shadowrun 40 The Burning Time by Stephen Kenson Page A

coppery hair. He wore a dark leather jacket over nondescript street clothes.
    "I don’t recognize him," Talon said. "I don’t think he was in any of the personnel files Trouble pulled on the Cross MV facility."
    Boom ran a quick image-comparison program. "Nope, no matches. He’s not in the personnel files for the facility at all."
    "Could he be wearing some kind of disguise?" Hammer asked. "Not necessarily just make-up, but some kind of spell?"
    Talon shrugged. "Maybe. I couldn’t risk checking him out in the astral. He might have noticed me if he did have some kind of magic. Aracos might have seen something, though. Aracos?" he said to the empty air. There was a shimmering like heat waves rising off hot asphalt, and a golden-feathered falcon materialized, alighting on Talon’s shoulder.
    "Aracos, did you notice this guy?" Talon pointed toward the display on Boom’s desk.
    "Yes," the spirit said, its thought-voice carrying to everyone in the room. "He’s a mundane, no magic on him, either, at least not that I could see. He was definitely interested in what was going on between you and Otabi—curious, intrigued, and a little apprehensive."
    "What about cyber?" Talon asked. "Any of that?"
    "Not much," Aracos said. "Some implants, mostly in his head, like yours."
    Boom tapped the glass with one huge finger. "You can see the jack," he said. "Probably just some headware, then."
    "Doesn’t sound like corporate security," Hammer said. "It also doesn’t look like he’s packing, although it’s hard to tell from these pictures. He might be carrying something concealed under that jacket, but I can usually tell when a guy’s carrying, and he doesn’t look it."
    "So who are we dealing with here?" Talon said. "A friend? An amateur? Maybe even a private investigator?"
    "Dunno," Boom said. "We need more to go on."
    "I’m going to give Trouble a call," Talon said. He mentally accessed the menu of his headphone and had it dial Trouble’s cell-number. A small bell icon flashed in the corner of his field of vision as it dialed. There was a faint click as it connected, then Trouble’s voice sounded in his ear through the subdermal speakers. "Hi, leave me a message. . ." It was the answering function of her phone.
    "Hey," he said, "this is Talon. I’m at the club. Call me back." Then he disconnected.
    "She didn’t pick up? That’s not like her," Hammer said, a note of concern in his voice. He’d known Trouble the longest.
    "She’s got her phone turned off for some reason," Talon said. "We’ll just have to wait till she calls back."
    They went over some other angles from the security cams, and ran a more thorough check through the personnel files Trouble had lifted from the research facility. They didn’t turn up anything useful. Then Val stirred and pulled the cable from her jack, letting it spool back into the control deck. She arched her back and stretched her arms overhead with her fingers laced together.
    "Drone’s on its way back in," she said. She picked up the deck and went to sit down closer to Boom’s desk. "I tracked the guy back to Otabi’s apartment complex. He watched Otabi go in, then drove to the Westin Inn out on Route 2. I’ve got visuals of him and the car, including the plates. Trouble can run them and see if anything comes up.
    "Another thing," Val went on. "From the way he followed Otabi here and back, I’d say he’s got some sort of tracer on his car. He stayed back a good distance most of the time, being careful not to be seen."
    "Sounds like a pro," Hammer said, but Val shook her head.
    "Dunno about that," she replied. "I mean, he was careful, but it didn’t look like he was operating with back-up or any kind of plan except to follow Otabi to see where he went."
    "And that brings us back to not knowing enough about him," Talon said. "Val, let’s download the sensor logs from your drone and see if that tells us anything." The drone had returned and landed on the roof of the club, so Val copied