Shadowboxer

by Nicholas Pollotta

  Silver half-shut her eyes, trying to remember the layout from the city plans. “Front door, back door. Windows too small, coal chute welded shut. Fire escape solid rust. Take a week to make it work.”

  “Roof is out then. Any pools nearby for us to jump into?”

  “No,” she frowned. “And you’re being paranoid. This is a fifty-five-year-old ork. We’ll be lucky if he’s not senile.”

  “Yeah, but if he’s feeble he might have purchased insurance from the local gangbangers,” Thumbs said. “He yells help and we could find ourselves hoop deep in flying lead.”

  “I agree with Thumbs. It is the wise man who prepares for disaster,” said Delphia, adjusting his tie in the rearview mirror.

  “Going cruising for quim later?” asked Moonfeather softly.

  “Civilians are always shocked when a well-dressed person slaps a gun across their face,” he answered, combing his hair into place. “It mentally throws off their center of balance. A basic interrogation technique. If the ork is not friendly, or buyable, then rougher means will be necessary.”

  “You bother me, chummer,” admitted Two Bears. “You really on our side?”

  Behind his shades, Delphia smiled. “Of course.”

  Yeah, sure. “Ready?” asked Two Bears, hand on the doorlatch.

  “Hold!” snapped Moonfeather staring out the window into the passing crowd. An elderly elf in tattered leathers and embroidered duster stopped to stare at their vehicle. Behind the one-way windows, Moonfeather seemed to go into a trance, then gestured at the oldster. Oddly, he repeated the gesture exactly, then shuffled on.

  “A guard?” demanded Silver, working the bolt on the Seco. “No. Just a Dog shaman,” she said, rubbing a bracelet. “We don’t get along very well, and he caught my .. . call it my scent. But I told him this was nothing to do with him or his and we parted in peace.”

  “Arctic. Let’s hoof.”

  The four doors opened, disgorging the team, all except Silver, who slid back into the driver’s seat and took the keys from Two Bears. “Keep cruising around the block and be ready to rock if we shout 911,” he told her.

  She nodded. “Scan.”

  “Stay toothy, people.” Two Bears tucked his canvas bundle tight under an arm. “We’re here for info, not combat.”

  “Captain Friendly, that’s me,” grinned Thumbs, stretching mightily.

  “Confirmed,” said Delphia, looking over the street in that weird mechanical way of his.

  Bored, Moonfeather yawned. “Yeah, yeah, sure, right. Then why you got so many zappers, short stuff?”

  “We got one dead already,” said Two Bears. “I’m not planning on acquiring any more. Let’s go.”

  The group spread out to cross the street, headed for the apartment doss near the graveyard. Two Bears privately hoped it wasn’t a prophetic location.

  11

  Dusk enveloped the streets in ever-darkening purple, and the summer mosquitoes arrived in buzzing droves. Staying loose, and swatting constantly, except for Moonfeather, the group traversed the short distance to the building, a gray stone monolith with the aesthetic appeal of hair clog. The steps were covered with gang graffiti and spit. They tried to avoid both. As they entered the front door, the runners found the foyer lit by a single EverBright in a wire cage, the postboxes merely holes in the cracked plaster walls.

  There were no names on the crevices; each tenant obviously knew which hole was his or hers. The inner door was sprung, barely hanging from one hinge. The lobby was floored with faded Spanish tiles from long before the Awakening. There was a battered baby carriage against one wall, a bullet-marked elevator before them, dark stairs on either side. A cracked dish of metacrab poison lay untouched near the sweat-stained newel. The elevator was busted, of course, so they proceeded up the stairs. The building smelled of cabbage, urine, and garlic.

  “Reminds me of Brooklyn,” said Moonfeather in disgust. “Before the big quake.”

  “That where you’re from?” asked Thumbs, watching slits of light click off under every doorjamb as they passed by.

  “No,” was all she offered.

  A second flight of stairs led to many more, and finally the ramshackle door to the attic apartment. The hallway was cramped, barely a meter wide, no more than an afterthought of the builder. Taking positions on either side of the portal, Two Bears tried knocking on the door. The only answer was echoes. He nudged Moonfeather.

  “Mr. Gordon?” she called out sweetly, affecting a Southern belle accent thick as honeysuckle. “Scott Gordon?

