vanished in a cloud of digital static, dumped from the system entirely. The sudden and unexpected force of the backlash sent Ariel skittering away from the doomed datastore as the computer system suddenly came to life around her. The lighting of the system shifted from silvery gray to deep and pulsating red as the entire system went on alert. From the static and snow of the datastore's demise stepped a black-armored figure like a robot designed to look like an ancient Japanese samurai. The figure seemed to absorb light into its black surface except for the edge of its long, curved sword, which gleamed wickedly, a touch of programming flair Ariel had to admire even as the helmeted head of the samurai slowly turned and scanned the system. It locked a gaze on Ariel made up of two burning red points of light deep within the slit of its helmet, and she knew it was too late for her to activate any of her masking programs to get away. The ice had spotted her. As the silent black form of the samurai stepped closer, Ariel readied herself for a fight. The ice was in the depths of the system, protecting some of the highest-security files, which could only mean it was black ice, a force known and feared by deckers everywhere in the shadows as the only ice that did more than damage software and hardware. Black ice targeted the wetware, the brain of the user, with a lethal jolt of energy. One wrong move and you were dead.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. -Ecclesiastes 9:11

As the Hughes WK-2 Stallion helicopter cut through the night sky over the Boston sprawl, Harlan Hammarand checked his sidearm for what must have been the tenth time since takeoff. He knew that everything about the Colt Man-hunter was in perfect working order, since he kept the gun in top shape, but the task of checking the firearm gave his hands something to do as the seconds ticked away on their final approach toward the Mandala Technologies facility. Ariel reported that she had taken care of the security systems, just as Harlan knew she would. Ariel was the best decker he'd ever worked with and he counted on her to handle anything the system could throw at her. Harlan had the same confidence in the rest of his team. The Hammermen, they were called, after Harlan's handle on the streets: "The Hammer." The ork mercenary had picked up the name during his younger days on the harsh streets of New York City, where he ran with one of the hundreds of gangs living in that urban jungle. Unlike most of them, Harlan had turned his talent for street-fighting and organized mayhem into a marketable skill that had gotten him out of the barrens and barrios of the Rotten Apple and on to bigger and better things. Most of his omaes from the old gang were long dead, but Harlan was still around. That was a trend he aimed to continue for as long as he was able. Hammer looked over at the rest of the team huddled in the back of the chopper. Sloane, Tojo, and Tootall were all mercs he had worked with for years. They'd met in the trenches of the Desert Wars, and they still came through for him just as dependably in the canyons of the concrete jungle. Sloane and Tojo were humans, as different as night and day. Sloane was tall, blond, and Nordic, with a build to nearly rival Hammer's bulky ork physique. Tojo was small, lithe, and Asian. Both men were as capable with their bare hands as they were with an AK-97. Tootall hardly needed any of the weapons he wore on his harness. Some three meters tall and weighing in at almost two hundred kilos, the troll was a fearsome fighter using nothing more than his massive fists, each one capable of crushing a human's skull. All of the men sat silently, either looking out the window or at the walls or floor of the chopper's cabin, each wrapped up in his own thoughts about the action to come. Geist sat away from the rest of the crew. The mage was small and slight, only little taller than Tojo and not as well-muscled. His hair and skin were pale and looked washed out in the dim light of the cabin, adding to the ghostly appearance that gave him his street name. Geist was German by birth, but Hammer had known him for several years in the shadows of cities from North Africa to North America. The street mage had considerable skill at his job, having been trained at a university in his native Germany before being forced out into the shadows by an incident he never talked about. Hammer suspected it had something to do with Geist's famous indiscretions with women, particularly those who were married and supposed to be off-limits. Whatever his personal habits, Hammer found the mage to be more than capable at his job. Right now, Geist sat quietly in the back of the cabin, eyes closed in silent meditation, centering himself and gathering his magical power. Hammer knew that that power would be needed before the night was out. He had a strange feeling about this run. Not that it was all that unusual. Hammer had pulled off tougher extraction runs than what he knew about this one. It wasn't the mission itself, but the setting and the unusual speed the Johnson demanded for pulling off the extraction. Hammer had the impression the Johnson had gotten the word that he needed to act quickly. That was the way things went in Boston these days: things were happening fast and you had to keep up. Get out of the way or else get run over. The Boston sprawl had been something of a quiet town for shadowrunners until the last couple of years or so. It was the location of the East Coast Stock Exchange ever since the earthquake that had devastated New York City years before Hammer was even born. The importance of the stock exchange to the economy sustaining all of the megacorporations was enough to make the major multinationals declare Boston "off-limits" to the usual kind of shadow operations the corps routinely conducted against one another. Boston had become a city of "corporate pride" that the megacorp bigwigs could trust as "neutral ground" for their dealings with their rivals. The cutthroat business of Boston was conducted in board rooms and on the stock exchange, not in back alleys like it was in cities like Seattle, New York, and Atlanta. After the assassination of the great dragon Dunkelzahn, corporate competition in Boston took on a new tone. Many up and coming smaller corps, supported by money from the dragon's vast estate, were now in a position to compete with some of the big boys. Other corporations found their structures shaken up by redistributions of stock and assets in the dragon's will. The death of a single, powerful being had sent Shockwaves through the corporate world and into the shadows of the Boston metroplex. Suddenly, a place that was once neutral ground became a hotbed of shadow activity, pitting every company against the others in the race to get the latest and greatest advance. The heart of the UCAS high-technology industry, Boston had begun to see far more corporate espionage and black ops than the plex's small pool of shadowrunners could handle. That was why out-of-town talent like the Hammermen had become such an increasingly common part of the Boston underworld.

