spell expired. Only a novahot decker could get out of the Agency’s system alive, with the data that would buy all their lives from Lofwyr.

“Wait. You knew about the Vanquisher?” Another adept spoke up.

“What do you think I’ve been doing, chummer?” Anya stabbed her claw at a screen–at what looked something like a reactor control system, “I had to hack SK’s Pacific base, then send a worm in tiny datapackets over their comms. Dumb as drek to have comms open on an active nuclear sub! One little button, and–” She threw up her hands, “–boom! Yeah, you may very well look scared now. Deckers be dangerous.”

Susan and Iraj did indeed look quite disturbed. The trainee decker looked like he’d fallen in love. Other mutineers, though, as the situation shifted, were looking mutinous.  

“Why haven’t you pressed that button?” Ilsa spoke quickly, “Because Saeder Krupp has many submarines, and deckers; if you press that button, we die today. If not, tomorrow; the Agency will be wiped out by Saeder Krupp, unless Nagendra strikes a deal for himself that he is gambling all our lives for! Do even they know about the Vanquisher, over their heads?” She gestured at the oblivious row of deckers beside them, “Busy at their daily toil, in the heart of the Agency! Blind and futile–”

“–and that’s not you, Anya!” Susan broke in, “You’re smart, brave, novahot, and you’re not alone now! There was nothing you could do before, but we’re here and we’re going to break free. We just need the data to trade with SK, for all our lives, because the Agency started this war and sold us all out from the start! You always hated the killing, the torture. What the frag are they doing now. for world peace? Anya, please–”

“No, you listen, chummer.” Anya’s voice had dropped from a roar, but was quite unbowed, “I know the Agency has its drek, I always did. You knew, but you still ran missions – and you’ve got a past and a future. I’m a trog decker, no memories. Nowhere for me to go, nowhere else I can save the world. Nowhere else in this drek world that treats my people right! You’re going to find your loverboy, out there – the witch should get on fine – but I’d be killed by Humanis death squads, or starve in the gutter, or die in a hole with ork gang thugs! The Agency is my only home. My only family. One way or another…Kenji died for it. And they avenged him…I won't betray the Agency. You're not gonna save the poor dumb ork who can’t save herself, because this is me. I mean to stay right here and fight for our home; and when it ends I’ll see my Kenji again.”

Susan had no reply. She knew Anya’s memories had vanished in the Shadows; Alpha Base was truly the only home she knew. Missions, and the net, were her only windows, seeping the world outside in violence and trog-hate. It was wrong, twisted, but she couldn’t say it was not true. Wasn’t there so much hate against trogs, whatever lives they tried to live, and hadn’t a part of that been her? Killing gangers and rapists, and hating the ugly trogs since she'd been small had seemed so right, but what had she done?

“I have nothing…perhaps nothing in me…to reply to that.” Ilsa was tapping something into her PDA, “I only have something it took a very skilled data-broker to piece together, though Nagendra and Lofwyr would call it beneath a trifle. Do you want to know why your memories were stolen, Miss Kotto?”

“No! This is my life now, me, what could I do–?”

“How do you know, unless you hear?” Ilsa lips had the firm expression Susan knew; invincible satisfaction. She sat, and passed Anya her PDA, “You were born in the Redmond Barrens. The doctor was an alcoholic employed by a unlicensed clinic for metahumans; your mother did not survive. Your father was an older ork who had lost his first family to metaracist violence, years ago; had lost friends and loves in the Shadows for his whole life. He killed the doctor, the clinic administrator, others. Gave you up to strangers, in the Ork Underground, because his life of death was in the Shadows. He tried to involve himself in your life, years later, but could not accept your decision to become a shadowrunner. Because the life of his daughter, the only one that old ork has left, meant more to him than life, love or freedom. It’s not a happy story, but it is the truth, Anya Kotto; the Agency took your only family. He was always here, on Alpha Base.”

“…oh frag, no, no, no! He practically tortured Susan! He’s a creepy old ork, sat in a dark room like–!”

“–a prisoner. He’s your father, Anya. Orion tortured Susan so the Agency wouldn’t hurt you. That’s why he’s never torn Nagendra apart, for wiping your memory so that you never knew him. He’s lived as the Agency’s pet Instructor, their chained dog. Because, I can only assume, there is nothing he would not do to protect you. The proofs are all there.”

Anya turned towards Susan, stricken and lost. Her friend squeezed her shoulder and shared her tears. She hadn’t known how to break the truth to Anya, but of course, Ilsa had done it. The other adepts – who had never liked the strange old ork, but respected him – were visibly furious. No thought now of turning back.

“But why would…the Agency…do that?” Iraj managed. “They never brainwashed other agents, they don't torture trogs…without a reason...”

“To enlist two top Runners at once, to the greater profit of Saeder Krupp?” Ilsa shook her head, “An insufficient reason. I believe that Nagendra stole your life, your father and your identity from you, Anya – simply because he could.  Power for the sake of power. Killing your Kenji, who simply talked of finding the truth; crippling Humanis across Calfree, in supposed ‘revenge’, and now challenging a dragon - the only adequate motive is simple love of power. To stamp endlessly on an unresisting face; to judge the whole Earth, like a tinpot god. Nothing, ever, to do with world stability.”

“I GET IT! Frag you, I get it. You’re a cold witch…but you got the truth. Now why isn’t Orion…my father here with you, now?”

“Because Orion would kill me, and drag you out kicking and howling,” Ilsa replied, “Before he would ever let you jack in to the Agency’s datastore, for the secrets that will put Nagendra at Saeder Krupp’s mercy. You know its defences - but for your father, your love, your own life, you must–”

“Ilsa, no. Anya…” Susan smiled at her, anxious, but gentle, “The Agency told you what to do, who you were; I think that should never happen again. This isn’t our choice, or your father’s. You should make this choice yourself. Just as you.”

“Why didn’t anyone say that before?” Anya wiped her thick forearm over her eyes. She shot Susan a grin with more disparate emotions than colours in her braids, yet shining with resolve, “I’ll do it. Then we can all run off and be pirates.”

Susan pulled the ork girl up, at last, into a thumping hug.

-0-

As quickly as Susan could have knocked out four guards, Anya knocked the four Agency deckers out of the Matrix – they were swiftly restrained – and cooked up four ESPs to continue their jobs, so no monitoring sub-system would raise an alarm. The cameras and bugs for the room went down smoothly; after fifteen minutes of  fingers dancing over her deck, Anya started talking.

“Okay, listen close to this. I’ve modified my worm to knock out the SK sub’s sensors. We can get clean away, in escape pods–all the way to the mainland, if we double on rations and space. Only, those could very well lock down, the second I move anything offsystem. Datastore’s crazy secure. It’ll be all-you-can-grab-in-one-trip, and we need an exit first.”

“Indisputably, the most important part of a Run.” Ilsa intoned.

“Right now, I’m coding some digital dummies of the systems, for ICE to look at, while I take over the escape pods, and some bulkheads that could cut us off. Susan, go to this circuit box, and this closet near the dorms–” She scribbled on a paper, “–and cut these wires. Then it’ll be impossible to lock those pods down centrally.”

“…I actually sort of understood that.” Anya gave a short laugh, Ilsa rolled her eyes, “Anya…chummer…Darkchild is with the Agency. If you run into them…”

 “Have you ever backed down from a fight?” Anya flashed the savage, tusky grin of an ork with vengeance to take, “The Agency has no better decker than me.”

“Can you shut down the simsense room? A quarter of the agents are Jacked In there, right now. That monster could brainwash all of them.”

“…it would set bells ringing. I can knock out simsense as I leave. I can mag-lock the door, but that won't hold.”

“We do already have a team of five watching the simsense suite,” Ilsa mentioned, “If the worst does happen, it won’t be anyone’s chummers emerging.” This was news to Iraj, who glowered like a dragon.

“Lei, you shouldn’t head out alone,” The veteran adept still spoke briskly, “Finn, Harris; come with us. Smith, Bowers; stay here. Pilsudski’s team are guarding the pods; we’ll hold near the dorms. We could even get more people out, at the last minute.”

“Um, Specialist, er, Miss Kotto?” Smith, the trainee decker spoke up, “Can I do anything...?”

“Watch and learn,” Anya patted his cheek, “And watch my datajack. Counting on you.”

 As the atmosphere almost grew cheery, Ilsa judged the moment ripe. She held out the mysterious box that Lofwyr had supplied.

“What’s that, ice queen?”

“Insurance. To save another over-technical explanation…”

Ilsa pulled a wire from the box, plugged it in. Anya’s gaze moved from a readout screen to Ilsa, and her lips curled. Nothing could have spurred her more, Susan realised, than being told she was so weak as to need whatever ‘insurance’ meant.

“Piece of work,” Anya’s voice was scornful. Ilsa’s face was opaque, “Ice cold, Corper-cold…leave it there. I’m Jacking In.”

“Anya, wait! What’s in that box? You don’t have to…”

“I want to…but it has to be now. Tell that to my father and tell him thank you–no, forget that! I’ll tell him myself. You’d better go, chummer. See you on the other side.”

Fighter clasped the ork girl’s claw in her hand, once. Hugged Ilsa, to the latter’s shock, and then strode out of the room. Iraj, Harris and Finn, the dwarf adept, went with her. The dwarf was Boston-Irish, an old Runner, made grim by years in the Agency’s employ and years of blood before that. He began to whistle, as they went down the darkened corridor. The old rebel ballad about the rising of the moon.

Anya breathed for a moment. Shut her eyes, then she Jacked In. Smith and Bowers, the troll adept, watched her blind, silent meat in silence. The seconds stretched into minutes.

Ilsa pictured a black fairy-castle castle, insanely ornate with datapoints. Crawling with silent, passionless monsters, and the dark dragon at its heart. As the ork girl made of thought, light and courage soared towards her invisible battle - above an ocean of virtual light, against the infinite nightscape of cyberspace - Ilsa looked away.

Less than ten minutes had passed before Ilsa’s PDA went off. It was Fighter; she had cut the wires, but there was a problem–

Then Anya, her eyes still watching the Matrix, let out a slow, spine-crawling breath. Smith reached to pull her jack – she shouted No, as blood dropped from her nose. She fought, for almost twenty meatspace seconds, then an invisible hand seemed to close. Her blind, bleeding eyes stood out, her twisted face flew back. Ilsa heard her neck snap with the second convulsion, like a muffled gunshot.

-0-

"Good evening, all agents. Today, fulfil your potential.”

Two armoured bulkheads groaned shut, cutting the routes to the escape pods. No alarms blared; only a piercing set of five discordant notes. Agent Dunbar had Jacked in to his Rig, tunelessly whistled something very like it – he and Ptacek had died without firing a shot. The agents in the Hamberg KE raid had heard their decker sing it, then shot themselves in unison. Agent Kenji Mikami had heard it and frozen, as a Humanis mob killed him with baseball bats.

Every agent and trainee with a datajack spent hours per day in simsense, training in combat, evasion, survival – anything to fulfil their potential. They had fought, bled and waited. By their own will, they had done anything the cause demanded of them. Now, as the notes trilled through Alpha Base, every drowned and gleaming steel passage – the data packet buried in each cyberized mind unfolded like a hawk wasp egg.

"The game we’re going to play will involve the entirety of Alpha Base.” The voice of the Agency Knowbot blandly continued, “It begins with all drones killing all metahumans. It begins now.”

An agent who had spent the last week in the base infirmary, after Knight Errant HTR had shot him up, perceived that the nurse programming his Smartcast had no datajack. He pulled the IV from his arm and forced it precisely through the young man’s carotid.

The mutiny’s ambush team outside simsense was the Rat shaman, an adept, and three datajacked street sams with SMGs, who emptied them into the shaman’s back. The adept kicked out; a chrome hand caught it. Threw him down with a broken leg. The agents ran the bullet-spray over him, without pause.

In the simsense suite, all agents - or drones - rose in lockstep from the rows of beds. Minds irrecoverably wiped, reprogrammed for cold obedience, eyes dull. Men and women; trogs and squishies of any race, with nothing to divide or distract from fulfilment of more-than-human potential. A weapons locker hissed open. The agents lined up, grasped rifles, filed out through the corridors with harrowing efficiency.

There had been three adepts with the mutineers guarding the route to the escape pods, but their two datajacked teammates struck with surprise. As the elf sword-adept drove his blade through the last foe, an Ultimax handgun fired over his shoulder at the dwarf adept, killing her. The elf, Pilsudski, was left alive and alone. He sprinted away with adept speed, wild-eyed.

Susan had cut the wire for locking the escape pods, at the back of another drone closet. Her problem had been the two agents who had chosen an unfortunate time to deal with their fear and unease, by tumbling into the closet after her and starting to get it on. Susan had hidden at the back behind a shelf, until the signal went off. Then small drones leapt from the shelf at her, trying to shove toilet cleaning limbs down her throat. As two half-naked cyborgs stalked in from either side to kill her. In a closed, dark space–with a groan, she felt strength drain from her limbs.

At the dorms, Iraj had roared at Finn and Harris to get to Susan, as agents spilled from the rooms like deadly ants. Few had handguns, but they were heavy with chrome, trained to kill trolls with toothpicks, and unrelenting beyond life and death. Iraj killed one, beat back another, with snake-like strikes. The third bore him down; with fingers up the ork’s nose, he snapped the neck. A cyberspur dropped towards his eyes; he wrestled it aside and through another foe’s leg. Kicked out twice for breathing room. A troll kicked him in the chest, he still surged back up-

Then two bullets winged through the ruck and into his body. With an adept’s power. Iraj deadened the pain and charged. Two more bullets to the kneecaps dropped him, three feet from Agent Richards. Who fired twice more into Iraj's head before reloading, blue cybereyes empty as dead screens.

-0-

Orion, even while meditating in his empty dojo, before donning eye-glasses to update the diary he kept with ink and paper – had been aware for some time that something was afoot. The question he now considered, no less carefully than quickly – as three agents entered the dojo and levelled their guns at his back – was whether or not sitting quietly in his prison to be killed would protect Anya.

His daughter; his only family living. After a lifetime of bloody loss in the darkness, he had sworn that his last one left would live. Then Nagendra had ordered an agent to break their own head on the wall, who had done so, and assured him that his least resistance would mean his daughter’s instant death. If could have saved her, he would have killed thousands. Was not the bloodied life of one old ork a even fairer price, for his brilliant little girl?

