Ragnarock by Stephen Kenson Read Free Book Online Page A

himself out of a lot of close scrapes. He tended to look on the bad side of things, a habit that had saved his hide more than once.
    Talon took a seat next to Trouble on a leather couch. Boom was seated behind his desk, while Val and Hammer occupied the two chairs to either side.
    "The bad parts are: One, the target who has the artifact is in the German Alliance, somewhere in the Rhine-Ruhr plex, one of the biggest sprawls in the world. Two, he's a professor of archeology at the
University
of
Kiev
in Russia, who apparently beat one of his own students to death with a hammer before he absconded with said artifact. And, three, the dig he was working on was sponsored by Brackhaus' boss, Saeder-Krupp."
    "That means Lofwyr's involved." Boom said, setting the credstick aside for the moment.
    Talon shrugged. "There's not a whole lot going on with S-K that Lofwyr's not involved with, chummer."
    "Still," Trouble said, "that leaves a whole lot of unanswered questions about the run."
    Talon nodded. "I know. I've been thinking about those for a while. The main ones I can see are: why do Brackhaus and Saeder-Krupp want to hire out-of-town talent for this run when there are plenty of shadowrunners in Germany who'd gladly take it on, and what is it about this artifact that it's such a big deal for Saeder-Krupp to get it back? They sure as hell aren't worried about its historical value or putting it in some museum."
    "Look at the last one first." Boom said. "What is this 'artifact' Brackhaus is talking about?"
    "That's just it, he doesn't know, or at least he claims not to know. The artifact they dug up was some kind of clay tablet. Apparently, Dr. Goronay smashed it and took something that was hidden inside. Since the only other guy who saw what was inside is dead, nobody knows what Goronay found."
    "Hmmm, that makes things more difficult." Boom said, rubbing his chin. "Could it be magical?"
    "Maybe. I've run into drek people have dug up from gods know where that had some serious mojo to it. I ran into plenty of things like that working for the Draco Foundation, and even that key Brackhaus hired us to find is pretty old, not like a conventional magical item at all. Maybe Lofwyr's collecting a set of them or something."
    "Going to be difficult to find something when we don't even know what it looks like." Boom muttered.
    "We don't have to." Trouble said. "Sounds like we just have to find Goronay. Find him, and we find whatever he took."
    "The question is: do we want to do it?" Talon looked around the room at the rest of the team.
    "Not me." Val said, speaking for the first time since Talon entered the room. "I'm out." She stood up from her chair, snatched her leather jacket from the back, and headed out the door.
    "Val, wait a—" Talon started as the door slammed shut behind her. He turned to Hammer. "What the hell was that about?" The ork had worked with Valkyrie longer than any of them, so he knew her best.
    "Not sure," he said, "but Val's from Germany, you know."
    "No," Talon said, "I didn't." But then, he knew very little about the team's mysterious rigger. Val was an expert in piloting or driving just about anything, but she kept pretty quiet about her past.
    "Yeah," Hammer said, "I got the impression that she had some pretty bad drek happen there, that she was just glad to be out of it. I dunno what happened, though. She didn't offer, and I didn't ask. Want me to talk to her?"
    "No." Talon said. "I'll do it." He was supposed to be in charge of this team, that made it his job. He nodded in Boom's direction. "Start talking about what we're going to need for this job so we can tell Brackhaus—assuming you chummers are still interested." Everyone in the room nodded as Talon headed out the door.
    He found Val standing on a balcony overlooking one of the Avalon's dance floors. Employees were cleaning up, stocking the bar, and getting the place ready for the customers who would begin packing the joint in a few more hours. Her jacket was