There was plenty of work to be had in the Boston shadows lately, if you were good enough. The job Hammer and his team were on now was just the kind of work-showing up in Boston lately. The ork didn't know for certain who they were working for-knowing your employer was a privilege to be earned in the shadows, or information you had to find out for yourself if you were looking to hedge your bets. Most employers of shadow-talent preferred anonymity, going by the universal name of "Mr. Johnson." The Hammermen's current Johnson was Japanese, which made the name all the more ironic. Ariel had done some checking on him and hadn't turned up much. Clearly, Mr. Johnson was a cautious man. Ariel believed Mr. J worked for Renraku. Word on the streets said the megacorporate computer giant was running a lot of operations against their rival Fuchi in the past months. But Hammer had his own suspicions about who the team's new employer was. The target Mr. Johnson wanted was a small computer corp called Mandala Technologies in a small high-tech research park in the Route 128 area. At first glance it looked no different than any of the hundred small technology corps in the area, but Ariel did some digging and came up with some interesting facts. It looked like Mandala was owned through a series of holding companies that traced back to none other than Richard Villiers himself, king of the Fuchi corporate empire. The interesting thing about the facility was that Fuchi didn't own it, but Villiers did. The baby corp wasn't part of the "Fuchi family of companies," as the corporate reports liked to read. It was part of what looked to be a growing number of companies in the UCAS owned by Villiers alone, part of a personal financial empire the Fuchi CEO seemed to be building for himself. Hammer had heard rumors that there was trouble brewing in Fuchi's ranks. The corp had always been split between the three internal factions who controlled it. Villiers currently had the upper hand over the other two, both of them powerful Japanese industrial families. Having the upper hand, however, seemed to be a good reason for the Japanese families to set aside their differences and work to bring Villiers down a peg or two. The fact that their CEO was building his own power base behind the backs of his Japanese partners could not sit too well with them. Add in the fact that the Johnson was a Japanese who seemed to know a lot about the facility and Hammer suspected Fuchi was already splitting into camps and that there were going to be plenty more operations like the one they were handling tonight. If all went well, there could be the promise of additional work for the team. Hammer just wanted to make sure he didn't join up with the wrong side. Corporate internal conflicts were nearly always the nastiest. They say nobody knows how to fight like family, and when it came to the megacorps, that was doubly true. A Fuchi internal struggle could be very profitable, but it could also lead to runners working on the wrong side ending up very dead. "One minute to the LZ, boss," came a voice from the front of the cabin. Hammer looked up from his work on the Manhunter and bolstered the pistol at his side. "Okay, boys, get ready for some action," he said to the rest of the Hammermen. He turned toward the front of the chopper as Val guided them in toward the target. The Mandala Tech building was exactly as shown in the holes and specs Hammer had seen, a small office park structure like dozens of others in the Route 128 area. The broad band of highway north of downtown Boston was the highest concentration of high-tech companies and corporate research facilities in the plex. The office part was the same as most of the others, a three-story structure of brick and modern ferrocrete composites with windows of tinted glass and a broad, open parking area currently vacant of vehicles. There was a small expanse of open ground behind the building with a small pond and benches where employees could take their lunches when the weather allowed. Some tall stands of trees surrounded the plot of land on which the building was situated. Although the landscaping and design of the facility were intended to be pleasant to view, Hammer's trained eye could see that the design was planned as much for security as for aesthetics. The terrain around the building was planted with trees, which blocked a clear view of the building from neighboring plots and the road. The small pond provided some natural defense from any approach from the side of the building as well as an additional surface for radar to scan for unusual vibrations or indications of movement. The parking area was an open expanse perfect for sweeping with sensors of all kinds, and could become an open killing zone if the company decided to exercise their right to protect their territory with deadly force. Fortunately, the Hammermen wouldn't have to worry about any of those security measures if Ariel had handled the main computer system as planned. "Hammer to Trouble, report," Hammer said into his throat mike. A burst of static greeted him, followed by the decker's voice. "I'm a little busy right now, Boss," Ariel said. "We've got an active alert down here. Security's suppressed, but something else crashed a lot of the system. Things are going crazy." A harsh burst of static drowned out whatever else she was going to say. Hammer listened on the channel for a moment. "Trouble? Trouble, do you copy?" There was only silence of the line. From the cockpit of the chopper, Val called back to the leader of the Hammermen. "What's the word, Boss? Do we hit the LZ or fly by?" Hammer considered his answer carefully. Ariel's message made it clear that all was not going as planned. If there was a dust-up, he could be leading his team into a deathtrap of corporate security just waiting for them. On the other hand, if the security system was still offline, as Ariel said, it was possible the system crash could serve as a distraction for the operation. If Hammer scrubbed the run, the team would never get another chance at their target. Corporate security would be on alert, and they would move the target to a safer location. The run would be for nothing, and the team would be in the red for the expenses they'd