Never Trust an Elf by Robert N. Charrette

Author:Robert N. Charrette [Charrette, Robert N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9780451451781
Google: EQh5ObAhsmoC
Amazon: 0451452208
Publisher: RoC
Published: 1992-06-15T06:00:00+00:00

PART 3

Harness the Talented

"There is a mage nearby."

The certainty in Scatter's voice gave troublesome weight to the rat shaman's announcement. Kham looked around the sea of desks and workstations that surrounded him and his crew. He saw nothing; no sign that anyone had entered the room. The Weeze shook her head, signifying that she had spotted no one in the corridor. Over by the window, Neko was giving a sim- i ilar all-clear. The Tacoma facility of Andalusian Light Industries wasn't all that big, but the tangle of buildings, garages, sheds, and warehouses offered more than enough places for even a mundane to hide, as they had proven in penetrating to this office structure.

"Anybody wit him?" Kham asked, but the rat shaman ignored this question as she ignored most of his questions. Kham had to be philosophical about it; even if she answered, he wasn't sure he could trust her estimate. She had her own ideas about how to run things, as he had learned in their quarrelsome planning sessions for this run. Perhaps she was trying to force him into certain actions by playing information control, trusting that she could handle any problems. That would be trouble. Scatter had a lot more faith in her abilities, both as a magician and as a strategist, than Kham did, but he knew he could count on her to do her best, however little that was, as long as she needed their mundane firepower to save her hide.

Walking over to the workstation where their decker Chigger was jacked in, Kham looked at the screen. The display of whirling geometries and shifting computer images meant nothing to him. For all he knew, Chigger could be playing some kind of arcade game. Damn, he hated depending on deckers. They were less reliable than magicians, which was saying quite a bit, and none of it in their favor. He spent a brief moment wishing he had Dodger for the Matrix work; he knew Sally Tsung thought the elven decker was wiz. Then he remembered that the elf would probably be even less predictable than usual in this context.

He punched Chigger lightly in the shoulder. "Come on, get inta da files."

Chigger just rolled his head back and sighed. "Hurry, Chigger!" urged Ryan, the new kid. Rat-stomper and The Weeze had recommended him, saying he might be green but he was good with locks. They had already used him to get into the building, but the kid wasn't going to be any use to them if he panicked.

From the look of him, Ryan was on the edge of letting his fear take control. Kham hoped he'd calm down; they didn't need a panicker. Ryan continued to urge the decker to greater efforts, while nervously fingering the snarl of amulets and talismans around his neck.

It was bad enough they were doing this run with a first-timer kid. They didn't need one who had also lost his grip on reality. Ryan was dripping with the rat shaman's hoodoos, which in itself wasn't bad.

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