Ch. 4

If you ain’t want to dead, don’t born! – Street Proverb

The Banshee was a typical bar; there was nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other bars in the plex. That was probably what made it so popular. Before she left, Turner passed her a cred stick. "Don’t blow it all. Use it for bribes if you have to. It’s got 500 nuyen on it."
"Thanks Turner. I’ll bring ya the change," Karina said.
"Naw, you hang on to it. You’ll need it." Tuner joined Vixen at a table.

Karina jandered down the street. At the intersection a group of kids was standing around a barrel of burning trash, hustling passers-by. Karina stepped into a doorway to study them. When she recognized one of the boys, she stepped back out into the street and continued toward them. "Hoi Stomper," she said.
One of the boys turned around and squinted at her. He grinned at her. "Hoi Mist. How ya been? Haven’t seen ya for a while. I heard ya buzzed. Hey, some slag wuz lookin for ya. Ya two hook up? Said he had someting for ya."
"D’you tell him where ta find me?" she asked.
Stomper scratched his stomach. "Naw, not me. I know betta. Jus tol ‘em ya ain’t been around lately."
"Whiz. Hey, I need ta talk to ya. Wanna go get a cup of ‘kaf?" she asked him.
"Ya buying? I’m busted," he replied.
"Sure, come on," she said.
He waved to his chummers and followed her to a local diner. Grabbing a seat they ordered soykaf and a couple of burgers. Stomper wolfed his down and then proceeded to steal Karina’s fries. He laughed at her expression as he took the last one. "Don’ get slotted off.  Ya got the ‘yen fer this, ya can buy more. Now whatcha want ta talk ta me about?"
"Well, first off, tell me about the guy who was lookin fer me. Was it a big ork? Name of Lank?" she asked.
"Yeah, that’s the slag." He looked at her curiously. "Hey Mist, ya in some kinda trouble?"
"Naw, I’m fine. Jus wonderin. Don’t worry I’ll take care of it," she answered. "Hey, did ya hear ‘bout that corper who got geeked over off Berrington Street?" She waved at the waitress and held up two fingers.
Stomper grinned at her. "Yeah I heard ‘bout ‘em. Drek, the Star was all over this place fer a couple of days. Couldn’t even hang witout ‘em hasslin ya. Seem to tink somebody local geeked ‘em. But der wus two of ‘em. Some biff and the corper.  Dey still don’ know who pulled da job but I swear it wern’t nobody local or we woulda heard ‘bout it. Street mage I know said da biff was some runner, name of Hawk, but da cop I talk’d  ta seemed to tink she was jus a joy girl. Who knows ‘dough? Why ya askin?"
"Jus’ wondering, I heard about it and ya know I use ta flop over near there," she said casually.
The waitress slid two more burgers on the table and waited while Karina slotted her cred stick.
"Thanks fer feedin me," Stomper said as he dug into his next burger. "Ya sure have come up in da world. What happened , ya win the lotto?"
"Naw," she said. "Jus found a job."
"Frag girl, who hired ya?" he asked around a mouthful of fries.
"A prof at Seattle U who needed some help doin’ research," she said. "It don’ pay much but it gets me off da streets and lets me eat regular."
"Drek, wish I could find me someting like that ‘cept I can’t read. Course da gang keeps me too busy ta freelance," he told her.
"What I really wanted ta know is if ya know where Crazy Marie is hangn’ dese days? I need ta pay her back fer da sneaks she gave me," she asked. She finished her fries and pushed the plate with the third burger over to him. "Go ahead. I wasn’t as hungry as I thought."
"Ah man, ya mean ya haven’t heard? Dey found Marie dead in da alley last week." He said.
"No, I hadn’t heard. Dat’s too bad. She wuz always nice ta me. Do dey know what happened?" she asked.
"Looked like she froze ta death," he said.
Karina sighed. "Well, drek, dat’s da only reason I came back. Hey, do ya know what time it is? I told a couple of chummers I’d meet em at 22:00."
"It’s about dat now," he said.
"I best get goin then. Thanks for the info on Marie," she said.
"Null perspiration chummer. Tanks for da meal."
"Anytime." She told him. "See ya aroun."

