46.

Twisting, falling, spinning—

Strange lights flashing, images speeding by too fast to process—

Slowing...slowing...

Darkness. Then dim light.

The five runners looked at each other in confusion as their vision cleared, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Only a moment ago—or at least it had seemed liked only a moment ago—they had been on the edge of the canyon watching the destruction of the train. Now, they were—

They were in a van. And it was moving.

Ocelot was the first to speak. "What the—?"

He stopped abruptly, startled.

He didn't recognize his voice. His normal low baritone had been replaced by a somewhat higher, more uncertain tenor.

Then he noticed his friends. They were staring at him. That was okay, though, because he was staring at them too.

Every one of his four companions seemed to have stepped into a fountain of youth and come out looking like teenagers.

"Hmm," Winterhawk said. "This is a new one." He looked to be about sixteen, almost his full adult height but just beginning to fill out teenage gangliness into adult slimness. Like all the others, he was dressed in gray slacks, navy blue blazer with an odd crest and the initials RA, white shirt, and blue striped tie. "If I look anything like you lot do, I think I might be getting flashbacks to boarding school."

Ocelot's gaze took in the rest of his companions quickly. all of them had regressed in age, but not by the same amount: 'Wraith (human again, but with his natural albino coloring) looked to be the oldest, although not by much—maybe seventeen to 'Hawk's sixteen. Kestrel (the only difference in her uniform from the others was that she had a blue string-tie instead of a necktie) looked about fifteen, and Joe a little younger than that. Joe's transformation was the most dramatic: he was still largish for his age, but nothing comparable to the huge troll they were used to or even the massive blacksmith from the previous scenario.

They were sitting in the back of a closed van—not a passenger van, but more like a delivery van that had been adapted for comfort while not allowing the occupants a view of the driver. The only window—small, grimy, and tinted—offered dim illumination out the back door but nothing else of any use. The seats were comfortable if a bit threadbare and looked as if they had once been quite luxurious, as did the carpeting on the floor. Currently, the five runners were the only occupants of the rear compartment, although there were seats for four more.

"Okay," Kestrel said, "I think this has just pegged my weird-meter." Looking down at her leg, her eyes widened. "I'm not shot anymore." She raised her gaze again, looking questioningly at the others.

"Me neither," Joe said, and immediately looked surprised at the faltering teenage tones coming from his mouth. "That happened the last time we did this, too. If you get hurt somewhere but you succeed, then you're not hurt when you go on to the next one."

"Then—" She still looked uncertain. "—we succeeded? What about that thing we saw?"

"I think we did," Winterhawk said. "We managed to thwart its plans and send it back to wherever it came from. I think that was all we were meant to do."

"So why are we kids now?" Ocelot asked, looking down at his own uniform. "Why the school uniforms?" He already hated the thing; school uniforms were just one more tool the system used to force you to conform. Immediately he loosened his tie, partly for comfort and partly for orneriness.

"Don't know." 'Wraith didn't seem bothered by his. "Guess we'll find out when we get there."

"Get where?" Joe leaned forward to examine the crest on 'Wraith's jacket. "And what's 'RA'?"

"I imagine we'll find out in due time," Winterhawk said. His eyes came up quickly as he glared at 'Wraith with mock exasperation. "And don't you dare say it."

"Moo," 'Wraith said with a raised eyebrow and a tiny hint of a smile.

Ocelot was staring at Winterhawk. "Hey, I thought your eyes were blue," he said. They were gray now.

"And yours are supposed to look like cat-eyes," Joe pointed out, getting into the act. Ocelot's eyes, normally pale blue and cat-slitted, were currently natural looking and hazel.

"Toto, I don't think we have our cyberware anymore," Ocelot said with a sigh. "You know, it would be nice if the damn metaplanes would just let us be ourselves one of these days. Is that too much to ask?"

"Apparently so." Winterhawk shrugged. Then, realizing something else, he stared hard at Joe, pointing his finger at him. After a moment he lowered his hand in disgust. "No magic, either."

"Great," Kestrel said. "So what are we—?"

The van stopped abruptly, jarring the runners a bit in their seats. Ocelot shot to his feet, followed immediately by Kestrel and 'Wraith. "What—"

There was silence for a moment and then the back door of the van opened. A uniformed driver appeared there, his jacket adorned with the same RA crest as the runners wore. "Last ones," he said. "We'll be there very shortly. Watch your step." His voice sounded vaguely disinterested, as if he was performing his duties by rote. He stepped aside to allow the newcomers to climb into the van.

