Impossible.
And yet…
Shifting to his astral senses, Maurice looked at his ally, Vera Causa. At his command, she had scouted the apartment astrally and confirmed that the runners were present. But for that, she had said nothing since their arrival here in Little Asia. She said nothing now. She did not even look at him. Was it possible she had erred?
"Guard,"he told her.
"Yes, master," she replied. "Of course."
There was an acid quality to that reply which Maurice did not like. He considered whether this bound spirit might be escaping his control. A difficult matter to decide.
He snapped his fingers and pointed. Daniella thrust open the door on his right and preceded him outside. He did not object when she and the other slitches followed him into the apartment. Daniella had a certain limited ability in the arts, and the others also had certain skills that might prove useful,
To the mundane eye, the apartment looked deserted. It was cluttered with furniture, kitchen appliances, trideos, bookdisks, and what looked like the scattered components from several cyberdecks. Pillows and blankets, discarded fast-food containers, and other anonymous litter also lay strewn about. The former occupants seemed to have departed swiftly. And yet appearances deceived. On the astral level, the runners appeared to be lingering still. Amid the pulsing fluctuations of the life energy coursing irregularly about the room glowed not one but seven auras, or what appeared to be seven human and metahuman auras.
It was as if the runners had gone but had somehow managed to leave their auras behind. Maurice had never seen anything quite like it. Plainly now, he assensed that these "auras" were merely a spell, a clever manipulation of mana, drawn from the surrounding etheric energies. What amazed him was the fact that he had been unable to detect this deception while working the ritual spell that had brought him here to these rooms. He had been duped. Led to believe that John Dokker and the rest of the runners were still present.
How, he wondered, could such a perfect mirage have been assembled? Until now, he had imagined his ritual spell of detection to be inexorable, long and slow, but certain to succeed. Obviously, such was not the case. He felt persuaded by the desire to learn more of this deluding spell. He must investigate the intricacies of a work that conjured such perfect fantasies.
Concentrating his astral perceptions, he moved nearer the false auras. In that very instant, the spell unraveled, as if it had expected the touch of his mind, as if it wished to keep its secrets. Mana flashed, bursting outward in all directions, blazing, rejoining the pulsing streams of the world.
Maurice felt a swift pang of grief, then soft despair. As he returned to his mundane perceptions, he heard a crash like that of a trash can being knocked over, resounding outside in the alley, then the sudden savage snarl of a cat.
Jaeger turned and darted toward the alleyway.
The moment struck Maurice. The snarl of the cat stirred his memory. He tilted his head back, nodding, closing his eyes, and softly laughed. It had become a night for tricks, new and old. The snarling cat in the alley. What manner of shaman could use such a juvenile trick and yet could manipulate magic of a complexity as to conjure illusory auras?
"Husband," Daniella said. "Scan this."
Maurice opened his eyes, then followed his first wife into what appeared to be a bedroom. Lying on a bureau was an item that at first glance resembled a common monofilament sword, an artifact manufactured and distributed throughout the plex in the thousands by Ares Macrotechnology and other corps. On the astral plane, however, the sword's significance was obvious. It's aura had the character of a living thing that lived no more. The sword had once been imbued with power, as a focus for spells. The memory of those spells lingered still. Maurice doubted he would be able to determine much about the spells, but that was a secondary consideration.
The vibrations of the person who had carried the sword also lingered. That was what made the sword significant.
Plainly, it had been left behind by the runners' shaman, perhaps in exchange for something he had taken. That was the shaman's way, the most persistent of the rumors Maurice had heard. When Bandit took a thing, he left another in exchange. Maurice could hardly believe his luck, or the shaman's stupidity.
The sword would serve as a material link, and thus, through ritual magic, would lead Maurice directly to the shaman, thence the runners, regardless of where they had gone.
And this time Maurice would how to no clever illusions.
32
The Chapel of the Eternal Light was just over the border from Little Asia in Sector 7. For five hundred nuyen, they laid out Filly's body in a room with perfumed air, quiet music, and molded plastic flowers, no questions asked. That included a five-minute trideo funeral service, cremation, and an urn for the ashes.
Rico paid the tab, despite Dok's protests. It was his responsibility. He was the leader. It was his failure to properly prepare for the meet with Prometheus that had cost Filly her life. Compared to the moral weight of that fact, five hundred nuyen was nothing.
They all knew the risks. Death was part of the game. For the sake of the survivors, Rico was trying hard not to think about the price of his failures or the chance that he might slot up again. If you wanted any chance at surviving, you did what you had to do and saved all the grief, self-doubts, and questions till the run was over and people were safe in bed.
When the pre-recorded serviced ended, Piper said, "I want people to remember, when gray death sets me free, I was a person who had many friends, and many friends had me." She paused a moment, then added, "Filly had many friends. And we her friends have her still. In our hearts. We will always have her there."
Another surprise. Rico puzzled. The words seemed somehow too openly compassionate for a reticent Japanese, and too Christian for a fanatical Buddhist-Ecologist. Maybe it was gender. Maybe it took a woman to speak with that much compassion, to get past her own habits and beliefs long enough to say what ought to be said. Rico wondered where the first few rhyming lines had come from. They sounded like something from a poem, but Piper had never shown any interest in poetry.
Wasn't anything what it seemed anymore?
Dok cursed and cried, then clenched his teeth and turned and walked away. Rico didn't think any less of Dok for any of that. He was only showing his strength.
An hour later, they met Mr. Victor's contact amid the stacks and factories of Sector 10. The slag pointed them to an unoccupied warehouse not far from Port Sector.
The place was five stories tall, about as wide as a tractor-trailer, jammed between a truck terminal and some kind of foundry. The air smelled like burnt metal.
Beyond the big bay door was a loading bay, an open area, narrow but long, with a loading platform at the rear. Beyond the platform was a short hall sided by several small rooms: an office, a bathroom, — and what looked like a lounge. Plastic-molded furniture and cushioned benches. Semi-nude holopics of celebs like Maria Mercurial and Taffy Lee and the Sayonara Baby joygirls decorated the walls. A scattering of trash, narc caps, BTL carriers, and rat shit littered the floor.
"Now I know we're in deep," Shank grumbled.
A curt reply leapt to Rico's lips, but he held it back. Shank was right. Maybe they'd never enjoyed luxury accommodations while on a run, but they'd usually managed to find something you could call decent. Places where you had no second thoughts about using the furniture or maybe taking off your clothes for a shower. Taking refuge in a rat-infested squat in one of the filthiest parts of the plex didn't say much for how things were going. A glance at the bathroom confirmed it.