Blast that man! Carla had asked Aziz, after their visit to Evelyn Belanger’s home yesterday, about his offer to sell Mitsuhama the information it needed to control the spirit. He told her that he was just sending out feelers to see if the corporation was interested—that it would be a day or two, at least, before he’d learned enough about Pita’s magical abilities to make a serious sales pitch. He promised Carla he wouldn’t begin negotiating with the corporation until after she’d put her story to bed. But he’d been lying. He’d gone ahead and set up this meeting with the director of the research laboratory without even asking if it would slot up her story.
Had Aziz already sold out Pita, turning over this
"key" to the spell formula to Mitsuhama for a large
chunk of nuyen? More to the point, had he sold out Carla? Was he telling Mitsuhama, even now, how far she’d gotten with her story on their research project?
Carla was furious. She glanced at her watch. It was already nine o’clock; Aziz would probably be home from the meeting with Ambrose Wilks by now. He wouldn’t have stayed to party at the nightclub, even though it was a Saturday night. When Aziz was hot on the trail of a new magical formula, he was as much of a workaholic as Carla. He’d rush right home and pick up where he left off—and would probably work through the night.
Carla pulled out her cel phone and started to dial Aziz’s number. But then she realized what she was doing, and thumbed the Off button. The confrontation would have to wait until she was out of this place. The thing to do now was get back to the station and file the footage she’d just shot.
Still angry, Carla headed for the main room and shut off the fuel cell. She stood for a moment or two in the silence, debating which exit to take. The door marked "emergency" probably led straight to the surface. It would be the quickest way out. But she didn’t know what she’d find there. The carefully landscaped grounds were probably patrolled by security guards and bristling with hidden sensors. The smarter thing to do would be to go back the way she came. She still had the employee ID badge, after all. It wasn’t that late yet. She could just say she’d been putting in a little overtime, and stroll right out the front doors. But she had to check on something, first.
She used her cel phone again, this time calling a different number. Corwin answered on the first ring. "Albert’s Auto Body. Wha’s’up?"
"I was just calling back about the Runabout. It looks like I’ll be able to pick it up tonight; I’ve finished work now. Can I come right over? Is anyone in the shop?"
"Just a minute. I’ll have to check."
After a few seconds, Corwin was back. His voice held a note of self-satisfaction. "You sure can, ma’am. The shop is empty, but I’ll be here."
"All right. Thanks. Bye."
She hung up with a satisfied smile. At least this part
was going according to plan. Once again, Corwin had
come through for her. Worried that the Movement Match program would be discovered if he left it in Mitsuhama’s computer system for any length of time, he’d wiped it as soon as Carla stepped out of the elevator. In its place, he’d rigged a simpler and less detectable "glitch." He’d altered the programming of both the camera in the elevator and the side corridor on the thirtieth floor that led to it so that they were being fed a continuous loop of previously recorded data. According to the information provided by these cameras, both the elevator and corridor were now "empty"—and would remain that way, even when Carla passed through them. Carla would be invisible until she exited the elevator and turned the corner into the main hallway on the thirtieth floor. With luck, any security guards watching the monitors would assume that she had come out of a nearby office. She’d even mime closing a door behind her, to complete the illusion. With luck, they’d assume that Evelyn Belanger was still down in the lab.
At that point, it would only be a matter of getting out of the building itself. If something went wrong—if it came down to a serious confrontation with the security guards on the way out, she would give up the pretense, say who she really was, and rely upon her reputation—and KKRU’s pull—to get her out in one piece.
Carla stepped into the elevator and hit the icon that would take her to the thirtieth floor. When the doors sighed open, she strode out, anger at Aziz still bubbling inside of her. She’d show that. . .
