Shadowrun, p.9
Shadowrun, page 9
“Time to negotiate.”
Her eyes opened. “You broke my ship.” She looked up at the gun, then at me. “I understand you’re mad, but I was just doin’ the job, Ice Cream. You understand, don’cha? It was just business.”
“So is this.” I pushed the barrel hard into the flawless skin of her brow. “No hard feelings, darlin’, but I want my fraggin’ money back!”
“You got it!” The terror in her eyes told me Rose knew how badly I wanted to pull that trigger.
“Now!”
“Right!” A virtual terminal popped up in front of her, evidence that my bullets hadn’t fragged her entire network. She pulled up the account she’d put my money in and typed in a transfer code. “Just need an account and routing number.”
I rattled off numbers for her, my IZOM shaking a little with the mounting fatigue and trauma. I hurt all over.
“There! It’s done.” Rose blanked the terminal and shifted her gaze to me. “Check it if you want, but I’d be a fool to cheat you with a gun to my head.”
“Yes, you would be.” I removed the muzzle from her forehead. It left a small circle of burned skin behind. I hoped it hurt. Business… “I’m going to let you live, Rose, but if anyone from my past comes knocking at my door, you’ll be the first person to receive a ten-millimeter brain enema. You got me?”
“I gotcha.” She got up from the couch and rubbed her forehead. “I wasn’t lyin’ when I said I was sorry, Ice Cream. You really are a piece of work.” Her smile nearly made me reconsider shooting her.
“Frag off.” I turned and walked out without any interference from Rose’s army of drones.
I limped out onto the trashed aft deck. We were drifting about a hundred yards off the pier, a crowd of gawkers staring and pointing at the ATV sticking out of the ass end of the ship. I began to wonder how I was going to get ashore when the thunder of VTOLs interrupted me.
Two combat aircraft swooped low over the city, a pillar of smoke from the Kofo compound billowing behind them. One came in close while the other circled. T’ing and OC hung out the door of the nearer one, ready for mayhem. I just grinned and waved, hooking a thumb into the air to tell him I could use a lift.
T’ing shouted something to the pilot and the aircraft hovered closer, the downdraft from the rotors buffeting me. The big troll knelt down and held out a platter-sized hand. I put mine in it and levitated up through the door as if by magic.
“Welcome aboard, ti fi!” T’ing staggered me with a clap to the back and grinned. “Nice party! T’anks for the invite!”
“Thanks for the evac.” I grinned back and accepted a warm embrace from OC. “Can you give me a lift to Havana?”
“Sure t’ing!” T’ing nodded, then sobered. “I hope you’re flush, ti fi. I told the crew we’d get paid fer this, and we lost a flier. That kinda hardware don’t come cheap.”
“Yeah, I’ll cover it.” I couldn’t be pissed at him; he’d just saved my life. A VTOL, however, would put a serious dent in my cred balance. “Maybe you could line up some work for me? I’ve got a certain lifestyle to support, mon.”
“No problem, ti fi!” T’ing lit up a cigar as big as my forearm and took a puff. “For you, I got plenty work!”
BLUEBIRD
(The Vigilante)
R.L. KING
I dream of the bluebird again, and wake up in a cold sweat. I barely make it to the bathroom in time not to throw up all over the floor.
Again.
It comes more often now—at least once a month—and even after all these years I don’t have a fragging idea why. I’d been having the dream for as long as I could remember, ever since I was a young teenager, but every time I try to figure out where it might be coming from, it flits away, just like that damn bird.
It’s never quite the same dream, either. The scene is always different, always dark and nightmarish and madly surreal, but the bird is the one constant—and always the most frightening part. I run and run but I can never get away from it. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I dreaming of a harmless bird? Why does it make my heart pound so hard I feel like it’s going to burst right out of my chest?
“The bluebird of happiness,” my ass. More like “the bluebird of abject terror.”
My comm buzzes while I’m splashing water over my face, and an LTG number pops up in the corner of my vision. I glance at it—no name, but I recognize it: Mr. Li is calling.
It’s time to go to work.
The light here was red.
It was always red: it was one of the constants the little girl had grown accustomed to. That, and the muffled sobs punctuated by occasional screams, and the mingled smells of rot and mold and old piss.
She knelt on a thin, smelly pallet tossed into the corner of a tiny room barely large enough to contain it and the bucket he made her use for a toilet. She was always cold in the threadbare dress she wore. She had no idea what he’d done with her own clothes—she’d been wearing this when she’d awakened. The dress was all he let her wear, so she did her best to keep her bare feet on the pallet, away from the slimy, sticky floor.
The manacle around her thin ankle was attached to a chain that was locked to the wall. She could reach the bucket, but that was all. He fed her once a day, a bowl of oatmeal and a plastic bottle of water. She got to keep the water until the next day, so she’d learned to conserve it. Sometimes the pipes in the ceiling dripped onto her as she huddled on the pallet. Sometimes the bugs crawled over her as she tried to sleep.
The only time she ever got to leave that tiny cell was when he took her to be cleaned up. And those were the worst times of all, because she knew what would happen next.
