Ragnarock by Stephen Kenson

get me off the streets and off the chips. It was hard, really hard, kicking the chips. I was so afraid of dealing with reality, but she helped me through it. Eventually, I managed to get clean.
    "Estelle had some friends, people who worked in the underground: neo-anarchists, shadowrunners, witches, that sort. They helped to smuggle food, medicine, and tech to different places in the Alliance, especially
Berlin
, past the government and corporate cordons. I started helping them out. Turned out I was really good working with the beat-up vehicles they had. I'd always had a knack for mechanical things, even as a kid, but my father didn't think little girls should get their hands dirty. I loved working on those old crates. They were held together with spit and bailing wire, but we kept them running.
    "Along the way, 'Stelle tried to teach me some magic. I really gave her a hard time. I was still so freaked out about it. I mean, I saw Estelle and her friends do magic, and it wasn't that scary when they did it, but every time I tried to learn to do something, all I could think about was the priest yelling about how the devil had my soul and how my father looked at me like I was something . . . something disgusting to him." Tears ran down Val's cheeks, and Talon was tempted to reach out and brush them away, but he stayed where he was, listening to her story.
    "I got more and more into the rigging side of things; learning to drive just about anything, working with the border runners to bring in supplies for the black market, dodging patrols and having a blast. I lived for the rush of it, and knowing I was doing some good. Eventually, I decided to use the cred and the contacts I'd built up to get the cyberware to rig for real. Estelle tried to convince me not to, said it would damage my Talent beyond repair. I didn't care. I didn't want it, I couldn't deal with it. We fought like cats and dogs about it. Finally, I left. I went to
Berlin
and got my brain re-wired, got a rigger link and some other cyber. There was plenty of demand in Europe for a good rigger who knew how to get past border patrols.
    "It was almost like the chips." she said softly. "Jacking into a car or a chopper and feeling it like it was my own body. The rush I got from rigging was the best thing in the world. I noticed after a while that my visions went away altogether, but I didn't really care. I was kind of glad they were gone.
    "After a while, I hooked up with a mage, Geist."
    Val smiled ruefully and snorted a laugh. "Funny, I always seem to end up running into mages who change my life." She glanced over at Talon.
    "Anyway, Geist and I were hot and heavy for a while, about two months. After that, we realized we were totally wrong for each other, but that we worked well together. We pulled some runs in the UCAS with Hammer and ended up in Boston. Hammer convinced us to stay, and things around here were just heating up, so we did. Geist bought it on a run against one of Villiers' companies a few years back when Fuchi came apart in '59. I stayed with the team. You pretty much know the rest."
    Val folded her arms along the railing and leaned her head forward, as if all the talking had exhausted her. The tears were drying, and she seemed tired. "I haven't thought about Germany for years, or what I lost there. Lately, though, working with you, I wonder sometimes what might have been if I hadn't decided to throw away what I had. I'm a damn good rigger, and I love doing what I do, but sometimes I can't help but wonder about the magic . . ." She shrugged, as if to end the whole train of thought.
    Talon took advantage of the moment to speak.
    "Look, Val." he said. "If you don't want to take this run, I understand. You do what you've got to do, nobody's going to say otherwise. But we could really use someone who knows her way around Germany, and this job is going to take a lot of sophisticated surveillance if we're going to track down our target in any kind of reasonable time.