  I’m from the city benevolent association? I have a cred voucher for you!”

  Nothing.

  After a tick, Two Bears motioned Delphia forward to disable the maglock with a gadget from his pocket. In a doss like this he was sure it wouldn’t set off any alarms. The lock gave with a soft click, then Two Bears banged the old door open wide with a gentle kick.

  Immediately, guns came out in everybody’s hands. Predator at the ready in his right hand, Thumbs made a fist with the left, and four blades extended from his left arm to the full nineteen centimeters. They could see that the doss was huge, occupying what should have been another floor above it. Place was large enough to land a helo here without hindrance. They followed a dim hallway through a string of closed doors, which led to a stained glass window of a lighthouse sweeping the sea at night. Illuminated by the street lamps, it was beautiful. Above the hallway, a balcony edged a second tier with curtained windows on either side of a second corridor. Pure rotting posh. In its heyday, this must have been some deluxe doss for toffs like visiting royalty and other drekheads. Nowadays, it was a flop.

  And it was completely trashed, cushions slit open, telecom smashed apart, carpeting hacked to pieces to expose the old four-n-groove floorboards from another era. Bits of trash and busted glass were everywhere like party confetti, the walls were lined with empty shelves, the ripped remains of books stacked in chest-high piles. Actual paper and leather books. Actual bound volumes you could hold and read.

  Several of the bookcases had been ripped from the wall, the paneling itself removed to show the studs and cats on the interior support system. Only one wall had escaped such an ignoble fate. Gordon was nailed to the smoke-stained paneling, arms outstretched and legs together. Crucified. Wrists and throat were sliced to the bone, his blood pooling underneath the corpse and trailing away in a slim stream dribbling out under the kitchen door. White things in the dark pool seemed to be his missing fingers, and other bodily parts.

  Silently, the four approached the dead man, skirting the piles of his possessions and furniture. Nobody made any attempt to see if he could be resuscitated. Only a DocWagon fanatic would have thought of that.

  “Motherfragger,” whispered Thumbs, making the sign of the cross in deference. “I’ve aced my share, but never like this! Are the Morlocks back?”

  “No way,” stated Two Bears, studying the ork. “And this wasn’t done for robbery or revenge. Everything here is junk.”

  “Then he had something he shouldn’t have,” reasoned Moonfeather, her own Beretta out. “Maybe a chip he found.”

  “But they didn’t get it,” said Delphia, silenced Manhunter in his right hand.

  Moonfeather looked at him. “And how the drek do you know that?”

  Two Bears motioned at the piles of destruction. “His blood is sprayed on top. They trashed the place, then cut him to bits. No reason for that unless they didn’t find it.”

  “Find what?” she demanded nervously.

  Two Bears undid his canvas bundle, then loudly worked the bolt on his Crusader. “Let’s see if we can find out.”

  In response, the door slammed shut behind them with a strident retort, and a fusillade of rounds suddenly blasted the curtains. Pottery exploded on both sides of Thumbs, and he grunted loudly as the bullets hit his vest but did not penetrate.

  “Trap!” barked Two Bears, returning fire with his chatter-gun, the hail of fire raking the living room and hallway.


  “Jules Verne!” shouted Delphia, heading for the center of the room. He threw himself down on the floor, furious to see the others separate and go for cover behind tables and columns. Blasted civilians ... no, it was his fault. They didn’t know his coded battle phrases. If, and when, they got out alive, he’d teach them a few critical commands. But for now, it was yell the instructions out loud for the enemy to hear. Not his fave thing to do.

  Thunderous gunfire raged non-stop for a solid minute as both sides sought for the advantage in the first few critical ticks. Ricochets zinged everywhere and more busted stuff got smashed further. Moving and firing constantly, never giving the attackers a stationary target, Delphia heard his Zeist glasses whine as the IE circuits adjusted to the lack of light. Suddenly, he saw the doss clear as day, although in black and white. The dozen or so ambushers were norms in denim and leather, mohawk do’s and go-gang tats. Typical street samurai. Except that they were hammering with Mossberg CMDT rapid-fires, the glowing red dots of the integrated laser sights bouncing all over the place. Not the usual sort of bangbang for a punkster.

