BLIND MAGIC

By Dylan Birtolo

Lucas pressed his body against the wall, the cold of the metal seeping through his clothes and chilling his skin. He watched the indistinct image of an excavation worker as she walked in front of him, unaware of his presence. Lucas smiled, confident in his spirit’s abilities as it concealed him from both man and machine. It wasn’t perfect, but as long as he wasn’t observed too intensely, the illusion would hold. It affected his perception, like he was looking through a constant thin storm cloud with the occasional flash of lightning. But it was a view he’d gotten used to over the years.

He was almost at his destination, a nearby door with a sign that read EXECUTIVES ONLY. Before getting to it, Lucas once again changed his perception, sliding his consciousness partially into the astral realm. Yes, the room was as he pictured it. The spirit was right: it was heavily warded against magical entry. However, only a simple lock protected the physical door.

He needed to see what was in there. The elders had sent him to investigate this towered excavation facility, located deep in Salish-Shidhe territory. The council had sanctioned the construction and operation of this structure—part of the standing agreement with the Evo Corporation. However, some elders had also voiced concerns that the corporation was overreaching their influence. Lucas was here to check on that potential breach of trust, and if so, to handle it appropriately.

So far, the mission had been a joke. Evo put too much faith in their obscure location and barely had any security. In the entire complex, Lucas had found only four security guards, none of whom were Awakened. The only thing at all that seemed out of place was this box of a room, warded against magical intrusion. He could have easily taken the wards down and sent his spirit in to investigate, but that might have triggered any number of traps or alarms. Lucas thought a better idea would be to investigate in person. And here he was.

The handle tingled in his hand when he grabbed it, sending small jolts of energy up his arm. It wasn’t painful, but he knew something powerful and mystical had to be on the other side of this door. Perhaps Evo was hiding something after all. He pulled a bump key from his jacket pocket. Sometimes, even with all the technology in the world, the simplest solutions were best. He slid it into place and put tension on the handle as he worked the lock. After a couple of tries, the lock gave way.

With one final look down the hallway in both directions, Lucas eased the door open and stepped into the room beyond.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, he felt it. What had been a slight tingling in his arm grew to a prickling, burning sensation over his entire body. It wasn’t powerful enough to actually burn, but every nerve itched at the same time. The room had no other exits, and the only feature was a pedestal holding a small stone idol. The idol looked like a sculpture of some beast god, but that was all Lucas could determine in a brief glance.

The statue flashed a blinding light that sent spears of fire through Lucas’s eyes into the back of his skull.

He screamed and fell back, raising his hand to his eyes and feeling sticky wetness. He tried to keep pressure on the wounds, but the pain overwhelmed all sense of logic. The spirit concealing him tore away, disappearing in response to the sudden shock of pain transmitted through their psychic link.

From some distant part of his mind, Lucas was vaguely aware that the prickling sensation had stopped. Or maybe it was that he couldn’t feel it anymore. His eyes felt on fire, the flames threatening to engulf his entire head. He writhed on the floor, with no idea what was going on. Oblivion threatened to consume him, and the temptation to give in was almost too much to resist. Lucas forced the desire down out of sheer instinct, the ability for rational thought having long since fled.

Eventually he ran out of air and stopped screaming, gulping down a breath. His throat was raw, but it helped to jar him back to some semblance of awareness. Lucas managed to roll over onto his front side, crawling toward the door. His hand made a sickening wet sound when he smacked it against the floor. In the distance, he heard people screaming, the shouts indecipherable.

Lucas knew he’d never escape like this. He collapsed to the ground, not having enough energy to stay on hands and knees. The floor was like ice against his cheek, and his nose was filled with the coppery odor of his own blood. With a thrust of his will, Lucas pushed his senses down, suppressing their signals and trying to look internally.

He found nothing.

That feeling of loneliness and emptiness pierced the pain and seized his breath. He flailed helplessly, his physical motion mirroring the spiritual. Even the room felt empty, the magic stripped and expended.

The loss was too much to bear. For the first time in his entire life, Lucas felt alone. His confidence crumbled like a sand castle under a breaking wave. The darkness of oblivion rose up and seized him, pulling Lucas down into relieving ignorance.

*

Lucas tried to open his eyes, but his lids felt impossibly heavy and refused to listen to his brain. Everything was dark. Reaching out with his other senses, he did a quick assessment as coherent thoughts started to form.

A constant murmur of voices surrounded him, as well as the steady clip of people walking on a hard surface. A regular high-pitched beeping punctuated through these sounds. The tone clawed at his memory as he tried to place it. He knew he recognized it, but every time he came close to mentally grasping it, it slipped away. Like a latch being freed on a closed door, the answer clicked into place: an ECG. He was in a hospital. That also explained the scent of bleach permeating everything.

Groping in the darkness, he reached up to his face. The entire top half of his head was covered in bandages. That explained the blackness and his eyes’ refusal to open. Lucas felt around, searching for anything else he could identify. There had to be a control or a call button somewhere. The beeps from the ECG came faster as his hands slapped around on the bed looking for something to anchor him, some sense of control.

Someone with a heavy tread walked into the room and coughed, interrupting his search. Lucas turned toward the sound and waited. The top half of the bed whirred to life as it rose, lifting him into a seated position.

“Hello, Lucas. I’m Doctor Church. It’s good to see you conscious. You’ll be happy to know that you’re well on the road to recovery.” The mysterious voice was deep and heavy, but had a note of gentleness that softened any edges it might carry. It wasn’t quite guttural enough to be the voice of a troll.

“Where am I?”

“Seattle General. DocWagon picked you up and brought you to a small hospital up north. They stabilized you and then transferred you here. The doctors there decided that for your health, you should be in a more modern facility.”

Lucas took a moment to digest the information. That made sense. After the explosion, or whatever it was, he passed out from the pain. All of those years paying for a contract he never thought he’d use had finally come to fruition. It was an insurance policy he’d hoped never to test.

But the facility had technically been corporate territory—the one place DocWagon shouldn’t have been able to help him. His membership barely covered emergencies in public spaces. Why would they have made an exception in his case? He started to ask about that, but a single concern short-circuited his train of thought.

He reached up to his bandages with shaking fingers and touched them, more gently this time.

“Am I blind?”

The silence stretched on long enough that fear crawled up and threatened to steal his breath again. His body shook as he clutched at the sides of his head. The darkness tried to swallow him until there was no space even to breathe.

“No, not exactly,” the voice reassured him. A couple of large hands gripped him by the wrists and eased his hands down to the side. The motion was soft enough that Lucas went along with it and felt a calmness seeping through that touch. “You see, that’s why you were transferred here. The hospital you were at didn’t have the facilities to do the necessary augmentations. We thought it would be best.”

“Augmentations?”

The doctor let go of Lucas’s wrists and began unwrapping the bandages. Lucas turned his head to face the man and waited.

“There we go. Now it may take a moment, but I want you to think about opening your eyes.”

Lucas didn’t realize what the doctor meant. You didn’t think about opening your eyes—you just did it. But to his surprise, they wouldn’t open. It was odd, like trying to move muscles he’d taken for granted all this time.

Eventually, his eyes opened and he winced, pulling his head back from the sudden rush of color. The lights felt too bright and he reached up to shield himself from the glare.

After a couple of blinks—which again, he had to force himself to do—things began to come into focus. He could lower his arm and observe the room without feeling like the light pierced his skull. The blob of colors at his bedside took form and became the doctor in a white coat standing with a tablet held in the crook of his arm. The man was a dwarf, tall for his race and with a soft, gentle smile that was comforting without being patronizing.

He held up a penlight.

“Very good, now follow the light as I move it.”

Lucas did as instructed while the doctor moved the light from one side to the other and then up and down. He spun it in his grip and pointed the beam directly into Lucas’s right eye. It wasn’t bright enough to make him squint, but it still wasn’t comfortable. After a quick inspection, the doctor checked the other eye. Then he switched it off and tucked it back into his coat.

“It appears like everything is functioning normally. Although it may take some time before you can access the higher functions.”

“What do you mean, higher functions?”

Annotations floated in the open air next to everything he saw. He saw the doctor’s patient treatment rate (89%) broadcast and hanging over his head like a neon sign. The doctor’s glasses had a line attached to them listing the manufacturer and model number. Even the blank wall got an electronic note indicating that it was eggshell white, color E6DEDC.

Lucas scrunched his eyes shut, his head pounding at the sudden influx of information, and pressed the back of his head into the pillows. His hands clenched in fists, tightening up the cheap fabric covering the hospital bed.

“What’s going on?”

“If I had to venture a hypothesis, it would be that you’re getting a headache from excess of information. I can promise you that this is normal in some of our patients if they accidentally trip the higher functions before they’ve developed the cognitive skills to limit the hardware’s capabilities. In short, it’s like having a new muscle you need to train yourself to work with. We have specialists who can assist you with that, and some exercises you can do on your own time.”

Lucas snatched at the air where the doctor had been standing moments before. As soon as he felt resistance, his fingers tightened around the fabric of the doctor’s coat. He jerked the doctor forward, yanking the dwarf off balance so he had to grip the side of the bed to keep from falling on top of Lucas.

“What did you do to me?”

“Based on the recommendations of your DocWagon contractor, we outfitted you with a new set of cybereyes, the latest model available.”

Lucas let the man go and his hand dropped to the bed. Cyberware? Him? How could this happen? He reached out with his other senses, feeling for the astral plane and his connection to Mountain. It was still there, but he felt like something resisted him. It was as if a free-flowing river had now become cluttered with detritus. The connection was still there, just not as easy and free as before.

“If we hadn’t done that, you would have been blind. As it was, most of your optic nerve was lost before you even arrived at our facility. You should be thankful that you can see at all. That you can is due to the skill of the miracle-worker surgeons here.” The earlier gentleness in the doctor’s voice had been replaced with patronizing reproach.

Lucas didn’t want to hear any more about how he should be feeling. He waved toward the doctor, dismissing him. The man had no idea what he was going through, what it meant to have his connection impeded on any level. How could he? The doctor wasn’t Awakened. He’d never known what it was like to feel the spirits with every bit of your body’s essence. And now, Lucas knew that some part of that, even a small part, would be forever missing.

Maybe he would have been better off blind.

*

Days passed. At first, Lucas resisted the training, refusing to accept what had happened. But his stubbornness would not remove the cyberware, nor would it restore his connection to the astral plane. Once he embraced his new reality, it only took a few days of solid training before Lucas learned to function with his cybereyes as well as he’d been able to with his natural ones. He had to admit, they were an impressive piece of technology and were capable of things he never could do before, such as zooming in to read papers on a desk on the other side of the rehabilitation center and making a recording of whatever he saw. As exciting as those benefits were, they felt trivial compared to the resistance he felt when accessing the spiritual realm.