As they did so, the runners stared.

Two boys appeared in the doorway. When they saw the runners, they both stopped and joined the staring contest.

The driver gave the one in back a slight shove. "Get in," he muttered. There was no mistaking the dislike in his voice. "On with ye. I got a schedule to keep."

Mechanically the two boys allowed themselves to be pushed inside. The door closed behind them, and after a moment the van started to move again.

The runners and the boys continued to stare at each other. Finally, Kestrel ventured, "Gabriel?"

The boy in front nodded. "Kestrel." There was something in his voice that was hard to identify.

If the runners had had any lingering thoughts that Mike Briggs from Last Chance had represented Gabriel, they were swept away by the sight of the boy who stood before them. Small and slim, eleven years old at the most, he was if anything more physically beautiful than he was in his adult form. Regarding them with an adult's gaze through the face of an angelic child—in the true sense of the word—he looked fragile and a bit ethereal in his blue uniform. When he smiled at Kestrel, his face lit up in a way that made everybody around him want to smile too.

Almost everybody. Ocelot scowled a little as he noticed the other boy standing behind Gabriel. It had to be Stefan, of course—the relative ages were right, and Ocelot could see Stefan's hawklike features and piercing gaze hiding under the mask of a fourteen-year-old boy. Stefan looked strangely subdued, and did not return Ocelot's scowl. He looked like he was deep in thought about something very important.

Gabriel looked them over. "You've changed since we last met. I'm glad to see you're all well." The seriousness in his tone contrasted with the smile in his eyes.

"I'm glad to see you two haven't killed each other yet," Ocelot said, unable to keep a little sarcasm from his voice. "Or at least that he hasn't killed you."

Stefan did not take the bait. Instead, he crossed over and sat down in the chair farthest away from the runners and continued his silent contemplation.

"What's with him?" Ocelot hooked a thumb toward Stefan.

Gabriel glanced over toward his brother, then regarded Ocelot with an expression that was half sadness, half disappointment. "He has...been through a difficult time. Please leave him alone for now."

Kestrel, catching Gabriel's none-too-subtle request, grabbed Ocelot's arm and pulled him down next to her, motioning for Gabriel to sit on the other side of her. "Where have you been?" she asked him.

"Yes," Winterhawk spoke up. "Have you two been off saving the world from the forces of Evil like we have?"

Gabriel nodded. "In a sense, I suppose we have." He looked up, appearing to notice the interior of the van for the first time. "Does anyone know where we're going?"

"Don't you?" Joe looked surprised. "You didn't ask before you got in here?"

"We were—a bit preoccupied. All I saw was that the van had the same symbol on the door that we have on these jackets. The van picked us up less than five minutes after we appeared here."

Kestrel nodded. "We never got to find out. We were inside when we appeared." Shaking her head, she sighed. "This is all pretty strange, Gabriel. It's taking a lot of getting used to."

"I know it is." He spoke softly, gripping her arm as he focused his comforting gaze on her. It looked incongruous to the rest of the runners: a child trying to comfort a teenage girl—and appearing to succeed. She nodded, but didn't speak.

"I take it that your magical abilities don't function properly here either?" Winterhawk asked.

Gabriel shook his head. "We tried. Nothing."

"Nothing..." Stefan echoed.

Joe regarded him critically. "What is wrong with him?" he asked Gabriel again.

"We should discuss everything," Gabriel said, "but not now. Not yet. I assume that we're headed somewhere; it might be best to wait until we get there."

No one seemed to mind the fact that the one who appeared to be the youngest among them had taken charge of the situation; realizing that they weren't going to get an answer right now the runners settled back in their seats and held their questions.

The van rumbled on for another twenty minutes or so, then stopped. It was getting dark; the dimness in the rear compartment was alleviated only by tiny dome lights in the ceiling. Without their low-light vision, on which they had come to rely, both the runners and the dragons were feeling a bit uneasy. All of them stood, waiting near the door until it opened. When it did not do so right away, Gabriel reached out and tried it from the inside.

It swung open.

