Never Deal with a Dragon Read online

  DEDICATION

  To PRH, for fellowship. It’s been a long and twisted path from Hawkmoor to the Sixth World.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As usual, the first thanks go to Liz for the usual effort above and beyond the call. Additional thanks go to the suits and the esthetic police at FASA for the usual job of troubleshooting and troublemaking. We all survived it again. Thanks also to Nix Smith for the loan of Castillano. And, of course, thanks to the original shadowrunning team, without who etc.

  PROLOGUE

  Into The Shadows

  Tokyo, 2050.

  The soft roar of the surf slowly dissolved into the murmur of voices and the breathy huff of the air conditioning system. The sharp salt smell mutated to the harsh tang of disinfectant, and with it, the return to the waking world. It also brought awareness of the ache in Sam’s skull. His brain felt too full, pressing against its boundaries like a helium-filled balloon under a fathom of water.

  The voices stopped as he let out a groan. Whoever was out there in the world beyond his closed eyelids seemed to await another sign, some indication that he really was awake. But Sam was not yet ready to accommodate them. The light was painful enough through the thin flesh that shielded his pupils. He had not the least desire to open his eyes.

  “Verner-san,” a disembodied voice said. The tone was questioning, but held a hint of command.

  He forced his eyes open, only to snap them shut again as the fluorescent stabbed for his brain. His involuntary wince and moan brought an immediate response from one of his visitors. The lights dimmed, encouraging Sam to venture a second attempt. Squinting, he surveyed his four guests.

  Standing by the door, her hand still on the dimmer switch, was a woman in a white lab coat. His doctor. Her benign smile left no doubt that she was pleased with her handiwork. The other three people in the room were males. Two of the men Sam recognized at once. The third was apparently a bodyguard.

  Seated at his bedside was the impressive figure of Inazo Aneki, master of the sprawling Renraku corporate empire. The old man’s presence was as surprising to Sam as the obvious concern on his lined face. Sam was no more than a minor employee of Renraku, and he had yet to make any significant contribution to the corporation. Nor had his implant operation been anything out of the ordinary, by twenty-first-century standards. It was true that the director had sponsored Sam into the company, and some said he looked on Sam with special favor. However, the old man and his supposed protégé had not been in personal contact since that brief introductory interview. All the more surprising to find Aneki-sama here in the recovery room.

  Standing behind Aneki was Hohiro Sato, Vice President of Operations and the director’s current executive assistant. In some ways, the dapper Sato’s presence was even more astonishing. The pinch-faced official had a reputation of indifference to any subordinate’s problems unless it affected the company’s profits. In his infrequent encounters with Sato, Sam always came away chilled by the man’s distant manner and perfunctory politeness.

  Why were they here?

  “We are pleased to see you awake, Verner-san,” Sato said briskly. Belying the words, his gold-irised Zeiss eyes speared Sam with the contempt for non-Japanese that Sato rarely displayed before his superiors. If his voice held any emotion, it was certainly not pleasure. Sato was obviously not at Sam’s bedside of his own volition. He was here, as formal protocol compelled, in the role of Aneki’s intermediary to one of a lower social position. “We have anxiously awaited your return to the waking world.”

  “Domo arigato.” Sam’s dry voice rasped out the formal thanks. His attempt to rise and bow was stifled by a head shake from the doctor and a raised hand from Aneki. “I am unworthy of your attention.”

  “Aneki-sama is the best judge of that, Verner-san. The doctor assures him that your datajack implant operation was routine and totally successful, but he wished to see for himself.”

  At the mention of his new addition, Sam reached up to touch the bandages. His head did not register the touch, but his fingers could feel the hard lump on his right temple. He knew from the pre-operation interview what it was: a chromium steel jack designed to accept a standard computer-interface plug. The addition of the datajack was intended to increase his efficiency in handling computer files and accessing data. Sam would have preferred to continue operating through a terminal keyboard, but the corporation had mandated a datajack for someone of his position and rank. Sam had, of course, agreed.

  “I guess I’ll be ready to get back to work soon,” he mused aloud.

  “A week or so of rest would be advisable, Verner-san,” the doctor said softly. “Limited-access familiarization at first.”

  “Sound advice,” Sato cut in. “Renraku has too much invested to permit an ill-timed return to a normal schedule. But all will work out for the best. You would have little time to resume your researches, with all the details of your move.”

  Move? Sam didn’t understand. He wasn’t planning a move.

  Ignoring Sam’s questioning look, Sato barely missed a beat. “It is perhaps regrettable that you cannot return immediately to work, but the timing is fortunate. Your transfer to the arcology project in Seattle…”

  “Transfer?”

  Sato’s face soured briefly at Sam’s interruption.

  “Indeed, this is so. I hasten to assure you that Aneki-samadoes not intend it as a demotion. He continues to hold you in the highest esteem. Nevertheless, he believes that your particular talents will best serve the corporation in Seattle.

  “The company has taken the liberty of transferring your apartment lease. All your goods, save those you will need for the rest of your hospital stay and for the trip, have been packed for shipment.” Sato nodded as though being reminded by a secretary. “And your dog has already begun the journey. She seemed in excellent health and should pass easily through the local quarantine kennels.

