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  SWORD OF THE SERPENT

  Machiko is second-in-command of the Green Serpent Guard, an elite corps of Elven samurai who are sworn to defend the Chairman of Nagato Corporation. But she soon gets a promotion—after her superior is ruthlessly cut down in a slew of attacks aimed at the famous Guard itself.

  Only the wealthiest can afford assassins with enough muscle to take on the Green Serpent Guard, and Machiko turns up evidence that points to Nagato's biggest rival, Fuchi Corp. It looks like Fuchi has designs on Nagato's sensitive research division, where the incredible future of the communications matrix is taking shape. When magical attacks and sabotage begin taking out more of Nagato's personnel, things between the two megacorporations really heat up. But behind the growing hostilities with Fuchi looms a more sinister threat, requiring far more of Machiko's talents than her flashing sword. And staying alive may require defeating a high-tech foe with virtually unlimited powers—and absolutely no mercy. . . .

  JACKED-IN KILLER

  Lying on the bed is Jank. Beside his head lies the squat gray plas of a sensedeck, a deck obviously modified or repaired, held together by macroplas tape.

  The sensedeck is running, a chip is loaded.

  Every few moments he twitches and murmurs, outputting the same data endlessly.

  The twitching turns convulsive. The murmurs rise into shouts. "Stinking trogs! Weed-eaters! Take it take it take it! GONNA GET YOU ALL! EAT YOU ALIVE! BURY YOU!"

  Abruptly his eyes snap open and gaze straight up at the ceiling like a man gone blind. He is nearly sitting up with the violence of the convulsions wracking his entire body.

  "Machiko-sama!"

  Machicko turns from where she stands beside the bed to see the headman of kobun coming through the room's door. He looks to her with an expression of startled amazement, amazement turning to revulsion, horror, and suddenly it all clicks.

  She feels it in her belly.

  "COVERRR!" she roars, turns and propels herself forward, away from the bed, into the headman of the kobun, toward the safety of the corridor.

  Then the explosion erupts.

  STEEL RAIN

  SHADOWRUN : 24

  STEEL RAIN

  Nyx Smith

  1

  The sound brushes her ears like a feather, like the haunting whisper of a breeze on a forlorn winter's night. Slipping through the mists of her sleeping mind like a phantom ... a specter. . .

  A single footfall, near-silent.

  Very close.

  Coming from just beyond the rice-paper walls of her room. So subtle a sound it nearly eludes her notice. Yet, for one who has trained mind and body and spirit to remain alert, though she sleeps, this subtle sound is just clear enough, distinct enough. She realizes what it portends even as she awakens. She has heard sounds like this before. She has spent whole months of her life listening for such sounds, learning their subtle codes and the Way of the people who make them. For even the smallest, most trifling of sounds might reveal the tread of an enemy, an assassin.

  And tonight the sound she perceives, this faint, faint touch of a soft-soled shoe to tatami flooring, is the sound of one who does not belong.

  Coming for her. Coming now.

  As she opens her eyes she sees the intruder's seething heat signature through the veil of the rice-paper wall beyond her feet. The radiance shed by his flesh paints him clearly against the shadowed canvas of the night. He seems almost to smolder in a flickering aura of flames, like a demon, a fiery monstrosity of muscle and steel, bulky and broad and heavily cybered, now pausing just a step beyond the ricepaper doors to her room.

  She sees the impending assault in his posture. Her duty is clear, and she has only a moment to prepare.

  She shifts her right hand across the lacquered honoki-wood that sheaths the katana lying on her stomach, the twining serpents of the sword's steel tsuba, guard, and the fine-grained same, shark skin, wrapping the grip.

  Then she breathes.

  She settles her spirit.

  And the killer comes.

  He smashes the doors into fragments, bursting through paper panels, splintering wooden supports. The weapon encasing his right forearm erupts with a deafening roar. Bullets tear at bed sheets and bedding. Mere flesh would be ripped to tatters. But she is no longer there. She is a bed sheet flung into the air, twitching and twisting like a tortured ghost. She is a specter darting from shadow to shadow, tumbling, rolling away.