Lucas meditated and communed with Mountain, relieved to find that it was still there, still as resolute in its support. That first night in the hospital, Mountain sent him a vision of tectonic plates shifting and grinding against each other, causing earthquakes and volcanoes all around the world. But when it stopped, the mountains were still there, still strong on the horizon, and still a force that could be counted on. Lucas knew what the vision meant. No matter the changes, Mountain would still support him.

The day of his final examination arrived, and he passed it with no difficulties. The evaluators declared him fit to return to his daily life. He had to resist the urge to sprint out of the hospital after being given his dismissal papers. They recommended continuing to follow up with regular training sessions, but also gave him exercises for home therapy.

Checking his PDA, Lucas was surprised to see that his Americar was parked in the hospital extended-stay lot. It seemed that the favors continued well beyond saving his life. This was well past the services that DocWagon would have provided.

When he got to his car, he searched both the exterior and interior, looking for anything that didn’t belong. At least this gave him a real-world opportunity to try out his new set of eyes. Despite a thorough search, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But the entire situation felt wrong. Lucas walked around the car a second time and even dropped to the ground to scan underneath it. Still nothing. With slow movements, he opened the door and slid into the seat, his muscles tense and expecting something to go wrong. But everything seemed fine.

As soon as he got to his apartment, Lucas logged into his terminal. He wrote a quick but thorough report about what he discovered and why it had taken him so long to respond. He needed to let the elders know he was still alive, what he’d discovered at the facility, and that there was an unexpected medical emergency. He hesitated when he got to the part about waking up in the hospital. His hands started to shake, and he wrung them to try and use the motion to loosen them up. Lucas stood up and walked around the small room a few times before coming back and finishing his report. He glossed over the cybereyes and refused to reread it before sending it off.

For several days the elders didn’t respond, which was highly unusual. He by no means expected an immediate response, but usually they got back to him within a day. Lucas spent so much time pacing around his apartment, he left tracks in the cheap carpet. Even though his PDA would inform him the moment he got a secure message, he checked the terminal almost hourly. Sleep was difficult, and he found himself waking up drenched in sweat and panting for breath. At these times, the only thing that could calm him was meditation and thinking of Mountain.

When his PDA signaled a received message, Lucas rushed over to the terminal and knocked over the chair in his haste. He crouched in front of it and scanned the words. The message was short and requested his presence. The details would be discussed in person.

Lucas was so excited that he literally sprang into the air before bolting to the door and snatching his coat off of the hook. He jumped down the stairs an entire flight at a time as he ran out of the complex. It was rare to see the elders in person, and he couldn’t wait to take advantage of this opportunity.

He climbed into his car and pulled out into the street, heading toward the Salish-Shidhe border before even shutting the door. As he drove, he found a new advantage to his enhanced eyesight—predictive visioning. His eyes let him know where it was safe to pass vehicles and take advantage of openings. This spurred him to even greater speeds as he drove north.

Soon Lucas arrived at the small village that served as his home away from home. It was his tribe. Even though he’d been born in Seattle and still lived within UCAS territory, the people here welcomed him as one of their own ever since he had found his connection with Mountain. It was Mountain who had led him here seven years ago, when his powers first manifested. Ever since then, he had grown to know the people here, and considered them his family.

He pulled into a small lot at the edge of the village and climbed out of his car, a genuine smile plastered on his face for the first time since he had received his last mission. The great hall in the center of town drew his eyes, and he walked toward it at a pace that would make a speed walker proud. His skin prickled as he walked through the town and the hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms stood on edge. It took him a moment to figure out why. He had been so focused on the great hall in the center of the village that he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings.

People were ignoring him, shunning him and looking away as he walked past.

“Shawna! Trey!” he called to a young couple walking down the path.

They turned and shuffled in the opposite direction, putting distance between him and them as fast as they could while staying at a walk. Lucas resisted the urge to run after them and ask why. The elders would have an answer for him. His jaw tightened and he fixed his gaze on the central hall with laser focus.

As he entered the lodge, sweat broke out on his skin at the sudden change in temperature. The warm air inside blew past as it rushed to get outside, bathing him in its heat. In addition, the air positively tingled with magical energy. He was sure that if he opened his eyes to the spirit realm, he would be nearly blinded by the auras.

Seated around the central fire were the five elders of the tribe. The woman in the center, Winona, was the eldest of them all. Lucas had only seen her twice before. She practically radiated mystical energy. With a nod, she gestured for him to come forward. When he got next to the flames, he started to sit, but she held up her hand to stop him.

“I’m afraid that I have one of the most unwelcome tasks ever to fall upon me this day.”

She paused, and Lucas felt the trails of sweat drip down the sides of his face. He clenched his fists and held his breath as he waited for her to continue.

“You know we have laws. Not the laws of man, but the laws of the spirits given to us, which we must follow with draconian vigilance. It is not our place to question them, nor allow exceptions.”

“You’re dancing, not wanting to tell me something. What have I done?”

Winona stared him in the eyes, holding him still with her gaze alone. Despite his nervousness, he met that stare, not wanting to look away. Whatever his crime, whatever his punishment, he would accept it. To his surprise, she looked down at the ground before him before continuing.

“You have accepted that most vile of sins and polluted your own body with technology, a crime which is unforgiveable to those of our tribe. The punishment for this transgression is exile.”

Lucas stood there, unable to say anything, his mouth hanging slack. He felt like his heart had plummeted to the depths of the void. The old woman nodded, and all of the elders in the circle turned around so their backs were facing him. He was dimly aware that none of them wanted to look him in the face, and their shoulders were slumped as they faced the walls.

He wanted to fight. He wanted to argue. He wanted to scream at them that it wasn’t his choice, but he knew that it would do no good. It was a mandate of the village, not a decision that they had made. Nothing he could do would change that fact. If he could carve out his mechanical eyes, he would have, but even that wouldn’t change what had happened.

Instead, Lucas turned and marched out of the building, slamming the door on his way out. A crowd had gathered outside. Clearly this was no secret. Lucas kept marching with his chin high and his gaze focused straight ahead until he reached the small parking lot.

Someone leaned against the side of his Americar, blocking the driver’s door and fiddling with her hair. As soon as she saw him, she stood up straight and tossed her long brown braid over her shoulder. Eileen’s lips were pressed together and her hands danced over one another as she fidgeted.

“Lucas…”

He moved to shoulder past his friend and get in the car. He needed to be away from this place. What once felt like a sanctuary now felt twisted and wrong.

She stepped into his path, forcing him to look at her. His intense stare made her wince, and she backed up a step.

“What do you want?” he snapped.

“It’s not fair what they did. Just because of some old rule—”

“No, it’s not fair! I’ve given everything I have to this village for the past seven years. And how do they repay me? Repay me for doing something they asked me to do? Repay me for risking my life? They kick me out! Not even so much as a blessing or a ‘you’ll be missed,’ just a ‘get out now.’” He didn’t realize he was shouting until he found himself leaning into Eileen and taking a small step forward.

She didn’t back down from his advance. Instead, she reached out and wrapped both arms around him, holding him close. He took several quick growling breaths, his entire body heaving with the effort. Eileen simply squeezed and rested the side of her face against his shoulder. He crumpled in her embrace, and his eyes began to water.

“I…I have to go. I can’t stay here. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“I understand.” Eileen offered a final squeeze before letting go with one arm and reaching behind her to open the car door. Still holding on with her other arm, she maneuvered the two of them around it so he could slide right into the driver’s seat. “If you need anything, please call. Call anyway. You are my brother, and always will be.”

“Thanks.”

Lucas pulled away from her and sank into the seat, wiping his cheeks. He put both hands on the wheel and took a shuddering breath before he was able to look back at the only person who cared enough to intervene during his departure. The synthleather squealed as his grip tightened on the wheel.

Eileen closed the door for him and he offered her a weak smile, the best he could give at the moment. When he turned back to face the rest of the village, he growled again. He half-expected a crowd to have gathered to watch his leaving in disgrace. He didn’t know if it was worse that no one showed.

He drove off, kicking up rocks and dirt in his haste to leave. It wasn’t until he was a few miles from the village that he pulled over and the grief overcame his rage once again.

There were no words for the wave of emotions that crashed over him. They seemed so insurmountable. He couldn’t even begin to process them. In just a few days, everything in his life had changed and come crashing down around him like a rockslide. In the depths of his misery he reached out, tentatively exploring that connection between him and Mountain, fearful that it too would be severed with this latest development.

But the connection was there, just as strong as it had been since he woke up in the hospital. It had shown no signs of weakening. Again came the vision of earthquakes and volcanoes, and again the mountains stood through it all. The vision calmed him, gave him hope and strength, leveling out the tidal flood.

True, the tribe had shunned him, had turned him out and banished him from their home—from his home. But he knew it wasn’t a decision they could make. It was a law of the tribe, something he had borne witness to before when others succumbed to the lure of technology. The only difference this time was that he didn’t choose this. It was not his temptation that had led him astray. It was Evo’s fault, and the artifact in that sealed chamber. They were responsible for this atrocity, and he would do whatever he could to make them pay for their crimes.

His mind made up and his course plotted, Lucas took to the road again, driving back to Seattle with singular purpose.

*

“You can’t possibly be serious. Can he? Is he serious?”

Lucas sat with his elbows resting on the chair arms and his hands steepled in front of his face. He glanced at the other runners in the room, men and women he had worked with over the past several months and developed a close bond with.

Ty, their ever-cautious dwarf decker, was the one who had spoken. He always pushed for the safer runs, the ones that might not be as lucrative, but kept them out of the sights of the big boys. Given his aversion to danger, Lucas was surprised the young dwarf had taken to running the shadows at all.

He shifted his gaze over to Sierra, their elven technomancer. If she agreed to take the job, Ty would fall in line. The dwarf worshipped her, and did a horrible job at disguising his admiration. She sighed and leaned back, lacing her fingers over her knee. She indicated her apparent indifference with a shrug, but when most of the attention shifted away from her, she flashed a smile at Lucas. He knew she’d agree.

That only left Heidi. Standing almost three meters tall, the troll was literally the muscle of the group. Her cybernetic enhancements were mostly under the skin, disguising just how formidable she was in combat both with firearms and the vicious serrated knife she kept tucked into her belt. Considering how intimidating she appeared, that was significant.

She cracked her knuckles, the sound echoing in the mostly-empty room. “Seems like a good idea. Pay’s good.”

“But this is Evo we’d be going up against,” the dwarf protested. “Do you even know what their security would be like? We’re talking multiple levels of encryption, each one laced with black ice, no doubt. That’s if we can even get in.”

Lucas’s jaw tightened at the name of the corporation, and he had to force himself to relax. He had been grooming this team over the last three months, steering them slowly toward his goal of striking back at Evo. And now, they finally had an opportunity. He wasn’t about to let this just slip away. Building a new team would take time. And while he was willing to be patient, even Mountain’s patience had a limit.

“It’s nothing we can’t handle. Besides, you’ll have Sierra backing you up. Or are you saying that the two of you working together can’t handle it?”

