by Mel Odom
Using a small knife, Carter stripped some of the wires and touched them together. Sparks flared. Then, with a rattle of wire mesh and a rasp of steel on concrete, the gates parted.
“Got it.” Carter folded her knife and put it away as she stood. “Let’s go.”
I took lead, like I always had when Duncan and I had made our way along the streets.
Light shone down in a spotty pattern, tearing away some of the darkness in a few areas inside the new dock. I halted a few meters inside and swept the area with my low-light vision, noting piles of cargo and machinery. The storage area on our left and the high wall on our right framed two water pits used for loading submersibles. The area between the two wet loading areas formed a perfect killbox.
Not entirely satisfied by the apparent fact we were alone, I moved forward warily.
Movement caught my eye and I spotted a gang of guys lifting a crate from a low-slung matte black speedboat that I was willing to bet was covered in anti-radar protection. The vessel was made for fast deliveries and escaping detection.
The boat pilot powered up his craft and sped away. Caught off guard, the guys handling the crate dropped their prize into the water and it sank immediately. They turned their attention to me and Duncan and his lady friend.
Dressed in armor and holding weapons, the smugglers burst out of the shadows to our left. A torrent of Cantonese reached my ears and I struggled to make sense of it. The language hadn’t been spoken much in lockdown, not with the guys I’d hung with.
Pistol ready, I took cover and started to tell Carter and Duncan to do the same, but they were already in motion, moving like a well-oiled machine.
Duncan called to them, speaking flawless Cantonese. I understood him a lot better. The old man had made us learn the language, and he never spoke anything else around the home. He hadn’t talked much about his past, but he’d clung to parts of it all the same.
“You guys doing some late night fishing?” Duncan didn’t back off, didn’t make apologies or tried to defuse the situation. He went right at it, letting them know we were ready to handle whatever they dished out.
He hadn’t been that confrontational when I’d known him. I figured it must have been the Lone Star training.
A bald Asian ork with cyberware over his left eyebrow and Chinese tattoos grinned at us from behind a stack of crates. “Oh, yeah. We’re fishing for assholes.”
Duncan used the laser sight on the AK-97 assault rifle he’d pulled from under his long coat to light up the pistol in the man’s hands. “You’re gonna need some better bait. All you’re gonna catch with that is trouble.”
The smuggler ducked and scuttled to a new location. Duncan had given up a free shot.
I glared at him and spoke low enough that only he could hear me. “Seriously? Did they teach you that in rent-a-cop school?”
He just grinned at me, and turned his attention back to the smugglers. He’d changed. He was starting to sound like I had back in those days. Way too confident.
Reaching under his jacket, Duncan pulled out his Lone Star badge and flashed it. “Lone Star. Put the guns down.”
“Never seen a badge like that before,” the smuggler leader yelled back.
I could understand the Cantonese better now. Maybe the adrenaline spiking my system was helping with that.
“Either it’s fake, or you’re some kind of security guard,” the smuggler yelled back. “Either way, this ends the same.”
“I think he’s done talking,” Carter growled. Her hands shimmered and I felt the tickle of magic across the back of my neck. Apparently guns weren’t Carter’s preferred weapons.
I fired two quick rounds into the smuggler leader, hitting with both. One thudded against the body armor, but the other threw a spray of blood from his left shoulder, staggering him for a moment.
Carter threw her hands forward and two shimmering masses about the size of pumpkins sped toward the leader. One of them smashed into another of the four smugglers and rocked him back from cover.
A third smuggler broke from hiding and rushed Duncan with a katana in his hands. Duncan tattooed the guy with rounds, but the smuggler never broke stride, and I knew he was cybered up.
Then I lost sight of Duncan because the smuggler leader blistered the pile of metal pipes I’d taken cover behind with gunfire. Ricochets screamed in every direction, but none of the rounds touched me.
A ball of shimmering energy slammed into me just as the back of my neck prickled and I knew one of the smugglers was a mage. I tracked him and took deliberate aim. Duncan blocked the sword attack with his rifle, then managed to put two more rounds into his opponent.
I fired at the mage, hitting him, and saw that Carter had found him, too. Both of her mana bolts struck the man and knocked him back.
I moved forward and took up new cover behind a bigger crate, getting a better angle on the mage, and put two more rounds into him. The Guardian’s recoil was almost nonexistent, and I appreciated the craftsmanship that had gone into the weapon as the mage dropped into a loose sprawl.
Duncan blocked the sword guy again, stepping into him and wrapping his big right arm around the smuggler’s neck. Before the smuggler could bring his weapon into play, the big ork snapped his neck. The sharp crack of breaking bone pierced even the gunfire. Releasing the dead man, Duncan spun and dropped to new cover, already bringing his weapon up and laying down suppressive fire.
I took advantage of the distraction and sprinted along the water pits, closing the distance on the leader. He didn’t know I was on him until it was too late. He tried to turn, but I put two rounds through his head from point blank range.
Duncan and Carter kept the last man pinned down as I hustled toward him beneath the cover of the security lamppost. He caught sight of me at the last second, and brought his shotgun up when I was still three meters away.