  Delphia savagely twisted the silencer off the Manhunter, and snapped off a fast series of shots at the overhead rafters thick with black shadows. There sounded a crack of old wood, and down hurtled a tremendous ceiling fan, its rotating blades slicing and smashing two of the opposition.

  That’ll teach them to gang up, he thought bitterly. Just too bad there weren’t any more fans.

  Thumbs was secure in a corner behind the barricade of a table, his SMG and Predator maintaining a steady response to the CMDTs. Ducking under the lasers, Two Bears was crawling through the bloody muck on the floor, heading for the kitchen to set up crossfire. Pointing with his left hand, Delphia slapped the Manhunter into his palm, fired, then swung over to his right and fired. It was a deliberate, showy move to shock the opposition.

  But the punks showed no surprise at his abilities. None at all. Drek! Delphia thought. They weren’t expecting some body to show—they fragging expected us personally! Street gang, his hoop, these were corporate security goons. These zonies had been waiting for them to show. And that was extremely bad. Delphia wanted to warn the others, but how? How?

  Suddenly the bull roar of a Vindicator came from the hallway as a woman in armor and a bobbing ponytail stepped into view from out of a closet. Furniture and junk simply disintegrated under the monstrous assault of her minigun, caseless rounds hosing about like a stream of water. Books jumped, shelves splintered, mirrors shattered, plaster came off the walls. It was a fusillade, a drekstorm from hell! Then she stopped firing and yelped in horror as her body lifted helplessly into the air.

  It was Thumbs, Delphia, and Two Bears pumping rounds into her torso, seeking vulnerable joints until blood showed. She dropped the Vindicator and went limp. The others slowed their barrage at this slaughter, clearly unsure of how to proceed. Had they accidentally killed the leader? wondered Delphia, slamming in a fresh clip. That would be most satisfactory.

  Then the first dead man’s head exploded for no discernible reason. Delphia noted the odd event with interest. What was that about?

  * * *

  Gotcha, thought Moonfeather as she pointed a finger at another norm whose weapon burst violently as if something was blocking the barrel solid. But his ballistic gloves saved his hands, and he pulled out a LightFire 70 pistol to continue banging away.

  Annoyed, Moonfeather started to gather her mana for a really major spell when a fist of ice clutched her heart, cutting off her air. She stopped stone cold. There on the second level stood a man dressed oddly even for the sprawl: tight trousers, an open long coat, mink or some animal skin fedora hat, dreadlocks sticking out from underneath like hairy octopus tentacles, gold earrings, a big gold tooth. He was gesturing with a thick elaborately carved cane, dripping with beads and feathers and bones. A juju staff. His hairless chest was painted white and then covered with red symbols and runes. A small leather pouch on a twine necklace dangled about his neck. He was a hougan, and that was a voodoo soul bag.

  “He is bad,” thought Moonfeather. “Voodoo is bad.”

  She raised both hands to deflect a swirling wave of something from the hougan. In a perfect circle, everything around her roiled from the impacts of invisible bees, knives, needles, whatever form of mana darts he was throwing at her. Didn’t matter. Screaming a short song for Cat, she raked her nails through the empty air, and the enemy mage stumbled back with deep bloody fiirrows slicing open his handsome face and chest. Shocked but defiant he still stood there. Drek!

  The hougan recovered, his eyes going solid black as the pupils totally expanded. He was scanning her aura, looking for weaknesses. With a cry, he shoved his staff forward and a fireball rumbled down from the balcony toward her, filling the doss with blinding light. Moonfeather hissed at the thing and gestured. The fireball burst apart over his own people, two of them screaming as they hit the floor, rolling about to extinguish the flames covering their bodies before their handguns cooked off.

  The balcony under Dredlocks began to sag, then leveled itself with a groan. Moonfeather slapped a stim patch to her thigh, going frizzy as to what was happening here, but then the stims hit and she jerked back to reality, spitting and radiating fury. She sacrificed the power held in a ring and a bracelet, and the doss got icy cold, the dripping blood frozen solid, and then the air got even colder. Age lines creasing on his slashed face, his breath fogging, the hougan screamed unpronouncable words at his stick and a broken chair hurled across the doss like an upholstered meteor. Every muscle painfully weak, Moonfeather forced herself to duck underneath the deadly bludgeon, just barely keeping her head intact.