“I—I”Ty stammered, glancing at Sierra and then quickly looking away. At another point in his life, it might have amused Lucas, but now it was a distraction.

“I guess we could. I mean, I know we could. There’s not a system out there we couldn’t hack together. It’s just, well… It’s Evo!”

“And a megacorp means twice as much nuyen as we’ve ever got before. The pay’s too good to pass up. I’m in. Just hide behind me when the shooting starts.” Heidi barked a quick chuckle.

Sierra stood up and stretched, flashing that grin in Lucas’s direction once again before she responded, “Let’s do it. About time we gave those slave drivers something else to think about.”

Ty’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. If everyone but me thinks this is a good idea, I’ll play along. I still think it’s crazy.”

A cold smile danced across Lucas’s face as his heart skipped a beat in excitement. It was finally coming to fruition. If everything went according to plan, this would only be the first strike against Evo. He was willing to dedicate whatever remained of his life to crippling them however he could. The fact that their target was in the Salish-Shidhe territory north of Seattle only sweetened the pot.

“Where we headed?” Heidi asked.

Lucas jumped out of his seat and pulled up a prepared map of the Salish-Shidhe territory on the wall’s AR display. He paced back and forth as he zoomed in on the facility, magnifying it until the grounds around the building occupied the entire display surface. His hand clenched into a tight fist at seeing the area again, and he pressed his lips tightly together.

Ty let out a low whistle. “That’s insanely detailed. How did you get this intel? There’s no way a satellite could have picked that up, not if it’s corp space.”

“I have some previous experience in the area.” Lucas paused, waiting to see if anyone asked him about it. Heidi raised an eyebrow, but didn’t speak. She was the only one to show any reaction, so Lucas continued. “This information is a few months old, but this is a layout of what the facility looked like at the time. Based on the report we received, they’re running an excavation site, searching for artifacts of power. Apparently, they just discovered one, and are about to ship it back to their main headquarters. We’ll strike the facility before the artifact gets on the road, recover it, and deliver it to Mr. Johnson. It should be loaded in a shipping crate about a meter a side.”

“How did you have all this ready? Usually I’m the one digging up our preliminary intel, but it looks like you’ve got it already figured out.” The note of disappointment in Ty’s voice was clear, almost coming out like a whine.

Sierra chuckled, capturing everyone’s attention. “Don’t you get it? He already said we were taking the job. That’s the only way Mr. Johnson would have given out these details. Seems like someone’s a little anxious to take on one of the big boys.”

Heidi chuckled too, her deep rumble like a heavy stone rolling down a rocky ravine.

Lucas didn’t respond. There was no need. Yes, he was prepared for this mission. He had been for months now. When the contract came through his contacts, he didn’t even bother to negotiate the fee. Not that his partners needed to know that detail.

“Mother of Lofwyr. She’s right, isn’t she? You accepted it even before we could talk about it, didn’t you? What the hell?” Ty wrinkled his nose and crossed his arms in front of his chest, narrowing his eyes and glaring at Lucas. The taller man just waited. It only took a few seconds before the dwarf sighed and waved at Lucas to continue.

“As I was saying, this information might be outdated, but some things won’t have changed. There’s one main service road that runs for about two kilometers before reaching a main road. I think we should approach the facility from the north, through the wilderness. There’s not much in that area that should give us too many problems. That way we aren’t stuck on the middle of a dirt road barely wide enough for a truck.”

“How can you be sure? Salish-Shidhe doesn’t usually allow tourists. We might be trekking on some holy ground or some such and piss off the locals.”

As usual, Ty pointed out everything he could think of that could possibly go wrong. Lucas reminded himself that he was almost there. He could spare a little more patience.

“Trust me, that area is safe. There aren’t any villages for several kilometers. I used to work in the Salish-Shidhe, almost exclusively, for years.”

Lucas’s voice trailed off as he admitted this to his companions. While they had spent the last several months working together, they still knew precious little about each other’s pasts and histories. He wasn’t in the mood to share those details. He just needed people who could get the job done. The fact that they usually felt the same was more than sufficient for him.

Sierra interrupted the silence by jerking the door open. She looked back over her shoulder at the rest of the group. “You coming? Seems like we’re prepped enough to start our reconnaissance. Lucas will take point.”

Her words jolted the rest of the group into action. Lucas had very little to grab, just his sidearm tucked into the holster at his belt and his medkit attached to the other side. His recent experiences had taught him that even with his gifts, sometimes being armed could be very useful. Even if he was only competent with guns, they had a more immediate effect on observers, something that had come in handy more than once.

When they got to the street, they split up. Sierra accompanied Lucas to his car. As much as Ty might wish for different seating arrangements, this was the most practical: Lucas’s Americar didn’t have the cargo space to fit Heidi comfortably. Lucas climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for Ty to come around the corner in his truck. Soon both vehicles were driving north, heading toward the UCAS border.

*

As he drove, Lucas’s mind tumbled over possibilities as be thought about the future and wrestled with his emotions. Some part of him still sought to go back to his village, but he knew it was a futile effort. While he had come to appreciate the value and uses of his cybereyes, they were still viewed as an abomination and against village law. His hands flexed on the wheel so hard the steering column creaked in protest. At least Eileen still spoke with him.

Sierra put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a soft squeeze. He caught a whiff of her perfume, a combination of lilacs and vanilla. He shrugged her off, keeping his attention focused on the road ahead. They had a job to do; that was what was important.

“This matters to you, doesn’t it? It’s more than just the money?”

For the space of a few breaths, Lucas didn’t respond. In the end, he only spoke as a way to distract himself, to cope with the tension mounting inside. If he couldn’t release the agitated energy, he’d be useless when they reached the facility. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, loosening his grip on the steering wheel at the same time. “Yes, it does. I have a bit of a history associated with this place.”

“I gathered that. The months-old information that was first-hand. How you know the area so well. Thanks for stating the obvious.”

Lucas bit back a growl and reminded him this was Sierra’s way. She didn’t mean any harm by it. “I don’t mean the territory. I mean this place specifically. Something happened there, something I don’t like to think about. It was life-changing.”

“Is that where you got your eyes? I always thought it was weird that a shaman would use cyberware. I’m guessing you didn’t have much of a choice.”

The accuracy of her statement was a spike penetrating his soul. His arms shook and he forced himself to hold tighter onto the wheel, but that only made it worse. He took deep gulps of air, focusing on his breathing.

“No worries. You don’t want to talk about it, and I think you told me enough.” She nodded at his arms before letting out an exaggerated sigh and turning to stare out the window, tracing designs on it with her index finger. Lucas kept his focus on the road ahead, willing the miles to pass by faster.

Time seemed to simultaneously freeze and pass in a blur as Lucas wrestled in his own mind, so it was a surprise when they reached the staging location. He had to jerk the wheel and swerve across two lanes to make their exit. Sierra gripped the door armrest, but said nothing.

They drove into what used to be a rest stop many years ago. Now the parking lot was overgrown with vegetation and the single building was little more than a pile of rubble, long since reclaimed by the forces of nature. The trees here grew with a strength that was far more powerful and abrupt than nature’s normal course. That energy filled the air, and Lucas felt invigorated in a way he hadn’t felt in years as soon as he stepped out of the car and caught the whiffs of mud, sap, and pine. Even the darkness, the moon and stars concealed by thick cloud cover, seemed alive.

Ty drove up and parked next to him, getting out of his truck and failing to suppress a shudder. The vehicle groaned as Heidi hopped out of the back. Lucas glanced at Sierra, not surprised to see her skin a little pale and her hand gripping the car for support. This far from technology it was probably a shock to her system. But she carried her head high, and flashed a grin his way when she realized he was staring.

“I don’t like this,” Ty said. “It’s like the entire thing’s a dark zone. I feel blind. We sure we want to do this?”

“Once we get to the facility, I’m sure you’ll feel more at home. They have relays set up, so you should be able to access the Matrix when we’re within range. It’s only a few kilometers away. Let’s start walking.”

Lucas led the way, having faith that the others would follow. The thunderous crashing behind him let him know that Heidi was close on his tail. While she was extremely dexterous for a being of her size, a three-meter-tall troll could only do so much to avoid snapping low-hanging branches from the surrounding trees, let alone fallen ones. He just hoped the noise from the machinery at the facility would drown out the sound of their approach.

Despite his absence, the paths were much the same as he remembered. Even a magical forest didn’t change much in a few months, especially when animals followed the same trails. As he walked, he reached inside, feeling the connection to Mountain. He expected it to be stronger, more vibrant now that they were back in the wilderness, but it was the same as it had been ever since the surgery. That surprised him, but it brought him comfort nonetheless. Mountain was always with him.

After they’d walked for about a half-hour, Lucas stopped. The light from the Evo facility filtered through the trees ahead. Once the rest of his party stopped tromping through the underbrush, he heard the familiar sounds of heavy machinery grinding through all hours of the night. He knelt at the base of a tree, using it as a barrier between himself and the complex.

Lucas took the energy residing inside him and sent out his call, searching for a spirit of storms to aid him in his quest. It didn’t take long before the call was answered. The spirit came quickly, soaking up the energy Lucas offered.

“Hello, revered one. I require your assistance if you would be so willing. Survey the grounds of the facility up ahead, letting me know of any guards, Awakened individuals, or warded areas.”

The spirit whisked off, willing to complete the task without any prodding on Lucas’s part. He kept his eyes closed so he could better focus on any images sent by the spirit. His team was used to this—they’d seen him do it many times before. His scouting reports were always accurate and far more detailed than Ty or Sierra could recover, even when they were in the midst of the city. Here in the wilderness, his techniques had an even greater advantage.

Images of the facility flooded his mind, and he had to strain to sort them out. It looked like Evo had increased security since his previous visit. More guards patrolled the border, and the fence now had a guard house at the main entrance. The guards themselves were better armed, carrying weapons that looked like the latest Ares technology. Cameras mounted at three of the corners of the main building swept back and forth as they scanned for intruders. In the loading dock area, a semi was backed up against the large doors that opened into the facility. It was close enough that a human could step from the loading dock right into the back of the trailer. Bits of vegetation still clung to the sides of the semi, most likely from using the narrow service road.

The spirit showed him an image of a deep hole in the ground, surrounded by spotlights on tall poles, yet it still remained dark in the center. There was no way to tell how deep the excavation went. But the spirit revealed traces of magical auras lining the edges of the hole in long stripes, like something had scraped against the sides as it was pulled out. That had to be the site where the artifact was recovered. Lucas was sure of it.

The final information he received was the picture of the warded room. It was a good thing he was already on his knees, as the mental picture sent a shiver through his body that would otherwise have made him collapse. Taking deep breaths, struggling to fill his lungs with air, he took that fear and grappled it, turning it into single-minded focus and determination. He curled his lips back into a snarl as the room danced in his mind. When he opened his eyes, he was able to stand and turn to face the rest of his companions without any tremor in his body or his voice.