  “As an expression of Aneki-sama’s regret at the suddenness of the transfer, Renraku Corporation will absorb all travel and relocation expenses. Your tickets for the JSA suborbital flight to North America are waiting with your personal effects. You will leave as soon as the doctor certifies you sufficiently recovered.”

  Sam was dazed. How could this be? When he had entered the hospital two days ago, he had been a rising star in the staff operations office of Renraku Central. What of all those rumors that Aneki was a patron of Sam’s career? He had seemed assured of great things with the company. Now they were exiling him to the corporation’s North American operation. Even though the transfer was to the relatively prestigious arcology project, it would take him away from the main office, the heart of the corporation, away from Tokyo, his chosen home. It was clear that he had fallen…no, been kicked…off the fast track. What had he done?

  Had he offended Aneki-sama? A covert look at the director’s face showed only sympathy and concern.

  Had he crossed a rival or insulted a superior? In a rapid mental review of his recent activities and projects, he dismissed that as well. He had been courteous to all, often beyond what was expected. That was his way of trying to make up for the fact that he was not a native Japanese. In all his time in Japan, Sam had never encountered more than the ordinary distrust and dislike the natives accorded any non-Japanese. Surely, his behavior was not at fault.

  Nor could his work have given cause for what Sam could only perceive as a demotion, despite Sato’s denial. He routinely put in long hours, completing his assignments with thoroughness and on time.

  So what had he done?

  He searched Sato’s face for a clue. If the man’s expression hinted at anything, it was impatience and boredom. Sam suspected that Sato had no personal interest in Samuel
Verner and must consider this visit an interruption of other important work.

  “Perhaps the Director…” Sam began haltingly. “If he would be so kind as to inform me of whatever fault has occurred, I could correct it.”

  “Your request is impertinent,” Sato snapped.

  Aneki looked distinctly uncomfortable, then rose from his seat before Sam or Sato could say anymore. He sketched a bow to Sam and headed for the door, oblivious to Sam’s own return nod, the best he could manage while lying in the bed, and the doctor’s deep formal bow.

  “Enjoy your rest,” Sato said as he followed the bodyguard toward the door. He, too, ignored the doctor. As the vice president reached the doorway, he paused and turned briefly toward Sam.

  “Condolences on your recent loss.”

  “Loss?” Sam was more baffled than ever.

  “The regrettable incident with your sister, of course.” Sato’s expression was of utterly feigned innocence.

  “Janice? What’s happened to my sister?”

  Sato turned away without another word, but not before Sam caught the vicious smile that lit the man’s face when he thought no one could see. As Sato retreated down the corridor, Sam’s repeated questions echoed vainly after him.

  Sam tried to stand, intending to follow and force an answer, but a wave of dizziness slammed him the moment one foot touched the floor. Head spinning, he fell limply into the arms of the doctor. Struggling with his weight, the woman returned him to the bed and insisted that he lie quietly. He let her rearrange the bedclothes for a few minutes before he reached out to grab her arm.

  The doctor stiffened at his presumption. “You are overwrought, Verner-san. You must rest quietly or risk damage to the delicate connections in your neural circuits.”

  “Damn the circuits! I want to know what’s going on!”

  “Impertinence and physical coercion are not the recommended methods of polite inquiry.”

  Sam knew she was right, but he ached with concern for his sister. She was all he had left since their parents and siblings died on that terrible July night in 2039.

  He unclenched his hand and lowered it slowly. He was shaking with the effort to control himself. “Please excuse my improper behavior.”

  The doctor massaged her arm briefly and smoothed down the sleeve of her immaculate white lab coat. “Severe emotional states can result in uncontrolled behavior, Verner-san. Such behavior among the wrong people or at the wrong time could be disastrous. You do understand this?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I understand.”

  “Very well. You had a question.”

  “If you would be so kind?” He waited for her nod of assent. “Doctor, do you have any idea what Sato-sama meant about my sister?”

  “Regrettably, I do.”

  She seemed reluctant to continue, but Sam had to know. No matter how bad it was. “Tell me, Doctor,” he prodded. “Please.”

  The doctor gave him a long, steady look. “Two days ago, your sister began kawaru. We felt it best not to inform you before the operation.”

  “Lord, no.” The horror of it washed over Sam. Kawaru…The Change, as the Japanese so politely named it. Goblinization was the word that the English-speaking world used for the process that distorted and restructured an ordinary person’s organs and bones into one of the the metahuman subspecies known as Orks or Trolls. Occasionally, the unfortunate victim was warped into something far worse. “How can it be? She’s seventeen. If she were going to change, it would have happened before. She was safe.”

  “Are you an expert on kawaru, Verner-san? Perhaps you should instruct the scientists at the Imperial Research Institute.” The doctor’s face was stern. “The best of our researchers have yet to unravel the mystery of kawaru. “

  “It’s been thirty years,” Sam protested.

  “Not quite. But it has been long decades of frustration for those seeking the cure. We know so little even now.

