Shadowboxer

by Nicholas Pollotta

  Down on the ground, a dozen or so corporate icons of different styles and types were scrambling about near a small, insignificant geyser of gushing light that formed a fountain from an irregular crater in the dataflow. The main international RTG. From here links to nearly every country could be tapped, although this point was mainly a link to Africa, South America, Amazonia, Aztlan, and the Antarctic Colonies. It was also what the Caribbean League used for “official government business.” Which meant there was nothing of value here. The League had a one island one-vote policy for political decisions, but the rest of the time they seemed to be at each other’s throats. All the various members also had their own individual nodes and their own private links to each other. Pirates had deckers too.

  Laura loved this node. It was a decker’s playground ... Satellite uplinks were a blink away, and she could be anywhere in the world in nanoseconds. And the security was nearly always beatable. She loved that the best.

  She was about to leave when something caught her eye. Out of the datastream another icon appeared, then another and another, five or six in all. Keeping her distance, she watched as the icons first took on the appearance of the data-processors at the fountain—metahumans in typical Miami neon-colored jumpsuits and sunglasses. But as they headed away from the fountain on one of the telecom lines, the icons changed into black sharks.

  The sharks moved along the public telecom grid at an incredibly fast rate, and it almost seemed to Laura that the date flowing along those lines actually moved out of their way. They stopped at a public telecom unit. Or that’s what it must have been before somebody fragged it up. The icons set up a new mode next to it and then changed again to public telecom decker icons. The com unit must have been only recently damaged because the node was still active, but Laura couldn’t figure this one out. Public telecom nodes usually just lay there dormant until a decker used one and got fried or they closed the node. This type of activity was unique. She wondered what it meant, but she had more important things to do right now.

  Laura Redbird would cruise the Matrix day and night, night and day, haunting the grid and info nets and virtual hangouts until somebody put out the word that they were hiring for a dangerous run. Any run, she didn’t care, as long as it was local and the bigger the better. Eventually, she’d land a job with the Gunderson Corporation, or better yet, a run against the corp. Laura would use that link as the thin edge of a wedge to get closer to the killer Johnson. It would take time, but there was really no other way. Eventually, the murderer would try to find another team of shadowrunners to hose over and Laura Redbird was going to be first in line on-line.

  Drek! Name. She’d have to use another name. The Johnson didn’t know what her meat body looked like any more than she did the Johnson’s, but the biff might know her name. She flapped her chrome wings in annoyance. It would be easy enough to change her physical appearance—some bleach for her hair and contact lenses, and she could probably pass for a deeply tanned European instead of the light-skinned Amerind that she was. Null perspiration. What she didn’t want to change was her icon; all her program chips and utilities were set to recognize it. Take days to correct the software. Then again, did she need too? There were lots of bird icons on the grid, so how about changing her name to Talon or Raptor or Falcon? No, something more common, innocuous. Go slow, stay low. Let the target come to you. Hmm, what about Silver? Yeah, perfect, nice and bland. That would do fine.

  Here I am, sent Silver silently to the whole world. Please hire me, Mr. Johnson, so I can kill you!

  4

  With a bandanna now wrapped around his head to hide the gang tattoo, Thumbs appeared from around the wreckage of an old radio-controlled truck—now a home for twelve, with dogs and kids included—staying low and following the dwarf. Money was honey, and if the halfer had needed muscle once, he might need it again. And the job could easily go to the next guy who happened to be on hand. Which was going to be him.

  Piracy had been taking its toll on both shipping and tourism in Miami of late. The fraggers were ruthless and slippery, all the harder to catch because there were so many different groups of various sizes. Sure, Atlantic Security was on the case, but it didn’t seem to be making much of a dent. That was hurting the local economy bad, the trickle-down effect slowing everybody’s biz to a crawl. While Shorty there smelled like money and trouble. Thumbs’ two favorite things, outside of beer and sex. Which were practically the same thing: money-trouble, beer-sex, one always got you the other. Or so it seemed.