“The facility is better guarded than I remember, but we will get in.”

He crouched and grabbed a stick, sketching out the facility in the dirt. He indicated where the cameras were, and the last place he’d seen the soldiers on patrol.

“There’s a truck parked in the loading dock. I imagine that’s to ship out the artifact once they have it stabilized. Mr. Johnson says this run is very time sensitive. I’m guessing we have hours at best, maybe less. Once they get it loaded, it’s going to be locked down, and we’ll have a highly secure, fast-moving target, something I don’t think any of us want to deal with.”

“What if we use the truck ourselves? Steal it just before they load the artifact and then use it to get out of here? We know how big the package is but no idea how much it weighs. That way we can even let them pack it up for us.”

Heidi and Ty both nodded in response to Sierra’s suggestion, and for his part, Lucas couldn’t see a flaw in her plan. The only downside was that it would require perfect timing on their assault, but he could have a spirit watch for when that time might be. The drain would be painful, but he could manage it, especially if it was their best option to steal the artifact.

“That’s a good idea, but we’ll need to be fast and time it right. It’ll be a small window. I’m open to other ideas. Does anyone else have an alternate plan?”

Lucas looked around at his companions. Each of them studied the drawn map for different amounts of time, but in the end, each one looked up and shook his or her head. Lucas couldn’t come up with a better plan either, short of directly assaulting the base and doing as much damage as possible. Even if he did want his vengeance, he couldn’t forget that most of the people working there didn’t deserve his wrath. He wouldn’t suggest something that would deliberately put them in that level of danger.

“It’s decided then. I’ll have a spirit watching for the artifact, and when they move to load it on the truck, I’ll give a signal. Ty, you get the truck running. Sierra, you hack the gate, making sure we have a way out. Heidi and I will take care of the guards in the facility, or at least give them something else to think about. We’ll stage our assault from these two points, here and here.”

Heidi flashed a grin that would have made Lucas feel bad for the security team if he had any sympathy for them. The truth was, he was looking forward to seeing how destructive his spiritual allies could be. While the people working on the industrial side of things might only be wage slaves, the soldiers knew what they were signing up for.

“Once you get the truck to the gate, we’ll reconvene there and then head out, driving to the rest stop so we can swap the cargo. Everyone clear? All right. Get in position and wait for my signal.”

Lucas stalked off, taking a route that crossed the road and led him to the far side of the facility. He wanted to be the one taking the longest route because he had the most faith in his ability to be stealthy. Plus, it put him near the guard house, the best place for him to indulge his destructive inclinations.

When he was in position, he called to his spirit, instructing it to watch for any package being removed from the warded room and brought to the truck. It was the only logical place they could be keeping the artifact while packing it for storage. If it was anywhere else in the facility, his spirit would’ve found it. The only other possibility was that the shipment had already moved, and they were too late. He refused to accept that.

Time ticked by painfully, but there was nothing to do but wait. Lucas stood and paced back and forth, unable to sit still and wait for the call to action. He needed to move just to get the anxiety out of his muscles.

When his spirit returned, it sent him an image of a shipping crate, heavily warded and covered with the Evo corporate logo. The time had come.

“The package is being loaded,” Lucas said into his commlink.

Then he charged forward, rushing at the gate and asking the storm spirit to protect him and strike down his foes. As he reached the fence, he tapped into his reserves and called forth a bolt of destructive force, hurling it at the barrier. There was a flash of bright yellow light, and sparks erupted as the bolt ripped a large hole through the wire mesh. Before the smoke had cleared, Lucas jumped through, charging toward the barracks as soon as his feet were back on solid ground.

The door jerked open, and Lucas wasted no time. He slid to a stop and pulled forth his energies once again, the Mountain clear in his mind as he willed flame into existence. A burst of fire erupted near the door, met with screams and shouts of surprise. The first guard in a line stumbled out of the barracks, screaming as he ran around trailing licks of flame.

A crack of gunfire split the air, and Lucas instinctively dropped down and covered his head. He felt a bullet rip the side of his jacket just above his left hip, burning the skin as it tore through. As he turned, he saw clouds manifest around the man who’d fired at him, picking him off the ground and hurling him through the air until he collided against the facility wall with an audible crunch. The force of nature barreled forward, heading after the guard’s companion, who fired round after round into the swirling mass, hoping for a lucky shot.

Lucas turned his attention back to the barracks just as the rest of the soldiers cleared the doorway. He stood and summoned another burst of flame, this one driving him back down on one knee, panting with effort.

The guards were prepared for it this time. Those in front had riot shields, and while the flame licked around the edges, it did little to damage the men holding them. Lucas dove behind a stack of crates for shelter as they opened fire. Wood cracked and splintered around him in quick succession, creating a rain of shards near the edge of his cover.

His energy reserves felt nonexistent, but he needed to keep fighting. He thought of Evo and what they had done to him, how they were responsible for his loss of eyesight and for weakening the most important relationship in his life. With that thought in mind he stood, braving the bullets as he called forth the power once more. He created a sheet of ice on the ground between his location and the barracks. The guards charging his location were not ready for the sudden change as what was once solid ground became smooth as glass. They fell as a unit and slid toward him. A couple lost their guns and shields, the weapons skittering across the ice until they hit the dirt on the far side. Lucas drew his sidearm and delivered a quick and efficient executioner’s shot to the closest one before he could recover. His spirit swooped in, dragging two of the guards off in a flash of lightning. The final guard scrambled across the dirt toward one of the dropped rifles. Lucas emptied his magazine, firing in the guard’s general direction. Enough of the bullets hit their mark to make him stop moving.

Lucas looked up and saw someone standing in the doorway to the barracks, holding a gun and aiming at Lucas. The shaman froze, unable to move as time collapsed into horrible slow motion—

A sudden force struck the guard in the chest, driving him back and lifting his gun as he pulled the trigger. The bullets arced over Lucas, soaring into the sky, where they were lost among the stars. The storm spirit continued pummeling the soldier, then darted off to attack the other survivors within the building.

When the spirit emerged, the wisps of cloud were faint, less substantial than before, but it was still doing its job. It soared across the ice surface, swirling around Lucas as it settled into a guard position, not seeing any current threats.

Gulping down a breath, Lucas forced himself to run around the building to get a look at the loading dock. He had to make sure the mission continued. His weary feet scuffed against the ground, kicking several rocks in front of him, but still he continued.

As he rounded the facility, he spotted Heidi standing at the far corner, peeking around the edge and firing shots at some unseen assailants. A guard was dead at her feet, her knife still lodged in his eye socket. Three other guards were scattered around the open area, all of them bleeding and unmoving. Things looked like they were going the runners’ way.

Suddenly, Lucas felt his connection to the storm spirit vanish. The abrupt absence of it in his mind caused him to stumble and he put a hand on the wall for support. He looked at the truck in the loading dock just in time to see a magician there, casting a spell. There was no time to react. He immediately felt the blast of energy against his mental shields; they crackled around the edges, but held strong.

The second time the mage attacked, Lucas was ready for the assault. But it never came—not at him, anyway. He heard a scream across the courtyard and saw Heidi stumble backward, clutching at her forehead. If the mission was going to succeed, Lucas needed to get that mage’s attention and take him out. He launched a blast of fire at the mage, scorching the wall next to where the man stood. The mage ducked back into the facility, but not before Lucas saw the burn marks on his clothes.

Across from him, Heidi continued fighting, albeit moving more slowly than before and shaking her head every time she pulled back around the corner for cover. Lucas rushed up to the truck, sliding in front of it to use it for cover. He was as bone-weary as someone who hadn’t slept for days, but once again he sought his connection.

“Great Mountain, I need your strength now more than ever. I beseech you, send forth a spirit of beasts so that I may take down our foe.”

He poured every ounce of energy he had into the summoning, dropping to all fours on the ground in front of the truck so his back was lower than the bumper. A growl sounded in his head along with a severe bloodlust, a desire to sink his teeth into the flesh of his enemies and taste the coppery flavor of their blood.

“Feast on the mage guarding this facility. Hunt him before he stops us. Please, spirit…” Lucas collapsed to the ground, dust puffing from where his body struck the dirt. He clung to consciousness, needing to know if his spirit was successful. The energy to summon this beast was more than he should have used, and his entire body felt like it was on fire. But it was their only hope. Evo needed to pay, and they needed to be stopped here.

The connection stayed strong as the beast spirit hunted down the mage. The battle was short and vicious, and Lucas bathed in the revelry of the hunt. The spirit’s elation invigorating him, he rose to his feet, using the truck’s grille for balance. He heard a door slam and vibrations flowed through his arm as the truck roared to life.

Lucas hurried around to the passenger door. No sense in walking all the way to the gate to have Ty pick him up, not when he could climb in here. As he grabbed the handle, the truck began to roll forward. Through the window he saw Sierra behind the wheel.

The surprise made him freeze. Sierra pointed her sidearm at Lucas’s head and fired. He dropped back, falling off the truck as the window shattered and his entire face bled from what felt like a hundred different cuts. Blood ran into his eyes, masking the entire world with a solid blur of red. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Someone jerked him to his feet and shoved him toward the gate. The hand was large, easily grasping his entire upper arm in its palm. Heidi turned back and fired a burst at the corner, forcing a guard to duck back and stop his pursuit.

“Go! Gate!” She drove him forward, turning around and walking backward so she could provide cover. After a few steps, reality came crashing back around him and Lucas ran to the gate as fast as he could. He leaned forward, almost falling on his face as his feet scuffed the ground in his haste.

At the gate, Ty stood next to the guard house, staring down the road with his brow creased in confusion. There was no time to talk now. Lucas gripped Ty’s shoulder, intending to jerk the dwarf along with him. But the simple fact of resting his hand on another person made the wave of exhaustion strike him hard enough to make his head sag.

“Move!” Heidi thundered.

In less than a second, she was on them, wrapping an arm around Lucas’s waist and picking him up in midstride. She sprinted into the underbrush, heading for the thickest part, and crashed right through. Branches smacked against Lucas and clawed at his bleeding face. It was all he could do to keep them from flaying off more of his skin.

After a mad dash, the sounds of gunfire faded to nothing, and soon the steady grind of the machinery was little more than an echo. Only then did Heidi put Lucas down, taking a knee and panting heavily. Ty collapsed face-first in the ground, with only enough energy to roll onto his side to avoid breathing dirt and mud.

Lucas saw Heidi was bleeding from several spots through her armored jacket. He’d need to treat those and quickly, to make sure the damage wasn’t too severe. He opened his medkit and gestured for her to take off her jacket. She winced and grunted as she did so, the fabric sticking in a couple of places as she peeled it off. Lucas said nothing. He didn’t trust his ability to form words yet.