I launched myself into a baseball slide, hoping the rain and the armor wouldn’t generate friction and stop me from reaching him before he killed me. It was like I’d dropped onto a sheet of ice. I slid toward him as double-aught buckshot cracked concrete just behind my head.
I drove my feet into his ankles, felt one break, and readied myself as he fell. I grabbed hold of his chest armor and swung myself astride him, pinning his arms, then put two rounds through his open mouth. He shivered and was gone almost as fast as the speedboat. Dead weight in my hands.
I got to my feet and checked the rounds I had left in the Guardian. There weren’t many, but the dead man in front of me carried a Guardian along with his shotgun. I took his spare magazines, even the one in his pistol, but I left the weapon there because I had no idea what criminal history it might have. These hadn’t been nice guys.
Duncan and Carter walked toward me in a tandem formation that told me they’d worked together a long time and been in bad situations before. They were loose and ready, and I couldn’t help but feel a little pride at the way Duncan had handled himself. But part of me felt sad, too, that he would ever have stepped into this life.
“Think those guys were triad?” Carter asked.
“Not sure,” Duncan said. “I don’t recognize the tattoos.”
I didn’t either, but the tattoos shared too many commonalities not to mean something. I thought about everything I knew about Asian gangs, but the only ones I’d had contact with were transplants. Things were probably done differently here in Hong Kong.
I went through the smugglers’ bodies and stripped them of nuyen and anything else I thought might be valuable. I didn’t find much, but every little bit added to the war fund. Duncan folded his arms unhappily and Carter looked on with obvious disdain.
“We’re in a foreign land,” I pointed out as I went through the last guy’s pockets. “The old man’s missing, and we have no idea what we’re up against. Or who. I don’t know what resources you guys have in Hong Kong, but I’m standing here in what I have. So I’m gonna take whatever I find and hope it’s enough.”
Neither of t
hem said anything, but neither of them tried to stop me.
“I spotted something back here.” I led them to the lamppost, to the metal storage container I’d noticed on my way to attack the last of the smugglers. It looked about big enough to store a body or two, and rust speckled the exterior.
“You gonna open that?” Duncan asked.
“Yeah.” I didn’t make a habit of leaving things behind when I might be able to salvage something.
“It could be booby-trapped,” Carter protested.
“That’s why I’m gonna check first.” I knelt in front of the container and gingerly felt around for wiring or any other surprises. Carter grabbed Duncan’s arm and pulled him farther back. I ignored them.
After I found nothing, unable to walk away because of that innate curiosity that filled me, despite the fact that mostly it had brought me trouble over the years, I opened the container.
Nothing exploded, which was good.
The container held a lot of what I assumed was nautical gear, ropes and stuff, but it also had a vial tucked away in one corner. I reached in and took it out, then held it up in the light to study. The transplas cylinder held a bilious yellow liquid that I recognized at once.
“That’s Tokko,” Carter said, approaching me after I hadn’t ended up scattered across the pier. I thought maybe she was disappointed. “A street drug made from Kamikaze. Users enhance fighting endurance with it.”
“I know,” I told her. Kamikaze was a combat stim. Addiction was physically detrimental and repeated abuse led to megalomania that usually got the heavy users killed because they thought they were gods. I’d learned about the drug from an ork street sam named Stardragon who’d worked in a triad-controlled gentlemen’s club downtown. She’d been a straight shooter, tough as they came.
I pocketed the vial.
“You’re taking that?” Carter asked.
“On the streets, it’s the same as a blank credstick. Somebody will pay for it.” I turned to the next set of gates behind us. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 6
Shootout
The second gate stood slightly ajar, and showed dents and scratches from long abuse. I figured security might not be as tight here, but Carter still had to work her wiring skills to get us through.
A short corridor of neon-lit shops led us to another gate, this one already open. Evidently Hong Kong denizens liked compartmentalizing their lives, even if it meant they lived in small spaces.
As I watched Carter work, I talked to Duncan, hoping to ease some of the tension between us. “I thought she was a mage.”
“Speak Cantonese,” Duncan said in that language. He even sounded like the old man.
I frowned at him. “What’s with the lecture?”
“I could tell you couldn’t follow everything those smugglers were shouting. You’re rusty, and that’s dangerous.” He returned my hard look. “Only Cantonese from now on. Just like when we lived at Raymond’s house. Those endless drills are about to pay off.”
I could tell Duncan didn’t really think much beyond the surface of what he’d said. He was a guy who always took things at surface value. Me, I’d always tried to steal a look behind the curtain. Suddenly I wondered if the old man had had an ulterior motive for teaching us Cantonese other than to make us learn discipline.
I never took things at face value. Too many people wore too many faces.
“The pen of my aunt is sitting on the end table,” I said in Cantonese. “Satisfied?”
Duncan shook his head. “You gonna be a dick about this?”
“It’s coming back. It won’t be a problem.”
“At least you can still handle yourself in a fight.”
I tamped down the anger rising inside me. I was going to take things one step at a time, and arguing with Duncan wasn’t profitable.
The gate lurched into motion with a harsh squeal. Duncan’s hand drifted down to his pistol a second behind mine.