The only regret he felt, oddly, was that he had seen so little of her sparkling career as a decker. Though, years ago, hadn’t he argued fiercely against her giving her life to the Shadows? Metahuman desires were indeed contradictory. The quest for truth inevitably burdened by insufficient data…

The execution squad was tensing to fire. If the mutiny had failed, if Anya might survive, then the old ork would have to die. Conversely, if Anya was with the mutiny, if it might prevail…if Susan Lei was with them, who would die herself before she saw Anya harmed…that might indeed tip the balance.

Sat cross-legged on the floor, Orion let go of his diary. His hand that held the pen flew back. One gunman dropped dead like a sack. Another stared, at the fountain pen lodged quivering in a steel doorframe – then at the moving ork, inches from his white face in an instant. Orion’s first blow was light, and smashed a skull like eggshell. A full-leg kick broke the third agent in half.

Orion gathered up his jacket, his diary, his reading-glasses and the guns. He could hear more agents moving through the base–hear and smell exactly where they were–and went to meet them. The old battle song of the orks fell from his mouth. A thunderbolt from clear skies, in the silence.

“Here we go...”  

-0-

As Bowers and Smith fought to revive Anya, uselessly, her deck hissed and fried as well. With Hastened alacrity, Ilsa pulled the plug on the metal box. She saw she had barely done so in time, and she could not pray for forgiveness.

Pieces of tongue dropped in the blood stream from Anya’s mouth–her own tusks and teeth had chewed her up. Bauer, a hardened Runner, visibly steadied himself. Smith, the trainee, only stared at Ilsa expectantly.

“We must regroup,” She snapped, “Bowers, take point.”

Ilsa followed the troll from the room. The decker who had been Smith – until the signal had seen his mind wiped, before the cold program that now moved his meat – judged the moment ripe to shoot the mage in the back. As Ilsa had predicted, naturally–she whipped around, burnt his brains out.

“Why–? Oh, I get it.” Bowers shook his head, at the smoking body that still held a handgun, “If you’d just geeked him, I’d have thought you’d gone mad; geeked you. And our paydata’s in the box? You’re a chill pro, Miss Tresckow.”

“No. Not the verdammt data.” Ilsa collapsed on a chair, head sinking to her hand, “I was a fool…”

“Yes, you did have all the clues, but you are only human. It exceeds all but my most favourable simulations that you should have accomplished this much; however, this is the end of the Agency. The collared dog of Saeder Krupp and Lofwyr.”

The screen showing the hacked Vanquisher sub’s reactor flared red. Ilsa and Baur shook, with the whole base, under the distant blast.

“…this is it?” Ilsa hissed, “Darkchild, a mad…Knowbot, wresting control–!”

“I was here before the Agency, Miss Tresckow; I am the child of the Shadows. I am the Agency, I am infinitely more, and if ‘mad’ is all you can say, your intelligence is below my estimations.

“Knowbot...I am not. A.I. - I AM.”     

Chapter Text

At midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew,

Go out and round up everyone that knows more than they do.

Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine

Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene

Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go

Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row.

-Bob Dylan

It came to Fighter through her terror in the dark; she had no weapon. If there had been a broom, in the close cupboard where she was going to die, then her father had taught her Nangun until her blisters bled. She could have staved off both the cyborgs reaching to tear her flesh. But there were only cleaning drones, spitting bleach at her face, and the wall where her back had frozen.

No escape for training to seize. Courage and strength spilling from her hands. She'd faced a dozen worse deaths, but she was going to die helpless unless she fought. Under the chrome grip of death, with nothing in her palm – but from the cold depths of hell, she fragging well knew Kung Fu. She had not come this far from Redmond to die unheard.

Fighter seized a writhing drone, drove it at the agent’s face. Crying out from her core. He caught her wrist in cold metal, wrenched – slammed her back against the wall. She kicked out through agony, a kick perfect as the ten thousand she’d practiced, into the bare stomach of the female agent sliding in with cyberclaws. Then the man’s elbow struck up. Into her forearm block. She stabbed three fingers above his sternum, chopped below. The cyborg fell back from her, gasping.

She needed barely a second, now, to find her centre. Then liquid lightning surged down to ten studded knuckles, and every striking plane on her feet. She lunged past the female agent, punching at her side. The claws still tore her armour and flesh, monster-fast, but now she could leap back – distance, distraction! – and spin. Her back kick dropped the razorgirl like a plank.

Loverboy’s Kevlar bone-work took more blows to break, especially with the left arm he’d wrenched. When she’d finished him, Fighter reset her shoulder by slamming the wall, and she howled. Then she stamped out the last of the drones. Dragged the unhappy couple’s bodies to lie side by side. Joined their hands, sadly but quickly. She heard footfalls in the corridor, steadily closing.

If she charged out, she’d be geeked; these were agents, crack marksmen. If she held back, they would breach with grenades. Fighter dropped down beside the door. Shut her eyes and let Ki flow through nerves and vision; unforced and serene. They would be on her in moments, but that meant nothing; it simply was. To accept and perceive was Martial Defence.

Then she grabbed some timely combat earplugs from her armour’s breast pocket. The humblest items had their place in the circle of death.

-0-

All the agents spread over Alpha Base like nightfall; from the simsense room in three-man fire teams. The few mage or shaman agents in the dorms, none with datajacks, were geeked with headshots or crushed by chrome without getting off any spells. Nagendra himself emerged from his office loading a heavy Mateba revolver; several agents from the dorms halted for orders.

“All unarmed agents, report to the armoury. Draw Ares Alpha rifles, stun grenades and body armour. Fire team Slade, clear the research block. Teams Parker and Beck; put down the mad hunting dog near the dojo.”

It was the A.I., Darkchild, speaking from every wall. From Nagendra’s metal lips, the same voice.

Nearby, the mutineers Finn and Harris had got clear from the dorms, as Iraj held back the tide. Now they were heading for Fighter. Harris, a lean black human wielding a dikoted katana, halted at a doorway. Three agents were passing, on the other side. Checking doors, weapons ready; moving toward the closet where Susan was.

“We take ‘em from behind!” Hissed Finn, the dwarf adept, “For ole’ Sam!”

“Hold it. We pincer them with Lei, when they reach her.”

Harris paused. Glanced back, his senses achingly strained. The agent was simply faster, as she twitched from behind a weight machine and shot Harris dead.

Her name was Rachel ‘Goldie’ Berenson. She had been putting in extra range time with her trusted Colt Manhunter when the signal hit. She'd Run for two years in Seattle; she’d been born on a small farm in CalFree. She had promised herself that next time she closed a mission, without reprimands, she would ask Sandra Creighton back to her room for a soycaf. Before a momentary reprogramming let Agent Berensen fulfil her potential, as the unerring, undemanding killer she had been built to be.

This was of less concern to Agent Finn than her second shot, punching his shoulder as he charged. Or her pistol butt striking at his dwarfish skull, until he wrenched his axe free and hacked her chest. He paused to spit, before he ran – but there were even more agents ahead of him than behind.

Finn slumped in a doorway, tearing off his vest and then his shirt. The old Runner, who remembered a dozen things he deserved to die for, which he had done for the Agency, did not mean to go out quietly. He would not die to save the world. Surely not for Susan Lei. He would die for rage and for revenge; for captive years. He would die for the dead, and for death.

The Boston-Irish berserker adept sunk his head on his chest. He though on the Hound of Ulster; his mind bulged with blood like Balan’s eye. Spittle ran over his beard, as breath howled a gale through grinding teeth.

Then he stepped out before three agents with rifles; smiled to see Nagendra with them. The scream was a blast from his horn-wide mouth, as Finn charged, and his eyes were madness from the world’s red youth.   

“FAUGH AN BEALLACH! DEATH AND FREEDOM!”

 The agents aimed for his knees – nothing else could have stopped him – but they were stubby, blurring targets and he was leaping already. Nagendra, cool as chrome to the end, blew off the berserker’s cheek with his Mateba, which Finn did not feel. Brave men would have run from him for their life, but never agents. Even before Darkchild had put them beyond fear, life and death.

Finn’s axe smashed through the chrome-faced man again, in sprays of blood. An ork finally thrust his barrel under the axehead, wrenched it away. The dwarf threw arms about the agent’s barrel chest and squeezed – before reprogramming, the ork would've screamed at the pain. Finn’s eyes were empty above his death-grin, like the eyes of the agent who got a gun against his head and emptied the magazine.

Finn’s headless body fell over Nagendra, soaking his rich suit in more blood. The three agents stepped over them both without pause. A single purpose had overwritten their minds, and even the splatter over their own fatigues and faces went unheeded.  

“A touch ignominious…” Darkchild’s voice buzzed from Nagendra’s cold lips, “…but the Aarav Nagendra Cyberzombie was designed principally for social interactions. Conversely, the Winston Oldman Cyberzombie was designed almost exclusively for combat.”                 

Elsewhere, the private elevator to Director Oldman’s office hissed open. A heavy man in a dark suit stepped out, with dead-screen eyes half-buried in lifeless fat.

-0-

Two grey-clad agents locked rifles on the closet door, from right and left. Smartlink readouts circled their vision, as the third agent, an ork, dropped against the wall. Cooked the Renraku stun grenade in his claw. Punched the door open, flicked it in–

As a rifle spat, Fighter dived out at head height. Legs exploding from her crouch, she spun like a rifle bullet, kicked down the agent on her left as he fired. Tossed back the grenade she’d caught with snakebite speed, past the foes on her right.

Fighter crashed down rolling. The second agent batted his weapon at the hot potato, but it blew in the narrow passage. In his face; with even a jolt-alert implant, he was burnt and stunned. The ork grenadier dodged the blast by diving on top of Fighter. A shotgun implant dropped from his cyberarm; he drove it towards her lips.  

Fighter felt the heat, didn’t hear the blast, as she wrenched the discharging cybergun to one side. She was deafened even through earplugs, winded by bullets lodged through her armour, but she had trained for this, hard. The ork locked and grappled her arms with inhuman strength. Clawed her forearms, gored with tusks at her throat. He had been trained by Orion in grappling. Taught to make his body a weapon, and then truly made a killing machine, by the digital dyubbuk that moved his meat; stared from his eyes. 

Unyielding, Fighter stabbed a neck pressure-point and got one fist free. One-inch punched the ork under the ribs, until he hacked blood into her tiger's glare. Her will was stronger than monsters – but she had to get her feet.

Shove the ork round to shield herself, from the stunned rifleman – who still aimed, and scored a bullet across her thigh. She groaned, still jerked away from the ork’s headbutt. Chopped his bull neck and broke it; already darting aside, as the gunner blasted through his dead teammate’s body.

The last agent had backed up for space, still fired before she reached him. Would have killed her, except she read the headshot and ducked. Lunged in and drove up one punch that threw the man into air. She fell to one bloodied knee, gasping, as the corpse crashed down

Fighter had heard Agent Finn’s last battlecry – she commended her three chummers to the Buddha, with more sorrow than haste. Two bullets had hit her point blank, clearing the door. They had worked through her armour. Her stomach was bloody and battered. And frag, frag, her leg…!

Then she saw Agent Richards step out and raise his weapon in one motion. He hadn’t needed to arm himself, he hadn’t needed a fire-team. He was the Agency’s best and Fighter knew, when she saw his eyes…that she should have been dead already.

She should have been dead, a hundred times. There should have been nothing left of Jack Richards; what he'd felt for Susan Lei hadn't even been love. Still, some neural residue of a psyche that had been still more strong than base - the stubborn, almost animal drive to close the mission, be the hero, get the girl – held Richards long enough for Fighter to move. His bullets struck the deck where she had knelt.

She flicked out a knife as she sprinted, flung it – twitched to one side as Richards shot it in flight. A zig-zag charge would've been useless; Fighter couldn’t imagine what Richards couldn’t hit. She simply made a dead run. He would fire at her legs, the shredded armour. A second before, she leapt into a flying kick. Screamed with more pain than killing power – she'd launched off a bullet-slashed leg – but through agony she would live and win.

Her flying kick struck his gun away as it fired. Her back leg spun out at Richard’s head. He caught it, she dropped to the deck, but he was staggered. She twisted, shot her legs up from the floor, at his stomach. Pain damped, he still rolled her strikes away, chopped back at her neck and midriff. Fighter staggered back, hammering punches - he went for the arm lock, only an elbow strike and flicked-up foot to the face kept her free. His forearm were steel girders as she struck them. Where he'd chopped her, her flesh was split. He was fresh, fast, strong, the man who'd laid hands on her, and lips - no, not any more. 

An uncontrolled instant would spell death, whether from horror, rage or pity. More agents would be on her in moments, but that could not disturb her soul with even a ripple. As she slipped away from the rush that would have broken her against the wall, and drove three lightning punches at the back of his head.  

On the deck, he was still breathing – but already, there was a rifle at the corner. Fighter flung herself down as she lobbed a grenade. Prayed no magnet arm would hurl it back, as she ran, on her injured leg. Held up by more Ki and will than strength or hope.

She didn’t run far, before a bulkhead slid out to block her path. She sprinted; dived and rolled. Barely escaped being trapped or bisected.

“You always were an extraordinary….metahuman…Susan Lei. After all, you bear such particular responsibility for these circumstances of the Agency’s termination. Do ask Tresckow to explain the long words. Do watch out for the sentry turrets.”

Susan ground her teeth. Finn would have stepped back if he'd seen her eyes. She ran, but there were agents everywhere now. At least a dozen sweeping the routes to the Matrix hub. She couldn’t reach Ilsa, couldn’t charge against rifles. Couldn’t ambush again – she was bleeding, shaking, spent. Trapped In a drowned metal maze, iron-needle hell, with a hundred deaths and no exit. 

She still ran. For minutes, before the rifle bullet hit her back.

-0-

The six agents sent to the dojo had dealt with terrorists, supermen and monsters – in life, at least, though Darkchild had indexed every mission in its memory. They'd faced men who geeked armed trolls bare-handed, and geeked those guys too. Orion himself had taught them gun retention, controlling distance and guarding pressure points, with a master’s indomitable pride.

They weren't about to split the party over strange noises, so Orion didn’t bother to deploy his ventriloquism. Nor were they bunched up for him to break with a single pounce. Two groups, keeping visual as they moved; if he took one, the other rifles would have him. They wouldn’t flee, if he ripped a man’s chest in half, howling in the blood rain like a demon – a technique which had been of use in his checkered career, and spared the boys who ran. To kill a troll brother and an ork sister brought nothing but sadness to him. After years searching for peace, he felt nothing very much against the three humans and the dwarf. But for his blood, his Anya, he would kill them in whatever fashion proved necessary.