To his relief, most of her wounds weren’t serious. Her dermal plating had stopped most of the bullets before they could pierce too deep. One spot was a through-and-through, easily patched. Only one of her wounds required him to retrieve the bullet, and even that one had stopped shortly after entry, with the tail end wedged between two of her plates. He yanked it out with a sickening, wet squish and immediately put a patch over the hole before it could bleed too much. Heidi gripped the log underneath her so tightly that the wood cracked and splintered.

“What happened back there?”

Lucas didn’t need to ask what she was talking about. He looked over to Ty, asking for an explanation without saying anything.

The dwarf looked as confused as he felt. “After you guys left, she thought we should switch roles. Said I’d be better at taking care of the security systems at the gate. There weren’t any, it turned out, but I thought she had a point. She always worked better under fire.”

Lucas’s jaw clenched. So Sierra was a double-crosser. But for who, or what? Did she intend to make the drop later that evening to Mr. Johnson? That wasn’t possible—she didn’t know where it was. Mr. Johnson had contacted him directly, and he’d arranged everything without any involvement from the rest of the team. That meant there had to be an outside player.

Or the entire thing was a setup, and Mr. Johnson was part of the plan.

“We need to get back to Seattle and dig a little into Sierra’s history, figure out who she might be working for. You can do that from anywhere, can’t you?”

The dwarf nodded. There wasn’t anything else to discuss at this point, so Lucas jogged down the trail back toward their vehicles. He kept his pace steady, something he could maintain the entire length of the journey, even given his exhausted state. Stealth was a moot point right now compared to speed.

Heidi and Ty crashed along behind him. He heard the troll’s panting almost in his ear, and imagined he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. At one point, Lucas glanced over his shoulder as he rounded a corner and was surprised to find Heidi a few meters behind him. It had sounded like a train was bearing down on him and about to run him over any second.

When they burst through the last section of trees and came to the rest stop, Lucas froze. Up ahead he saw the semi, the back opened revealing a long empty trailer with lights running along the top edge, reflecting off the metallic sides. His car was missing, and only Ty’s truck was in the lot. Near the spot where his car had been parked was a large crate, the one covered in wards and the Evo stamp. The top was torn off and the container was empty.

“Blessed Mountain…”

Heidi brushed past him and moved to the truck, hopping into the back so it groaned as it sank from the sudden weight. She gestured for him to get in.

“We still need to get outta here. That hasn’t changed, has it? Just ’cause she took your wheels?”

She was right. Lucas rushed forward, climbing into the passenger seat as Ty slammed the door shut on his side. The truck rumbled to life and roared as Ty accelerated. While he navigated back to the highway, Lucas stared out the window, running through their entire time together as a team.

Was there anything that had seemed odd about Sierra? When he had started looking for people to sign on with, she recruited him. After they’d decided to work together, she had introduced him to Heidi, and then they found Ty as a group when they needed a fourth man for a run. Lucas couldn’t help looking through the truck’s back window at Heidi. Was she in on this too? No, he didn’t think so. She seemed just as surprised as he was, and she had risked her life to get him out of there. She very easily could have left him behind or climbed in the truck as it drove past. He was confident she wasn’t part of the plan.

Whatever the plan was.

Moving forward in his memories, he still couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary. Sierra was the one who could sway any vote and get the rest of the team to come around to her position; they all looked up to her. She never wanted the leadership role, but she clearly had the power. And whenever he steered them against a corp, especially any of Evo’s holdings, she had always supported him.

There had to be an explanation, something he wasn’t seeing. But it would do him no good to mull it over until they had more information. Putting the pieces together now was assembling them with fairy dust for glue, and only served to feed his imagination. He needed intel, and to get that, they needed to get back somewhere networked. For the first time in his life, he felt anxious to leave the wilderness and return to civilization.

*

When they got to their safe house, Lucas had hoped to see his car sitting on the street, and was disappointed when it wasn’t. They hustled up to the apartment they used as a gathering place, but it was still secure. A quick check showed that the few belongings Sierra had left were still present. If she was coming back to retrieve them, she hadn’t been here yet.

“All right, we need to figure out whatever we can about Sierra. Check her accounts, her SIN, whatever you can get, and dig up anything you can find. Heidi and I will start going through her stuff, see if there’s anything that might be a clue as to who she’s working for or where she’s going.”

Ty nodded and sat down at his desk, placing his hands on the table and leaning back so his body would go slack and relax as he jacked into the Matrix. Lucas had seen it many times, but no matter how often he witnessed it, it still seemed odd to him. It was like Ty was no longer in his body and it was just an empty shell. He couldn’t help but wonder if his body looked like that when he decided to take a spirit walk. The thought sent a chill down his spine, but he dismissed it. It was time to focus on his own task at hand.

He and Heidi searched through Sierra’s belongings, but didn’t find anything of significance. Most of what she stored there were clothes, and those didn’t reveal anything useful. Heidi even tried slicing the liner in the jacket, searching for any information or pieces of technology that might be stored in the garment itself, but it was a fruitless endeavor. They were sitting in the pile of clothes when they heard Ty’s shout from the other room followed by a sudden thump.

They rushed back to the main room to find Ty lying on the floor, his body shaking and covered in sweat. Panting heavily, he pressed trembling fingers against his temples, his eyes squeezed shut. Lucas rushed forward and knelt next to his companion, easing him to a sitting position. The dwarf sat up slowly, clutching Lucas’s arm tight enough to make it bruise.

“What happened?”

“Sorry, just give me a second.” The dwarf took a deep breath. “Water?”

Heidi hustled to the kitchen and grabbed a glass, filling it at the sink and bringing it over. Ty finally letting go of Lucas’s arm and took the glass in both hands. The liquid sloshed up the sides and over the top as he lifted it to his mouth. After taking several deep swallows, his trembling ceased. He took a deep breath as he lowered his hands to his lap, clutching the empty glass.

“I dug around like you wanted, looking for any info about Sierra. I had some things to go on, just basic stuff from before. But I decided to go a little deeper. Invade her privacy, given the situation and all.”

Lucas gestured for Ty to get to the point. He didn’t need to know the details of how, just what was going on.

“Well, I found some stuff. Old records and whatnot. Checked her bank account and man, is she loaded. I was curious where all the money came from, so I spoofed her account to look at the history. Not foolproof, but good enough to get access to the records.”

“What did you find?”

“She worked for Aztechnology. Seriously. She was a wage slave!”

Lucas sat back on his heels. At first he didn’t believe it, considering how much Sierra had supported going against corporations for their work. But then he realized she never suggested or supported a job against Aztechnology. Wouldn’t it benefit them if other competitors were negatively impacted? It wouldn’t be unreasonable.

“How long ago was her last payment? Maybe she used to work for them before she started running the shadows?”

“That’s what I thought too, so I checked. But her last payment was three days ago.”

“That’s the same day Mr. Johnson contacted me about the Evo job.”

Silence filled the room as everyone digested that statement. It was far too convenient that Sierra had gotten a large payment from Aztechnology the same day a Johnson stepped forward to personally offer a job striking back against Evo. At least now they knew where she would go with the relic.

“So what happened?”

“She caught me messing around in her personal files. At first I thought it was just a sprite, something she left behind to safeguard her stuff. But it must have sent off an alert or something, ’cause then she showed up and worked her magic. I couldn’t keep up. I jacked out as fast as I could before she fried my brain.”

Heidi slammed her fists down on the counter hard enough to make the floor tremble. She growled around her tusks and reached down to her dagger, clutching its hilt and releasing it repetitively. “And now she’s gonna get away with it. Stabbed us in the back and she’s off scot-free?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I managed to sneak a tracer onto her avatar. I just checked, and it’s active. I know where she is.”

Lucas burst into motion, snatching up a couple of extra magazines for his gun and tucking them into his pockets. Heidi was at the door before he was, jerking it open so quickly that one of the hinges popped loose with a groan. They rushed downstairs, climbing into the truck in a matter of seconds after leaving the apartment.

“Should take us about ten minutes to get there. She stopped moving, so I’m guessing she’s either waiting or setting something up.”

“You’re sure she doesn’t know we’re coming?”

“I’m sure. No way she could have found the tracer, even if she is a technomancer. I know how to write my agents.”

“Hasn’t she seen you use these agents before?”

The silence in the cab of the car was all the answer Lucas needed. He sighed and reached back to knock on the rear window to get Heidi’s attention. She held her hand up to her ear to block the wind noise. It roared through the commlink, almost drowning out her words.

“What’s up?”

“Odds are she knows we’re coming. She’s currently holding position, which means we could be walking into a trap. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Not at all. Means I’ll have plenty of stuff to shoot. I like it when they’re all bunched together.”

“Are we really going to shoot her? I mean, this is Sierra we’re talking about. We’ve been through a lot. Maybe if we talked to her first, we could figure out what this is all about. Maybe she just wanted a better cut…” Ty’s words and volume trailed off until they became a soft murmur. Lucas waited until they stopped at a light, and then grabbed the scruff of Ty’s shirt, forcing the dwarf to look at him. He pointed up at his face, red and raw with barely-healed lacerations from the shattered glass.

“She shot me in the face, Ty. Does this look like a misunderstanding to you?”

He let the decker go and dropped back into his seat, staring out the window. It took him until after the truck started moving again and had gone a couple of blocks before he calmed down. He spoke to Ty while looking out the window, the edge gone from his voice.

“You said it yourself. She has more money than she needs, so it isn’t nuyen she’s after. There’s something else, some type of corporate loyalty. I just can’t believe she managed to fool all of us into believing her. We’re going to stop her, one way or another, even if that means putting a bullet in her skull.”

Ty didn’t reply, and Lucas was more than happy to have it that way. He wanted this job done as soon as possible so he could go back to hunting down Evo. He should be happy since his target had suffered a significant loss, but the backstab left a bad taste in his mouth. He needed to end this, one way or another.

*

The truck stopped in the wealthy part of Bellevue, where individual houses were situated on lots big enough to house entire apartment complexes. The house across from them was no different in that regard.

The lot was surrounded with a wrought-iron fence, cameras clearly visible over the main entrance. Not only that, but a turret was in plain view over the front door of the house, some ten meters back from the gate. Around here, the law was open to interpretation, usually benefitting the owners of the property.

Lucas stared at the front of the house, using his cybereyes to zoom in and scan around. The turret was active, and sensitive enough that it twitched when a bird flew past, but didn’t fire. It had the Ares brand logo, so clearly it was good at dealing death. Scanning the windows, his eyes identified the glass as being bulletproof, capable of stopping anything less than a .50-caliber round. So much for a mad dash across the front lawn and bursting in through the window.

Switching his focus to the front door, Lucas saw it had a maglock. His eyes even reported the model number when he focused on it. He closed his eyes and shifted his view. It was just like the doctor had warned him during his rehab: using a muscle that he didn’t know he had. When he opened his eyes, he had switched to a thermographic view. His head started to pound, but he ignored it and continued scanning the building.