  “When the somatic mutation event first struck, it affected som 10 percent of the world’s population, but in the chaos, few had a chance to study or understand the phenomenon. We can make better observations now, but because kawaru is less common, we have less opportunity to do so.

  “We learn a little bit with each case studied, but we still grope in the dark of ignorance. There is so much variation. The best we can do is identify those who mightchange. And even that only after lengthy genetic testing.”

  “Testing that Janice and I never had.”

  “Even if you had, the results are not completely reliable. Families of ordinary background still produce children who might undergo kawaru.”

  “Then there’s no hope.”

  “We are still studying the biological changes in the strange new races of man that kawaruhas unleashed upon the world. Their reproduction, and the continued occurrences of the mutation event, remain a puzzle to our best minds. How is it that some of the Changed breed true, perpetuating whatever form they have taken, while others produce children who are perfectly normal humans? Still others have offspring who appear to be normal humans, only to experience kawaru later in life when they metamorphose into some thing else. Even the best genotyping cannot predict who will be affected or what he will become.”

  “It must be magic then,” Sam whispered.

  One of Sam’s earliest memories was of a man’s face coming on the family tridscreen to talk with conviction and emotion of a new world, an Awakened World. The man said that magic and magical beings had reawakened in the world to challenge technology—not just for supremacy, but for the very survival of the Earth. The man called on people to abandon their technology, to go back to the land and live simply.

  But Sam’s father had never accepted the way the coming of magic had twisted the ordered scientific world beyond anything recognizable. He had raised his son in traditional ways, avoiding almost all contact with the Changed world. Even on their trips to zoos, the family had avoided the paranatural exhibits that displayed griffins, phoenixes, and other creatures once thought legendary.

  “Magic?” the doctor scoffed in perfect imitation of his father’s tone. “There may indeed be magic loose in the world, but only a weak-minded fool relies on it as the explanation to every mystery. Your corporate record indicates that you are no simpleton who believes magical spells are all-powerful and that mystical energies can accomplish anything. The so-called mages who infest our corporate structures have their limits. They may manipulate energies in ways that seem to contravene the physical laws we understood in the last century, but their alleged sorceries must have boundaries that will be understood in time.

  “Progress has been slow. We lost so much valuable data when research facilities were destroyed in the chaos that followed the first massive outbreak of kawaru. How could dedicated scientists cope with the unnatural and unexpected when all order was crumbling around them, swept away in the hatred, fear, and loathing that engulfed the world as men, women, and even children were warped?

  “Those days of chaos are behind us now. In time, we will understand kawaru, perhaps even be able to prevent or reverse it. But we will do so scientifically. The ephemera of magic offer no hope.”

  The doctor was voicing beliefs that Sam had grown up with, but the words had a hollow ring. He felt empty, scoured by despair at what had happened to his sister. Their father had tried to protect his family from the twisting of the Change, but now it was thrust upon them with a violence that tore both Sam’s and Janice’s lives out of joint. Whatever perverse power fueled goblinization had taken his own sister. How was it possible? Same fought down a scream of anguish.

  “How is she, Doctor? Will she be all right?”

  The doctor touched his shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. “It is difficult to be sure, Verner-san. She is undergoing a lengthy Change. Her vital signs are strong, but the ordeal seems far from over.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “That would be ill-advised. She is comatose and would receive no comfort from your presence.�
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  “I don’t care. I still want to see her.”

  “It is not in my hands, Verner-san. The Imperial Genetics Board permits only the attending medical teams to enter the Kawaru Ward. It could be dangerous should a patient suddenly complete the Change and go berserk.”

  “But you could smuggle me in, couldn’t you?” he pleaded. “I could wear an orderly’s gown…pretend to be a medical student.”

  “Perhaps. But discovery would be a disaster. For you. For me. Even for your sister. It would almost certainly result in revocation of her relocation funds, should she survive. Her adjustment to the new life she faces will be difficult enough. And you would surely lose whatever status you have left with your corporation.”

  “I don’t care about myself. She’ll need me.”

  “She will need you to be working and bringing in a salary. You can help her best by obeying your superiors. There is nothing you can do here in the hospital.”

  “You don’t understand…”

  “No, Verner-san, you are wrong.” The physician shook her head slowly, her eyes wells of sadness. “I understand too well.”

  Her image swam before his eyes as she spoke. For a moment, Sam thought it was tears for his sister that blurred his vision, then he realized that the doctor must have directed the bed to inject a tranquilizer.

  His earlier dream of the ocean returned, and he was dragged down by an irresistible current, down into a yawning darkness where grinning Trolls and Goblins reached for him. Struggle as he might against it, he only continued to tumble deeper down. A new lassitude crept through his limbs and flooded toward his brain. The visions of monsters faded with his awareness, leaving only a bright circle of pain throbbing at the side of his head. Then that too faded, swallowed up in oblivion.

  Darkness had lain on the land for some hours when the Elf stepped out under the sky to relieve himself. The forest was full of soft sounds, its life undisturbed by the presence of the lone Elf. A slight breeze meandered among the great dark boles of the trees, tickling their leaves into a soft rustle. The same wayward air played with strands of his white hair and caressed his skin, making the Elf smile with pleasure.