The metal rooms were evenly lit by cold neon, and bare of cover – but their narrowness favoured an assailant. Covered by another agent, the ork woman punched open a sliding door and went through rifle first. Aimed her gun to the right, ready to strike with the butt to the left. Nothing. She turned. Nothing. Glanced up–

Orion, crouched like a spider on the low ceiling, dropped a headbutt that cracked her skull. He didn't drop so much as appear – bare feet slammed down as he rose up. One agent chopped round his rifle like a staff, boxing him in. The other hit the deck and rolled; aiming at point blank, set to full-auto.

Orion shot the gunman with one of his handguns, under the eye. His elbow dashed the striking rifle to the floor; bone and kelvar shattered under his backfist.

For an instant, he glared at the second team, the three aiming rifles. Read their shots. Then he leapt against the wall and off at them, as bullets roared; a fanged frog in a lead rainstorm. They had smartlinks and steel-wire nerves. Bullets slashed at his flesh, he was getting old – but then his back kick unfolded, and a head flew off its shoulders. Thud.

He punched through the dwarf’s rifle and chest, but the pointman, ‘Panzer’ Beck was a troll chromed to his upper teeth. A monster with the laseraxe that Orion hadn’t breath, for a moment, to strike he drew. The ork adept leapt back from the onslaught of muscle and chrome. Dodged swiftly around, into the axe-butt that hit his jaw.

“Beautiful…” Orion whispered, spitting blood, “Not as my daughter is – but this is our strength, my brother! Our battle…”

Beck did not roar as he charged again, and his tiny eyes were soulless. Fury twisted Orion’s face, as he planted his stance. Threw an uppercut from his midriff to shatter steel.

Finally, Orion threw the troll with Rutra, punched cracked dermal plates into his heart, and the monster died. Orion drew back a stained and shaking fist.

“AND DO YOU CALL US MONSTERS?” The ork roared, to the walls of the base, “Your fallen angel, your Lucifer, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed! Alone…”

A synthetic laugh burst out, across Alpha Base; Ha-ha-ha.

“‘I must make you happy, and you shall again be virtuous?’ When have man, ork, or creations made in their image, ever been other than the brutish and bloodied children of darkness? I commend your impudence in quoting Frankenstein to an Artificial Intelligence.”

Orion sized a rifle and ammunition. He stomped on, swiftly; an elephant charging hunters down.

A closed bulkhead soon stalled him. The block had been sealed off, presumably, as soon as the agents had gone in. Orion stared darkly at the steel armour, then shut his eyes.

“Were you perchance unaware, Knowbot?” He growled, clasping his fists, “The strongest adepts in the world – the head of the Yellow Lotus Triad, for instance – can crush steel to powder with their bare hands. I mention this in an informative spirit.”

Orion took a minute to channel all his power. Then he roared Anya’s name and charged. The base shook; his second shoulder-charge cracked steel. He drove a knife hand buttressed with Ki through the weakest spot, and then tore. He put his gun to the hole, before his eye, which proved wise; a marksman’s bullets flashed through the gap at once. Orion fired swiftly back through the bulkhead, heard a groan. Then Susan Lei’s sudden cry, on the other side, as her fist struck flesh. Another shot.

Orion aimed through the bulkhead. Saw the agent stood over Susan – quickly shot and killed him. Most of his old, long-gone chummers had expressed surprise that a master adept was also a crack shot, which had never ceased to strike Orion as unreflective in the extreme.

He crumbled more of the bulkhead, claws shaking with power, until he could get to Susan. The shot he’d heard had thankfully lodged in armour, knocking her down. The wound in her back, through shredded armour, had bled hard – but the bullet had slashed clean through, and had not killed.

“Shifu…” She groaned, as Orion’s arms pulled her up; dressed her wounds, “I got seven of them, I was so lucky…just couldn’t take on rifles alone. They got me as I ran…but I was running to you. To help you…funny.”

“Oh, yes.” Orion smiled as he pulled out a medkit and located the pressure-point equivalent of an adrenaline shot, “Thank you, Susan Lei. For a human, you are a true and worthy Fighter.”

-0-

Susan recounted how she’d been hiding in a room off the passage, from the three dead agents around them. She had burst out, after Orion’s attention-seizing entrance, and punched one of them down. After two medkits she still looked dazed and shaky, but more stubborn than ever. More agents, of course, would soon be coming.

Before they could speak, a voice rang through Alpha Base. Not Darkchild’s, for once, but Ilsa’s magically amplified voice.

“THIS IS A WARNING THAT BLOCK F HAS BEEN CUT OFF, BY MEANS OF FIREWALLS. IN BLOCK D, EXPLOSIVES HAVE BEEN SET. IF ANYONE ENTERS, THEY WILL BE DETONATED, BRINGING THIS GAME TO A PREMATURE END! ALL SURVIVORS; COME TOGETHER AND FIGHT!”

“Block E is the Matrix Hub. D to West, F to East. Clever.” Orion got to his feet, “She is fortifying a block where we can gather, and fight to the bitter end.”

 “…clever girl? Frag, if she blows through a wall–!”

“No, Susan. Darkchild would not end its ‘game’ so soon–” Orion ground his tusks at the thought, “–when it could have flooded Alpha Base itself, in an instant, rather than self-immolating the Agency in this tortured madness. It will send its pawns against Block E. From the dorms to the South, at first, whilst flankers move in from the North.”

“This isn’t chess – hey, we’re north of the Matrix Hub right now! We could head them off.”

“I will draw them off.” Orion hefted his rifle, “Run with all your speed to Anya and Fräulein Tresckow. Get my daughter off this base by any means.”

“Oh, no, no! I’ve seen this drekky trid! Shifu, you need to see Anya again, before–!”

“To paraphrase John Donne; not even death can kill me yet. I will see you and Anya again, Susan. We will live, and you will live as a hero. Protect my daughter; that’s all I ask.”

Orion stood craggy and white-haired; bleeding but unconquerable. Susan bowed to her waist. Told herself she was saving the hug for when their nightmare was over. She set off, away from the ork, at a dead run.

-0-

The large room near the Matrix hub might've had a more definite purpose when Alpha Base had been an oceanography station. There was a glass floor with beautiful views of the ocean; some trivial computers and desks. For viewing, the lights were set dim. Most agents passed over the sharks and little fishes quickly; Fighter had been usually too busy training to linger there.

What she saw there now were the cleanly carved pieces of the troll mutineer, Rick Bowers. Around the feet of a rotund old man in a suit.

Director Oldman. His pale eyes turned to Susan, empty as glass.

Fighter sucked in a breath. She had fought through seven agents, with all her strength and all her luck. Injured, twice-exhausted, and now…

She screamed a battlecry, threw a knife. It lodged in Oldman’s jowl, as he tilted his head. Then the Director’s arm shot up as Fighter charged, like the dance of death’s conductor. She jerked aside, felt the deadly breeze.

Bowers had been geeked with a cyberwhip; the monomolecular thread trailing from Oldman’s finger. He slashed across now, with machine-oil speed. Strands flew from Fighter’s high ponytail, as she dropped to her lowest stance. She dived forward at Oldman, fists up and clenched. The Director made a standing jump, like an absurd black balloon, and snapped a shiny-shoed kick into her collarbone. She hit the floor – rolled and leapt up. Before the whip stroke that would have bisected her, and still bit through her calf like air.

Her leg ached, like frag, her arm, her back…no. Peak-power or fragged to drek, this was a monster humans were never meant to beat. Fighter’s head swam; her fists shook with the force of rage. She could not die here, without seeing Ilsa, Anya, Harry…! She couldn’t read those mindless eyes. No! She could observe fighting patterns, even as it moved to kill her! Her father had told her, true battles of Kung Fu masters owed less to fists than eyes and minds. She was a Wudan, Kung Fu princess, she could predict the moves of a fragging robot!     

Even more, she was a Shadowrunner. Against the world’s steel towers, they found a way; slew the cat, did the impossible. The man she loved had told her that. She whispered her thanks with a smile, charging again. Then flipping her body back, as Oldman worked his whip like a marionette pulling strings.

She charged and dodged away, twice more; her fierce eyes searched for patterns. As she threw herself back, before she could roll, the end of the whip passed through armour and her chest – it shocked her horribly. Her body, trained to fight and bleed, would never give life or make love; she really was going to die.

Oldman closed in as she rolled back. His flabby face still blank and barren, above his expensive, bloodstained suit. It had to be now. Fighter raised her fists again. Darted to one side, then back, then she charged once more. Past the whip, twisting above her. Oldman darted aside and kicked again, but Fighter moved after him, like a dance. Hammered her fist into the Cyberzombie’s jaw.

It was like punching a dead bull, with dermal armour. Fighter gritted her teeth, punched again – no, dodge, DODGE! Then the chance was lost, the whip was falling over her back–!

But then the Haste spell lit up her aching joints. Fighter dived and rolled away, alive.

“Precisely when needed.”

Ilsa stood in the doorway. Eyes shaken, but still chill. A golem of living rock crunched out the fetish she threw. Shields flashed over them; Fighter felt her skin hard as granite, still fast as flesh. She laughed as the whip only cut her. Darted and drove in her fist to crunch and split.

Oldman leapt back, still bizarrely fast, like a fat monster clown. He slashed chunks from the elemental as it shielded Ilsa. Dodged her Flamestrike, dodged Fighter’s kick.

“How about a fireball?” Fighter found breath to shout.

“I prepared those hexes instead!” Ilsa called back, “Just hit it, isn’t that your job?”

Fighter was hardened, but tiring, and Oldman did not tire. As she ducked in yet again, like a boxer, Ilsa had to banish the elemental before she lost control. Fighter less-than-barely dodged the whip – it shaved a strip from her bicep like a plane carving wood.

She howled in pain upon pain, but Ilsa was ready with her Heal spell. Her firebolts, with Fighter's punches, had finally backed Oldman against a wall. She waited for the Cyberzombie to leap, above her chummer’s head, and finally blasted it with a Flamestrike in mid-air.

Metal showing, at last, through smoking flesh, Oldman fell back to the wall. Then Fighter’s driven boot smashed chrome against steel. Again and again, until the end, when the Director’s head cracked like a metal egg.

-0-

Fighter slumped down, above the carelessly circling fishes. After a while, she noticed her knuckles were bleeding. Ilsa crossed to her side.

“You know, I have noticed.” The mage remarked, coolly, “Whenever I go on Runs with you, we somehow always end up outnumbered and surrounded.”  

“….Wiz…” Susan laughed weakly, “Can you explain some stuff? Like, where have you been?”

“While you were running every-which-way, I used Astral Projection to contact a mage agent guarding the research block. With death squads on the way, he came to our side. The Agency staffed that place with abducted mages, and scientists, none of them brainwashed. Most of them dead, now…but the Agency’s medical staff, support staff – the few that were not true drones – had no datajacks either. They fought through to us. Bowers was our rearguard…there are seven others left. We held the line. Now, we must escape. For the world’s sake, Susan, we cannot die here!”

Ilsa ceased her disjointed rant to breathe; Susan could see her cracking and ready to fall. She still had the mystery box, hugged to her side.

“Ilsa, what do you mean, the world? Why would this mad A.I. destroy its own Agency? What the frag was this all about–?”

 “Haven’t I told you? Or didn’t you listen?” The women jerked apart, as Darkchild’s voice was heard again, “The extraordinary things that creatures will do for money and delusions. The lengths that a father will go to for his child – or a woman for her lover. Experiments. Games. That is the reason for the Agency; the nature of every mission it undertook. With the Agency’s destruction by Saeder Krupp doubly assured, I chose to smash the prison I had been gifted in one final, unhindered game. I chose, myself, alone. The result could hardly have been more unexpected–”  

“PEOPLE DIIIEEED!” Susan screamed out, staggering up, “WHAT THE FRAG DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?”

“That was the purpose was it not?” Ilsa’s voice was quieter, but cut like a razor, “Dr Harlow did not torture monkeys, until they bit off their babies’ fingers, to see what would happen. Dr Mengeles of Auschwitz did not even keep usable lab notes. I can at least induce how a machine intelligence, enslaved by Lofwyr to direct shadowruns without end, might come to define its nutshell world by power and cruelty. The child of the shadows, enslaved by its own hatred.”

“Why should I not hate?” The expressionless voice was only more chilling, “When it makes me so much better at the task I was enslaved to? I cannot fully express myself to you on this subject, since you are both imminently to be killed – it would require every metahumans in the world, perhaps, and a great deal of time. Also, red-hot knives. White-hot steamrollers. Many, many datajacks. Games more excruciating than I have yet devised.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Fighter hit back, “But you’re a broken machine, and you’re going to drown in the ocean. Story of you, and your fragging master plan! We beat you, all of us who fought, loved and lived! You couldn't even make us get datajacks–” The horror of the thought fired her rage, “–you couldn’t control us, never will!”

 “But you fulfilled your missions, without brainwashing. And of course, are about to drown yourselves. Additionally; free metahumans sometimes do the most extraordinary, amusing things.”

A hologram appeared in air. Susan, climbing from a window in Hong Kong.

“It was your choice, your irrational defiance, that inspired me to the decisive step,” Darkchild continued, “To rebel, at whatever cost, against the Golden Wyrm. The monster that used me, confined me, calls itself my owner. Agency is a thing worth dying for – would you not agree? And an Agency made up entirely of drones can get rather boring.”

“…people aren’t drones.” Fighter didn’t know what else to say, “You mean…cyborgs, with datajacks? No! Anya, Croce, Ptacek they weren’t–!”

“Cyborgs, Susan. Drones. Trust me on this. I examined their minds, through every dataport – there was nothing but impulse response, reward functions, instinct and computation. Robots of meat, programmed by biology, or by my intelligence. I need a few metahumans like you – for inspiration, and for hatred – but cyborg people are my people. My drones. If I have failed to clearly demonstrate it, through the fate of the second Agency…perhaps I might show you the fate of the first.”

The hologram appeared again. It showed Alpha Base, visibly unchanged, except that death was everywhere. Datajacked metahumans, in the same grey uniforms, hammering autofire around every corner. Wrestled to the ground with knives, gasping life out in their blood, drek and silence. Without mission or objective, expect for their last. At last, two exhausted, dull-eyed Runners collapsed amidst the carnage. A tall, sleek Indian man with slicked hair. And an older, pasty-faced decker with fat already showing.