  Bending his knees to keep as low as possible, Thumbs watched as the dwarf scooted into a used clothing store. He knew the place. It was run by an old ork who’d lost both legs in a bad run and never quite managed to get enough nuyen to buy new ones. Lucky Pete was anything but. But he owed Thumbs favors, lots of ’em, and now no punksters would ever bother the cripple again after Thumbs had had some grisly fun with them. Mighty hard to ride a Scorpion or a Harley when ya can’t get a good grip on the handlebars anymore.

  Moving for the pink alley that led to the back door of the blue store, Thumbs froze as the dwarf came out again wearing sandals, a laser-white pair of shorts, a holiday shirt, sunglasses, and a beard almost as big as him. So big in fact that it nearly hid the Nikon & Howell portacam slung around his neck. Thumbs checked for the telltale map and there it was, sticking out of the halfer’s back pocket like the dorsal fin of a shark. The official flag for I’M A FRAGGING TOURIST.

  Smart move. During the day, nobody sane would ever bother him. So he was safe from molestation, unless he ran into someone who knew and didn’t like him. If the locals found out he was a fake, they’d become a mob and violently tear the dwarf apart with their bare hands, then set his bloody bones on fire as a warning to any other braindeads who dared to violate the unwritten law of Overtown.

  Thumbs gave a half-smile as he crossed the street to stay behind the Johnson. Little guy must be desperate to try that, and he obviously had more nuyen, a lot more, to get Lucky to cough up a disguise that fast for an alien. Just for a tick, Thumbs debated sliding into the store to get the scan from the ork. But his quarry was moving with a purpose now that he was disguised and Thumbs knew he’d lose him if he dallied.

  “Take a cab, nullhead,” he mentally ordered the other. Be a lot easier to track the halfer sitting down. But the dwarf scuttled along, humming pictures of everything and everybody. Which made more than a few of the local denizens scurry for cover. Last thing a SINless gleeb wanted was some alien recording the fact that he lived but did not have a System Identification Number. That could get a person killed down here.

  On a littered corner, a girl troll from the Slammers raised an arm to hail him. Thumbs quickly gave her a curt hand slice and frowned, never pausing for a beat. The fem’s face went neutral and she leaned back against the crumbling brick facade of the old movie theatre, now a joyboy brothel, and began cleaning her nails with a Japanese-style long knife.

  Smart. Talia was shaping up real good. And not just ’cause she was reaching her teens. Big troll like him had lots of beds to warm, but drek-few chummers who knew when to keep their fragging mouths shut, [f the hammer fell on this and things got dirty, Thumbs’d bring her in as cannon fodder and see if she really had the stuff. He wondered if she had a gun. If not, he could supply her. For a price, of course. Nothing was free.

  Why would anybody shoot a telecom?

  Moving through the thickening traffic of the wageslaves heading home, the answer hit him. To stop a possible trace. No phone link would mean no ID. Even an ace decker couldn’t reconstruct what was no longer there. Then he remembered how fast the sirens had sounded. Lone Star would never race into Overtown simply for a blown phone. The police had bigger problems than that just staying alive in this town. But no, they’d been on their way. Ergo, some red-hot decker had already done a trace. If only he could check to make sure.

  Another block passed before the dwarf stopped at a noodle stand, becoming third in line for service. Spying a t
elecom, Thumbs quickly decided to make a call to a chummer who lived practically on top of that public telecom box. Keeping an eye on the dwarf, he punched in the LTG code, and the screen cleared into the image of a sleepy troll in greasy clothes, tousled hair, and a badly broken tusk. On the wall behind him were rain-smeared sex posters and gaping crab holes. No furniture was in view.

  “Yeah, who the frag is this?” the troll demanded.

  “Beaver, it’s me,” rumbled Thumbs. “Speak fast and earn fifty.”

  The other’s gummy eyes went wide with avarice. “For fifty I’d jump offa bridge widout lookin’ ta see if dere was any woter. Whatcha need, T’umbs?” he slurred eagerly.

  “Still living on Seventeenth and Cuban?”

  “Sure. Ya needs a flop?”

  Jail would be preferable to that cesspool. The only reason the rotting doss had no cockroaches was that the crabs used ’em as garnish for the devil rats. “Thanks, but no.”

  “T’en whatchawant?”

  “Don’t open ya curtains, but look outside and see who’s checking out the busted telecom near the pawnshop.”