  The killer snarls as if enraged by her deceit. He ducks as a lacquered honoki-wood sheath flies at his face like an arrow. He winces and jerks as the disk of a small hand mirror glances off his brow. The thunderous stammering roar of the gun skips a beat, then another, but the murderous barrage erupts anew.

  The killer tracks her with computer-assisted precision. Bullets rip at the lacquered floor and pastel-paneled walls so near her feet and back she feels splinters of wood raining against her skin. She is barely an instant ahead of the assassin's onslaught when abruptly she turns, her long, lustrous black hair swirling around her like a cape, the gleaming blade of her katana rising before her face, ready to meet the enemy head-on.

  It is no ordinary blade. This blade, this sword comes from four masume steel bars, hammered, folded and welded into four million layers, then forged, shaped, ground, and polished to a diamond, dikote-tempered hardness by a master of the ancient Masamune technique. One blade may take months to fabricate, smith and mage working ever in concert. The result is as strong a steel as the hand of metahumanity can forge—strong and hard, yet pliant.

  For rigidity is death, a dead hand. Brittle and weak. The living hand must be pliant, like a leaf in springtime.

  Poised, prepared, she pauses, motionless, an easy target. The stammering autofire weapon zeroes in at once. A torrent of metal-jacketed shells stamped out by spiritless machines clashes against her steel. The bullets blaze like fire, tracking toward her belly, her breast, her throat. Always the sword is there, guarding, defending, swaying like a willow in a breeze, supple, unhurried, deflecting the ruthless stream like so many burning drops of rain.

  Yadome-jutsu, it is called. Arrow-cutting.

  The killer roars as if possessed by outrage and disbelief, as if witnessing the impossible.

  It is neither possible nor impossible. It goes beyond luck or instinct, beyond talent and skill and rigorous training. Beyond even magic. It is the Way and the Way is the Void. Without thought, without feeling, without intention or design. It is all and it is nothing and it comes to her now as naturally as she breathes. It is, the ancient masters would say, above all a matter of timing.

  In everything, there is timing. Even in the Void. And the timing of the enemy is the essential element in all battle.

  And now, abruptly, the gun goes silent.

  The killer grunts. His movements lay bare his mind. He rushes to reload. No time. He snatches at a second weapon. Too late. For she is already moving, flowing forward like a wraith, breezing through clouds of harsh gun-aroma, rising tall and large of spirit before the killer's face.

  The killer lifts one massive armored fist and out snaps a gleaming steel spike, but this is irrelevant. It is useless now. For she sees the Way with perfect crystalline clarity as never before in all her experience. And the Way is death. The resolute acceptance of death. The warrior's death. In this moment she may choose either life or death and so she instantly chooses death, merciless death, reckless and uncompromising.

  Death. Inevitable death.

  The killer thrusts with his spike, but her katana rises, glaring like the summer moon on a rain-swept night.

  The sword is her spirit, the spirit her sword, striking strongly, thrusting inexorably upward, piercing armor, metal, and bone, slicing through sternum and larynx, till finally the tip of the blade slides in
side the killer's cranial vault.

  The hands of the killer reach toward her—snapping, grasping, clenching—but she is already drifting away, an autumn leaf buoyed on a silken zephyr of wind . . .

  With a flick—chiburi—she clears the blade of blood and gore. Honoring the blade. Restoring its sheen. A young blade, no older than she who wields it. Bearing a polished pattern like the icy rains of the fall, a shower of silvery teardrops. The swordmaker's silent lament.

  And the assassin falls, like a boneless husk.

  A gentle, swift end.

  2

  For a moment more, the night is still and silent. Machiko holds herself motionless, katana poised. She listens for the least sign that the assassin has not come here alone. She watches the body of the corpse. She sees the blood streaming into pools that shimmer with a slowly fading light. She feels the bits of blood and tissue dotting her chest, her hips and legs. She marvels at the crude brutality of the killer's assault, and she wonders why he came, who sent him, for what purpose. Then something detonates.

  A dull thump rocks the room. It is enough to startle her, to shake her slightly off-balance, to put her once more fully on her guard. Till she sees the broad sea of blood spreading away from the sunken head of the corpse and the churning cloud of heat rising, swelling, gradually fading from view.