The driver came around the corner, looking none too pleased to see that the door was opening from the inside. He glared at Gabriel, who was standing in front. "Here we are," he snapped. "Ravenwood Academy. You'll need to walk up from here." He pointed off to his left. "Through the gate and up that hill. They're waiting for you."

Everyone was glad for the opportunity to get out of the stuffy van, so they hastened to exit before the driver changed his mind. When they were all standing on the ground, the driver jumped back in and drove off quickly, before they could ask any questions.

Ocelot turned to look in the direction they were supposed to go. "Holy shit."

That was enough to get everyone else's attention. They joined Ocelot in staring up the hill toward their destination.

Ravenwood Academy stood at the top of a hill, dark against the cloudy sky. It was a somber, forbidding-looking, enormous old mansion (it was hard to tell its construction from here, but Ocelot would have put his money on stone) with various odd towers, jutting protuberances, and a steep, treacherous roof. Kestrel blew air through her teeth, voicing the thought almost all of them were having: "If I was going to look in the dictionary under 'haunted house,' I think this place's picture would be there."

Winterhawk nodded. "Looks like something out of a bloody Dickens novel."

"And that's where they want us to go," Joe said. He didn't sound happy about the prospect.

"Great." Ocelot regarded the place nervously. "Looks like a great place for the whole damned crew of Horrors to hang out."

"No choice," 'Wraith said. He started to say something else, but decided not to. Winterhawk looked at him sideways and grinned, though it was a decidedly uneasy grin.

"Wonder why they didn't take us all the way up," Kestrel said as they started walking up the hill.

"Maybe they didn't think we'd get the full effect of it that way," Ocelot said sarcastically.

"Wouldn't be surprised." Winterhawk sounded serious.

It took them about ten minutes to trudge up the gravelled driveway. As Ravenwood Academy's disquieting structure loomed larger before them they slowed their pace unconsciously until, by the time they reached the towering front doors, they were barely moving at all. Even Gabriel and Stefan seemed apprehensive about the place. Still, though, it was Gabriel who took the lead.

As they approached, the tall, heavy wooden doors swung open and a man stepped out, after a moment followed by a woman. "You children are late," the man said in tones awash with disapproval. He was tall, balding, his face and body a study in sharp angles and long lines. A dark, long-out-of-style suit and squarish, wire-framed glasses completed his image. He consulted an old-fashioned pocketwatch and looked down his long nose at them. "You were due here an hour ago."

Gabriel shrugged. "We had no control over when the van arrived," he said.

Very briefly the man's face contorted into rage; for a moment the runners thought he might strike Gabriel, and they moved forward with the intention to form a protective ring around him. Instead, though, the tall man composed himself and returned his features to their former mien of contemptuous disfavor. "Get inside," he ordered. "You've missed dinner, but if you ask Mrs. Brant here politely, she might find something cold in the kitchen for you. Now go." Without waiting to see if he would be obeyed, he turned on his heel and stalked off.

"Nice place," Winterhawk muttered under his breath to 'Wraith.

"Come along, children," the woman, who must have been Mrs. Brant, said briskly. She looked only marginally more hospitable than their host had: a large woman with her graying hair pulled back into an unrelieved bun and her plump body encased in an institutionally prim black dress, she appeared to be somewhere in her early fifties. Despite the fact that a woman of her age and stature might under normal conditions have looked rather matronly, the only context in which Mrs. Brant might have been associated with the word "matron" would have been if the word "prison" had been prepended to it. Her small, glittering eyes never left the group as they entered the big hall; when they were all inside, she closed the door behind them with a decisive slam. The sound echoed eerily through the hall with an air of finality. "Now then," she said, brushing her hands together to remove imaginary dust (or at least nobody saw any), "come with me and I'll show you where you'll be sleeping. If you want anything to eat, you can come down to the kitchen and get it. There isn't much left, though. Late children shouldn't be choosy about what they get for dinner."

Ocelot glared at her as she turned around and headed for the large wooden staircase. He started to move toward her, but Kestrel touched his arm and shook her head. Winterhawk, beyond her, nodded in agreement. Ocelot sighed and fell into step.