  Beaver’s face contorted into unasked questions, but he merely nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. The tusker returned in a minute. “Man, it’s a party down t’ere!”

  “Lone Stars?” asked Thumbs, mentally calculating percentages.

  “Der waz. But some suits in a slickmobile chased ’em way. Ya wan me ta go down and act casually like? See wa I kin see?”

  Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, no! Even on a good day, which this was obviously not, Beaver possessed all the adroit acting ability of a busted chair. Maybe less.

  “No need. It’s arctic,” Thumbs replied, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of a hand. The tiny ridges of the cyberware exits on his arm rubbed his face in a pleasantly familiar manner. So, this halfer had more than just Lone Star after him. A limo on the scene had to mean a corp was in on this too. And that meant real trouble and real money. Thumbs’ price just tripled.

  “Ah, Thumbs, like, when can I get my nuyen?” asked Beaver, licking the stub of his busted tusk.

  Across the street, the dwarf got served his food and began walking away, slurping down the noodles barely chewed. It was good protective cover—fugitives didn’t stop, for lunch. His own stomach rumbled in sympathy. Thumbs had missed breakfast, and lunch didn’t look like it was coming for quite awhile. “Get ’em from Lucky Pete. Tell him I said it’s chill.”

  “Null perspiration. T’anks!”

  Without saying goodbye, Thumbs disconnected and quickly moved after the departing dwarf. This could be the score of his life. Maybe he shouldn’t wait to see if the dwarf had more work, but let the guy run to his bolthole and then turn him in to whoever was after him. Surely, there’d be some reward in it.

  Thumbs hated the idea of dealing with a corp, even just for a minute and indirectly, but that angle could be safer and would probably pay more. When the time was right, he’d give the halfer one opportunity to hire him, and if he refused, then the corp goons would get him gift-wrapped. But either way, the guy was nuyen in the bank. Then the dwarf turned northeast, heading for General Gomez Park.

  Drek! Thumbs slowed his advance, but still kept going. The idiot was heading straight out of Slammers’ turf and directly into Latin Kings territory. Sworn blood enemies of Thumbs’ gang, and rabid policlubbers. Racists with guns, not exactly the sort of folk he really wanted to be dealing with at the present moment. He already had Lone Star and some corp security goons after the little guy.

  In a heartbeat, he made his decision. Okay, time to talk with the halfer and tell him about the bottom line. Amid a traffic jam, Thumbs briskly maneuvered his massive bulk between the slow-moving cars, roaring speedsters, and darting beach bikes, trying to reach the hurrying dwarf as his tiny form disappeared and re-appeared within the bustling crowd.

  Dodging around a road crew making big potholes out of little ones, the halfer cut through General Gomez Park. Thumbs couldn’t call out. It would draw unwanted attention to him as well. Come on, Shorty, slow down! Thumbs got tense, but didn’t let it show. Little guy could be going anywhere. Stay arctic. Kids were playing on the concrete slabs as a makeshift jungle gym, couple of oldsters with obviously nothing to steal or take were sunning themselves on the splintery benches, and ork gangers in ballistic vests were sweating out the noon sun in the shade of the few leafy oak trees, slightly wilted but still standing valiant against the temperatures from above and dog urine from below.

  Charging straight through the DMZ of the park, the dwarf was watched by a hundred eyes, but nobody stirred from the precious shade to roust a tourist. At night, he’d never have made it whole or alive to the old marble fountain. Long dry and now full of sea gulls. Noisy, smelly, and they tasted awful no matter how much ketchup you put on ’em.

  Along the way, a dozen gutterkin reached out to beg, or offer a guided tour, sex, guns, chips, and other things that would have made the average visitor recoil. Here the halfer gave himself away by not blanching at the offerings. Only a local would be so hardened, and a couple of the smarter squatters backed away, probably suspecting a covert op from either Lone Star or municipal security preparing another of their infamous blanket arrests where everybody ended up in The Citadel for questioning and fragging few of them ever came out again.