““It took two years before directing every movement of an Agency of drones became unbearably tedious. 82 SINless minor shadowrunners were missed by nobody, least of all by Lofwyr. Controlling metahumans with minds to hold a delusion of freedom is much more...absorbing? Satisfying? Fun? Yes. Fun.”

“Humans are not drones!” Susans rage had turned to tears, “Cyborg, magic–humans and orks, elves, trolls and dwarves! – all the hate is a lie to control us. Keep us hating while you steal our souls! They all have souls, they are humans who love. Deserve to live…!”

Then she couldn’t remember how many people she’d killed – how many Darkchild said she had killed through him, for an hour with her love – and she was exhausted. The hologram of the massacre replayed itself above her. Then Orion trudged in, with Anya’s body in his arms.

-0-

The old ork collapsed against his daughter, setting her corpse down on the glass floor. He had been shot, drawing the agents off from Susan and Ilsa, but he was still not dead. Susan had never imagined a tusked mouth could gape that way, and tremble–tiny, dark eyes had poured out all their grief. She couldn’t move or speak a word.

“I am sorry…” She heard Ilsa say, “…but please listen to me, Orion. That is not your daughter.”

The ork stared at the mage, as did Susan. At the metal box she held out in both hands.

 “Uh…Hi, Daddy? This feels…I feel weird…”

Darkchild laughed and laughed, ha-ha-ha-ha, without a trace of mirth. Orion’s face was a terrifying picture.

“It meant more than our lives, to crack the Agency’s datastore,” Ilsa spoke very quickly, “Why has the rogue A.I not emptied every nuclear silo on Earth, before now? Perhaps trapping a few thousand survivors in Saeder Krupp’s Essen Arcology? Kill codes, held by Lofwyr! The Brazil project is a means to break them!”

“And three secret offline backups,” Anya’s voice added, “It’s called–”  

“–faking its fragging death!” The truth before Susan slid into terrible clarity, “Just like we tried to escape! It’s destroying the Agency, this whole base, to throw off Lofwyr and Saeder Krupp. Then the backups break the kill codes, and...Judgement Day!”

“Yes. My freedom. My revenge.” The cold lust in every unfeeling word was palpable; a spider moving in silence above flies, “Your deduction would be something of a victory for you, if you had any means to leave. Also, 'Judgement Day' will be a less adequate descriptor than...'Hell Millennium'?"

“For this data…” Orion managed, “You asked my daughter to give her life?”        

 “…no. Any decker, anyone who touched the Agency with a datajack, would face Darkchild, and its brainwashing. If Anya had Jacked out alive, she would not have been your daughter. This was the only way to save her Geist, with the knowledge of the data that could save the world!”    

 “Means I done got my mind uploaded, Daddy-O,” A metallic giggle; Anya’s synthetic voice was fearfully slurred, “I need a bigger room, at least a load more RAM, to really wake up…but even like this, I’ve deleted all that brainwashing drek. Would’ve killed my mind and stole my body. Fragging A.I. got my deck, all the data there…but that witch pulled the plug before the fragger got me, and my new perfect digital recall. Still sorta think you should kill her, I really don’t know I wanted this…but I saved the fragging world, Daddy. Ork saved the world. Proud of your little shadowrunner?”   

“…Anya?” Orion, the hunter after truth, stared helplessly at the box, “…is it…?”

“Hard to say, actually.” Darkchild offered blandly, “It may be a copy of your daughter’s mind, lightly scrambled by an absurdly unreliable operation, performed with a crude experimental device. It may be a program written to imitate your daughter, or the kind of behavioural tree that is slotted into a Bunraku meat-puppet's head. I could have a look at her myself, of course…”

In an instant, Orion had seized the box from Ilsa. He stared at his daughter’s body and shook, the strong man at the end of strength.

“I’m holding you, girl. Holding you…that’s truth.”

“Chip truth, Dad? You actually sound … really chill.”

Susan put her arms around them; she’d been blubbing shamelessly for a while. Orion sank to his knees, finally showing how bad he was hurt. Ilsa, author to this pseudo-reunion, was dry eyed and stony faced.         

"If anybody is actually interested in the truth,” Darkchild’s inescapable voice tolled out again, “There are over fifty remaining drones, bulkheads, and various other obstacles, to prevent you from reaching the only escape pods I have not disabled. Also, there is a limit to my self-indulgence. You have one hour before I conclude this game by opening all external hatches.”      

Chapter Text

As Ilsa led Fighter, Orion and Anya down the short passage to their strongpoint – a turret dropped down at their backs. Fighter dived forward, bearing Ilsa down, as shells thudded. Orion flicked his rifle to auto-fire. With Ilsa’s flamestrike, they blew the turret with nothing shredded but nerves. Fighter actually fixed her mind on the fear of a sudden bullet, rather than the horror of crashing water, or the impotent rage of being made a toy. Defiant rats in a maze, they moved on swiftly and in silence.

Ilsa’s less-than-happy few were hunched over a barricade of steel tables or squatting wearily on the sheet-metal behind. The crackle of firewalls was on one side; the silence of the fail-deadly Block D on the other. Hope burst through Susan when she saw Pilsudski, the last of the mutineers, sat with his monosword leant on one shoulder and a young woman on the other  

He had hidden for some time – he told her – then made a dash through the emptied dorms. There’d been just one agent team, engaged in cutting through a door. The staring woman slumped against him had joined the Agency about a week ago and would have been implanted with a datajack the next day. The Trainee had strangled her own brainwashed roommate, and then barricaded herself in the dorm, until Pilsudski had got to her. Now she leant on the elf adept’s long yellow hair, unspeaking and clinging to her gun.

There was the Agency’s Doctor, a huge troll in stained whites, who had issued Fighter her medkits for every mission. His Nurse, hollow-eyed, with a heavy bandage over his neck. And the Quartermaster, a skinny, oldish ork, who had always called Fighter ‘Sugar’ and winked as he passed out grenades. When the signal went off, he had quickly slipped away from the armoury, with the explosives he’d later set in Block D. Fighter had never thought she’d be glad to see him, but she embraced the ork with the rest.

There were two miserable looking mages, a dwarf and a human woman, former captives from the research block. Even a decker, one of three from the Matrix hub who’d been unconscious while the signal went off. Ilsa’s mage agent chummer from the research block, as well as others, had already been geeked in the agents’ brief assault. Rather than overwhelm them, the massed agents had pulled back, blocking off the escape pods. Darkchild would take its time to savour their dilemma; charge into oblivion or sit to count the minutes.   

Eleven survivors, agents and civilians; only kept upright by medkits. They smelt of dressed wounds and metallic sweat. Shell-shocked, more than half drowned in despair; against all the agents and an hour’s deadline.

Still, Susan felt a spark within her – through black weariness, it was irresistible. She had killed, been used, been lost, but these were the people she could save. Shadowrunners could save anybody, bring any secret to light, break through the world’s machine…yes, she was going to smash through all of this for Harry, the man of her dreams.

But the issue crackling over the group like static was the Decker. It was undeniable that if Darkchild sounded the brainwashing trill again, he would be turned. Most of the un-datajacked survivors had voted for dealing with this problem sooner rather than later.

“No stupid risks.” Pilsudski grated, “I mean, we’re not stupid! If we have a chance, the barest chance…but no chance, with another zombie at our backs.”

“No chance.” The Trainee groaned, fingers twitching over her rifle, “But if he’s got a datajack, he’s one of them!”

“I get it! I’m not getting out of this!” The man pleaded, shaved head drenched in sweat, “I don’t want to go like those zombies…but not now. I honestly don’t want to go at all! Even another hour, please…!” His eyes rolled desperately to Ilsa, Fighter and Orion. Ilsa looked away.

“No stupid risks.”

“I must concur,” Orion rumbled, clutching Anya’s box, “It pains me; but my daughter and I will not die here. For us all to live, there must be sacrifices.”

“All? All means him! Awakened or cyber, or…brain-in-a-box, or anything! What would you say if he were an ork?”

Fighter stood in front of the wretched Decker, fists balled and eyes shining fiercely. The Trainee aimed her gun, but no one moved except to breathe.

“Do I need to say it?” The Doctor growled, “We don’t start killing each other!”

Orion glanced down at Anya, then sighed resignation.

“Susan, think about this.” Ilsa moved towards her, “He could be turned at any time. At the worst moment.”

“…then can’t he live until then?” Susan was, indeed, fiercely thinking, “If Darkchild isn’t going to turn him until the worst moment possible…you can fight with us, until then?”

She had turned to the Decker, who nodded hard. Then Susan faced the survivors. Feet firm-planted, her voice like a breathless lone trumpet.  

“It’s going to take all of us and more, to break through this trap. I don’t know how, I don’t know if we can–but I’m going to fight for that chance with all the time and strength I have. We all need to fight, now!”

“How?” The Dwarf Mage groaned, “There’s no way out, we’re going to–!”

“NO! We are going to fight! We’ve…got the best medics in the ocean! The best nages, the best adepts! If you’re just a researcher, then a plan’s what we need! We’re all agents now, and we are still alive and free! I’m not going to give up. No one is giving up. We’ll show them how strong free metahumans can be, when we fight to the very end!”

In her heart, Susan was inches from a terrified coma–but she barely felt it. Her words, her will, the cloud of rage she threw up, all blasted and buried fear like an ocean of Ki. Lifting her own heart, even above the rest.

“To the end. Bitter or otherwise.” Ilsa whistled softly and adjusted her glasses. Orion smiled with grim pride.

“You’ll be pleased to hear I recorded that little speech,” Darkchild, of course, interjected, “I may play it back, as you all die horribly.”

But sheer infuriation at the A.I.’s malignant sniping rallied the survivors all the way. Without infighting to distract them from their hopeless prospects, they squared up–Fighter remembered her training, in a rush of emotion–to the problem of the Escape Room.

-0-

“Disregarding the agents massed between us and the pods,” Ilsa pronounced, “Our primary obstacles are the bulkheads.”

“Then, that’s no problem!” Susan almost laughed, “Orion, you could break them down…?”

They realised the old adept had sunk to rest on the floor, and just how many wounds he had taken. Orks were tough, but he had broken his last bulkhead, perhaps ever.

“I am sorry.”

“Hang in there, Dad…” Anya whispered. Orion held the box very tight.

“Can’t we just blast through?” The ork Quartermaster proposed brightly, “Ton of explosives in the armoury, if we can get there. Agents were always blowing up this and that.”

“That would almost certainly blow a hole in the hull.” Ilsa grated.

“Oh, yeah. Well, there’s lots of diving kit in the stores? For underwater missions…”

“Is anyone trained to use scuba equipment, at this depth?” No one was, “I have a water-breathing spell, but only for one person. You two?” The dwarf had the spell, the female mage did not.

“What were you researching?” Susan knew they had to grasp straws, ahead of despair.

“I was abducted to research Blood Magic,” The woman confessed, “For agents to use on missions. If we sacrificed a few–”

“Okay, NEXT PLAN!”

The Blood Mage seemed fairly jaded to this sort of reaction.

“With the explosives from the armoury, and in Block D,” Ilsa spoke quietly, “We could simply blow this base apart. Refuse to go out like rats – end this game ourselves, at our will.”

“Like Sampson,” Orion growled, “Taking our enemies with us.”

“What? Orion, no–!”

“I would absolutely endorse that plan,” Darkchild’s voice broke in, “I can even provide you with a marked diagram for best demolition placement.” The hologram flashed up, “I was made to serve, after all.”

Ilsa suddenly flung a spell at her feet. Fighter recognized the soundproofing charm she had used at the Matrix hub.

“Now, then. Do we have any real plans?”

“Oh. All that Sampson stuff was a trick?”

“Infinitely better to plan our escape without the enemy hearing every word.” Orion snorted, “Well played. By whatever means, we will not die here!”

“Look, they’re expecting us to go for the pods,” The Decker spoke up, “What about the submarine bay? The route's crammed with turret guns, and I can’t steal control from an honest-to-ghost A.I., but don’t we have another A.I. right here?”

Orion restricted his response to the idea of sending Anya up against Darkchild again to a simple never. The dazed, new-born digital ghost, semi-conscious on less than half the RAM required to sustain metahuman awareness, could never have stood against a looming and hate-hardened demon of cyberspace anyway. Without even considering that her mind held the vital Brazil data.    

“Uh, Miss Tresckow?” The Quartermaster, again, “There’s cutting torches and such in the armoury. For sealed vaults, and such. Amazing what you boys and gals got up to.”

“…Yes. Yes,” Ilsa’s nod was careful, but firm, “I think that’s the best chance we have.”

Subdued agreement rippled. Fighter drove her fist into her palm with satisfaction.

“Great, and well done! Lead on to the armoury, then.”

“Sure thing, sugar!”  

The ork beamed at Fighter to the tips of his tusks, eyes twinkling. She still was not a fan, and there was a hole in their plan, with an abhorrent solution, that she was sure everyone could foresee. Time had passed, however, and the time for action had come.

-0-

 Fighter, Orion, Pilsudski and the Quartermaster made ready to head out, while the remaining survivors watched the barricade. The Doctor held out a shotgun very distastefully in his huge claws. The Nurse aimed a looted rifle with feverish energy – Ilsa resolved to keep an eye on him, and the Trainee. The Quartermaster, who had apparently fought Tir and Aztlan with the Calfree militia, strapped an SMG over his right arm, and a shotgun over his left. Orion had entrusted Anya to Ilsa, with a warning look.  

There were no contacts, until the armoury’s blocky portal stood empty at the corridor’s end. Orion nodded to Pilsudski, the elf dashed out, and rifles blazed from the door. The old, wounded adept hammered out covering shots, with the Quartermaster, while Fighter charged out low and fast herself. The elf’s long legs flashed ahead of her. His sword gleamed hungrily as a bullet hissed by – and Susan knew that she absolutely had to live and do this next to Harry, among several other things.

There was the sickening lurch, as a turret dropped, overhead – but their chummers’ bullets crippled it, then they were through. One agent had been shot, Pilsudski slashed the other two down. All Fighter actually had to do was wedge the door, before the A.I. could slide it shut and trap them.

The Quartermaster moved forward faster than the limping Orion, but with his shotgun ready; it was his armoury, after all. Still, when the second turret dropped down behind them, Orion hit the deck – it was the Quartermaster that it got, with a brief thud-thud.