After making the rounds of her contacts in the neighborhood, Karina was able to put together a sketchy report. Unfortunately, the night of the murders had been so cold and wet that the street people had all been snuggled as deep in their hiddy holes as possible. No one had seen anything out of the ordinary. Only two of her contacts knew of Lank and Turk, and neither had seen them that night.  Undaunted, Karina headed back to the Banshee.
 

Karina jandered into the Banshee, barely concealing her excitement. Stomper had given her even more information than she had hoped for, and that made up for the rest of her contacts’ lack of knowledge. Best of all it only cost her a couple of burgers to get it. She joined Turner and Vixen at the table with a satisfied grin.
"Ya got something don’t ya?" Turner asked her.
"Sure do. Does the name Hawk mean anything to you?" Karina asked.
"Hawk. Hmm, yeah that’s the name of a cat burglar, I’ve heard about. Does museums and stuff. Strictly high nuyen stuff. Frag, the guy’s a legend."  Turner stopped as Karina shook her head.
"Not a guy, a girl. Our girl from what Stomper heard," Karina said gleefully. "Course it’s a rumor so it might not be true. Vixen, think you might be able to confirm it one way or the other?"
"I can try mate, but don’t get yer hopes up. Runners like to keep a low profile so ya don’t often find anything on ‘em in the Matrix," Vixen said. "Let’s head back to my place and I’ll see what I can find. Turner talked to her fixer while ya were gone and maybe he’ll have something for us as well. Now that we have a name he might even be able to confirm Hawk’s identity."

Vixen’s apartment was as cluttered as Turner’s was spartan. Wires ran across the floor and disappeared into the wall.  The table was covered with computer parts and stacks of chips were scattered all over the counter. The apartment smelled of metal and solder. Vixen led the way into the room and cleared off a dilapidated couch. "Watch yer step and make yerselves at home. Beer in the fridge if ya want it. Soykaf in the pot. This may take a while." She sat down on the floor and took her deck in her lap. She slipped the jack into her data jack, hit a few keys and entered the matrix. Karina had always thought it would be thrilling to watch someone run the matrix.  At least on the trid it looked exhilarating. The reality, however, fell far short of exciting and bordered on downright boring. Except for an occasional flurry of movement from her fingers, Vixen sat unmoving, eyes shut, on the floor. Turner wondered into the kitchen and brought back two cups of soykaf.  They two settled on the couch and waited for Vixen to finish the run.
Some time later Vixen opened her eyes. She jacked out and ejected a chip from her deck. She handed it to Karina with a smile. "I found a couple of news faxes about Hawk. One says Hawk is female and the other claims Hawk is definitely male. Then I hit the jackpot." She gave a triumphant grin. "This is a copy of a security cam sweep that caught a look at Hawk on a job she pulled at a museum in Munich four years ago.  It was buried with a bunch of other old logs."  She put the chip in a reader and they watched as a black clad figure of a woman repelled from a skylight to the floor of the museum. When she reached the floor she unclipped herself from the rope, and flipped and somersaulted her way across the floor in a series of moves. "Must be avoiding infrared beams," Turner said.
 The runner approached a glass case.  On the next sweep of the camera the case was open and she removed a small object, placed it into a bag and shut the case. Then she made her way back to the rope and quickly  attached a mechanism to it. She removed a pair of bulky goggles and put them in the bag as well. As the thief rose in the air the camera caught a quick glimpse of her face. "That’s her!" Karina cried. "That’s the same woman that was in the alley."
"Good work Vixen," Turner said.  "So now we have confirmation that Hawk and Victoria Nighthawk are one and the same. I assume the museum discovered the theft?"
"Yes, but only after several months. It seems that the exhibit was changed the next morning and in the confusion the theft was overlooked. Only the one item was taken. It was a small jeweled dagger from the 1600’s and even the placard describing the dagger was gone. According to the file there where several examples in the case, so it would be very easy to overlook the fact that one was missing.  It wasn’t until they did an inventory nine months later and came up short that they figured out it was gone. By then it had probably been sold to a private collector, and Hawk was long gone. All in all it was a very slick operation." Vixen got up and got a beer, before continuing her report.  "This is the only concrete evidence I found but several similar jobs around Europe have the same MO. Several museums and private collectors have been hit in the past five years. Every single one of the jobs has gone off without a hitch and all but one wasn’t discovered until months later. Our girl was very, very good. Very meticulous, highly organized, and every job was executed to the split second. Another thing, she never once engaged in combat, in fact on one job she withdrew sans the target simply because of the presence of a patrolling guard. She was never caught, and never seen except by that one guard and in this record.  But because the theft wasn’t discovered right away this," she said tapping the viewer, "…. was overlooked. We very well may be the only ones who have ever seen this."
"What about the guards who monitor the cameras, how did they miss this?" Turner asked.
" Well, according to what I’ve found out, the museum was trying out a new completely unmanned security system.  And since there were no alarms, the logs were filed away and forgotten.  Stupid if you ask me but they were trying to cut costs. Hawk must have been anticipating that. And it paid off, big time; that dagger was worth 3.5 million deutsche marks. Which comes out to a little over two million nuyen" Vixen replied
Karina gave a low whistle. "Whew, not a bad haul for a night’s work."
"You aren’t kidding," Turner replied. "Any idea how much she netted a year?"
"Not really, but estimate between ten and fifty million nuyen," Vixen told her.
"A year?! Dear Lord, the slitch was rolling!" Karina cried.
"Yep," Vixen said. "Given the information we have accumulated, I would speculate that the necklace that Lank and company are searching for, was probably liberated from either a private collector or a museum. Personally, I would wager on the collector."
"It’s a good bet you’re right. But how do we go about finding where the necklace is. Ya know it might already have been sold to a fence," Turner warned.
"That’s possible," Vixen replied "But I think it’s worth checking into, given the value of the items she has gone after in the past."
"You got that right!" Karina stated. "Let’s get to it."
 