She saw something move, and came to an abrupt halt. No more than five meters ahead of her, passing through the T-junction where this side corridor met the main hallway, was a gigantic, coal-black dog. It padded along the corridor, its claws making faint clicking noises. Twin jets of searing blue flame puffed from its nostrils as it breathed. It stood a meter high at the
shoulder, on powerful, muscular legs. As Carla stood,
frozen in place, it turned to look down the corridor at her with eyes that were like glowing pits of fire. Flattening its ears, it bared gleaming white teeth. It stood its ground blocking the corridor and staring at Carla with eyes that burned with merciless, fiery intensity.
For a heartbeat or two Carla stood, afraid to move. Then slowly, she backed away from the creature. She took one step, two—and found the closed elevator doors a hard and unyielding wall against her back. This corridor was a short one, with no other exits—a dead end. There wasn’t even an emergency stairway. She was trapped with a magical creature that might attack her at any moment. And she didn’t have the first idea what to do.
The cel phone was still in her hand. Carla considered her options, then slid a finger over to the redial icon and tapped it twice. As the phone automatically dialed Aziz’s number, Carla activated its video pickup. Mitsuhama might be monitoring the call, but if they were, the worst that could happen would be that they would find her sooner, rather than later. Before the hideous black dog tore her to shreds.
As the call went through, the tiny screen on the cell phone came to life. It showed Aziz hunched over a book, reading. He was busy scanning text with an electronic stylus and spoke without looking up. "Yes? Do we have a deal?" Then he did a double take as he saw Carla’s face on the screen of his telecom. "Oh, it’s you, Carla. Sorry. What do you want?"
Carla bit back her anger and spoke as softly as she could. "I’m in trouble, Aziz, and I need your help."
"What’s wrong?"
With a trembling hand, Carla turned the cel phone slightly so that its visual pickup took in the slavering dog that had begun to slowly advance toward her.
"Holy drek!" Aziz exclaimed. "That’s a hell hound. Don’t make any sudden moves, Carla. It’ll tear you apart."
Thanks,
Aziz,
Carla thought.
Just
what
I
needed
to
hear
.
Aziz paused, then peered at his telecom screen. "Where are you, Carla? You aren’t calling me from the ..." His eyes widened. "You’re there now, aren’t you?"
"What should I do, Aziz?"
Aziz gave her a worried frown. "It must be part of the building’s security system, Carla." he continued. "Just hold still. Its handler will be along as soon as he sees you on the monitor, to call it off. If you don’t make any threatening moves in the meantime, you’ll be fine until he arrives."
For a second or two, Carla was reassured. The hell hound had paused in its advance. It stood about a meter away from her now—still in a crouched position, ready for instant action—but for the moment seemingly content to stand and watch her. Even from this distance, Carla could feel the heat of its fiery breath. She didn’t want it to get any closer. She’d do what Aziz said—hold still until the animal’s handler came.
Then Carla groaned. "Its handler won’t be able to see me unless he has a telepathic link to the animal, Aziz." she said in a whisper, moving her lips as little as possible. "The security cameras in this area have had their data re-rezzed. Unless someone is monitoring this cel phone frequency, nobody knows I’m here."
"You’re in an office complex. Somebody will eventually come. Just wait where you are."
Yeah, right. Wait until someone noticed that the hell hound was no longer on the monitors, and came looking for it. She might get out of here alive, but she’d lose her story. The Mitsuhama’s security guards would discover the hardcopy in her pocket and realize immediately what she’d been up to. They’d probably be bright enough to scan for a cybereye, and when they found it, they’d take her chip with all of her eye-camera’s data on it. And that would be the end of her story.
There had to be another way out. Aziz hadn’t been any help at all. But perhaps if she . . .
Looking at the hell hound, Carla saw that it had stayed its advance. Slowly, a millimeter at a time, she raised her free hand toward the pocket of her jacket. If she could ease Farazad’s credstick from her pocket, maybe she could get the elevator doors to open again, with Corwin’s help. She’d go back through the lab, take the emergency exit this time.
"I’m going to hang up now, Aziz. I have to call someone."
"Be careful how you enter the numbers, Carla. The hell hound might think your cel phone is a weapon. It will be trained to attack anyone who .. ."