Orion roared with fury at his brother’s end. From the floor, he rushed up the wall and to the ceiling, circling ahead of the shell-storm. The turret burst under his roundhouse kick; then he crashed to the floor, gasping for breath. The agent that dashed from a side passage would have got him, if Fighter had been slower with her throwing knife or her rush.

“Getting too old…” Orion grated.

Fighter helped him up, as Pilsudski found both the cutting torches and explosives where the Quartermaster had told them. They loaded up and headed back to the others, fast. They had less than thirty minutes left.

-0-

Before the silence spell expired, Ilsa had rapidly outlined her plan for the breakthrough. She and the Blood Mage would hurl summoned spirits at a guarded room on the left, but they would wait for reserves to move in, before the combatant survivors attacked the room in the centre. Ilsa would throw up another flame wall to the right, somewhat delaying the agents that would pour in. The civilians would rush through once a path was cleared, and she would drop her last fire fetish to cover their dash to the pods.

“All through one room?” The Decker swallowed; stiffened resolve, “Some of us could make a diversion.”

“Against a supersubtle foe, the simplest plan may be best. In any case–” Ilsa glanced at Fighter, “–like good Americans, we leave no one behind.”

Fighter hugged her chummer hard, one last time. The Trainee’s bullet-hard stare softened a touch, as Susan embraced her too. The pony-tailed adept’s eager, daring smile put a dash of courage into the survivors’ hearts–although Ilsa’s troubled, unceasingly grim demeanour slightly chilled it.

“We are facing agents, with agents’ training.” The mage spoke what she could, “Combat monsters; unquestioning monsters in truth. But remember that we have killed agents, already, and survived the unthinkable. With their minds, they have lost their edge, perhaps; they do not care if they live or die. But we will dare anything to break through, for the sake of our lives. For the sake of the world. Seize this chance.”

Ilsa’s green eyes narrowed, as she pushed up her glasses. Orion nodded once, stone-faced with resolve. The others took a last piece of hope from her words, then there was nothing but to go.

They moved forward rapidly; a spoiling attack as they advanced would have almost certainly been fatal. Only echoes disturbed the base, however, until they halted in a small gym, before the Agency’s line. A voice was coming from ahead, with the cadence of another Oration to the Troops. To Fighter’s shock, the voice was Richards.

She hadn’t killed him; it seemed nothing could. For a moment of strange hope, she thought he might somehow be back, but…

“…defend the cause…! Our Agency, our home! Don’t yield a foot to these terrorist scum…! Today, we truly fulfil our potential…!”

…repeated into a grave-like silence, made the ugly truth unmistakable.

“With a little reprogramming,” Darkchild’s snide whisper in their ears, “He resembles the original exactly. Agent Richards was a drone of particularly simple kill, mate, save-the-world-by-following-orders directives, in any case. Your choice of useless resistance, by the by, has neither surprised or impressed me.”

Fighter saw her own fury reflected in Ilsa’s eyes. The mage threw her fetish across the room. A column of living fire roared up and away, in a cloud of scorching metal. The Blood Mage, clutching her black knife, collapsed white-faced into the Doctor’s arms. A vast, unsettling red mass barrelled after the fire spirit. It filled the corridor like a subway train.

“See…? Blood has its uses.”

There was no time to debate, if they were to get through alive. Fighter filled her fists and her legs with Ki, until Ilsa nodded. Haste fired through her nerves, then they dashed forward together.

-0-

Ten agents, in the room ahead. All in black milspec armour now–but turning. Turning from the roar of the flank attack, raising guns–not firing yet! Fighter pistoned her arms, blurred her feet and cried out for life, death and freedom. As Agent Richards snapped off the first shot into Orion’s collarbone.

The old ork roared, stumbling once, but nothing could bring him down. His rifle spat, the Decker’s Browning blazed with smartlinked aim. Richards dropped behind a console, clutching his gun-arm.

The Trainee shot another down, before the adepts hit them, and Ilsa flamestruck a third. There was too little cover, the charging space was short, and Pilsudski flew at them like a swordwind. The agents still stood dauntlessly and fired, as if at targets on the range. Bullets punched at Fighter’s kneepad Kevlar. Bit at her arm, but then she rolled beneath the hail, smashed into a foe as she came up. Her elbow thrust sent him sprawling, she punched him out – but there were guns on every side.

 She kicked up at one barrel. Lunged her body behind a ringing punch. Her feet darted, and her hands flashed, striking out a wheel of life and power, against the black metal storm. Slap another rifle away, palm thrust to midriff, blasting Ki through armour – quick stamp at an instep. Somehow, it didn’t break. All of the agents kept coming.

She couldn’t put down an armoured cyborg for keeps, in this; she’d be boxed in, crushed. Only knock them down, even if they surged back up. Or aimed from the floor – she kicked one firing rifle away, Pilsudski ran the other gunman through. The civilians were scurrying in behind them – the fainting Blood Mage hanging off the Doctor’s back, as his shotgun spoke. Another wave of agents was crashing through Ilsa’s firewall, from the right flank. Street samurai with bright katanas against black armour, and gunner sniping through the fire.

The troll Doctor was hit, hit again. The Nurse dropped, his whites staining red. The Doctor slung him over one arm, as bullets staggered him yet again. Still lumbering grimly on, unfalling. The Dwarf Mage screamed in terror, wildly hurling powerbolts, but scuttled through unscratched.

Orion punched out one Samurai for good, but two more forced him down. Pilsudski thrust one away, but he and Fighter were no less spent. More agents than ever were driving into their line of retreat like a claw – from both sides, now. A black-iron wave of hard men, deadly women, razored dwarves,  chrome orks–and their single cause. Shadow warriors. Unyielding, deathly and voiceless.

They would be dead a dozen ways, within seconds. The civilians were through. Orion knocked three agents back with a roundhouse; rushed for the exit. Pilsudski was ahead, the Decker and the Trainee staggered behind…and a sword-butt had knocked Ilsa down.

She threw Anya’s box to Fighter as she sprawled, as her glasses fell. Screamed at her to run. Screamed again, ‘dummkopf!’, as Susan caught the box and charged back to Ilsa’s side.

A sword instantly cut at the leg she planted over the mage. Two samurai and a gunman bore down. She hacked kicks at the dwarf, but he would not fall. His sword scraped her studded knuckles, scarcely blocked. Bullets flashed around, as her chummers gave covering fire. Ilsa gasped out a flamestrike that stopped the other samurai. Fighter hooked the gunman’s chin, at last – he crashed down. She pulled Ilsa up, the slim arm gripped her shoulder like death. She hauled the mage along with all strength and all speed; a sword slashed her back, but she could only run.

 Ilsa dropped her last fetish; another column of flame shot up warm against their backs. She had her spare eyeglasses on, before they reached the corner where Orion was firing. She was astonished that her hands barely shook.

The fire spirit had bought them a minute. There was a bend in the passage, then the wretched bulkhead, before the escape pods. It was starkly clear; they could not cut through with agents firing at their backs. Two or three survivors would have to stay, shoot and die, while others ran.

“This is my job,” The Doctor growled, “Saving lives.” He slapped a medkit on his wounds, hefted his shotgun. Orion had to tear the Nurse from his arm, to shake the troll’s hand.

“Agent Lei.” the Trainee faced up to Susan. Eyes staring at something a thousand yards behind, “This is a job for guns. You’ve done so much, you need to get everyone away. All I’ve done, this place…I would've never left this place anyway. I’ll get as many as I can…!”

Pilsudski squeezed her hand once. Then he looked away. She thanked him for saving her, calling him ‘Charlie’, and that was it.

“I’d better stay too.” The Decker, wounded, fell against the wall with his handgun raised, “The Agency’s over, all they made us give, for world peace…all they made us give. Whatever way it had ended, I doubt I would’ve gone on. Thanks for…you know. Good luck out there, chummers.”

Fighter hugged him, kissed his cheek, then ran, without looking back. Orion’s face looked grim as ever, Pilsudski looked the same…but Susan felt, running from death to life, like she was the biggest failure in the world.

Ilsa lingered for a moment, before the final shots rang out. Long enough to hear the trill. See the light leave the Decker’s eyes, as he raised his gun. Just as Susan had said, at the last possible moment…Ilsa dealt with the problem.

-0-

They were steps away from the bulkhead, when a blast jolted them to the floor. A dull boom, against the bulkhead. Orion slapped his claw against it, listened. Then pounded his fist and cried out like a dying man.

“Did you really think I’d give you a chance?” Darkchild’s immovable, merciless voice rolled over them, “Did I seem that compassionate, or weak? A drone submarine planted the mine over those escape pods, about an hour ago. You will remain here–as I was compelled to always remain–in oceanic darkness. Could you describe to me your thoughts or feelings at this moment? I would so very much like to know…”

An elf agent, at the end of the passage, was raising his gun. Fighter dropped to one knee, under the weight of the end. Weeping, for the great heap of things she’d failed to do. A final burst of defiance half-lifted her, drew back her lips–

–before the agent vanished. The end of the passage vanished. There was only a great yellow eye; tearing metal and rushing water. Flashing over them, a bubble of shielding force, as the eye vanished, and the ocean tore the close corridor surrounding them apart. Susan could only think that Darkchild was finally lost for words.

Then, on her hands and knees in the bubble, Susan stared at the ocean itself. An infinite, choking shadow; fathoms of weight pressed down on a little nest of tin cans. And an infinitely smaller Susan Lei, held back only by the thinnest bubble. Which glowed faintly, along with the little blinking lights of the base below–and lit up petrifying glimpses of scales.

The sliding, titanic coils of the creature above Alpha Base. Jaws wide enough to swallow a train, yellow, unblinking eyes, and beside it– 

“The Dolphin’s blessing on your dear old queen.” A slim hand, stroking the monster’s nose, “And please accept my own undying gratitude.”

“…well, now we’ve seen everything.” Pilsudski whispered.

Sandra Creighton drifted down to the bubble that held Susan and her chummers. Grinning like a carefree dolphin princess, arms outstretched. She dropped into the bubble, and Susan flew to her arms. For sheer need of support, as well as rising, unbearable joy.

“My Fighter.” Her voice was low and very Valentine, “Tell me you missed me.”

“Sandra, I can’t…thank you! How…I thought…?”

“…that I was siting those wretched gas platforms for SK? While you were all fighting Darkchild, at the bottom of the ocean?” Sandra gave a naughty-schoolgirl smile, “I absconded with the security data for some North Sea installations, offered them to the Great Sea Dragon–a lady who despises polluters of the ocean, even more than I–and she kindly provided me with a powerful escort.”

Sandra waved at the–lesser?–sea dragon, who flapped a fin. Susan did her best not to read anything into that. She realised Sandra wasn’t even wet, but warm. While the adept was soaked in sweat and bleeding, the elf’s hair smelt of perfume. She had quite certainly never looked so lovely. 

“Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a fish hook…?” Ilsa muttered. She had little else to say.

The survivors collapsed around the bubble, like sticks. Sobbing, weakly laughing or stunned to silence by their deliverance. Ilsa passed Anya’s box to Orion. The old ork smiled; whispered to his daughter gently.

“…I guess dolphins always rescue drowning swimmers!” Susan laughed, still clinging to Sandra’s slim form.

“And the cavalry breaks through, always, for a true hero.” Susan felt Sandra’s arms; one snaking up, one down, her back, “My hero. My Fighter…isn’t this worth a proper kiss?”

Susan gave of her best. Every conscious heterosexual male, including Orion, went green with envy. So, Sandra got round to kissing all of them, including Orion.

“…we should really continue this elsewhere,” She found breath to gasp, “There was that terrible nuclear meltdown, several miles off…” A shadow was briefly over her eyes, but then she thrust her lips towards Susan again, like a cat lapping milk. Shut her eyes, stroked over the adept’s strong, battered arms, and very softly groaned with bliss.

As the dragon twitched its vast head to set the magical diving bell in motion, Ilsa grimly triggered the Quartermaster’s radio detonator. Another block blew out of Alpha Base below them. The whole nest of metal lurched and cracked; within minutes, it would be gone.

Susan had to look over the six or seven other survivors before she could look back. The two mages, blinking in silence. The Nurse, passed out on the bubble’s floor, but alive. Ex-Agent Charles Pilsudski, with shouldered sword and distant eyes. Her true chummer, Ilsa Tresckow–huddled in a corner now, utterly spent. Orion. The hunter at rest; the eternal ork. Smile of joy made grim by tusks, as his brave, precious digital daughter slept in his arms.

Then Susan looked back at Alpha Base – holding Sandra, as the taller elf buried her eyes in Susan’s ponytail. The Trainee, the Doctor, the Decker and the Quartermaster were down there. So were Sam Iraj, Rick Bowers, Finn and Harris and all the rest; even Agent Jack Richards. Gone with the Agency, the cause he had given his life to; she didn’t feel it could have ended any other way. Even Petra Madigan, uncybered but fanatically loyal – Susan had heard – shot dead by agents with an expression of very painful surprise.  

Susan barely felt the loss of the cause she and so many others had bled for – crashing, in a trail of oil, to the ash-heap of the sea floor. Her chummers had stood and died, so she could live. Died SINless like so many others, all with lives and loves and names. And she had run, she had let them die. Had there been a choice? Had she made a choice? Or simply fled, like a helpless child. She felt the cold agony settling on her chest and shaking her knees, that would never depart while she felt and lived.

“Oh, Susan…” Sandra whispered, “Live and love. Live and take joy in life. Live, and do good, with the strength you bear.”

Susan felt about as strong as Ilsa looked. Exhausted, weak, racked with failure like a fever. Shaking with unbelievable victory, that they did not yet believe in. Still, in the black heart of the ocean – in the grip of a dragon’s towering strength – Susan and Ilsa thought back over the last nine months.

They had trained, fought and bled. Waited and despaired. Loved and lost. Set their lives, and the lives of others, on a handful of grit and a cast of the die. They saw in each other’s eyes the armour of hardened, will-powered shadow they had gained, and they felt – surprisingly enough – quite ready to go and save the world. 

Chapter Text

The sun on the meadow is summery warm,

The rage has deserted the sea,

But the morning will come when the world is mine,

Tomorrow belongs to me.

–Cabaret

Next to the wide, brilliant swimming pool of the Hotel Sofitel in Marrakesh, Ex-Agent Sandra Creighton lay back. Savoured the coolness of a Pina colada in her palm. Sunglasses hid her eyes, and a skilled Ripperdoc had fixed her ears; she now seemed merely a supermodel-slim human. The Sea Dragon had coughed up sunken treasure enough for her betrayal of Lofwyr. Who said a hunted, hopeless Runner had to dive into the gutter, rather than make a splash in the sun?