  A cortex bomb? No. More likely a dead man's button. A kill rig. Triggered by disabling wounds. With the obvious purpose of precluding even the most casual form of interrogation. Machiko wonders if the killer knew he carried such a device. If he did, that is significant, for it would testify to a degree of fanaticism whole worlds have above the mind of the average street samurai.

  She ponders this a moment. She breathes. Then, pandemonium erupts.

  From another part of the house, her father shouts, "MACHIKO!" Her mother's sudden cry of fear seems very shrill. The household alarm blares loudly, then whoops. Every light comes on. The room around her glares with a stark brilliant white. The discomfort to her eyes is intense, but passes swiftly.

  Outside the house, she knows, emergency strobes will be flashing, providing a beacon for the local security force.

  She looks from the corpse to the ruined panels of the sliding doors, to the wreckage scattered about the room, and back again to the corpse. The brilliant light makes the corpse of a killer seem less a demon than merely a machine, more a machine than human norm. His body is sheathed in black and guarded by heavy armor. His shoulders and arms bulge with augmentations: dermal plating, weapons, a gyromount, tactical computer, and more. A machine designed for killing. Now devastated. Ruined.

  To what end?

  A pang of sorrow rises out of her stomach, flowing all through her like a tide. It is always this way with her. It is her flaw, her vein of compassion. With the sword in her hand and an enemy before her, she feels born of the selfsame metal of which her blade was forged. Afterward, she mourns. The fiery blossom of the dawn, spotted with dew, mourning the death of night, her sensei once said. But now the quality stirs her to frustrated fury. Should she not feel gladdened? At least satisfied. This is 2058. The Sixth World is full of violence. She rose from sleep to defend herself from this dog of a killer, an attempt at vile murder, and she has prevailed. She has fulfilled duty and honor and avoided the specter of shame that would come with failure. Why is it that she sees nothing in this victory to celebrate? No cause to rejoice. Why does it seem that the taking of this dog's life is nothing but a cruel waste?

  Here, in the guest wing of her parent's modest house, it is all futility and pointless destruction, a minute shifting of balance in the ceaseless battle that is metahumanity.

  A battle right or wrong but never truly won.

  If only she could discern some reason. Some motive for the attack. It would give this death meaning, however minuscule.

  It would, in some way, make sense of it.

  But the time for such reflections comes abruptly to an end. The norm driver and bodyguard assigned to her parents appears amid the wreckage of the doorway, clad only in shorts, a blocky automag in hand. He is tall for a Japanese, nearly as tall as her. He looks to her as if amazed to see her standing. He bows as if suffering a spasm, sudden and brief.

  "Machiko-sama what—!"

  Before he can finish, her parents are there, her father's face crimson with alarm, her mother's full of fear. "We are safe, now," Machiko says. Briefly, she bows. "Forgive me."

  The bodyguard and her parents hesitate. Machiko does not. She must report this incident. She must alert Nagato Corp security, for an investigation must be begun. She turns to the telecom on the low, black-lacquered stand beside her ruined bedding. She kneels and enters a telecom code. The logo of Nagato Corporation comes instantly to the screen, replaced suddenly by the harried features of a man in Nagato Security Service uniform.

  "Duty ops officer!" the man blurts.

  "Situation Four," Machiko tells him. "Advise your command."

  "We have a prior alert—"

  Abruptly, another man fills the screen, a lieutenant of the Nagato Corp Security Directorate. "We have attacks on two other GSG within the last several minutes. You are the senior member reporting. What are your instructions?" Machiko frowns. "Contact Sukayo—"

  "I have just dispatched a trauma team to Sukayo-san's location!" the man tells her. "You are the senior GSG reporting! What are your instructions?"

  Astonishment makes a muddle of Machiko's thoughts. What is this man telling her? Sukayo injured? The seniormost member of the Green Serpent Guard in need of a trauma team? How could that be? The mere concept shakes her no less rudely than the bomb born by the assassin. It makes her feel as if being woken violently from a dream. "The Chairman. What is his status?"

  "Situation unchanged. I have no reports."