Upstairs, Mrs. Brant led them down a long hallway carpeted in threadbare red and decorated with grim portraits of dour old men ("I'd hate to see their yearbook," Joe commented under his breath as they passed them) until they reached a door at the end. She opened it with an old-fashioned key and stepped aside to let them in. "Choose any beds that aren't already taken," she said as if bestowing the favor of the gods. "The kitchen is downstairs, across the hall. Someone there can show you if you ask. I will performing various duties there for one hour. If you do not appear within that hour, you will have to wait until tomorrow." She closed the door and departed. Everyone waited for the key to click in the lock, but it didn't.

Winterhawk looked around the room sourly. "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding," he commented in a broad, singsong exaggeration of his normal British accent.

His friends looked at him strangely—all except for 'Wraith, who raised an eyebrow. "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" he replied in his usual monotone.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Ocelot demanded, then shook his head. "No, never mind. Don't answer. I don't want to know." He turned instead to examine their surroundings.

They were as depressing as the rest of the house. The room was quite long and narrow, set up rather like an old-style hospital ward. Beds, separated by small armoires, lined both walls; they were uncomfortable-looking metal-framed things with thin gray blankets and crisp stiff white sheets. The only windows were thin slitted affairs high above their heads; a door on the far side of the room presumably led to a bathroom.

It was difficult for a moment to determine which beds had been taken and which had not, since there were almost no personal objects in or around any of them. The group was forced to peer underneath looking for shoes, or to open armoires to see if they contained anything. As it turned out, the ten beds closest to the door (and farthest from both the heater and the bathroom) were available; that left ten more that presumably had occupants. "Wonder where all the others are?" Kestrel asked, looking around.

"Probably off getting brainwashed somewhere," Ocelot said, dropping down on one of the beds. It creaked under him; the mattress was thin and as uncomfortable as it looked.

"Anybody else hungry?" Joe spoke up. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged. "I'm hungry. And maybe we can find out something down there." He gestured to indicate the room. "It isn't like we have much do to right now, is there?"

Kestrel looked at Gabriel. "Are you hungry?"

He shook his head. "I think I'll just stay here." Looking at Stefan, he added, "I assume you're not going?"

Stefan shook his head.

"Go on, if you like," Gabriel told her. "We'll be fine here."

"I'll go," Ocelot said immediately. He was experiencing an overwhelming urge to be wherever Stefan wasn't.

"Yes," 'Wraith said. "'Hawk?"

Winterhawk looked back and forth, vacillating between his desire to accompany his teammates and his curiosity about what Gabriel and Stefan's quest had been. Curiosity won. "No, thanks. I think I'll stay here too. I'm not terribly hungry."

Kestrel nodded. "Me neither. I'll stay too." She smiled at Ocelot. "Bring me something?"

He couldn't resist a request like that. "Okay, you got it." Rising, he indicated the door. "Come on, guys. Let's go find out what kind of eats they've got in this musty old place."

When the door closed behind them, Winterhawk kicked off his shoes, took off his jacket and hung it in his armoire, and lay back on his bed with his hands clasped behind his head. "Nice to get a little peace," he commented. "After what we were doing before, I mean."

Kestrel nodded, looking distracted.

"What were you doing before?" Gabriel asked. He was still sitting on the end of his bed. There was only a dim light on in the room, but no one made any move to try to brighten things up.

Kestrel looked at 'Hawk. "You want to tell him, or shall I?"

The mage shrugged. "Go ahead. I'm sure the others will have their own parts to add when they get back."

So Kestrel slowly recounted their adventures in Last Chance, including the two boys, the evil railroad boss, and the destruction of the train. Winterhawk occasionally added bits that she'd forgotten or made commentaries based on his previous metaplanes experience, but mostly kept quiet and let her do the talking.

By the time she finished, Gabriel was leaning forward listening intently, and even Stefan seemed to have come up from his dark mood to pay attention.

Kestrel shrugged. "Pretty weird, huh?" She indicated Winterhawk. "He and the other guys pretty much took it in stride, like they'd done things like this before, but for me it was damn strange. I remember you'd told me about the Netherworlds before, but you never told me they were this freaky."

She couldn't see Gabriel's face in the dimness, but his tone was gentle, the child's voice speaking the dragon's words. "The Netherworlds are different things to different individuals, Kestrel. I have never before faced a problem with such far-reaching implications. My forays into the Netherworlds have largely been of a much simpler nature."

There was a long pause during which no one said anything. Then, after minutes had passed, Kestrel ventured, "Will you tell us about what happened to you?"

