shadowrun 40 The Burning Time by Stephen Kenson

out what he should do next. He had no idea that he, too, was being followed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    As Dan Otabi and then Roy Kilaro left the Avalon, neither one noticed the small object about the size and shape of a trashcan lid hovering near the roof of the building. Painted matte black, it blended into the shadows behind the neolux lights of the club. But to the small lenses clustered on its underside, the nighttime street was as bright as day. They picked up everything, from the sweat on Dan Otabi’s brow to the nervous glances on the face of the man tailing him from a careful distance.
    Valkyrie nudged the rotodrone forward slightly, staying near the rooftops as the two men headed down the street, Otabi well in the lead. She kept pace with the man following him, and his profile swelled to fill her field of vision as she zoomed the drone’s cameras in. Val was jacked into a remote control deck in Boom’s upstairs office. She looked asleep, but her senses and her nerves were linked to the drone’s systems, letting her see what it saw, controlling its movements with a thought.
    She flitted and hovered above the rooftops, past other night clubs as the two men headed for the parking garage. Val risked being spotted when she zipped the drone across the road to hover a short distance near the garage. Nobody seemed to notice the dark shape moving quickly overhead.
    She saw the second man get into a car, and zoomed in on the license registration. It could be useful later on. As he pulled out of the garage, Val revved up the drone’s motor and started following. Traffic was typical for a night in Boston, so she was sure she’d be able to keep up.

    "We may have a problem," Boom said as Talon came into his office.
    "Yeah, I saw him," Talon said. "Any idea who he is?"
    "Val’s still tracking him," the troll replied, nodding his head Val, who was slumped on the couch against the wall. A small remote-control deck was cradled in her lap, and a thin cable snaked up to the chrome jack behind her ear. Her eyes were rolled back in her head while her brain lived in the virtual world of the machine. Talon knew that Val was also recording any other interesting information the drone collected so they could go over it later.
    "The run might be compromised," Hammer said.
    Talon nodded. It was a concern they all shared. "Maybe, but let’s not hit the panic-button until we know more about this guy and why he’s following Otabi."
    "Aren’t too many reasons why he would be," Hammer said.
    "I can think of a few," Boom put in. "He could be a cop looking into the break-in at Otabi’s place, or one who got suspicious about it. Depends on whether Otabi reported it to Knight Errant. He could be a friend Otabi asked to come along and keep an eye out for trouble. . ."
    "Or he could be corp security, watching Otabi because he’s a possible risk," Talon concluded.
    "Yeah, that’s the most likely one," Boom said.
    "And since it’s Cross we’re dealing with, there’s one other possibility," Talon said. "He might be a Seraphim." The Seraphim were well known in the shadows for their ruthless efficiency in protecting their employer’s interests.
    "I don’t think so," Boom said. "We caught on to him too easily. From what we saw out there, he’s too amateur for Seraphim. If they were running a tail on Otabi, it’d be a lot harder to spot than that."
    "You’re right," Talon said, "but that doesn’t rule out the possibility that he’s corporate security of some kind. Have you got the security logs?"
    The troll nodded and tapped the surface of his desk as Talon and Hammer came around to look over his shoulder. The dark glass surface of the desktop lit up with four images of the man following Otabi, digital stills taken from the security cameras placed throughout the club. Boom manipulated the controls and zoomed in on the images, refining the resolution. The man was human and Anglo, or so he looked. Probably in his twenties, with a shock of short,