  She awakens to the realization that here is the point, the granite breakers around which all shock and puzzlement must swirl unheeded. Honjowara Okido, Chairman of Nagato Combine and its leading corporate enterprise, Nagato Corporation. The Green Serpent Guard are the Chairman's elites, his servants, agents, and warriors. First and foremost, they are sworn to safeguard his life, no matter the cost. Abruptly, Machiko realizes that the status of the Chairman now is irrelevant. Until seconds ago, she would have considered the home of her parents to be tranquil and untroubled. She must stir herself, look ahead, anticipate any other threats that may be coming this night.

  She must wake up!

  "What is the Chairman's location?"

  The lieutenant replies with the code word for the Chairman's estate.

  "Initiate Rapier Wind."

  The lieutenant nods sharply and looks to his console, tapping keys. "Security Defense Force notified. Responding in support."

  Machiko breathes, struggles to calm her spirit, to think. The ancient masters have written that even the most vital decisions should be made within the space of seven breaths. The spirit must be resolute. Smash one's boots to the earth and pass through a wall of iron. Machiko considers. She hears her personal commlink beeping. Yes, she has declared an alert. All that can be done will be done. GSG stationed at the Chairman's mansion will mobilize. Every member of the guard not currently on duty will be notified of the alert and will respond at once. Nagato Corp security forces will go on alert and contribute every available officer to aid in defending the Chairman. She can think of nothing else. Nothing she can do from this room in her parent's home. Her duty now is to prepare for combat and to join the balance of the Guard at the Chairman's estate.

  She breaks the telecom link and stands. A quick rush of padding footsteps and a soft cry like a sob give her warning. Her mother seizes her arm, snares her waist, clenches and clings. Frantic to see and frantic to hold. To make sure she is unhurt. For she is yet a child, in her mother's gaze. A child raised and loved like the flesh of one's own flesh. That she has grown tall and slim as only a meta may grow, as only elves ever grow, matters not. An elven child, yes, but no child of elves.

  Gently, she draws
her mother's head to her breast, and softly says, "Mother ... I must go."

  Her mother sobs, sniffs, and nods.

  "In Buddha's name, what is happening?" This from her father, now standing a few brief steps away. His face is still crimson and his breathing seems harsh, labored. He lifts a hand to his chest as if suffering a twinge of angina. He casts a worried glance at the corpse of the assassin, the ruined bedding, the telecom. "Machiko—"

  "Please be calm," she says. "We are safe. Security Service is responding."

  "But the Chairman."

  "He is well. Be calm."

  "You said security—"

  Machiko struggles to find the words to explain what appears to have happened, events she has prepared to meet at least a thousand times, yet now seem somehow impossible. Her mother looks up at her with an expression of pain and awe. "Two other members of the Guard have been attacked," Machiko says quietly. "We must assume that an attack against Chairman Honjowara is imminent. That is procedure."

  "Who would dare—!"

  "Father, I do not know."

  And now her mother makes an obvious attempt at self-control. She brushes at the tears. She says in a small voice, "You are not hurt?"

  "Mother, I am untouched."

  Her mother nods. She bends and picks up the honoki-wood sheath, showing it as great a respect as that due a sword, lining the cradle of her hands with the silk of her own nightgown, offering the sheath with a tiny bow. Machiko bows and accepts it. "Your duty," her mother says softly. "You must go."

  "Please forgive me."

  "Your fidelity honors us all."

  But then a uniformed man steps through the wreckage of the doorway. The uniform marks him as a sergeant of the Nagato Corp subsidiary responsible for all police services within the boundaries of the Nagato Manor Residence Community. The sergeant's gaze jumps immediately to Machiko. His surprise is plain. And he bows. He bows very deeply. This is not unexpected.

  But for the thong girding her hips, Machiko is nude. Yet her station in the hierarchy of Nagato Combine could hardly be more apparent. The jade green grip of the katana she holds is merely a clue. The far bolder statement is made by the stark white kabuki-mask of her face, the pure jet mane of her hair, the twining green serpents circling her arms, legs, and torso, and coiling over both shoulders to her breast. What the sergeant does not see is the twining serpent logo emblazoned across both her palms. What perhaps he does not notice is the tall pointed ears hidden beneath the voluminous black hair, and the strong almond contours of the eyes, veiled by a Japanese landscape.