Another pause. "Stefan?" Gabriel said softly into the darkness.

"Do as you will, brother," came the quiet reply. There was a hint of sullenness in it, but also a hint of something else that neither 'Hawk nor Kestrel could identify.

"Did—things go badly for you?" Winterhawk asked.

Gabriel shook his head. "Not ultimately. Apparently we, like you, were successful in what we were meant to do. But our success was not without loss."

"Loss?" Kestrel got up from her bed, going over to sit on Gabriel's. "What kind of loss?"

Gabriel considered that for a few moments as if unsure of how to respond. "Stefan—" he said after a pause, "—did something very brave but very foolhardy. Although he was successful in his task, he experienced considerable trauma in the process."

"Trauma?" Winterhawk leaned forward.

"Death," Stefan snapped flatly.

"Death?" Kestrel frowned. "But—I don't understand. You're—here, aren't you?"

Apparently Stefan had exhausted his patience with the single word; he rolled over facing away from them and did not speak further.

Gabriel took up the story, nodding soberly. At the conclusion of his story, both Winterhawk and Kestrel were staring not at him, but at Stefan's back. Looking at him with a new—albeit grudging—respect.

"So—" Kestrel began, choosing her words with care, "—what happened—afterward?"

There was a creak as Stefan rose from his bed and stalked to the back of the room. A moment later, the bathroom door slammed.

Gabriel watched him go, shaking his head sadly. "We awoke sitting on a bench by the side of a road. I woke up first, and was pleased that both of us seemed to still be among the living—I don't believe that either of us were certain that would be the case after the bomb exploded. Stefan awoke a few minutes later, extremely agitated. It was then that he told me of what had happened—how the soldiers had mortally wounded him just as he was able to set off the detonation. He was astonished that he was still alive after all that. I tried to calm him down by joking that next time he wants to sacrifice himself to save the world, perhaps he could find some other way to render me unconscious than by clubbing me over the head, but it didn't work. He's been acting quite strangely ever since he woke up."

Kestrel sighed. "I still don't see. How can he be angry about finding out he's still alive after something like that? I'd be ecstatic if I were him."

"I don't think he is angry," came the quiet reply. "I think that, like Ocelot, he is using anger to cover something else. I suggest that we leave him alone for awhile and give him time to think over what has occurred."

Winterhawk nodded. "Yes, that seems the best plan." He was glad that Ocelot was not here—with his visceral hatred of Stefan, he could do nothing but complicate things.

Everyone fell silent after that, for different reasons: Gabriel looked to be deep in thought, while Kestrel and Winterhawk were reluctant to take the discussion too far until the others returned. Stefan remained shut in the bathroom for about another fifteen minutes, after which he came out and resumed his position on his bed, this time staring upward at the ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe.

Twenty minutes after that the door opened and Ocelot, Joe, and 'Wraith returned. Ocelot was empty-handed. "Hey," Kestrel said jokingly, "I thought you were gonna bring me something."

Wordlessly, Ocelot indicated Joe, who pulled out a napkin-wrapped bundle from the pocket of his blazer and offered it to her. "We had to sneak it out," Ocelot said disgustedly. He mimicked Mrs. Brant's voice: "If children can't be bothered to come down for dinner, they can go without food for the night." In his own voice he added, "Not that it's anything great. If I hadn't been so hungry I'd have just said screw it and come back up here."

Kestrel gingerly opened the bundle, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "You're not kidding. But thanks for remembering, anyway. I guess there's no dessert, huh?"

"Here?" Joe snorted. "I don't think they've heard of dessert around here. It might make somebody happy."

"Place is grim," 'Wraith agreed.

"Did you find out anything down there?" Winterhawk asked. He showed no interest at all in sharing the substances Kestrel was now picking through with the meticulous diligence of a physician performing surgery.

"Not much." Ocelot sat down on his bed, noting that neither Gabriel nor Stefan seemed to be paying attention to them at the moment. "We're expected to go to class tomorrow, bright and early. And for some reason, Mrs. Stick-up-her-Butt down there seemed really pissed off that those two—" he hooked a thumb over toward Gabriel and Stefan "—didn't come down. She kept muttering stuff about their kind and no respect for authority and stuff like that."

"But she didn't mind that we didn't come down?" Winterhawk asked, indicating himself and Kestrel.

'Wraith shook his head. "Didn't appear to notice."