Unfortunately, the house’s walls shielded his view, masking everything as a single wash of color. Only the windows gave him any glimpse into the interior, and no one was standing near any of them.

Lucas blinked, restoring his vision to normal. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the pain throbbing inside his skull. Once it had subsided a bit, he turned to face Ty. He pulled up the maglock model on his commlink. “Can you get through this maglock? How long would it take?”

“I could, but it would take a couple of minutes. A little bit longer if you also want me to run interference on those cameras.”

“Don’t worry about the cameras. I can take care of them. I just need you to handle the lock. That’s something I can’t do anything about.”

“So you just want to blast through the front door? If she’s expecting us, that seems like the stupidest idea. We’ll be ripped to shreds before we get there, let alone what’s going to happen to us once I get the door open.”

“Trust me. I can get us there. I’m more worried about what we’re going to face once we’re inside. Still, we don’t have time to scope the place out properly. If we lose her here, there’s no telling if we’ll be able to pick up her trail again. You know as well as I do how well she can hide. Hell, you probably know that better than I do, and I don’t think we’d find her again.”

Ty nodded, even if he didn’t look happy about the news. But Lucas knew he could count on the dwarf. The man might be Eeyore incarnate, but once he finally did get moving, he stuck to his guns and made sure he did what was expected of him. That was what Lucas needed right now.

He glanced back at Heidi, crouched in the truck with her assault rifle in one hand and her trusty knife in the other. He wondered if she had several copies of the same blade, or if she’d managed to retrieve it from the corpse when he wasn’t looking. Then again, he was stupid from shock and pain at the time, so a lot of things could have escaped his notice.

As soon as he opened his door, Heidi jumped out of the truck, making it rock and groan. Her predatory smile indicated her readiness. She stared at the turret as if viewing it as a challenge rather than a threat. Lucas was pretty sure that would end in her pointless death. If any of them were going to die, it should at least be for something meaningful.

“Want me to try and take out the turret? I could shoot it down from here.”

Lucas shook his head. “Open gunfire in the middle of this street would attract way too much attention. If we can help it, we shouldn’t use our firearms until we’re inside. At least then the sound might be muffled or dampened, depending on what the walls are made of.”

Lucas reached out to feel Mountain’s presence, tapping into reserves still drained from their earlier adventures. They had refilled somewhat, but it would take a good deal of rest before he was back at full strength. Nonetheless, the energy was there for him to tap into, a warm flow of magic that let him send forth a call to his familiar storm spirit.

“Thank you, great bringer of storms and harbinger of rain. I hope to ask a favor of you. Would you hide me and my companions from sight?”

The spirit responded by moving forward and enveloping all of them within its domain. Lucas was used to the sensation of feeling like he was both walking through and floating on a cloud, but he heard the surprised gasps from his companions. Heidi reached out and gently swatted at the empty air in front of her, a puzzled look on her face.

“It only appears to be a mist. It’s not an actual fog. But it will shield us from both the cameras and people. Let’s go, but make sure you stay close. The spirit can only reach out so far.”

Lucas walked toward the gate, Heidi and Ty close on his heels. He glanced up at the camera, glad to see that it didn’t shift in the slightest, oblivious to their presence. Now was the true test though. The turret was the far more dangerous instrument of detection.

He stared at it while he grasped one of the bars and began to climb. Heidi saw what he was doing and gave him a boost, pushing him up so he nearly vaulted the gate in a single movement. The entire time, his attention was centered on the turret. It didn’t track his movement, remaining steadfast and still in its vigilance.

Ty was next, getting over only with a lot of help from Heidi and a heavy grunt. Lucas shushed him as soon as the dwarf landed on the ground. While the storm spirit could block them from sight, sound was another matter altogether. Of course, the sounds the dwarf made were nothing compared to the gate’s crash and Heidi’s heavy thud as she hauled her large form over the fence and dropped onto the property. For a moment, all three of them froze, waiting to see if anything detected their presence.

Lucas shook his head and stalked toward the front door. It was a miracle they hadn’t been detected yet, but he wasn’t going to let the blessing go to waste. As they crossed the grounds, he kept an eye on the turret, tense and ready to bolt if it swerved to target them.

Halfway across the yard, Lucas heard a low growling coming from the corner of the house. Two large dogs stalked forward, each one almost a meter tall at the shoulder. These were not normal critters, and while they couldn’t see Lucas and his companions, he had no doubt they could smell them. The dogs crept forward, sniffing at the air and looking around for the trespassers. Lucas and his teammates still had almost ten meters to the front door, and then there was the small matter of the maglock. The dogs would be on them long before then.

“I got this.”

Before he could determine what Heidi meant, she took off running to the other front corner of the house. As soon as her first foot slammed into the ground, the guard dogs rose up, their pointed ears angled toward the sound. When Heidi got too far away, Lucas felt the strain of the spirit as it tried to keep her concealed. With another step, that control broke, and Heidi showed up in plain view.

The dogs rushed forward and the turret swiveled in her direction, letting out a quick burst before she got close enough to the building to gain some cover. She stumbled from the impact, clutching the corner as she reached it. The dogs closed on her, jaws trailing saliva and snapping at the air in anticipation. Heidi smiled, drawing her knife and crouching as she backed around the corner. The dogs rushed after her, and one bark was cut short with a sudden yelp.

Not caring about being quiet any more, Lucas grabbed Ty’s shoulder and ran forward. If Sierra didn’t know they were there before, there was no way she could miss them now. Speed became paramount. At least they were still hidden from sight, thanks to the storm spirit. That could give them an edge they needed.

Ty began working on the lock. Lucas flattened his back against the wall and peered around the edge of the window into the main room beyond. It was a large foyer, with a curved staircase that hugged the left wall to rise up to a balcony on the second floor. The room had a tiled floor and was well lit from a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. He thought he saw something attached to the back of the front door, but it was impossible to make out from this angle.

“Got it.”

The lock clicked and Ty reached out to push the door open. Following a pure instinctual urge, Lucas gripped Ty’s collar, jerking him back hard enough that the dwarf yelped in surprise and fell to the ground.

A small explosion went off on the other side of the door. Shrapnel flew from the opening, shredding the area where Ty had been standing less than a second before. The color faded from his face, and his eyes widened so much they looked like they threatened to pop out of his head.

Lucas stepped over the dwarf’s body as he headed to the door. Pieces of it still clung to the hinges, but most of it had been shredded by the bomb. Lucas pushed what remained into the foyer, staying back in case there were any more traps. When nothing happened, he walked into the room, giving it a quick scan for any obvious threats. Nothing jumped out at him, so he examined the entrance. A small bomb was attached to the frame, wired to go off when the door opened. It was set at just the right height to take a dwarf in the center of the chest.

“We need to split up. The house is too big. I’ll cut off her escape.”

Ty opened his mouth to protest, but Lucas didn’t have time to argue. He needed to find Sierra before she got away. He sprinted toward the back of the house, assuming if there was a garage, that’s where she would be. Once he cut off her escape route, they could take a little more time to locate her.

As soon as he left the room, he heard shouting and gunfire. He slid to a stop. It was more than one gun, so it wasn’t Sierra. Or if it was, she wasn’t alone.

“Ty?” he asked into his commlink.

“A couple of goons burst in and have me pinned down. I think I can hack their guns.”

Lucas hesitated. He didn’t want Sierra getting away, but he couldn’t leave Ty alone. The dwarf was sturdy, but not the best fighter in the world.

“I’m coming back.”

Heidi’s growl came over the commlink. She sounded excited. “I’m on ’em. They’re about to get a surprise visitor. You check for Sierra.”

There was a loud crash, followed by some screaming, more than enough to convince Lucas to continue on his way. As he ran to the back of the house, a door caught his attention. Lucas skidded to a stop, sliding across the hardwood floor with a squeak as he turned to study it more closely. It was heavily warded, and he could feel the energy coming off it. If Sierra needed a place to store the artifact away from mystical eyes, this one would do the trick.

He hesitated, his hand hovering over the handle. The memories of the last time he opened a warded room came flooding back to him.

No, he had to check Sierra’s escape route first. That made the most sense. Then he could come back and see what this room was about. It would take time to examine carefully, time she could be using to get away. He turned away, continuing toward the rear of the house.

When he stepped into the kitchen, he saw two elven women standing off to the side, each holding a sword. He paused, holding his breath, but they didn’t react to his presence. He was so used to the misty appearance, he had forgotten his spirit was concealing him.

Lucas crept farther into the room, easing his weight onto each foot as he moved forward, trying not to make any sound. One of them chattered over her commlink in a language that Lucas couldn’t understand.

However, he could understand when the line went silent and she began screaming over the commlink. With a nod at her companion they rushed toward him, trying to get through the door and head to the front of the house. Lucas tried to dive out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The first women clipped into his side and knocked him to the ground as she stumbled forward from the unexpected impact. The one behind her slashed at the air, her blade close enough that Lucas felt the wind of its passing.

Lucas wasted no time. He called forth his energies to summon a burst of flame in front of his attacker while simultaneously asking the storm spirit to subdue his attackers. The woman charging at him backpedaled from the sudden explosion, lifting a hand to her face and shielding her eyes. The woman on the ground tried to scramble to her feet, but was quickly knocked back down by the force of a strong gust of wind materializing out of nowhere. That gave Lucas enough time to get back up.

While the spirit tangled with the woman in the hall, Lucas squared up against his other opponent. She paced around the counter, following Lucas as he tried to keep something between them. His energy reserves were depleted, and exhaustion crept up on him once again, so he couldn’t afford to blindly hurl magic. He needed to make sure each spell counted.

She lunged at him, trying to drive the blade into his chest. Lucas fell back, grabbing the stool next to the counter and pulling it between them. She leaped over it, continuing her assault and forcing him to backpedal. He needed her to get closer and make her think she had the advantage. As he backed up, his hip collided with a small table near the window. Lucas exaggerated the impact, stumbling as if it had knocked him off balance in surprise. The woman saw her opportunity and jumped forward.

It was just the chance Lucas had been hoping for. He shifted to the side, letting her blade pass by and slice through his clothing without doing much damage to the skin underneath. He grabbed her arm, channeling his energy through it and shocking her system. She was unconscious before she touched the floor, her body collapsing in a heap.

Lucas picked himself up and rushed to the back of the kitchen, heading for the door he hoped led into the garage. He yanked it open and saw he was correct, but no vehicles were parked inside. It was a large room with a cement floor and shelves of equipment stacked up on either wall, but nothing else. Either Sierra had already gotten out, or she wasn’t planning on leaving by car.

Back in the kitchen, the scene had quieted down. The spirit had finished its combat with the other swordswoman and had moved to the upper floor, continuing to battle Lucas’s opponents. When he focused on the spirit, he could see it fighting next to Ty, helping him with a few more thugs on the upper floor. Things seemed to be well in hand, so Lucas hurried back to the warded room.