Carla had stopped listening to him. Her fingers touched the fabric of her jacket. Now it was just a matter of sliding her hand into her pocket and—
With a lunge, the hell hound launched itself at her. Instinctively, Carla screamed and flung up her hands. The animal smashed into her, knocking her back against the elevator doors. Then she was down on the floor with the creature on top of her. Its baleful, glowing eyes stared into hers, and its claws dug painfully into her skin through the fabric of her clothes. The blue flames from its nostrils flared and ebbed, flared and ebbed, washing her face with waves of heat. It stood poised on top of her, mouth open, white teeth gleaming. Even as Carla’s natural eye filled with tears, she focused the trideo camera in her cybereye for a tight shot of the hell hound’s face. If she was going to die, she was going to die shooting trid. Her last shot would be a dramatic one. Even as her mind whirled with fear, a tiny part of it was writing the lead-in to the piece: "This astonishing footage was shot by KKRU reporter Carla Harris just seconds before her death . . ."
Aziz’s voice shrilled from the cel phone, which had fallen to the floor somewhere behind her. "Carla! What’s happened? Are you . .. alive?"
Carla choked out a sob. Aziz might have screwed up her story, might have already sold her out. But he was the only one she could turn to now. "Aziz." she gasped. "Help!"
"You’re crazy!" Masaki shouted into the telecom unit. "The spirit is dangerous. It’s just as likely to kill Carla as to save her!"
A three-dimensional image of Aziz glared at the reporter from the projection unit of the telecom. "You’re wasting valuable time, Masaki. Bring the girl to the address I gave you. Now. Every minute counts." Pita rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up. She’d been sleeping on the couch in Masaki’s apartment and had only heard fragments of the conversation. Something about Carla, the spirit—and herself. She leaned forward, listening avidly.
Masaki shook his head at the telecom. "No." he said firmly. "I’ll get in touch with the building’s security guards. They’ll call the guard dog off."
"It’s a hell hound, not a guard dog." Aziz spat back. "And what do you think its handlers will do when they find an intruder who’s compromised the security of a top-secret research facility? The security guards aren’t just going to politely ask who she is and then let her go. Any questioning they will do will be brutal. And if
they don’t get the answers they want..."
"Carla’s a reporter covering a story." Masaki countered. "The station will back her up." His voice, however, held a hint of uncertainty. Aziz pounced upon it.
"She’s also someone who illegally broke into a restricted area of a powerful corporation, and that makes her no better than a shadowrunner." he said. "Do you honestly think Mitsuhama cares about adverse publicity when it can downplay the incident as security guards who were ‘just doing their jobs’? And what’s to stop them from coming after anyone else connected with the story? You could be next, Masaki. Your byline was on the original report, too. You even did a stand-up for it, as I recall."
The reporter wet his lips nervously. "I still don’t think that using the spirit is the right thing to—"
"What’s happening?" Pita asked.
Masaki turned, surprised to see her. He’d obviously forgotten she was there.
"Carla’s been trapped in the Mitsuhama complex by a hell hound. Aziz wants to use the spirit against it. He seems to think that if he can attract its attention again, you can control it. But that’s crazy. I don’t see how you could possibly help. Control a spirit that’s already killed one mage? Impossible! You’re just a kid with no formal magical training. I won’t allow it."
Pita narrowed her eyes. Just a kid, huh? Yeah, just a dumb ork kid who could be shoved around by the police and shunted off to a group home when she became inconvenient. She pushed the blankets to the floor and stood up. Her eyes bored into Masaki’s. "I can so control it." she told him in a level voice. She turned to the telecom unit. "What do you want me to do, Aziz?"
The mage spoke rapidly. "Remember the boarded-up Stuffer Shack you came to in astral form when the spirit was attacking me?"
Pita nodded.
"I want you to go there—in person—as quickly as you can. I’ll give you the address. I’ll meet you there and explain what we have to do. I’ve ordered a taxi for you. Tell the driver to hurry."