Standing up beside the checkpoint computer, Carter grinned at me, but it was a smartass effort, not friendly. “Got it.”
I scoped out the shops we passed, but they were closed, and I didn’t see anything I needed, so I kept traveling through the next gate, which was open.
Purple light from a vendor gate draped three men to my right. I stayed in the shadows and waved Duncan and Carter into hiding.
All three of the guys wore similar tats as the Asian smugglers we’d dealt with. Judging from the motorcycles around them, they could belong to a go-gang as well. Every country had biker gangs that dealt in drugs and weapons. I considered them and thought about my lack of armament. I wouldn’t mind an upgrade, and I had nuyen in my pocket.
“Where’s everyone else?” one of the gang members said. “Where’s the damn shipment?”
“Haven’t seen them yet,” another guy said. “We just got here.”
“Longwei’s probably waiting for us,” the first guy said, “so we can haul it out of the boat for him. That lazy bastard. Let’s just hang out here—let him find us.”
Okay, they were definitely part of the same dance troupe we’d just gone up against. So I figured a polite opportunity to conduct a business transaction wasn’t in the cards. I wanted to muscle up before we headed into whatever business kept the old man from meeting us, so I was ready to do this the hard way.
“Looks like we’re on a stroll through Smuggler Central,” Carter said.
Duncan nodded. “Those gangers don’t know we’re here. We could probably just slip past.”
“Or we could clip them,” Carter said. “They’re already looking for us. They just don’t know it yet. Might be better to take them out now—while we have the element of surprise on our side.”
I wasn’t going to do this the easy way, and I wasn’t going to pass up what could be a lucrative target. I didn’t mind preying on criminals. I’d done it plenty of times before.
I turned back to Duncan and Carter. “Cover me.” I didn’t give them time to argue, and I didn’t know if they would watch my six, but I had a goal in mind and I wasn’t going to back away from it. I held my pistol in hand and approached the gangers, but I angled for the prospective cover of two storage crates in front of the vendor stall.
Duncan squeezed into cover nearby and readied his rifle. Carter found protection a short distance away that provided her a full field of fire. We moved quiet and quick, and we were either that good, or the gangers were too juiced up on the mind blitz of their choice to notice.
Since Carter had already been in favor of taking the gangers down, I surveyed the three men in front of me. After only a brief inspection, I spotted the glowing tattoos one of the men wore. My neck prickled again, and I didn’t have to be hit with a stun baton to guess that he was a street mage.
I settled my sights on him and squeezed the trigger twice, sending a double-tap that dropped him in his tracks just as I saw the tattoos start to shimmer. I’d gotten lucky, and I knew it.
Duncan hesitated, his body jerked for just a moment, freezing where he was. Then the two surviving gangers turned to face us, filling their hands with weapons. He fired twice.
His target staggered with the impacts, but he didn’t go down. Blood streamed from the body armor as he tried to return fire, but Carter slammed him with a mana bolt and he sprawled into the street.
The third guy sprinted for cover before I could get a lock on him. He settled in behind one of the motorcycles and fired his rifle. Carter staggered back, but she didn’t seem to be injured.
Duncan and I maneuvered for shots and hit him, but the armor protected him. He drew back and hurled something toward us. My low-light vision picked up the spherical object and I yelled to Duncan. “Grenade!”
We took cover. The explosive detonated a few meters from us. Shrapnel and concrete chips from the street peppered us. My ears rang as I popped back up for another shot as the guy left his position behind one motorcycle and ran for the cover of another.
I bracketed him while he settl
ed in and fired two quick rounds, knocking the ganger down for good. Ears still ringing, I changed out magazines in the Guardian and went forward with my senses alert. With how these guys had gone down, I figured they were finished, but I’d never trusted mages not to have a final trick up their sleeves.
Duncan and Carter followed me, all of us alert to anyone else that might have eyes on us. No one else seemed to be around, though. That fact bothered me some. Hong Kong was overpopulated. So where was everyone?
Maybe the storm had kept them in. Or maybe crime in the sprawl was just that bad. Either way, I wasn’t gonna discount our good fortune.
Duncan frowned at the dead man whose pocket I was rifling, and I knew he hadn’t liked the way things had gone down. “Your partner agreed with this.”
“Doesn’t make it any better,” he growled.
“These were bad men.”
He fixed me with those red lenses. “There are a lot of bad men around.” He turned and walked away.
I pushed away the hurt, surprised that words could still do that to me. But they’d been Duncan’s words, which meant they still counted for something. I went through the dead gangers’ pockets and checked their rides. One of the motorcycles had a first-aid kit in a small compartment, so I took it. They hadn’t had much of anything else.
I stood and looked at Duncan. “Which way is the plaza where we’re supposed to meet the old man?”
He pointed to a dark alley north of us, where a large crate stood blocking the way. “That way.”
“Let’s go.”
He took the lead this time, and I followed, with Carter bringing up the rear. We paused only a moment to shove the crate out of the way, then ducked into the alley. My senses thrummed, filled with the after-action adrenaline and the knowledge that I was back in the shadows—the only place I’d ever truly belonged.