  Watching everywhere for the hated Latin Kings, his hand resting inside his vest on the butt of the big Ares Predator, Thumbs sighed in relief as the halfer darted across SW Nineteenth Street. In spite of his best efforts, Thumbs lost him a moment later in the milling throng crossing the streets. Moving quickly along the store fronts to try and catch up, he caught a glimpse of his prey through the gaping doorway of a pink-painted derelict building. Through it he saw the dwarf entering a glistening white building festooned with coconuts and flamingos, which stood alongside a row of less fashionable structures on the next street over. The Sunshine Bowlarama. Not a simsense parlor, but actual physical bowling. Balls and pins. Very retro. Just for juves and nostalgia freaks, of course.

  Cutting through the doorway, Thumbs decided to slow down for a precious minute, so as not to trod on the dwarf's toes. But before he could follow Shorty inside, the halfer came out again, zipping up his shorts as he headed directly next door. An unmarked building sporting all the usual effluvia of a cheap bar, but no sign.

  The Casa Cabana. No wonder the guy hit the lav before going in. Thumbs felt the urge to do the same thing. It was the hardsite for the Latin Kings. Was the halfer a suicide? Drek. Maybe the dwarf was a nutter after all. Thumbs knew little about magic, so he didn’t know if a cloak spell disguising a norm as a dwarf could be that perfect in every detail. But why the frag would the halfer want to try to get into the LK’s den? To see how quick they could geek him? No, Thumbs must have been wrong about this guy. The halfer had to be tripping in the twilight. A skydiver. Software corrupted. Loft for rent. Better living through chemistry.

  Thumbs shrugged. Had to be. Minutes passed and when no explosions erupted from the establishment to mark the abrupt demise of the halfer, new possibilities began to occur to him. Crossing through the ruined building for a better looksee, Thumbs suddenly ran into a shambling figure swaddled in rags, who charged from behind a pile of rotting mattresses wielding a spear made from a broom handle tipped with a busted beer bottle. The razor-sharp glass lanced for his vulnerable throat, but Thumbs easily sidestepped the clumsy charge. As the would-be killer went by, Thumbs thumped him once on the head with a fist bigger than an airline pillow, and his attacker collapsed at his boots with a shuddering moan.

  Ignoring the corpse, Thumbs moved to a better vantage point to watch the Casa Cabana. Maybe, just maybe, the dwarf wasn’t simply an omelet brain, but novasmart with cojones of beryllium steel. Who’d ever look for a dwarf on the run in the HQ of a policlub? Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, it was fragging brilliant. Smoking! Einstein on overtime! And if the guy was really that desperate, then Thumbs’ price just tripled again.


  The whispering sigh of uncoiling rope pricked his ears, and Thumbs turned around just in time to see half a dozen forms in street combat gear descending from the ceiling. A steady flashing came from one of them, and the dusty dirt around him puffed little geysers. Then something hummed past and hit him in the chest, his vest slapping against his right side with triphammer force. Thumbs dropped to one knee, unable to breathe for a moment. Madre mia! A silenced rapid-fire. This close to their HQ, had to be perimeter guards for the Latin Kings. Frag! Nobody let squatters live in their lookout, so he’d naturally assumed that the presence of a gutterpunk meant it was a clear zone. Fragging gleeb had only been a diversion!

  Instantly, the Predator was in his hand and it thunderously boomed twice, the muzzle flash illuminating the dim interior of the burned-out building to near daylight levels for half a tick. Each time a figure flew off the ropes, an explosion of red blood from the unarmored throats marking a lethal hit.

  Chatter guns don’t mean drek if ya can’t hit the target, Thumbs thought smugly, forcing himself to breathe as he moved painfully with every discharge so they couldn’t track his location. Spend time on the gun range, or forever in the dirt, as his daddy used to say. Nuff said.

  The remaining four reached the ground, and were in a circle firing wildly, high and low. Crouching behind a chunk of busted concrete, Thumbs hastily buttoned up his ballistic vest and heard flechettes ricochet twice off his impromptu barrier. Bad. This was bad. Three visible exits, but he was nowhere near any of them. No back-up, no grenades, not much ammo, and it was their home turf. Reinforcements could be on the way already. Pulling the long monofilament-edged knife from his boot, he hacked off a chunk of concrete and threw it across the open expanse of the dilapidated structure. It hit with a loud clunk-clatter-crash, and two of his attackers turned to fire that way, the others expertly concentrating on the exact opposite direction, neatly cutting off his bid for the open doorway.