Those were the times when her voice would join the screams.
Mr. Li is waiting for me when I arrive at the restaurant’s back room. All around me, the familiar, delicious aromas of rice and chicken and spices permeate not only the air but the walls, the fixtures, even Mr. Li’s clothes. The faint clinks of plates and the cook’s voices calling to each other in Mandarin comfort me as little else ever could.
Mr. Li smiles fondly at me, his glittering black eyes crinkling with affection. “You should eat more, monkey. You’re too skinny.” He pats his own ample stomach in contentment. His accent is strong, but his English is perfect.
Even after all these years, he still calls me ‘monkey,’ and even after all these years, it still gives me a warm feeling. Even though he’s not my father, I feel like I’d imagine I would if I had a real father. I wait, knowing he’ll speak when he’s ready.
He pushes a package across the table toward me. “I have a delivery I wish you to make, if you would be so kind. It is a special tea one of my friends has ordered, and he’s quite eager to sample it. I have already sent you the address and the details.”
“Of course, Baba.” I pick up the package and put it into a small bag hanging from my belt. “I’ll give your regards to your friend, and be back soon.”
“Be careful, my dear.”
“I’m always careful, Baba.” I lean down and kiss his wrinkled forehead.
The little girl pressed herself into the corner of her tiny room as she heard footsteps coming down the row. She prayed they wouldn’t stop in front of her door, then felt guilty about it: if they didn’t stop for her, they’d stop for one of the other children in one of the other makeshift rooms. She didn’t know how many there were, because the moans and the cries all melted together into a constant low-level cacophony, but sometimes she wondered. Were there only a few? Many? Dozens? The same ones, or did they change?
Already, she had lost track of time, of how long she’d been here. With no way to know night from day, or one day from the next, the time progressed with interminable slowness. She remembered being on the street a little too late one day, hiding behind a dumpster until a group of gangers had tired of hassling some poor slot in an alleyway. She remembered emerging when they’d gone, hurrying to reach the squat she shared with a couple of older children before it got too dark and the predators came out. And then someone had grabbed her from the shadows and put something over her face. Something that smelled sharp, like medicine.
And then she woke up here.
Her door creaked open, letting in more of the hellish red light. A tall, slim figure stood in the doorway.
“Hello, little one,” he said. His voice was soft, with a strange undercurrent. “Ready to play?”
The little girl shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.
The cold air revives me as I zip through the darkened Seattle streets on my sleek black Rapier, driving off the last vestiges of the dream. I think about Baba and smile. The pretense started a few years ago, when I began working for him at sixteen. First a few close courier runs, delivering “tea” to some of Mr. Li’s most trustworthy customers, and then, as I got older and more capable, other jobs requiring more responsibility and discretion, more speed and strength.
He’d learned not to worry about me—he knew I could take care of myself. I’d made sure of that as best as I could from the time I was a young child, and he’d been generous as I grew older, paying for the mods and weapons and training that made me swift, strong, and deadly. Now, at twenty-four (or so—I wasn’t completely sure), there wasn’t much on the streets that could tangle with me and come out unscathed.
I don’t think Mr. Li ever understood my driving need never to be a victim—which didn’t surprise me, because I don’t either. But he’s proud of what the ragged little stray he rescued from the alley behind his restaurant has become. That, I do know.
It’s weird not to remember the first ten years of your life, but there you go. I used to get bits and snatches sometimes of a life on the street, hustling and scavenging with other street kids, but everything from about the age of nine to eleven is a blank in my mind. It’s as if somebody took a scalpel and carefully carved that part out. I don’t remember anything about the year or two before Mr. Li found me and took me in.
All I know is, if he hadn’t done that, I’d be dead.
She didn’t cry this time. She didn’t scream. It wasn’t for any noble, brave reason, or because of any sort of defiance. She simply didn’t have it in her to cry anymore.
The room he took her to was different from the others. For one thing, the light wasn’t red, For another, it didn’t smell as bad as the rest of the place did. It had a real bed with a black satin cover, a table, and even a portable trid player. He had it playing Cyberpony Adventures. The bouncy, cheerful theme song sounded wrong in this room.
She closed her eyes as he loomed over her, seeing his leering face in her mind’s eye, picturing the flash of blue on one of his pale hands as they pinned down her thin, trembling arms. He always wore a grinning mask so she couldn’t see his features, but his eyes burned out of it, roving up and down her body like he was inspecting goods on the shelf at the Stuffer Shack. She wished she could just go away from here—send her mind off somewhere else, somewhere happy. Even her life on the street would be better than this.
But she couldn’t do that. The best she could do was keep her eyes closed and sing to herself. When she couldn’t remember any songs, she made up her own.
It will be over soon, she told herself.
Just like all the other times.
Ashamed, she hoped he’d focus on the others for a while and leave her alone after this.
The delivery address is an old warehouse on a side street in the Redmond Barrens. I pull my bike around the side of the building, point it toward the street in case I have to make a quick getaway, and check my weapons. Moving with oiled grace, I cycle my cybereyes through their modes: thermo, low-light, ultrasound. I’m not afraid, but I’m cautious. I’m always cautious, because there’s always somebody out there who can hide better than I can find them.
