Jane-in-the-box paced around her electronics, trying to pump some blood into her bony limbs before jacking back into the datastream. She took another bite of her ham and swiss croissant, a special gift from the cook, Enrico-a troll with a huge gut and a penchant for French cuisine.
Her trid interface beeped, indicating that her smartframe had completed its scan-and-evaluate cycle. And found a match, she noted. "Fragging sweet," she said. There was no one else in the huge chamber, and her words echoed off the hewn stone walls of the cavern. Jane often spoke to herself when she wasn't jacked in. It kept her company and helped to organize her mind.
After Ryan's call asking her to dig up any information on the location of the Dragon Heart, Jane had scanned the security video to try to get an ID on the perps who had lifted the Dragon Heart. One of her image-recognition routines that searched for distinctive markings picked out a tattoo on the partially exposed forearm of one of the runners. A woman, and probably a mage, based on what she was wearing.
The tattoo was a crescent moon, under a flapping narrow banner and a sword. On the banner was a word, "Tal'shai." Jane had laughed aloud. This was almost too easy.
She'd programmed another frame to search the datanets for several variables, including a match or partial match to the tattoo, and any known elven shadowrun teams with the rep or resources to pull off a run against the high security of the lair.
Now, Jane jacked in, entering the oh-so-familiar virtual space of her riveted steel box. Six sides of brushed gray metal animating around her. The results of the smartframe
flowed in the dataspace in front of her, and as she scanned it, she separated the data into two bins, hits and misses.
The smartframe had found the tattooed word in Jane's online Sperethiel dictionary. It meant "black widow spider." That didn't narrow down the choices at all. Any elven runner could go by that name. But as Jane continued her scan, she reprogrammed on the fly to modify the smart frame to narrow its search parameters as she rejected the bogus and reinforced those her gut told her were on target.
She found the trend at the same time as her frame. A dead elf with the same tattoo had been discovered by Seattle Lone Star. Except there were no words on the banner. This one had a small black symbol-three triangles with their points almost touching, slightly offset from center. This dead elf was male and didn't look like any of those who'd taken the Dragon Heart.
The Lone Star report said that the tattoo identified the deceased as security for the Atlantean Foundation. The smart-frame had searched the personnel files of the Atlantean Foundation, but there were no security personnel listed. Jane knew they got their security from the Mystic Crusaders, an enigmatic organization whose purpose Jane did not know.
"Very interesting," Jane said to herself. She knew that the Atlantean Foundation collected artifacts and powerful magic items. Even if the Mystic Crusaders were mysterious, it was likely that the AF was behind the theft. But where had they taken the Dragon Heart?
Jane prepped to enter the Matrix. She would do some digging into a few of the Foundation's hosts, and see if there had been any deliveries of a special nature in the past twelve hours. She chuckled to herself. This was going to be fun.
There was only one detail that nagged in the back of her mind. Conspiracy theorists claimed that the Atlantean Foundation was run not just by elves, but by immortal elves. Elves whose existence had never been proven, but who were said to have been born thousands of years ago. Jane believed that one or two immortal elves did exist; she'd done enough decking for Dunkelzahn that she knew certain things. But she didn't think they were behind the Atlantean Foundation. There was no direct evidence to show it.
At least she hoped not. These immortals were extremely
powerful and cunning. Even Dunkelzahn had respected their power. If they had the Dragon Heart, even Quicksilver himself, Dunkelzahn's greatest operative, would be severely outmatched.