Two hours later Turner contacted her fixer from a public telecom. "Whatcha got for me?" she asked him.
"Not much, Lank and Turk were hired by an out-of-towner.  Guy by the name of Rene Montingne. Standard retrieve job. He paid a substantial fee but it looks like the broker just pulled in whoever was available, or he’s skimming a bigger profit for himself. Lank and Turk would not be my first choice for a retrieve. That’s all I could get.  Standard fee," he said.
"Thanks. Get ready to receive." She slotted her cred stick and uploaded his fee.
"Got it. Any thing else?" he said.
"Yeah, one other thing. See what you can get me on a runner by the name of Hawk," Turner replied.
"Will do." Click. The telecom went black. Turner straddled her bike and headed back to Vixen’s place.

"Rene Montingne? Sounds French," Vixen said
"Yeah it does," Karina said.
"Don’t forget, even with all this information, we still have nothing more than a few pieces of a puzzle," Tuner cautioned. " What we have to do now is start assembling them to form a picture. And we still don’t know what that blasted necklace looks like."
"Ok, just be patient. Let me get some smart frames working and see what we can get on M. Montingne," Vixen stated.  She set up her deck once again. A minute or so later she was done. "There, I have it set up to accumulate as much data as it can find on him and then flag me." She stretched and yawned. "Time for bed ladies. You gonna crash here?"
"Naw, I gotta get some stuff done at home. I’ll drop Mist off and we’ll see ya tomorrow afternoon," Tuner replied. They collected their gear and took off.