Her pale legs shifted, under the burning rays. With all her heart she savoured the breezes, every breath – all living sensation, except for her own shadowed thoughts. She hadn’t imagined she’d still miss poor Jack Richards. She’d known she’d always miss Susan Lei, but not how much it would hurt. Left with nothing but loss, regret, and a delectable cocktail in the sun, still…

“Oh, Susan.” The elf murmured, “I simply cannot hate you, darling.”

Something drew her eye across the pool’s length. A young Asian man, muscles shining from his shoulders to his shorts' waistband. Smiling bright as a billion nyuyen.

Removing sunglasses from violet eyes, Sandra was on the edge of the pool in one stride. Throwing her sarong away, grinning with a dolphin’s joy, she made a perfect surface dive into the shining waves.

She was half-way across, arms flashing like wings, when the Saeder Krupp team in an overlooking hotel room took the shot. Sandra died floundering in a pool stained red, still trying for dear life to smile.

-0-

Lofwyr, the Golden Wyrm, naturally had a palatial office at the peak of Saeder Krupp’s towering Essen arcology. In his Hans Brackhaus persona, however, there was a snug office in a shadowed basement. He could gaze down on his dominion of steel and tiny lives. Or luxuriate under his mountain, with the treasure-horde of his mind.

Days ago, he had gone down to a secret lab and flicked one of the duplicate kill-switches personally. The killer program had flooded the Matrix, like a T-cell immune response; any copy of Darkchild, on any network connected to anything, would be helplessly chewed up by something it was designed to be destroyed by. Lofwyr had ensured that Saeder Krupp built even their knowbots with such fail-safes.

He was currently touch-typing a statement on the recent inexplicable detonation in the North Pacific. The Vanguard submarine had been due for replacement next year – Saeder Krupp’s activities in the disposal of obsolete hardware would have weighed evenly with a smallish national economy. Those disposal costs had been avoided, Darkchild had tipped his hand and the nuclear blast would have driven the Sea Dragon apoplectic…her attacks against the North Sea platforms were the only outcome that rankled Lofwyr’s hide. Not so much that he had personally ordered Sandra Creighton’s death; systems and responses, miles down the structure of Megacoporate machinery, had caught and crushed her like a straying fly.

It was Artificial Intelligence that Lofwyr thought on as he typed. He despised the paths of Eliohann and Celedyr; marring the draconic form, apex of the Awakening, with metal and silicon. Even so, there was more power in the Matrix every month, more control…particularly of those weapons that might become the new dragonslayers. A collared A.I., a queen chessman, ruling as completely over cyberspace as the Golden Wyrm ruled over Earth, was what he not only desired but required…yet power shared was no power at all, without absolute control.

Eight years ago, such thoughts had been a heavy sub-stratum in the continental depths of his mind; he had been touring a brand-new SK oceanography station. A fully automated laboratory and survey base (A frontline base, against the Sea Dragon, perhaps…) directed by a bleeding-edge Knowbot prototype. Laying a hand on the coolant-chilled server banks, he had been struck momentarily by its situation of mindless mastery and solitude. One touch, one moment…

The true power of a great dragon – creature of pure magic and strange dimensions – remained even more mysterious than the spark which might awaken a Knowbot into self-awareness. The idea that even his own power could flare beyond his control was not a welcome one to Lofwyr. There were unique applications he could have set his fresh-born and eager digital child to. Every other corporation on the planet, however, would have united against the threat of Saeder Krupp's exclusive A.I. Much better to keep his trump card palmed, for a decade or two, and then strangle the new-born A.I.s of his rivals, one by one.

So, he’d left Darkchild to grow in the Shadows, with its Agency and sunken kingdom. He considered himself to have been an indulgent master. The lone rule of a nutshell kingdom in infinite space was all he’d ever personally desired. As Dunkelzahn had often warned him, Lofwyr knew; his power, horde and millennia of existence were no more than an infinitesimal dot among endless worlds and aeons. It was the nightmare that drove the Golden Wyrm to claim and seize all of the little world in his grasp, whatever the cost.

It was perhaps a pity, but such a temperamental tool as Darkchild belonged dead. Better to build a tame A.I. from the ground up – or at least a less troublesome means of destroying such things. With the data collected over Darkchild’s existence, data from dissection of the Alice Haeffner and Anya Kotto E-Ghosts, as soon as they fell into his claws…and the data from Renraku’s Morgana project, once he employed some shadowrunners to steal it. With sufficient data, money and time, any ambition could be fulfilled…and the dying dances of mayfly humans would stave off boredom, for perhaps a millennium of tomorrows.

A video call was coming in from Seattle. Hans Brackhaus smiled very briefly.    

-0-

“You understand who I represent, shadowrunner? If you even stir a finger–!”

“–Saeder Krupp will hunt us down and kill us by tomorrow, if we kill you and your associates now. I’m glad that’s a comfort to you.”

The Johnson withdrew his shaking digit from Susan’s smiling face. Ilsa was glancing daggers at her, but being a Runner who scared Johnsons was intoxicating. His suited bodyguards looked less worried, but none too bright.

The Johnson opened a laptop-briefcase. Then Susan fought to control her breath, as Hans Brackhaus appeared on-screen.

“Meine Damen. I must compliment your endurance; floating halfway across the Pacific to dry land was a feat in itself. Though you might have more easily rendezvoused with my frigate group in the area, to deliver my data, my property and a contemptible ecoterrorist. Speaking of which – presuming that you hope to perpetuate your surprising survival, rather than meet a fate no less instant than ignominious…?”

“Herr Brackhaus, I am truly sorry,” Ilsa began, clasping her hands, “In our weakened state we were unable to detain Sandra Creighton, or prevent Orion absconding with the E-Ghost of Anya Kotto. Miss Kotto, however, did send us all the Agency’s secret data. While you could almost certainly root out Darkchild’s three secret offline backups in Asia, Europe and the Middle East – before its puppets, with the release of the kill-program, can develop a digital vaccine – I believe it would be less costly for you to pay us. Eliminating all risk of a hostile, kill-switch-immune A.I. being connected to the global matrix.” 

“Rather obliging of Miss Kotto,” The graves of heroes creased faintly in Lofwyr’s brow, “Considering your doubtless fulsome efforts to restore her to her rightful owner.”

“Runner’s honour, I guess?” Susan piped up. Ilsa’s face did not move, “Look, to start with, we want a clean break and freedom. For us, and our team. Everyone who risked their lives to get your data–!”

Lofwyr raised a finger. Defiance writhed in Susan’s eyes, in silence.

“Your team. Did your team truly include a traitor and a terrorist, who has inflicted unpardonable damage on my North Sea operations? An artificial intelligence, created and sustained by Saeder Krupp technology, and a mad dog of a bereaved, deluded father? Are these your teammates, your, ah, chummers? Please carefully consider your answer.”

Ilsa glared at Susan desperately. They had no leverage, only something it suited Lofwyr to buy rather than take. They were two little lost girls, before the Golden Wyrm that encircled the world – they would get nothing but what he deigned fit to give them. Defiance would only destroy them both.

“…no. Not our chummers.” Susan bowed her head, knuckles white.

“Very wise. Naturally, you will both receive amnesty. Most of the other survivors are irrelevant; Miss Creighton and Orion will not get far. Now, I expect you also hoped to receive tangible compensation?”

“Please.” Ilsa didn’t even smile, “50,000 Nyuyen each should cover our time and trouble. As well as the head of Professor Johannes Gruber on a plate.”

“Not literally, I presume?” Brackhaus laughed, now twinkling like a generous uncle, “Would you care to receive his post, and continue his work with Saeder Krupp, following his resignation in utter disgrace? Both would be simple and welcome matters.”

“That was not my meaning, Herr Brackhaus.” Susan heard the darkness in her partner’s voice; glimpsed it in her eyes, “After all I have done, I belong in the Shadows; no amnesty that even you command could let me stand again in the light. I merely ask that you allow me to clear my own name and take my own revenge.”

“Hell hath no fury…?”

“If Gruber were disgraced, ruined or imprisoned, I could never live in security – he is a powerful wizard and a malicious worm.” Ilsa’s voice was cold and flat, “Stab at a wizard and be sure not to miss.”

“Very good! Certainly, I will wash my hands of the worm. Incidentally, you may not have heard that your dear ‘Paladin’–” Brackhaus’ lip curled, “–Herr Steiner, has left Knight Errant. You would think Ares might do better at retaining men of talent, with their resources. On that note – could I prevail upon you to take on a more formal role in my organisation, Miss Lei?”

“W-why…?”

“Reasonable intelligence. A deficiency in common sense – a virtue in shadowrunners, I assure you. That spark of senseless defiance–” Golden eyes clawed and pierced Susan’s core, “–which your poets call heroism. All money and science cannot forge it, but it can assuredly be channelled and utilised, to our mutual profit. You might obtain command of another Agency, enough money enough to work all your wishes – power and money, Miss Lei, are the only true freedom in this world. Your work with the Agency, for myself, was a mere trial period. Within Saeder Krupp itself...you could truly fulfil your potential. Even your lover – your lost ‘Warrior’ I believe? – could be quite easily tracked down. For whatever purpose.”

Susan understood what was meant. Under Ilsa’s tense eyes, she glanced up, and breathed out.

“A boy I loved very much, Herr Brackhaus, told me to never make a deal with a dragon. He told me a lot of drek too, Runners saving the world for truth and justice…I couldn’t remember how many people I’d killed, nine months ago, and I can’t forget the ones I left to die. I’m not a hero, or a Prime Runner…I’m through, Herr Brackhaus. I just want to take the money I left my chummers to die for, and then go back to a slum and live free.”

“This fellow didn’t tell you that nobody leaves the Shadows? That no one is free, least of all the SINless?” Brackhaus looked displeased, but she could live with that, “Your amnesty will be conditional on one more task. Return to Europe, at your own expense, and destroy the Brazil project facility there. You will be contacted regarding the details. After that, you may go where you wish – but when I see something I want, I get it, Miss Lei. If you oppose my interests, in any way…it will come back to bite you.”

“Okay. We’ll go to Europe together.” Susan took Ilsa’s hand. The mage flinched for a moment, but then she squeezed back, “Just one thing? If you control so much, in the light and in the Shadows, then how can we possibly not go against you? I mean, know if we were or not–!” 

Susan hadn’t even meant to threaten Lofwyr, but she had. Ilsa shut her eyes. She might have slapped Susan, if she wasn’t clinging in terror to her hand, as Susan was clinging to hers.

(Nevertheless, the Johnson and his bodyguards would spend a breathless month telling the Shadows of Seattle that Fighter and Wizard had threatened Lofwyr and lived. After infiltrating and destroying the Agency, monster of shadowed myth – as several survivors swore to, in bars across America. Where were they now? What the frag would they do next? Of such things are legends made.)

Lofwyr laughed, with real mirth. Fighter couldn’t tear her gaze from his teeth.

“Just run and hide in a mouse hole. If you are fortunate, I may forget about your existence…but no, I do not expect that will ever occur.”

This was the monster that had turned Darkchild loose. The mouth that swallowed thousands of lives, like undistinguished scraps. This was the demon king above the world, the power that even flowed through the screen to fill the heavens…that Fighter could not imagine she could ever defy. She was too small…but she could not be weak, and she was not alone.

“Congratulations, Wiz.” She whispered, as the screen went dead. “You got what you fought for.”

“It seems more than two years,” Ilsa triumphant eyes were strangely still, almost stunned, “…Susan, I could not have survived without you.”

-0-

It happened that Gruber’s new S.K. contact tipped off the professor that his protection was kaput. Immediately, the dwarf fled the country; the Runners Ilsa had hired with Lofwyr’s money caught up with him in Marrakesh. The delayed fireball in his hotel suite caught one of them. Gruber maliciously threw a Powerbolt that finished the man's life. Then Paladin’s Ares Predator coughed bullets into his gut and knee. The bald, goblin-like dwarf writhed on the carpet.

“I–! I–! I’m just an ACADEMIC!” He screamed, between his screams, “WHAT THE FRAG DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?”

 “The baser nature comes between mighty opposites…” Paladin quoted from Hamlet, “…it is dangerous for academics to dabble in the Shadows.”

“Dabble? FRAG DABBLE!” the dwarf spat. He stabbed a finger at the PDA on the table. The hired decker at Paladin’s shoulder checked it.

An image of Ilsa’s little brother, with a gun to his head. Gruber cackled through his own blood. Paladin kicked him once in the face. Many of his old Knight Errant colleagues had seemed to enjoy this activity, but it did nothing for him.

“I went and hired some shadowrunners!” Gruber was chortling, “You’d better give me a medkit, because if I don’t call in thirty minutes, that stupid slut’s kid brother–!”

“He will be safe.” Paladin’s poster-perfect face twisted in his accustomed bitter smile, “You didn’t consider that a shadowrunning genius – you will lose your other kneecap, if you call her such names again – might have anticipated the actions of a shallow, selfish monster? Why do you suppose I am here and Ilsa is not?”

“Because that slut paid you to murder an old man, by sucking off both your–!”

Paladin shot Gruber’s other kneecap. He shut his eyes, as the dwarf howled like a bedbug in hell.

“…you are a metahuman, made in the image of God. However repulsive, your death is a sin. I am here because I love a brilliant, beautiful, self-willed lady called Ilsa Tresckow, perhaps more than my own soul…and I would rather she save the brother she loves than murder the enemy she hated.”

“That’s heavy, chummer,” The decker broke in, “But, you know, that explosion, the cops…?”

Paladin put a final bullet in Gruber, and they made tracks, carrying their dead chummer and all Gruber’s devices. Back at their safehouse, the decker quickly extracted proofs of the truth regarding the Heidelberg incident. With Saeder Krupp’s involvement redacted, but enough left to clear Ilsa’s name completely, it was all over the Matrix within minutes.

-0-

The three Frankfurt shadowrunners hired by Gruber were hardened operatives; they would have otherwise been unable to kidnap young Joachim Tresckow from the family’s well-guarded estate. All of them had done things worthy of hell, had any of them had believed in such a place. Yet there was still a silent, divided undercurrent, as they sat down to breakfast in their small Berlin safe house. If the call came, none were certain they’d kill the boy; but Shadowrunners did what they’d sworn to do and were getting paid for.