As he stood in front of it, he debated calling his spirit back. But there would be little it could do to protect him in this situation. It might as well continue attacking Sierra’s goons, because then it would at least be doing some good. No, this trial was for him to face alone. His mind made up, he grabbed the handle, clamping tight to ignore the slight jolt of energy that shot up his arm and made him want to pull back.

The door swung into a small room with a large display on the far side. A terminal was set up with a padded chair in front of it, but the chair was currently empty, even though the display was on and showing a series of waves crashing against a cliff wall. He stepped inside and the door closed automatically behind him, easing shut. He checked it before getting any closer to the terminal, relieved to find it was still unlocked. He walked toward the chair, examining it. Not seeing anything unusual, he approached the display.

When he was within an arm’s reach, the display flickered. Sierra’s face showed up, smiling her familiar cold, calculating smile. Only this time she made no attempt to hide the malice behind her grin.

“Welcome, Lucas. I knew there was no way you’d be able to resist the wards on this room. You’d need to come and see what I might be hiding. Were you hoping that maybe it was the relic? Don’t look so surprised. You are horribly predictable. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

The heavy clunk of a latch falling into place echoed behind him and he spun toward the door once again, knowing it was locked. He rushed forward and tugged on the handle, but it was useless. He didn’t have the strength to tear it open. The display flicked off, leaving him in darkness. Sierra had set a trap for him, probably a trap for all of them, and he needed to find a way out.

Reaching for his mentor, he tried to draw on the strength of Mountain, but it was difficult to feel the connection. The wards in the room blocked him, preventing him from drawing in additional power. He could still work his magic using the energy he had, but any calls to spirits would be a fruitless endeavor.

As he tried to figure a way out of his predicament, he smelled a spicy odor on the air. He held his breath, ripping off a section of his shirt and wrapping it over his nose and mouth. There was no way for him to know what was being added to the air in the room, but he knew it wasn’t natural. Did she want to kill him? Or was it knockout gas? Either way, he knew he didn’t want to give in to her trap.

Using his hands as a guide, he walked forward until he could feel the chair. He groped for the terminal, pressing anything and everything he could reach, but nothing reacted. Running out of ideas, he dug his fingers into the chair, searching the cushions and arms for anything that might resemble a switch or a button, but found nothing. He dropped to his knees in front of the seat, and it rolled away from him as he fell into the front edge of the cushion.

Time was running out. He tried to take small breaths, hoping that might mitigate some of the effects of whatever he was breathing, but his lungs and throat felt like they were on fire. His mind turned over possibilities, frantically considering every option.

A sense of calmness filled him as he realized that mindless flailing served no purpose. An image of a mountain, standing strong in the face of storm, flood, and earthquake came to his mind. Lucas stopped his mad scramble and sat cross-legged on the floor, resting his hands on his knees with his eyes closed as he took a very long, slow breath. His chest and lungs continued burning, but he pushed the pain away and processed the situation.

Sierra would have an escape route. She was exceedingly careful and well-prepared. She would not risk being caught in her own trap or having it triggered on her if something went wrong. That meant he just needed to find it. She would pick something he wouldn’t consider, especially if this was a trap designed with him in mind. So, what was it that he wouldn’t normally think about, but that she could count on? It would be something that couldn’t be triggered by accident, but had to be deliberate. It also couldn’t count on any external hardware, because then it wouldn’t be a failsafe. That meant it wasn’t the terminal or the chair.

What else was in the room? He opened his eyes out of habit, trying to remember what he saw when he first entered. To his surprise, he could make out the shapes in the room. He held his hand in front of his face, flexing the fingers a few times, surprised that his eyes had this capability. They had never covered it in his training, but then again, he’d stopped going as soon as he was released. He made a mental note to check the specifications on his implants to see their full functionality and embrace them if he got out of here.

With his enhanced sight, he saw a panel in the back wall, underneath the display. It had a faint glow around the edges, something he never would have seen when the chamber was lit. It hinted at a dim light behind the cover. Lucas walked over and pried at the panel, eventually discovering he could push in at one corner, and use that leverage to pull it back.

On the other side of the panel was a small cavity in the wall, barely large enough for his hand. Inside it, a handle connected to some mechanism in the structure of the house. The pain in his lungs was starting to make him dizzy and cough, so he grabbed the handle and pulled it, hoping for the best.

As soon as he pulled the handle down, the HVAC system roared to life and a breeze of fresh air rushed down from above him. He stood up tall and angled his face to the fan, taking in a deep breath even though the effort made him cough again. The door lock clicked, and Lucas hurried to it, not wanting to be in the room a moment longer than necessary. The light of the hallway blinded him, and he covered his eyes with his arm as he fell through, landing on the tiles and crawling away from the warded trap room.

As he sat there, struggling for air and trying to stop coughing, he realized he wasn’t hearing any more combat, either from above or outside the house. He felt for his spirit, but the connection was severed, probably as soon as the door was shut. He hoped his spirit’s sudden disappearance hadn’t resulted in Ty’s death.

He needed to find out. Using the wall for support, he pushed himself to his feet and took a few shuffling steps toward the foyer.

Once he was in the main room, he stopped when he spotted Heidi in the doorway. She was covered in blood, but it was impossible to tell which was hers and what might have been her opponents’. When she saw Lucas, she smiled and lifted her knife in a salute. He opened his mouth to say something about Ty, but collapsed to the floor instead.

She rushed over to him, picking him up and sliding him against a wall so he could prop himself into a sitting position.

“Ty... Upstairs.”

“Don’t worry about it. I talked to the little guy already. Said he ran into some trouble, but your spirit friend got him out of it. He’s fine. A little banged up, but that’s it. He’s plugged into Sierra’s computer now, digging around and causing a whole mess of chaos from what I can gather.”

Lucas nodded, glad he could just focus on breathing for a while. With Heidi to stand watch over him, he had that luxury. Each breath came easier than the one before, and his next coughing fit had no blood in it, so that was a good sign. His strength started to come back too, now that he could feel Mountain’s presence and taste the fresh air. The chalky taste of heavy spice still lingered on the back of his tongue, but if that was the worst of his long-term repercussions, he was in good shape.

Heidi watched over him for a short time, then began rummaging around the room and checking the bodies in the hallway. Judging from how she moved, most of the blood couldn’t be hers. Lucas wondered if she was even injured after her adventure. She returned from the kitchen to offer him a glass of water, and he gulped it down, not caring if it happened to be contaminated and another one of Sierra’s traps. By the time that he felt comfortable enough to stand, Ty was coming down the stairs.

“What did you find?”

His voice sounded hoarse and the words made his throat itch, but at least he could breathe without the sensation of fire in his lungs. He took another swig of water, relishing the cool sensation as it slid down his throat.

“Can we talk about it in the truck? I disabled the security systems, but I don’t know how long that’s gonna last. Not to mention Knight Errant’s probably on the way. I’m sure one of the neighbors called this in by now.”

Lucas saw no flaw in the logic, so he followed Ty to the front door. The dwarf walked confidently out on the lawn, directly into view of the turret. He jogged out to the gate, swinging it open and climbing into the truck before Heidi and Lucas were off the property.

Once they were in the vehicle he drove off, not stopping until they were several kilometers away and he could find a crowded lot. When they’d parked, he turned in his seat so he could look Lucas in the face and pulled open the back window. Heidi leaned forward, sticking her massive head through the small space in a way that would have been comical if it were not for the seriousness of their situation.

“Right, so, Sierra set it all up as a trap,” Ty said. “She knew I had a tracking agent on her, and if I had to guess, wasn’t even at the house at all. She set it all up before we left to get the thing from that Evo site. She planned this from the start!”

Lucas nodded. He expected no less, based on the recording he’d seen in the warded room. Heidi also looked unsurprised at this revelation.

Ty was the only one who looked shocked. He glanced between his two companions, waiting for them to react before giving up and continuing. “Okay, you two are clearly not as surprised about that as you should be. I really thought she was on our side. Anyway, I looked into her files, trying to figure out what was going on and where she might be taking that thing that we found. She’s really good about scrubbing her stuff. All of her personal files were heavily guarded, and when I did get in, they didn’t have anything important. Totally erased, except for a jab here or there at me for being predictable.”

“Seems to be a theme of hers.”

“So, I gave up on that because there wasn’t much of a point. Anything she bothered to safeguard that well would just be trapped like crazy and be useless. Instead I decided to look at things that weren’t guarded. You know, pointless stuff.”

“Please tell me you found something useful.”

“I did. I checked the GPS records for her car. Yeah, she has one. There’s a lot she never told us. Like every week she went to this one building downtown near the docks. It was the same building, and she always went there at the same time every week. It’s the only reason she ever heads down there. And, it’s where her car is currently parked.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“You want to charge right in, no plan or anything? You saw what she did to us here!”

“She knew we were coming for her here. This time, she expects us either to be dead, or to have no trail to follow. Yes, Ty, I expect us to go charging after her before she has a chance to unload that relic onto a ship for Aztlan or something. If you have a better plan, start explaining it while we’re on the road.”

Ty glanced over his shoulder to look for some support from Heidi, but she just grinned in a way that let him know she was in favor of the violent route. He swallowed and started up the truck.

As they drove, Lucas took the time to analyze his own condition. Physically, he felt mostly recovered from the gas attack. His breathing was normal and he could take deep breaths without any sensation of pain or struggle. On the other hand, his energy reserves were still extremely low. Only his sheer sense of determination kept him from falling asleep and letting blissful darkness take over his consciousness.

He pulled a stim patch from his medkit. He’d wait until they got to the docks to use it, but it would help him deal with the exhaustion from excessive magic use. It was only a temporary solution and timing would be critical, but it would work. It had to work. He just needed to be at the best he could for the final showdown.

*

About halfway to the docks, Lucas heard sirens. Turning around, he saw two Knight Errant vehicles catching up fast. It looked like one of the neighbors had in fact called the authorities, and they’d managed to track their truck. At least the Knights hadn’t opened fire yet, but it was still attention they needed to lose before getting to the docks.

Ty seemed to have the same idea. He glanced into his rearview mirror and then slammed his foot down on the pedal, driving Lucas back into the seat. Heidi had to grip the sides of the truck to keep from rolling out the back. The police vehicles sped up too, gaining on the truck.

“Lose them. You keep talking about how fast your truck is.”

“That’s without a giant troll in the back! I can’t exactly whip around corners with her back there!”

The Knights were close enough now that one of them rammed the back corner of Ty’s truck, making it jerk and forcing him to yank the wheel to keep from skidding to the side. The other car pulled over to the side, inching up next to the truck and maneuvering to get in front.

Lucas cursed and started to tap into his energies to get ready to summon a spirit. They needed to get away if they were going to have any chance of stopping Sierra.