"What's this about classes?" Kestrel spoke up. "And where are all the other students of this place?"

"There aren't many here," Joe said. "Sounds like the school's on some kind of break or something. Most of the students go home, but some of 'em stay over. There's another couple of rooms like this, and from what we can figure, there's about twenty students total during the break. Normally they split up the classes by age level, but during breaks everybody's together in the same classroom."

"How convenient," Winterhawk muttered.

"So," Ocelot said, deftly changing the subject, "did you guys talk about anything interesting up here while we were gone?"

Winterhawk and Kestrel, speaking quietly, filled them in on what they had told Gabriel and what he had told them. When they got to the part about Stefan and the bomb, Ocelot stared. "You're kidding, right?"

"Not if you believe Gabriel," Kestrel said in a tone that indicated that if he didn't, she wouldn't be too happy with him.

Ocelot shook his head. "It ain't that I don't believe him. It's just that there's gotta be something he isn't tellin' us. There's no way Chuckles over there would do somethin' like that without an angle."

Despite their efforts to keep their conversation to themselves, Gabriel rose from his reverie and came over. "I assure you, Ocelot, there was no angle. Events occurred exactly as Kestrel and Winterhawk described them."

Again Ocelot shook his head. "I just don't believe it. There had to be something you didn't know about."

Kestrel glared at him. "Give it a rest, will you, Ocelot? Even I'm getting tired of hearing it. The rest of us are dealing with this because we have to—why can't you?"

"Look," he said angrily. "Maybe he's got you all snowed, but he ain't gonna snow me. I'll work with him because I said I would, but that doesn't mean I have to like him, or think he's some kind of fuckin' saint because he did what any of the rest of us would've done without thinking about it."

Gabriel looked at him, the disappointment clear in his violet eyes. "You must do as you will, Ocelot. But I ask you to remember that anyone can change given the right catalyst."

Ocelot snorted. "Yeah, like he's gonna change after all these years. You go on believin' that, kid." He started to say something else, then raised his hands in a halt gesture and shook his head. "No, never mind. Forget it. Like I said, I'll work with him. But that's it. When this is over, it's over."

Gabriel was about to answer when the door flung forcefully open. Mrs. Brant stood there. "Lights out, children." Her cold gaze raked over them, coming to rest on the remains of the food Ocelot and Joe had brought up for Kestrel. "Sneaking food, are you?" She stalked over and snatched it up. "Well, let me give you one warning and one warning only. If you're caught with food in your room again, it'll be a whipping for the guilty parties. We don't tolerate transgressions at Ravenwood Academy. Understood?" The last word was barked out in a tone that would have done a drill instructor proud.

There was a general muttering among the runners, but no definitive answer.

"Understood?" Mrs. Brant snapped again.

"Understood," Gabriel said quietly, stepping up to her. His face was composed, but his eyes were blazing.

The woman's face took on a purple cast as rage suffused her features. She clamped her hand tightly on Gabriel's shoulder and glared at him. "Do not use that tone on me, boy. I knew you and that brother of yours were going to be trouble the moment you got here. Your kind always is. You will speak to me with respect. Do you understand, boy?"

The runners hung back for a moment, waiting to see how Gabriel would deal with the situation. It was a strange tableau: the large, enraged woman looming over the slight young boy—and even stranger because it was obvious that the boy was in command of the situation. "Of course, Mrs. Brant," he said easily, with a tiny hint of a smile. "I understand perfectly. May I ask one question, though?"

"Yes?" She sounded as if her patience was rapidly reaching its end.

"What is 'our kind', exactly?"

Mrs. Brant made an exasperated and disgusted noise in the back of her throat and spun around toward the door. "Watch yourself, young man. Because I'll be watching you." With that, she flipped off the light and slammed the door. This time, everyone did hear the key turn in the lock.

"That went well," Winterhawk commented after a moment.

Gabriel sighed and headed back over to his bed, pulling off his jacket as he went. "Unless we're planning to try escaping from here, which I don't think would be wise, we should probably try sleeping. I suspect tomorrow will be an interesting day."

Kestrel nodded. "Like that Chinese curse, right?"

Nobody answered.


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Copyright ©1998 R. King-Nitschke. The Shadowrun universe is the property of FASA Corporation.
No part of this story may be reproduced without permission from the author.