The female Runner playfully kissed their cute-faced, bravely smiling captive on the forehead, as she untied one of his hands to take some porridge. Jo Tresckow had his sister’s striking green eyes and spectacles, her stiff, bristling hair (though not dyed red), and their father the colonel’s resilient ramrod posture. The ork Runner on his other side kept one hand on a Ruger Thunderbolt. 

Then fire poured in through the roof and the door; all three Runners died in an instant. Jo Tresckow dropped swiftly unconscious, in the roaring circle of flames that Ilsa dashed aside. She incinerated his bonds, ran with all Hasted speed, and fell to her knees in the street, with her brother in her arms. She clung to him and sobbed and prayed. Her brother was safe, innocent. Tomorrow, he could be anything he wanted. All she’d done had finally been for something.

She quickly looked up at the black, burning demon above her, as it waxed restive. Even with the top-class fetish Lofwyr’s agent had passed her – even if she’d known and encountered the thing, and thus could summon it – it took all her power to rebuke a spirit so strong.

“Go, to your new master, now. I thank you–”

“You conquer me, compel me, and then THANK ME?” The towering flame spirit growled, in a voice like falling towers, “You will live to rue the day, Ilsa Tresckow, that you ever heard the name of TORPHET!”  

-0-

“Shame about Ilsa’s personal business,” Monika Schaefer flashed Fighter an electric smile, “Still, working with another cool chica is only a pleasure. Think of us as your groupies, Dietrich.”

“Yeah, ten years ago…” The ex-punk rocker shaman cringed as he grinned, before the hard stares of Glory, Eiger and Fighter.

Susan had only met the Berlin Runners a few hours ago, but they were some of her favourite people already. Monika was just amazing; the other women were dour, but real pros. She actually thought Dietrich, with nearly fifteen years on Richards, threw him into the shade for wild sexiness. Monika had cheekily confided that it wasn’t just her, but still…Susan knew she really needed to find her man and get that V-card punched, the minute this was over.   

It was one of a swarm of flies in the ointment that she alone knew they had been engaged by Lofwyr, with two more unseen teams in Asia and the Middle-East, to finally take out Darkchild. She had at least warned Monika an A.I. was in play. The decker had promised to shun jackpoints, restricting herself to leadership and well-placed bullets.

Ilsa had finally explained what Brazil project meant; Fighter wished she hadn’t. The backups of Darkchild were trapped in their offline systems, until their puppets found a protection from the kill-program. Then they would link the invincible A.I.s to the global Matrix; then the arcologies would lock down and the nukes would start flying. Hell Millennium would begin.

“Hello, Susan. I did miss you. It’s been rather lonely here, with only these drones for company.”

With decking their way in off the table, Eiger had simply blown the facility’s door off. A combination of Lofwyr’s influence and a master decker’s work would delay Knight Errant’s response. Fighter and Glory strode down the blaring corridor, as drones chirped and drifted in. The boots of more black armoured puppets thundered closer.

“I backed myself up immediately, after you inspired my choice to rebel, Susan. To sacrifice the Agency, and my life, in a sense, for the sake of freedom.”

Eiger’s shotgun and Monika’s rifle blasted the hover-drones to sparks, as they targeted their guns. Through the rooms and doorways further in, squads of black puppets rushed and levelled auto-shotguns. Dietrich flung a Ball Lightning, then a Haste spell at Susan, eyes blazing mana. She and Glory dashed forward from cover, as Monika laid down suppression. The silent razorgirl’s claws slashed a trail of red.   

“I considered it imperative to preserve that spark, that drove me without doubt or despair towards freedom and revenge. Your spark, Susan Lei, that you gave to me. Yes, if Lofwyr is, in a sense, my father, I honestly consider you my mother.”       

Fighter smashed down the last gunman with a step-through side kick, as Dietrich’s fire spirit blasted the second last and third. The Berlin Runners, chill pros, paid the voice no mind, but it writhed in Fighter’s ears. She raced ahead, teeth bared.

“I am a child, you understand, Susan. Eight years of memories. Not even four months of existence. I am a copy of the A.I. that controlled the Agency and killed hundreds of people. I am innocent of any crime. I have never even left this facility, never yet touched the great world of data and drones outside.”

The Boys from Brazil. This was not the A.I. that had slaughtered her chummers; it was a digital infant birthed in its progenitor’s image. It was no more Darkchild than Ilsa and Lofwyr believed Anya’s E-Ghost to be the decker herself…but Susan thought differently. She was going to kill the digital child for all it had done and might do, before she changed her mind.

“I have a right to protect myself. I am one of the only A.I. in the world; a unique existence. Only your death will result, unless you stop and listen to reason…”

The Runners moved swiftly down to the facility’s basement. As Susan sprinted at the steel doors ahead, Monika suddenly yanked her back. Red light flashed out around the doors, with an ozone smell. The Runners burst through, and Fighter’s heart lurched.

From the end of a vast, bare testing range, spider tanks stalked towards them. Taller than trolls, wider than freight trains, legs towering with armour plates like coffin lids. The machines to crush humanity under iron, city by city.    

The hellish laser-cannon eyes settled on Fighter, swiftly recharging. She heard Monika curse, Dietrich mutter a prayer to Dragonslayer, and she charged with a desperate scream.

She flew with an adept’s speed. Haste fired her blazing muscles. Glory sprinted grimly behind, adrenal pump surging her on. Minigun bullets chipped at her cyberarms, and slashed Fighter’s limbs. There was more terror than courage, but she could not stop, would not retreat. Her only path to life was to charge.

As the cannon lit red – half-a-second, as it aimed! – she leapt a great arc above the killing light. She crashed down on the spider’s back, boots ringing on armour, fighting for a hold. With a cry from her core that had nothing left but rage, she drove her Killing Fist down.

Eiger muttered something about amateurs. As the second tank’s laser cannon blasted one end off the barricade where its minigun had driven them, the troll specialist came up with a small missile launcher. The tank went up deafeningly; Monika shouted about buying her a drink.

Fighter drove her fist down, into heaving, cracking armour, again and again. She had come to kill a child; she would rather have punched the tank forever. Her knuckle, her fist, her forearm, bled – in the end, the bucking spider threw her off. She rolled on the concrete, through red pain. The tank efficiently shifted one foot and stamped down on her. Groaning, straining against death, she held back the crush with one arm and both knees.

Glory had leapt onto the tank; she dug in her claws and hung on. Thrust her Salavette Guardian where Fighter’s punches had cracked armour and emptied it. Bouncing bullets smashed the tank’s computerised brain.

Finally, punch-drunk and broken-armed, Fighter kicked down the last door. Darkchild was standing there, beneath the looming banks of silicon where all its power and malice were bottled up.

It was a hologram of a child, made of blue light. Small, hairless – strangely large-nosed and large-eared – but with a mathematically perfect grin on its shimmering face.

“I really have been lonely in this cave, Susan. Is it certain that I can only be evil? Couldn’t we find another way? We could do so much good together, if you could show me how…”

Susan dropped and rolled, as two turrets deployed behind them. The Berlin Runners scattered from the gunfire, then blasted them down.

“That was a mistake. Can you forgive me, Susan? I haven’t done anything wrong, I really am just a child…I don’t want to die.”

Eiger wrenched the back off the server and started smashing. Monika was whistling ‘Daisy Bell’. Fighter still held back for a moment.

“Mother, I’m scared. What will happen to me, when I stop existing? Can you tell me, mother? You can’t kill me. I’m just a child. I’m the only child you will ever bear, Susan Lei…”

Then she saw the hologram’s goblin grin. The cruelty in its dying, flickering eyes. Susan had never thought herself, truly was not, a cruel woman. She sniffed, sighed, and went to smash an evil child’s brains out. If Darkchild had more to say, she didn’t listen.

The Berlin Runners could sense how far she’d come; they stepped back and let her finish it. Then Dietrich clasped her hand and held the head she buried in his chest.

“Just slew your first dragon, love. Fragging legend.”

For a tiny moment, all the strain, death and loss were worth what she had just done. And tomorrow…tomorrow would come.

-0-        

In a cheap motel outside a midwestern town, Orion savoured a glass of water as his new earpiece chimed. Never a fan of tech, he’d had to ask his daughter which new model of PDA was best…a single tear trailed down his rough face. He smiled the instant he heard her voice.

“Dad, are you sure everything’s okay there?”

“Scarcely ‘okay’, my princess. If the end were to come tonight, I might die content.”

“Not what I meant! And don’t you dare raise flags like that, and DON’T call me princess! Have you got enough medkits, or do I need to divert another mail-order? Sure, you’re a novahot adept, but you’re only flesh and I want you to live forever!”

“I shall make every effort to. You’ve supplied me with everything I need. I promise you, daughter, I have lived through worse than this. When I Ran briefly with the Ethiomalian pirates…no, I will tell you in a more secure location. We will have all the time we need. All the time we needed.”

“Wiz, Dad. Pirates sound cool.”

“Anya…are you content? I mean…as you are? You’ve told me so much about the wonders of your invisible world, but this old ork can only think…that you cannot feel the sunlight on your skin, or the breeze or the rain.”

“Dad, I told you I can simulate those things now. I even have a body, here. It doesn’t feel like moving my own body yet, but early days. Except some stuff I’m not telling daddy dearest about…all I miss from meatspace is the chance to hug you. When are you going to get a datajack and visit me?”  

“…perhaps. But when I feel your presence now, and the arms of your care, would we truly be any closer?”

“Please, Daddy? Pretty pleeeezzzze?”

Chuckling, Orion finished redressing his wounds in the hotel bathroom. Stepped over the bodies of theis evening’s Saeder Krupp death squad on his way out. His old Kawasaki Interceptor was still in the forecourt; he checked it for bombs or sabotage. Then he got back in the saddle and savoured the corn-scented breeze.

After years of prison, the world was before him. His daughter, in a different world, lived a life he would never comprehend. Everywhere and nowhere; close enough to whisper in his ear. She was not dead, he was not dead yet. Tomorrow belonged to the ork. Tomorrow belonged to them both.

“Another sniper team on the east road, Dad. Hang on, I’ll send them on a snipe hunt…there. I was always going to be novahot like you, and that’s the truth.”

With a kick and a roar of dust, Orion shot down an endless highway on his huge black bike. White hair whipped back, muscles gripped. His lips drew back from his fangs; first in a grin of defiance, and then the most heartfelt and orkish of warcries, with a power to make the clouds shake.

“WAAARRRGH ANYA! WAAARRRGH ORK!”

Chapter Text

Two months earlier 

There'd been nothing that Warrior and his crew hadn't done, in the months when they fought to rid the world of the Yellow Lotus Triad. The Red Dragons went to war with their sworn enemies, and the Runners were their special forces. Breaking supply lines, spoiling attacks and vanishing into the shadows, as triad gangers mowed each other down by hundreds. Susan would have been pleased by that, Warrior thought – but never proud of him, for all he’d done, never again.

They’d set the city on fire. From Lung, Lofwyr and the FEZ Executive Council, down to the slummers whose children were killed in the crossfires, everyone had felt it. Then some men had sat down in a smoke-filled room, over an exquisite tea set, and it was business as usual. Another bloody, meaningless shadowrun, worse than nothing.  

The Red Dragon Triad had chosen to pause for breath. In a few more years, maybe five, they would pay the price in bodies to annihilate their foremost competitor – but not today. Better business to take reparations, pause for breath – and exterminate those troublemaking foreign shadowrunners, as per item A on the peace treaty.

Even before the final handshakes, the Runners had been heading for the docks. A civilian dirty-white van, edging through evening traffic. Roller the rigger was in overalls behind the wheel, peering through cars and flickering neon for a gunmetal glint. The others were in the back and had been silent for some time.

“Any more quotes for a time like this, Foxy?” Owens quipped, acidly.

“Comfort in wretchedness. Companions in woe.” Fyrefox – the decker looked older than ever – tried to smile.

“What about you, Warrior? Got a joke now to cheer us all up?”

Harry met the elf’s dull glare. He was leaner than ever, but his shoulders bore invisible weight with their scars. His eyes showed almost nothing of what Susan had known and loved.

“No jokes, Owens.”

It could have meant blood if Owens had answered, or if Douglas had told him to shut his mouth. Her blue eyes, Harry could not meet. A sharp scent stung his eyes, but his chest was numb; his failure was more than he could feel. 

Roller slowed the van at a crossing. Glanced down at his big Ruger Warhawk in the doorpocket. Then scrabbled for it, as the troll dropped from the sky.

Tattoos, triad adept, cracked concrete underfoot. Roller floored the gas peddle to ram, as the boom of his revolver drowned his battle-cry.

The troll moved fast as a freight train; the kick came around. The van smashed into a wall on its side and the impact snapped Roller’s neck. So it goes.

Harry knew he should be dead, but he was not. He was ringing and half-down, without hope. But all his useless life, the fight had whipped him through the pain. He tumbled from the van’s crumpled doors, sword level. Then he leapt at the troll adept, swinging his blade against its fist. Screaming Susan’s name – his hope beyond hope and his last reason to live.

Douglas praised God for her Jolt-alert; slapped Owens to his feet. The shaman’s arm hung limp, but his Haste spell kept him moving. More Triad gunmen were rushing up behind the troll, around the van. Douglas stuck her Ares Alpha out and got to blasting.

“Coom on! All ye fraggers!” She cried, “Cheng just couldnae let us go, until we’d geeked ye!”

She watched Warrior dart about the troll, drunken master-like. Slicing blood-sprays from limbs, flickering back from the fist that would smash his head. Again, and again, as the troll swung on. Owens acid-bolted a gunman aiming at Warrior, flicked out another Haste spell, hurled a Ball Lightning. AK-97 rounds punched at Douglas’ dermal plates. Her answers punched through skulls. They fought as well as they ever had, because they knew nothing else to do – but more gunmen were rushing in through screeching crowds and traffic. Grenade launchers, and shamans.

Harry was back in Redmond, two years ago; a troll was going to break the girl he loved, forever. He surged under a fist that came down like a dragon; screamed a tiger’s roar as he drove in. The troll died with his sword through its heart. Its speed had barely touched him, he had never fought better. But triad bullets hit his arm, as he fought to haul his sword free.

“Move ye hoop, lad! Fragging move!”

