Beyond the Pale

SHADOWRUN : 30

BEYOND THE PALE

Book 3 of the Dragon Heart Saga

Jak Koke

For my college professors,

Don Taylor and Richard Lyons, who taught me the basics of writing fiction.

And for my real world teachers,

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who showed me how to make it my work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank Steve Kenson for allowing me to use Talon, and Caroline Spector for loaning Aina to me. They add depth and focus to the novel. Credit should also go to Mike Mulvihill for his great help with the plots and characters in this trilogy, especially with regard to this final book.

My usual appreciation goes out to my readers, Jonathan Bond, Nicole Brown, Marsh Cassady, Seana Davidson, Jim Kitchen and Tom Lindell for insightful critiques of the manuscript. I’d like to extend a special thanks to my agent, Don Gerrard, and to Dorothy Jean Saint Germain for their welcome help in financial matters which arose during the writing of the manuscript. And finally, much gratitude goes to Donna Ippolito at FASA for excellent editing and for making this trilogy possible.

The year is 2057 . . .

And magic has returned to the earth after an absence of many thousands of years. What the Mayan calendar called the Fifth World has given way to the Sixth, a new cycle of magic, marked by the waking of the great dragon Ryumyo in the year 2011. The Sixth World is an age of magic and technology. An Awakened age.

The rising magic has caused the archaic races to re-emerge. Metahumanity. First came the elves, tall and slender with pointed ears and almond eyes. They were born to human parents, just as were dwarfs shortly thereafter. Then later came the orks and the trolls, some born changed, like elves and dwarfs, but others goblinized
—
transformed from human form into their true nature as the rising magic activated their DNA. Manifesting as larger bodies, heavily muscled with tusked mouths and warty skin.

Even the most ancient and intelligent of beings, the great dragons, have come out of their long hiding. Only a few of these creatures are known to exist, and most of them have chosen a life of isolation and secrecy. But some, able to assume human form, have integrated themselves into the affairs of metahumanity. They have used their ancient intellect, their powerful magic, and their innate cunning to ascend to positions of power. One is known to own and run Saeder-Krupp—the largest megacorporation in the world. Another
—
Dunkelzahn—is the most controversial creature ever to have been elected to the presidency of the United Canadian and American States. Dunkelzahn was assassinated in a mysterious explosion on 9 August 2057—the night of his inauguration.

The Sixth World is afar cry from the mundane environment of the Fifth. It is exotic and strange, a paradoxical blend of the scientific and the arcane. The advance of technology has reached a feverish pace. The distinction between man and machine is becoming blurred by the advent of direct neural interfacing. Cyberware. Machine and computer implants are commonplace, making metal of flesh, pulsing electrons into neurons at the speed of thought. People of the Sixth World are a new breed
—
stronger, smarter, faster. Less human.

The Matrix has grown like a phoenix out of the ashes of the old global computer network. A virtual world of computer-generated reality has emerged, a universe of electrons and CPU cycles controlled and manipulated by those with the fastest cyberdecks, with the hottest new code.

It is an era where information is power, where data and money are one and the same. Multinational megacorporations have replaced superpower governments as the true forces on the planet. In a world where cities have grown into huge sprawls of concrete and steel, walled-off corporate enclaves and massive arcologies have superseded two-car garages, vegetable gardens, and white picket fences. The megacorps exploit masses of wage-slaves for the profit of a lucky and ruthless few.

But in the shadows of the mammoth corporate arcologies live the SINless. Those without System Identification Numbers are not recognized by the machinery of society, by the bureaucracy that has grown so massive and complex that nobody understands it completely. Among the SINless are the shadowrunners, traffickers in stolen data and hot information, mercenaries of the street
—
discreet, effective, and untraceable.

* * *

The Sixth World is full of surprises, not the least of which is the recent discovery of a Locus by Aztechnology, a megacorporation with a dark and bloody core. The Locus serves as a focus for metahuman sacrifices. It gives the puppeteers who control Aztechnology the power they need to construct their metaplanar bridge to the
tzitzimine—
demons who live off torture and suffering. When the bridge is completed, the demons will come into this world and ravage it. Aztechnology believes it will be rewarded as the
tzitzimine
scourge the land, bringing a millennium of pain.

Only Ryan Mercury can stop them. He is an undercover operative who worked for the recently assassinated great dragon, Dunkelzahn. Ryan must take the Dragon Heart—a magical item of immeasurable power—to the metaplanar bridge and give it to Thayla, whose song protects the world from the demons she calls the Enemy. The Dragon Heart will give Thayla the power to destroy the bridge.

Recently, Thayla’s power over the bridge was breached by Señor Oscuro, an agent of Aztechnology. And at the same time Ryan Mercury struggled to overcome the selfish personality inside that inspired him to keep the Dragon Heart for himself. The evil part of him that allowed the cyberzombie, Burnout, to steal the artifact.

Ryan defeated Burnout, throwing him into the depths of Hells Canyon, but the cyberzombie reached out and snatched the Dragon Heart. Burnout plummeted into the chasm, taking the salvation of the world with him.

* * *

As the cyberzombie fell into the canyon, the powerful spirit, Lethe, possessed him in order to protect the Dragon Heart. Like Ryan, Lethe wanted to get the artifact to Thayla, but the spirit had seen Ryan claim the Heart for his own and had decided that Ryan could not be trusted.

Falling into Hells Canyon, Lethe found himself caught inside the cybermantic magic that kept Burnout's own spirit from leaving. Over time, the spirits of Lethe and Burnout grew connected; Burnout gave Lethe a physical presence and allowed him to be in contact with the Dragon Heart. And Lethe expanded Burnout’s spirit, bringing him back from the edge of sanity, stabilizing his psyche.

Ryan tracked the possessed cyberzombie, but was unable to defeat him and retrieve the Dragon Heart. In the final confrontation between Ryan and Burnout, they fought to a stalemate until Ryan sacrificed himself in order to get the Dragon Heart back.

It was Lethe who intervened, using the power of the Dragon Heart to save Ryan at the last second. During the fight, the spirit saw the truth that Ryan no longer desired to keep the Heart for himself. That Ryan was willing to give his very life to complete the mission given him by Dunkelzahn—to carry the artifact to Thayla.

Now, however, Ryan knows that in order to finish the mission, he will have to contact ancient and powerful beings. He knows he must come head to head against the purest evil. This is the only way he can prevent the Enemy from coming across prematurely and ravaging the world.

Señor Oscuro and his pawns have already burned their wedge of darkness into Thayla’s light. They are poised to attack her until her song is silenced. Until she is dead and they can finish building their bridge to oblivion.

Now that Ryan has the Dragon Heart, he must get it to Thayla before she is buried under Oscuro’s onslaught. Ryan is unwavering in his commitment to his mission. He knows it will take more than he’s ever given, perhaps more than he can give.

Perhaps more even than his life.

Prologue

His name was Billy Madson, and he was a boy in the body of a machine.

A boy with a guardian angel hovering around him. Protecting him. Calming him when the vicious memories came rushing back, the violence and the killing. Memories of his previous incarnation—a cyberzombie who was called Burnout.

The angel surrounded and buoyed Billy. The angel was the only reason Billy still lived. The angel’s name was Lethe, and he had saved Billy’s life. He had shown Billy the images of terrible beauty, blinding light and a song that brought tears to the boy’s eyes. A voice of such power and purity that even Lethe’s memory of it, filtered through Billy’s mechanical body and into the recesses of Billy’s mind, had moved him back from the edge of death.