  She triggered her Beretta non-stop, but only two rounds hit the hougan on the armored coat as he shoved himself loose from the fallen balcony. The impact seemed to refresh him, and just as he began to laugh at her pitiful attack, the wooden railing in front of him detonated. The blast nearly knocked the staff from his grip and covered his bare chest with bloody splinters. Immediately, the hougan fell to the floor.

  Feeling terribly nauseous, Moonfeather knew she could no longer fight. She grabbed a crystal hanging around her neck and spoke a few words. The invisibility spell locked into her oldest and most cherished fetish activated and she could breathe. She could only wait now.

  * * *

  His neck bloody from a graze from across his throat, Thumbs aimed his big chattering SMG at anything moving. Firing to the right, Delphia caught a motion off to the other side and jerked out his left arm. The VPR2 shifted the Manhunter to the other hand in a nano. It boomed once, and a norm in combat armor was blown off her boots to crash over a table and hit the floor upside-down.

  Dropping the spent clip, Delphia dove over a smashed table to land behind a ripped couch, and slapped in another clip, wishing he’d taken a grenade from the Elite. This was a Scarlet Ribbon, a three-on-three formation with the corpse a diversion. The door the key in, and no way out. To even try was death. It was a beautiful trap, and they were in serious drek. He chided himself angrily, but the dwarf wanted a soft penetration first. Smiles and flowers. Howdy, neighbor! So much for fragging subtlety.

  Another dead man’s head exploded, brains and blood spraying everywhere in a grisly rain.

  Wiping gray matter off his face, Thumbs dropped his exhausted SMG and charged at a pile of debris, slashing through the stuff with his forearm blades. Whoever was on the other side screamed and stumbled into view minus an arm at the shoulder. Grabbing the man’s dropped Mossberg, Thumbs started firing again as a new punkster arose behind him swinging a laser axe. He strained to swing the CMDT around to meet the sizzling blade when the leatherboy jerked back, a hole in his head gushing blood.

  From the kitchen, safely behind the fridge, Two Bears put another burst of the silenced Crusader into the ganger and tried again for the Vindicator minigun lying so tempting in the middle of the bloody carnage. Then he also spied a deck lying amid the papers and body parts. An antique Fu
chi 2. It had been stepped on, or shot, and was busted wide, but decks meant data, so he tucked the relic under an arm and moved on, firing controlled bursts as he went.

  The air above the combatants shimmered and buzzed from whatever the two shamans were doing to each other. Then a thundering rainbow filled the doss as the stained glass window shattered into a million knives, the shards swirling madly about, slicing everything and everybody into ribbons. Some punksters screamed as they were disassembled and the balcony torn to pieces amid spraying blood.

  “Got him!” shouted Moonfeather.

  Jerking a look, Thumbs gave a bellow of victory over the burping of his CMDT while heading for the exit.

  “NO!” screamed Delphia, when a pile of trash erupted and he found himself face to face with a razorboy who’d been digging a tunnel through to him. Sons of slitches were buried like land mines in the wreckage. The guy was in patent leathers, garishly painted, dripping with chrome, but he wore it like a costume, not reg clothes. Razor spurs jutted from both hands like cactus thorns, and he was packing a netgun. Not a kill, but a capture-them-alive weapon. Both moved to aim and fired. Delphia won. But as the man doubled over, a woman behind him fired a burst from her Mossberg and Delphia was hit in the arm, stomach, thigh from the stream of high-velocity lead. He went down firing in return.

  Off amid the reeking destruction, another deader’s head exploded.

  Forgoing the Vindicator, Two Bears dashed headlong from the kitchen, skirting the riddled wall and reaching the hallway door. Yanking it open, he stopped with a jerk, the elegantly wrapped handle of a wakazashi, the formal Japanese short sword, sticking out of his belly. Blood was pumping everywhere. His blood.

  The Crusader dropped from the dwarf’s hands as the troll in the hallway shoved the blade upward, gutting him like a fish. With a shuddering sigh, Two Bears keeled over to the filthy floor. Katana and wakazashi in both hands, the troll samurai administered the death stroke and moved into the doss with chipped speed.