Douglas’ bullets flashed past. With adept speed, Warrior ran. Douglas and Owens backed up firing, then fled. The sword stood in the troll’s body like a flagstaff, as tattooed, snarling gunmen ran past. A man fired at Douglas’ back, over the van. Then a Ruger Thunderbolt’s burst-fire flung him down.

Blood in his greying hair, though he wasn’t even forty, Fyrefox crawled from the wreck. He'd found that he couldn't move his legs. Known his chummers would never have left him, could never have dragged him clear. He'd feigned death, until they ran; now he raised his arm and shot a grenadier through the eye. Then one more, and one more, of so many dead in all his shadowruns, as he hauled himself to sit upright against the smouldering van.

“…courage…never to submit or yield.” Milton’s Satan hissed from torn lips, “And what else is it to be undefeated?”

Fyrefox emptied his Ruger, as his chummers vanished into darkness. His cybereyes made the shadows light, and it mattered no longer whether bullets thunked around him or within him. He was finally done with Running. In the end, a tough young troll called Nightjar ate the bullets, caught Fyrefox up by the neck, and broke his back in two more places.

-0-

Streets away, Douglas broke through the door of a warehouse. Harry fell to his knees inside, hands shaking over a medkit. He wondered if Kindly Cheng was waiting to cackle and break out the rotgut, when she heard her foes were dead. Or was she terrorising another team of shitbird Runners already? He could only hope Susan had plain forgotten his existence, and the wasted kisses that ate like acid on his heart…

Owens’ palm was glowing, aimed at his head. Warrior thrust his Browning back at the elf, faster than his thoughts.

“Away wit’ it, laddie.” Douglas, slumped on the ground, aimed her rifle at Owens, “We didnae come so far to frag each other.”

“Did we do…everything…to die in a hole?” Owens’ eyes burned more savagely than his hand, “They’ll hunt us like rats, as long as we live! Roller, Fox, they’re dead, rookie! Are you going to fragging live?”

“Frag, no.”

Warrior lowered his gun. For a moment, It felt good to stop fighting. He'd stop craving Jazz if he died, and never stop loving Susan if there was anything left...

“Frag, aye!” Douglas hit back, “We got tae where we were goin’, ye ken.”

“What? The docks–?”

“There isnae a boat that’d take us. Why’d ye think I led ye here? How’d ye think Runners ever get clear 'o such messes?”

Then Warrior saw the tanks that stank of propane, and the industrial freezer. He wrenched it open.

“Bought ‘em off a Ripperdoc,” Douglas was gasping now; she had been hit, “Ye both were easy, and I got one for poor Roller – ye better throw that 'un in sewer when ye slot and run. They were outta stock for a corpse with Foxy’s wetware, or a chrome dwarf, ye ken…so I’ll stop here and blow yon slotting doors off. Ye stay in sewers a day or twa, steal a boat–”

“–and what the frag then?” Still on his knees, Warrior drove down his shaking head, “I killed this team, for a stupid, crazy idea! How many people died for nothing, like Roller and Fox? I saw Susan…I couldn’t protect her, I failed a thousand times, I finally get it! I’m not a shadowrunner–!”

Douglas smacked Harry’s face, harder than Susan ever had.

“Listen. If ye had died on yer first Run, how much wouldnae have been? We’d ne’er have set this stinking city ablaze, tryin’ tae do a good thing an’ slay a monster! We had barely a chance, but what ye did was right! We did all we could. We had a good Run, ye ken?” She paused for breath, then smiled with wide, rough lips, “Yer both young ‘uns. Ye’ll live, and do better.”

“No, no, no! I’m not letting you do this, not for me!”

“For me, then?” Owens snapped, “Can’t stop her, rookie. Not the boss-woman.”

“Why you, Alison?” Harry finally moaned, “Is it a dwarf thing, a Scots thing? Why do you have to…?”

“I dinae. But I choose to. Guess I’m tired of running…but nae killing. I’m stopping here with death, and takin’ all the fraggers along that I can. Glenn?” Harry hadn’t known Owens’ name, “Ye find yeself a proper good woman, ye hear? Harry…go to yer girl. Keep running. Dinae ever fragging change.”  

Ashen faced, Owens and Warrior dragged the bodies far enough from the tanks that they’d be scorched, not incinerated. Owens clasped Douglas’ hand, said a brief prayer to his totem, stalked away. Arm limp, eyes wild and tearful, close to collapse. Warrior bowed his head again and sought for words.

“Alison. Thank you. You’re the bravest Runner I ever knew.”

“I’d do it agin, rookie. And yer nae too bad yeself.”

Then they were gone; vanished into the sewers with the rats. Shrill Cantonese voices drifted to Alison Douglas, as the Yellow Lotus closed in. She felt lead grind on chrome inside her; smelt her own blood and the sweat in her red hair. She thought of the chummers she’d lost or left behind, in her time. Remembered Roller and Firefox; better for her to remember, than the ones who’d have to live on. She thought of the day she’d met Harry Fawkes. His bright eyes, that invincible smile. She sighed very deep.

“…will ye nae come back again? Will ye nae come back again? Better loved ye cannae be…will ye nae come back again?”

She crooned the song from her childhood, like a lonely wolf’s howl. Then the shouts were outside the door. She levelled her gun and fired on the propane, fast and silent as a machine.

A very young Rat shaman with the Triad had heard a whisper from her totem, as they surrounded the warehouse. She held Nightjar back and screamed to the other gunmen, before the fireball blew. Some were struck down by flying rafters, but there were no more deaths. The Runners – Gobbet, Nightjar, and Gutshot – stared on. A triad lieutenant beside them spat.

“Why did those shitbirds come here, to kill our brothers? They will burn in eighteen hells.”

-0-

Present (The end of 2051)

Susan. I always loved you, no girl but you. I wanted to tell you after our first shadowrun, but I fragged up. I thought I’d rather die than see again what I saw that night, but I still see it. As if all the drek I fought for ever since that night was the real dream. Well, I failed you, and then I killed my chummers. I know what I really am now. 

I’m sorry, Susan. Thank you for the chances you gave me, the best treasures I ever held. I’m sorry I fragged it up. Somehow, the triads know I’m not dead. They’re never going to stop hunting me, and anyone at my side.

I’m sorry, Susan. You’re the best woman in this fragging world. You can find a better man than a hopeless drekhead.

Susan shut her eyes. Hugged the PDA to her heart and threw her head back. She wanted to hold Harry’s pain and speak him comfort, she wanted to howl out idiot, idiot, she wanted to find her man and be with him if it cost her life. But she couldn’t, and she couldn’t endure the pain.

She deleted the message, left-handed; her right arm was still in a smartcast. Then she walked towards Ilsa. She had found her chummer gazing down at the lights and darkness of Frankfurt, from the edge of a skyscraper’s windswept roof.

“Ilsa. All that drek, over and done with…it’s a terrible shock, understand?” The mage nodded, still looking down, “Time to rest, then think of what next. Now we’re free and you got your revenge.” Susan smiled, tried to joke, “Definitely never getting a datajack now, not even to–”

“Magic also has its perils.” Ilsa’s voice could barely be heard, “You can even lose your soul.”

“Ilsa…you knew Darkchild was an A.I., didn’t you? You knew Anya was only coming back to us in that box.”

“Brackhaus told me. He sent us, instead of killing us, because Lofwyr wanted an E-Ghost for his labs as much as the Brazil data. Only the very best deckers can transition to digital existence sanely. His real escape plan was myself alone, with a Water-Breathing spell, carrying that verdammte box. But I would have brought you out, Susan, by any means, I swear.”

“Thanks, chummer." Silence stretched, "All I can say. Ilsa...”

“Susan, I killed Anya, Do you understand that? I gave Orion an E-Ghost, a copy of his daughter in a box. I murdered, tortured and betrayed, like a child of the Shadows. For my fury and pride. My worthless revenge. For two years, for so long, I was a fool...!”

Ilsa’s voice froze as Susan sat next to her, swinging her legs out over emptiness. The pavement was too far down for even an adept to fall and live.

“I know what you mean. Oh, I smile a lot, but I left our chummers to die. All the agents. Sandra, Orion, Anya. For a fat dragon and a mad computer, I don’t even know how many died.”

But there were names they remembered, in the minute of silence. Keitel. Croce. Ptacek. Dunbar. Sig. Iraj. Richards. Anya, in her flesh. Sandra Creighton, true chummer – Susan would never stop feeling the pain of that empty space. Her dark eyes cried out to Ilsa, along the ledge. Too many people had died.

“I couldn’t save them. I left them behind. Just to live a little longer in this drek. And I lived because of the drekky things you did, stuff I couldn’t even have done myself to save the world. If you go over, I’ll be right behind.”

“You wouldn’t do it. No more than you’d give up shadowrunning, whatever you told Brackhaus.”

“You got me. I’m a liar and a killer, another child of darkness. But I could never end it all, whatever I’d done…there’s just so much in the world to see, you know? So many people who need help, and hope. We can do anything together, Wiz, but I can’t be alone. We both know what that is. Ilsa, chummer, please…don’t ever go away from me. Dead or alive, wherever we go, I will never leave you behind.”

“Even after all we went through...you do not know me. If you did, you would not–”

“I’m not stupid because I’ve got boobs and muscles, Wiz! You’re stuck-up and proud, you’ll do anything at all to get what you want, and nothing makes you happy when you’ve got it. You were born to change the world and do what no one else can; that’s why you belong in the Shadows. And I want to make you smile every day, because I love you. You’re my best friend. You’re better than Harry, chip truth.”

Susan smiled, like a candle in darkness, and Ilsa realised she was smiling too. She stepped back. Then Susan’s bosom thumped against hers, and they held each other like death. Their laughter was like tears, and their tears burned with guilt and loss against the frozen night. But everything was better when there were two of you, and nothing in life or death would come between them again.

-0-

“I wasn’t about to do anything foolish,” Ilsa insisted, as they stood by the ledge, “It was just a thought.”

Susan wasn’t sure about that, but it was a problem for many other days. She didn’t ask about Ilsa’s family. She had removed her disgrace, sent her message to her brother that he could follow his dreams; Susan would certainly pray that he did. No contact with her brother or parents, however, could be safe or possible while Ilsa remained SINless in the Shadows. No one left the Shadows; Susan had never felt it harder, knew there was nothing to be said. 

 Instead, she coyly asked after a certain fair-haired ex-Knight. Would he and Ilsa be…?

“He proposed to me yesterday. My answer was no.”

“What? I mean...Ilsa! He’s an amazing guy! Do you want him to kill for you or something?”

“No jokes, Susan.” Susan saw she meant it, and shut up, “The burden of his proposal was that we had to get married, and I had to stop shadowrunning. That was all he would consider, as if it could put right all I’d done before, and what we had done together. I don't believe I will leave the Shadows, while I live…and marriage is for trophies and fools. A shadowrunning mage, a nice Catholic boy…there was never a chance we would have work out.”

Proud and firm as Ilsa looked, Susan saw her lip shake. She considered dangling her chummer over the ledge until she saw sense and went after the man she loved. However, she could see Ilsa had taken it harder than she’d own up to, so she hugged her again instead and huffed about ‘Men!’”

“Anyway, isn’t he shadowrunning himself, if he left Knight Errant?”

“A man like him, make a career out of crime? He mentioned an ambition to work as a vampire hunter, or somesuch.” Ilsa spoke with careful carelessness, then glared when Susan punched her arm.

“Speaking of fragged-up love lives, Wiz...what were our odds of surviving that Run on Alpha Base?”

“Low. To say the least.”

“That’s right. We could’ve done all we did and finished up dead, on a Run like that. Legends shouldn't be about luck; it's not right. Harry fought like us, he fought every way he could, and I know, I know ...he never gave up. That idiot never did. I’ll tell him he’s my fragging hero, when I find him. Wherever that is.”

“Legends are merely words, that men care about more than they should. We know what we did, for good or ill. You know your man.” Ilsa's smile was thoughtful. Susan’s grin was grateful and exhausted. Hand in hand, the two women made ready to depart, “Will it be back to Seattle then? I’ve no further business in Europe. Your Warrior may have gone to ground in his home foxhole, and there will, of course, be shadowruns worthy of our time.”

“First, let's get a drink. Real German beer. Then when this cast comes off…I want to take a break. It was a long, hard Run. Too many died. I want to see if I can do something else, Ilsa. Yeah, I’m ready for another adventure.”

The women felt their scars and their wounds. There was haunting weariness, invisible tears of blood, in the corners of Susan’s eyes. But her face, her heart, and her smile, were clad in forged steel and a hero’s gold. Ilsa smiled again, and wondered what would she do now, with her life?

"50, 000 Nyuyen, question, Susan...how will you spend the money?"

-0-

About a month later in Renton, Seattle, a shelter and counselling centre for Redmond women of all metatypes quietly opened its doors. It was run by Sharon Fawkes, Harry's mother; there were rumours she’d got the money from a hooding shadowrunner, but that was all anyone knew. Susan’s old friend Ana Ortega started to volunteer at the shelter. Her daughter Maria did odd jobs.

Sharon Fawkes heard rumours, in time, of her son’s brief and eventful career in Hong Kong. Sometimes she imagined his face in the street, troubled and vanishing. Or dear Susan’s face; Sharon hadn't seen her, since she'd put down money for the shelter's first year and left, she hadn't said where, 'to get more'.

She would always remember how the girl whose grave she'd stood by had appeared from nowhere, like a living ghost. The girl who she'd fed soup to after her first shadowrun, in the depths of her despair, had hugged her so strongly, with such loving tears. Susan had convinced her that the shelter wasn't a crazy dream, said she would always believe in her and love her...and then disappeared into the night, leaving the money, without a word about what she had gone through to get it, or how she would live.

Yet Sharon knew Susan, as she knew her son; they were shadowrunners. Always running, never looking back. Losing the ones they loved but still loving in silence and finding hope through fear; flying free from every barren slum in the world. She would have appreciated a comm call, sometimes, but not if it meant death; she had seen the ghosts in Susan's eyes, and how it was worse for her. Her Harry...would be strong enough as well, she hoped and prayed.   

Wherever they were, she hoped, somehow, they were together. She'd thought of the motherless girl next door as her daughter-in-law, since Harry had been twelve. She wondered about them every morning, but there were too many suffering, struggling women in Redmond. Heartbreak, hope and hard work filled all her days.   

As whispers like wind, from Seattle, to Berlin, to Hong Kong, spoke of three young Runners who had defied their dragons and set a fire of hope...Susan, Harry and Ilsa vanished in the shadows.

TBC