The apartment was dark when Karina let herself in. She made her way quietly down the hallway to her room. She stubbed her toe on the bedside table trying to find the light and jumped around on one foot for a minute or so. "Damn! That hurts!" she whispered.  Hearing a giggle she looked around. Nothing. She shook her head. "Must be my imagination," she muttered. Then she heard it again. It sounded like it was coming from the closet. She drew her pistol and tiptoed to the door. Throwing it open she looked in. Nothing! She stepped back and looked around the room. Except for herself the room was innocently empty and still. Then the giggle came again from behind her. She spun around, looking for the source. "Ok!" she said standing in the middle of the room, hands on her hips. "Show yourself! No more games!"
"No play?" asked a silvery voice. "Mistress said you live here now and that I should take care of you." A small child-like figure slowly appeared, floating at eye level.
"Who are you?" Karina asked. She holstered her pistol and placed it on the nightstand.
"You can call me Ariel," the spirit chimed.
"Who is ‘Mistress’?" Karina said. Intrigued by the spirit, she sat cross-legged on the bed and studied Ariel for a moment.
 "Mistress is Mask. She belongs to Raccoon. Raccoon likes sparkle pretties."  The spirit floated down and turned its head upside down to look at her.
Karina giggled. Ariel looked extremely silly like that. "Well Ariel, I’m Mist."
The spirit put its hands behind its back and rocked back and forth. "I know who you are.  Mistress told me," Ariel said importantly.  "You belong to Fox. Fox is fun to play with."
"Is he? I haven’t been able to play with him yet. I did get to meet him though," Karina said.
"I know. He told me," Ariel replied.
"Did he now?" Karina said with a smile. She yawned and got up to undress.
"Oh yes, we play together a lot. Fox is very good at hide and seek," Ariel stated. "You going to sleep now?"
 "Yes, I’m very tired," Karina said.
"Ok," Ariel chirped. "We play later?"
"Sure," Karina said as she slipped into bed. She switched off the light and curled up on her side.
"Good night, Mist," Ariel said.
"G’night, Ariel," Karina mumbled as she drifted off to sleep.

Karina let herself in and joined Mask in the kitchen.
"Have a good workout?" Mask asked.
"Yeah. Owen showed us some new stuff this morning. I think I’m getting better," Karina replied.
"Good! Always try and learn something new every day. No knowledge is ever wasted! It might just save your life someday." Mask set a plate before Karina and handed her a cup of coffee. "But enough lectures before breakfast. I hear you met Ariel last night."
"Yes. She gave me quite a scare at first," Karina said around a mouthful of muffin.
Mask laughed. "She loves to play games."
"So I found out," Karina said wryly. "She played hide and seek with me. I thought I was going crazy for a second before she appeared."
"I should have warned you about her," Mask said with an apologetic grin. "She’s very mischievous. There use to be a resident in the building that she really didn’t like. She played so many tricks on him that he eventually moved, much to the relief of the rest of the residents. He wasn’t a very nice man."
Karina giggled. "If she pulled the same thing on him that she did on me, I am not surprised that he moved."
"Oh all that and more," Mask said blandly. Changing the subject she asked, "Are you going to have time today to work on your spells?"
"Yeah, I’m not supposed to meet Turner and Vixen until this afternoon," Karina replied.
"Good, then if you’re finished, let’s get to work," Mask said.
 

"There!" Mask said with satisfaction. "I think you’ve got this spell down."  She floated six feet off the ground. "Now, I want you to turn me upside down."
Karina concentrated. Slowly she rotated Mask until she was head down, her long hair brushing the ground.
"With practice you’ll be able to do this much faster and with greater precision." Mask’s face flushed a rosy red. "Ok, turn me right side up before I pass out here," she said.
Karina grinned. "Oh, if that happens I’ll just bounce you on your head until you wake up." She turned Mask back up and carefully lowered her to the floor.
"Very good." Mask applauded.  "Now, I’m going to go get some water. While I’m gone I want you to cast that invisibility and when I come back in, I’ll see if I can spot you."
Karina grinned. This was her best spell yet. Hiding was easy! She cast the spell and moved to a corner of the room. She concentrated on breathing slowly and quietly so as not to give herself away, and waited for Mask to return.
Mask entered the room and looked around.  The room looked deceptively empty. She put her glass down and stood there a moment.  She listened carefully but couldn’t hear anything but the quiet hum of the heating unit. She narrowed her eyes, straining all her senses, but couldn’t detect Karina at all. Switching to astral sight she finally noticed the still figure in the far corner of the room. "There you are," she said, pointing.
"Ahh, rats," Karina cried. "I thought I had you for sure."
"You did," Mask said with a grin. "I had to use astral sight to find you."
"Really? Whiz. So I’m getting better right?" Karina asked.
"Yep, you sure are." Mask said. "Enough for today though. Go get a shower. Turner should be here soon."
Karina bounced out of the room and headed for the shower.  Mask followed slowly, grinning at her protégé’s exuberance.
 

Karina ran out to meet Turner. "So did she get anything?" she asked as she climbed on the back of the bike. She grabbed Turner’s waist to keep from falling off as the merc took off.
"Don’t know yet. She was still asleep when I called. She said to come on over and then disconnected. She’s a bit of a grouch when she wakes up."

