Shadowrun - 46 - A Fistful of Data by Dedman Stephen

Author:Dedman, Stephen [Dedman, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

Sumatra lay down on his mattress and closed his eyes. 8-ball, Crane and Zurich stood around his meatbod while the rat shaman’s astral form burrowed its way through the floor. "Do you really think there’s anything down there?" the rigger asked.

Zurich shrugged. "The only other reason I can think of for someone wanting this land badly enough to spend that much money on it, is that something’s about to crash on it. A satellite, a plane, an iridium asteroid, something—and no one can predict where something’s going to impact with that kind of accuracy, even if they’ve planned it. Unless they’re using magic."

"If that’s it," said 8-ball, "we’d better get the frag out of here anyway."

They waited in silence for several minutes until Sumatra opened his eyes again. "There’s something down there," he said. "Some sort of container—I guess you could call it a vault—roughly in the middle of the floor."

"How big?"

"A bit wider than my arms, maybe twice that long, and about up to here," he said, running a hand along the bottom of his sternum. "About half of that is empty space, cased in something manufactured. Metal and concrete, I think, and a drekload of it before you get through to pure earth. Nothing’s alive down there."

"How thick is a drekload?" asked Zurich dryly.

"Not quite up to my elbow," said the shaman, holding up a large hand, fingers extended. "It’s fraggin' dark down there, can't see for drek. even in the empty spaces. There's a bit of a background count, some sort of toxic drek, but nothing alive. Nothing magical, either, or anything that was handmade with any sort of feeling, so I think we can rule out the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail. And if anything down there still has enough life left in it to be a material link, I didn’t pick it up.

"Of course, that doesn't mean there’s nothing valuable— it could be full of plutonium, or old-fashioned money, or anything like that. I could try a catalog spell, but that’s only going to help if I have some idea of what I’m looking for."

"Did you find a door, or some other opening?"

"Nope. I think it’s been sealed pretty thoroughly, but not magically locked, or anything like that."

"Hazmat storage." suggested Zurich. "It makes sense. Could you find it again?"

"I think so. Give me a minute to rest and I’ll look again. It’s not directly under here, I can tell you that much, but if it’s under any of the lodges, or the library, it’ll be a snap. If not. I’ll have to use you as landmarks. You got any ideas on how we’re going to open it if we find it?"

"Do you have any spells that'll do it ?"

"Only powerbolt. You’d do a lot better with shape-charges—or maybe a pick and shovel, at least against the concrete."

Zurich sighed. "I’ll see if there’s anything around I can turn into a metal detector. That’ll tell us how much metal we have to deal with." He walked out of the lodge and headed for the clinic.

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