The truck hopped and suddenly lurched forward, shooting ahead of the car next to them. Lucas looked back just in time to see Heidi land on the hood of the car behind them, smashing her hand through the windshield. The car swerved to the side and crashed into a building, tossing Heidi off with enough force that she cracked the walls. Her armor stayed strong and she landed on her feet, shaking her head to clear it but still with that mad smile on her lips.

The other Knight Errant vehicle slammed on its brakes and whipped into a U-turn, heading back to help their allies. Ty jerked to the side, skidding the back tires against the pavement with an ear-splitting shriek and shooting down the side street. The last glimpse Lucas had of Heidi was of her charging the new patrol car, looking like she would take the entire vehicle out.

Ty was quiet the rest of the drive, his hands gripped hard enough on the wheel to turn his knuckles white and make the tendons in his arms stand out. Lucas sat still, keeping quiet as they made their way to Sierra’s last known location. Neither one of them spoke until they were only a block away, and Ty pulled over to the side of the road.

“Her car will be down that street about a block. I figure if she sees the truck, she’ll know we’re coming.”

He swallowed again and let go of the wheel, his hands shaking as he dropped them to his legs. Lucas put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. Ty looked up at him, chewing on his bottom lip.

“I’ll take care of this. You stay here.”

Ty nodded, relief plainly written on his face as Lucas opened his door and got out. Just before he shut it, Ty spoke up.

“Do you think she’s okay? Not Sierra. Heidi. The Knights…”

“She’ll be fine. It would take a dragon to take her out. You’ll see.”

After those final words of encouragement, Lucas gave a halfhearted smile and slammed the door shut. He turned away, heading down the street in the direction Ty had indicated.

He saw a sports car parked in front of one of the port warehouses, a vehicle that looked suspiciously out of place considering the environment. Even more telling was the fact that his own car was parked behind it.

He walked up to the warehouse, trying to stay clear of any windows while not looking like he was sneaking up on the facility. He didn’t want to trigger any alarms. He kept his head down to hide his face from any cameras she might be tapped into. No point in taking any unnecessary risks.

As he got closer, he reached out with his energies, tapping into his strength to summon a spirit of waves and tides. It was relatively easy, even in his drained condition, thanks to his proximity to the Sound. The spirit danced under the surface of the water next to him, gliding along in its natural environment. He spoke under his breath, soft enough that even someone standing next to him would have difficulty deciphering the words. He had no doubt the spirit would understand him.

“Great spirit of whirlpools and carrier of ships, I request your aid. If all goes well, I will be sending you a magical relic. I need you to take it far away from here, depositing it on the shore at Alki beach. Bury it, and let me know where so that I may find it again. After you do this service, you are free to return home with my thanks.”

He received an image of a wave splashing on the shore and dancing among the rocks before swirling and heading back to sea. He knew the spirit would do as he asked, glad to have such a simple request from its summoner.

That part taken care of, Lucas steeled himself for his confrontation with Sierra. He slapped the patch onto his arm, just above the elbow. The shock to his system jolted him into full wakefulness, and he felt invigorated. The weariness of his day fled his body, and he felt like he could stay up for days. Logically, he knew the ensuing crash would come eventually, but one way or another, he wouldn’t need to worry about Sierra at that point.

The warehouse wall stretched up into the sky in front of him, easily three stories tall. It had few windows, and most of those were covered with grime so thick he couldn’t see through them. Nonetheless, he ducked as he passed in front of them on his way to the side door. Again, he didn’t want to take any chances.

When he got to the door, he turned the handle slowly, making sure it didn’t creak or groan. With a gentle push, Lucas eased the door open a crack, peering into the darkness beyond.

He saw Sierra, standing in front of a table and staring out at the Sound, a box he assumed contained the relic sitting on the table next to her. The rest of the warehouse looked scattered and disorganized, with half-filled barrels and ropes hanging down from the catwalks. An ancient piece of machinery that looked like some sort of crane rusted in the corner, clearly not used for years, and suffering the damage of its longtime proximity to salt water. The only details that looked new were several cameras and projectors around the edges of the walls near the ceiling.

Too late Lucas noticed that opening the door cast a beam of light across the ground in front of Sierra. She snatched up her gun and turned, firing at the doorway even before she could recognize who it was. Lucas burst through the door, rolling into the room and dropping underneath the path of the deadly projectile. He came around to his feet and immediately drew on his energy to summon a burst of flame in front of Sierra.

The explosion forced her back, her skin scorched and her jacket smoldering. She ran to the side of the room, away from him, while firing in his direction. Most of the shots went wide, but Lucas ducked behind a barrel for safety. Two bullets struck the metal and rung out with a solid chime as they dented the heavy container. The foul-smelling liquid inside sloshed under the impact.

Peering around the edge, Lucas glimpsed Sierra ducking behind the crane. He heard the telltale sound of a new magazine latching into place as she reloaded. He cast another spell, summoning a sheet of ice to appear on the ground underneath the crane and in the surrounding area. Hopefully that would at least slow her down so he could get a good shot at her.

“Ice? Really? What? No spirits to help you? I expected more.”

She fired a couple more shots and forced Lucas to duck back behind the barrel again. When he risked a glance he saw that she was running up the arm of the crane, avoiding the ice entirely. Still, it was a predictable path with no room to dodge. He summoned a burst of flame right in front of her face, making her yelp in surprise as it singed her hair. She lost her balance and dropped over the side, landing on the ice with a thud. She managed to land behind some debris, hidden from Lucas’s vision.

Since taking a shot wasn’t an option, he rushed over to the table. As he was a few strides away, he heard the crack of her gun again. He jumped forward, knocking the table over. The box crashed to the ground, tumbling across the cement until it fell over the edge and splashed in the water.

“That’s not going to stop me.”

Sierra reloaded again, giving Lucas enough time to roll over the table and use it as a makeshift shelter. The exhaustion crept up again, and he panted, more for lack of energy than being out of breath. At best, he only had one more spell in him. He either needed an easy target with his flame burst, or he needed to touch her. Otherwise, his magic would be useless.

“You’re getting tired. I can hear it in your breathing. All those months I spent working with you, what do you think I was doing? I was studying you, learning your strengths and weaknesses. Knowing your limits. It was necessary if you were going to work for us.”

“You’re more stupid than I thought if you think I’d ever work for a corp.”

Sierra laughed, a sound that echoed through the room and seemed to come from every direction at once. He couldn’t help glancing all around for the threat, but refusing to poke his head over the table and expose himself.

“What do you think you’ve been doing this entire time? You don’t think Evo had access to a magical artifact of that power, do you?”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, you’ve been doing exactly what we wanted all along. I told you: You. Are. Predictable.”

Lucas stood up, making sure he could see Sierra before unleashing his magic into a single burst of flame, pouring every ounce of energy he had into the blast. It surrounded her, consuming her entire form until nothing was left of her. He dropped to a knee as all of the energy left him and he could barely stand.

Slow applause made him catch his breath and look up. Sierra stepped out behind the crane, clapping as she walked forward. Then another Sierra appeared on the other side of the room, walking toward him with the same amused expression on her face. A third and a fourth Sierra appeared, the copies continuing until there were six images of the woman standing in front of him, all in a row and moving in unison. When she spoke, her words came from every direction, making it impossible to know which one was real.

“And as I told you before, that predictability is a weakness. One we were more than willing to exploit. See where it got you?”

She laughed, hands on her hips and her gun pointed down at the ground next to her. Lucas hung his head loosely and closed his eyes, listening to her chuckles as they slowly subsided. She let out a long sigh and took a breath to start talking again.

He was ready to admit defeat. She had outsmarted him, and now she was gloating in it. There was no way he could tell which one of her was the real one—he was too exhausted to even use astral sight to find her. She had orchestrated everything all the way back to the accident that cost him his eyes—

The answer came to him like magma bursting through a volcano. His eyes could tell him so much more. She had forgotten how much they could do. Hells, he had forgotten about it himself.

When he lifted his head, he opened his eyes and used the thermographic option. Even though all six forms looked down at him, one alone gave off any heat. The others were mirror images of the original.

Lucas didn’t bother standing. He drew his gun and fired, pulling the trigger until the magazine was empty. At this range, almost every single one of the bullets hit their mark. In her cockiness, she wasn’t wearing any body armor and he watched the six images of her jerk with each shot until she lay on the ground, still and unmoving. Only then did her other images fade away, leaving only her lifeless body on the stained floor.

Lucas collapsed, his strength spent and enjoying the cold cement pressed against his cheek. As he drifted to sleep, images of a buried treasure came drifting to his mind, sent by the spirit.

*

It was a full two days before Lucas felt like his strength had returned. According to Ty, he’d lost an entire day passing in and out of consciousness while mumbling about buried treasure. Now he sat, turning the box over in his hands, curious what the relic was and tempted to open it to find out. A knock at the door interrupted that thread before he could give in to temptation. His decision was made.

He opened the door, revealing the courier he’d requested. Lucas handed over the package and watched the courier leave. The artifact would be taken to the village he used to call home. It was better with them. It belonged with them. Lucas closed the door and walked back into his apartment, rejoining Ty and Heidi. They were celebrating Heidi’s release from Knight Errant after paying a hefty fine, paid for courtesy of Ty hacking into Sierra’s accounts.

“So you’re just gonna give it to the tribe that kicked you out, just because it was found on their land, and not even tell them it was from you?” Heidi shook her head in disappointment. “It could’ve been worth a lot. You at least could’ve gotten some cred for it.”

Lucas shrugged as he dropped into his chair. He leaned back and propped his feet up, folding his hands across his stomach. “It doesn’t matter. They’re not my family anymore. But they are still important to me, and I’m still going to do right by them.”

“Hey, it’s your life. So, sounds like I missed the real fun and excitement. What happened? What was Sierra up to?”

Ty pushed himself out his chair, excited to share what he had found out. He sucked in a great breath of air, but then glanced over at Lucas before he started talking. Lucas smiled and held out his hand, conceding the floor to the dwarf.

“Well, turns out Sierra was working for Aztechnology the whole time and had set this whole thing up. They even arranged to have an artifact held by Evo, hoping Lucas would stumble on it. He did, and that’s how he lost his eyes. They figured if they could turn him against Evo, they could use him to get what they really wanted.”

Heidi looked over at Lucas who nodded, confirming Ty’s story. After all, it was Ty who had discovered most of that information after the fact. It still surprised him that he had been manipulated so easily, but he vowed not to be so singularly focused to let it happen again.

“All right, but what about the fight? How did it go down with Sierra?”

“Oh that! Well, we knew she was expecting us, so we snuck up to the warehouse, making sure to stick to the shadows…”

Lucas smiled as he listened to Ty tell the story and add his own personal touches to it. There was no harm in it, and it was entertaining to listen to. Who had done what wasn’t important. The important part was that the relic was returned, and he had some companions he could count on. Once they recovered, he was looking forward to their next run. In the meantime, he should probably contact Eileen, tell her to keep an eye out for an important delivery.

Discreetly, of course.

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