I send the code Baba gave me, and the door swings open. I enter, one hand on my custom Predator.
The customer’s inside. He sits at a table playing cards with two others. All men, all human. Two others, a beefy ork and another human, lounge in the background. I peg them instantly as hired muscle.
The customer grins, running his gaze up and down my body. “Right on time,” he says. “You got the tea?”
“Right here.” I pat the bag. “You got the money?”
“Lemme see it.”
I frown. “You don’t trust Mr. Li? That’s a dangerous thing, if you want to continue as his valued customer.” Nonetheless, I remove the box and set it on the table. My cybereyes are tracking the room, my ears picking up minute sounds from around me, the cameras in my glasses scanning the area behind me. Nothing moves except for the men. Probably not a setup, but I don’t relax. I never relax while I’m working.
His grin widens. “Nah, I trust Mr. Li. We’re good.” He fiddles with his ’link and an AR pops up in the corner of my eye: the funds have been transferred.
“It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” he says. And then something changes in his smile. “Why don’t you stay a while, baby? Sample the tea with us?”
One of the other men starts to get up. His expression is the same as the first one’s. “Great idea. Come on, honey. Let’s party a little before you have to go back to the old man.”
I sigh. I get this a lot, and it pisses me off. Men piss me off. They’re always the same.
Oddly, the third one stays put. “Leave her alone, you two,” he drawls. “Can’t you see she’s not interested?” His voice sounds distantly familiar, but I can’t place it. I hear a lot of voices. Probably somebody from the restaurant. He’s about forty, tall and slim. Well dressed. Unlike the other two, his eyes don’t study me like I’m a piece of meat.
“He’s right. I’m not interested.” I don’t care if I bruise their frail egos. If they have a problem with it, I can handle them.
As I turn to leave, I take one last glance at the third man. I still think he’s familiar somehow. I glance at his hand, with its long fingers wrapped around a glass of golden liquor. He has a tattoo across the back of it. My gaze slides over it, then locks.
It’s a bluebird.
In a rush, I remember.
Everything.
The little girl woke to the sensation of movement.
Someone was carrying her.
With self-preservation instincts already fully formed, she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t move. She remained limp, pretending she was still unconscious. Maybe if he thought she wasn’t awake, he’d take her back to her little room and leave her alone for a while.
The movement stopped. She felt—was that a breeze? Cold air? It sliced through her thin dress, and she panicked. If she shivered—
He laid her down on a pile of something that smelled like blood and decay. Then she heard voices.
Someone else was here. A woman. Someone who could help her?
The two spoke in low murmurs. The little girl strained her ears to hear them. Did she dare make herself known?
“—only got two for you today—”
“—said three. What—”
“—have another one tomorrow.” The voice rose a little, as if the speaker had turned toward her. “That one. I’m tired of her, and I think she’s getting sick.”
Footsteps. He was approaching her. Ohnonono…It took all the willpower she had to continue lying still.
He didn’t touch her, though. She felt the heat of his body as he leaned down next to her, smelled his horrible cologne and the liquor on his breath.
A childish moan, fuzzy and indistinct, to her left.
The little girl dared to crack her eyes open, just a bit.
He was turning away, back toward the woman, holding another small, still form that must have been next to her. He moved off.
“—should bring a good price,” the woman said. “—already have buyers for—”
The man laughed. “Tell your friends not to eat him all in one sitting.”
“Let me take the girl now.”
A long, dragging silence, then: “Hell, why not? Cost you extra, though. She—”
The little girl ran.
She didn’t think she had the strength in her to do it, but she found it from somewhere deep within her. She leaped up from the pile of rags and dashed forward, past the man, past the woman, out through the open door.
She heard their yells behind her. Their pounding footsteps.
She didn’t look back.
She ran off into the night, and she didn’t stop.
I still don’t know how I got out of there without any of them catching on. I still don’t know how I didn’t just keel over at the warehouse when the memories—nearly a year of pent-up, blocked-off memories—hit me like a solid wall of ferrocrete right to the head. I thought I was going to faint, to puke, to snap and attack the guy right there where he sat and rip him to shreds, despite the presence of four other armed men.
Somehow I did get out, though—just like somehow, I managed to get past him all those years ago and run away into the night, when my skinny legs were weak and my stomach clenched with hunger and my small body ached from everything that man had done to me in that hellish warehouse.
I sent the money for the “tea” to Baba while I tore on my bike through the rain-slicked Seattle streets, back to my flat like the monster was still chasing me. When I got home, I sat on my bed, panting, heart pounding, and cycled through all the images I’d snapped of him with my cybereyes’ camera. Close-ups of his face and his hand with the tattoo, longer shots of his body.
I thought, briefly, about getting Baba involved. I knew he had plenty of connections that could help me, and I knew he would move any necessary mountains to track the man down.
But if he found out why I wanted him to do it, he’d also make sure the monster disappeared, and was never heard from again. I didn’t want that.