Vixen let them in and sat back down in her chair. "I don’t know yet," she said in reply to their expectant looks. She drank down her soykaf and then poured herself a refill.  She poured in an obscene amount of sweetener and a liberal amount of creamer.
Turner shuddered. "How can you stand it so sweet?" She poured a cup for herself and one for Karina and carried them back to the couch. "We can wait till you wake up," she stated.
"Thanks," Vixen said.
Karina waited impatiently until she was finished. She fidgeted with her cup, then looked up expectantly when Vixen finally stirred.
"Right, let’s see what we got." Vixen jacked in and once again they waited for several long minutes. Finally she opened her eyes and jacked out. "Rene Montingne’s a private art collector from France. Very wealthy and from a very old and powerful family. They date their ancestry back to French nobility. He has a reputation of being unscrupulous and single minded when it comes to art. He hasn’t reported any robberies but if the necklace was hot he wouldn’t.  The French police suspect that he has bought stolen art in the past but they have no proof so they can’t touch him.  That’s all I could get on him. Want to bet the necklace was stolen from him?" she asked.
"Nope," Tuner replied. "So, Hawk steals the necklace and then comes to Seattle. Should be some record of her flight. Think you can find it?"
"Not without some idea of a time frame. And she probably traveled under an assumed name," Vixen said.
"Hey wait. Didn’t you say she has been dating Michael for eight months?" Karina asked.
Vixen turned to look at her. She blinked. "Yeah I did. You think that was when she came over? Maybe she met Michael on the plane."
"That’s what I’m thinking," Karina said
"Ok. Let’s see if Michael has made any trips overseas in the past year," Vixen said.
Several minutes later Vixen confirmed their suspicions. "Good call, Mist. MCT sent Michael to their Paris office last April. He was gone three weeks. He left on the 5th and returned by suborbital on the 26th. And get this; his seatmate was listed as one Victoria Nighthawk. I also found an address for her. Bless the airline’s little anally retentive hearts. 4726 West Maple, Auburn district of the Seattle Metroplex, UCAS!"
"All right!" Turner hollered. She smacked Vixen on the shoulder. "Way to go!"
Karina grinned. "Now we’re getting somewhere. You don’t think she would keep that necklace at home do you?"
"Maybe not," Turner replied, "but it’s worth a look. No telling what we could find."
"So let’s go," Karina said.
"Not so fast chummer. We have plenty of time. Let’s not go off half-cocked. We’ll get ourselves killed that way. Rule number one of Shadowrunning: Do your homework!  First we need to scope the place out and see how easy it will be to get in. We don’t know what kind of security she has," Turner replied. "Time for some street work chummers. First things first. Vixen, pull up the Seattle guidebook and let’s see what it has to say about Auburn."
The decker set up her deck and disappeared into the bedroom for a moment. When she came back she was carrying a small monitor. She hooked it up so that the others could view the file as well, and dived into the matrix. Information appeared on the screen and then she jacked out. "I’ve accessed the Shadow edition as well. Let’s see what we’ve got." She called up a map of the Auburn district and located West Maple.
"It’s in the Maple Valley neighborhood," she stated.
"Appropriate don’t ya think? Hmmm, I see SPD gives it a B security rating. He’s usually right on the money so we’ll need to go in quiet," Turner said from over Vixen’s shoulder. "I’m kinda surprised though that she wasn’t in a better neighborhood."
"Hiding in plain sight?" Karina spoke up.
"Maybe, we’ll see when we get there," Vixen replied.
"Ya know this might be a good time to move to that safe house," Turner said. "Vixen, get whatever ya need from here. Mist, you need anything before we fade?"
"Yeah, I need to let Mask know I won’t be around for a while," Karina said.
"Ok, Vixen, why don’t you book us a pair of suites at the Su Casa Suites and Mist and I will go talk to Mask. We will meet ya there," Turner said.
"No worries, mate, I’m right on it." Vixen left to make arrangements for the rooms.
"Let’s roll, Mist," Turner said.

****************************************************************************

A special Thank you to my beta readers,Norcumi , "Incognito" and Maven.

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