Shadowboxer

by Nicholas Pollotta

“Not here either,” he said to himself and to the others not with him, but present still. Walking to the railing, he stared out at the bubblecity. It was a desolate place, a place of machines and enslavement and despair. Everybody he saw was either in a hurry or frowning. Most were both.

  “Out there,” Emile told his familiar, pointing with his staff. “They all died out there ... somewhere .. . near ... a wall?”

  Grand growled in response, as if already aware of the truth.

  “Come,” said Emile to the trolls, moving toward the exit doors. The few people about rapidly cleared a path for them. “If Barbara Harvin wants me so bad, she will know where to find me.”

  29

  Watching the world go by, they stood in the mouth of an alleyway.

  “I want to know when the hell it will get dark,” grumbled Moonfeather.

  “I don’t think it does,” Delphia said, gesturing. “Observe the street corners. Note the configuration of the store signs.” Her eyes widened. “No lights. There’s no fragging street lights, no neon. They must never turn off that blasted dome!”

  “No shadows, no night,” grumbled Thumbs. “A chummer could go crazy here!”

  “Hey, zone this,” said Moonfeather, watching the street. “Have you noticed that there’s no cars, no bikes, nothing with a chemical exhaust that might pollute the air.”

  A squat City Guard squad car hummed by, its angular sides bristling with gunbarrels.

  “Electric,” Thumbs noted, hulking lower.

  “And well-armed,” corrected Delphia. “But I’m sure nobody else is.”

  Thumbs nodded. “Yeah. They might have knives or drek like that, but no projectile weapons. It’s like—”

  “Not like,” said Moonfeather. “This is a prison and they’re freaking slaves.”

  “Well?” asked Delphia softly as Silver rejoined them. She’d been snooping around for a way to jack into the city’s grid. “Anything?”

  “Yeah,” reported Silver. “I found a busted telecom, wired up a port, and jacked in. Security was poor and my can openers and mimic utilities cut through easy. I don’t think they’ve got many deckers here.”

  “Great. Download us.”

  She took a breath. “Well, for one thing, we’re not going to be able to get ourselves a bolthole down here.”

  “Why not?” Delphia asked.

  “They call this section Low Dome. It’s where the workers live. Whenever a batch of newbies arrive from the surface, a doss is assigned to each one. And worse—”

  “Worse?”

  “Our credsticks won’t work here either. The Gunderson Corporation owns this ant farm, and every stone, stick, and thing in it—everything! They flat out own it all. It’s a company town. The workers get paid with a company-issue credsticic.”

  “Ruthless,” said Delphia.

  “And it means we’re broke,” added Thumbs. “Our sticks are worthless down here.”

  “Zero sweat,” Moonfeather said. “All we gotta do is mug some slag and snatch his stick.”

  Silver frowned and leaned against the rough brick wall, her arms crossed. “TGC also owns every sub, every Jym suit—drek, they own the air! Nobody ever gets back up to the surface.” She paused and shivered. “Ever.”

  “We’re trapped here?”

  “Seems so.”

  Delphia waved that aside. “Merely an inconvenience. We have our own Jym suits, and once recharged we can leave whenever we wish.”

  “And go where? Walk to fragging Miami?” exploded Thumbs. “We’d run out of air long before we covered the hundreds of klicks.”

  “The goal I have in mind is much closer.” Delphia patted Thumbs on the shoulder. “Trust me, omae. We can blow whenever we wish.”

  Silver gave a bone-cracking yawn. “I don’t know about you chummers, but I say we still gotta find a place to ice for a bit. I’m dragging hoop.”

  “Me too,” said Moonfeather.

  Thumbs reached into his pocket and brought out a brightly colored cylinder. “I got a Happy Pack here that’ll keep us awake for a week.”

  “Awake and alert?” asked Moonfeather, sounding interested and suspicious.

  “Well, no,” admitted Thumbs. “You’ll be seeing every color in the spectrum sing and dance, and watching tables fly by on fairy wings.”

  “Pass.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Delphia chewed a corner of his moustache. “I have no idea,” he told them honestly. “Absolutely no fragging idea.”

  * * *

  Crossing his office in a hurried stride, Lester Dore, Chief Captain of the IronHell pirate group, rubbed his freshly shaven face, amazed at the good job. Breakfast had been stim patches instead of soyeggs with kaf, and he felt supernaturally alert. Every sense sharp as a laser. Good. He’d need that today. Belting on a holstered pistol, he sat in his chair, and adjusted the buttons on his immaculate uniform. It had been awhile since he’d called a meeting of the whole staff.

  He took an antique wooden gavel from its recess and rapped on a worn wooden plate, announcing the start of the impromptu meeting. On the acoustical signal, a bank of telecoms automatically rose from the floor, each screen displaying the unsmiling face of one of his underbosses. At the bottom of each screen was a listing of their confirmed kills, income for the past year, known expenses, and the names of the surface ships and submarines the officer personally owned.

  Once, meetings of the Council had been held in person. Face to face, and in the flesh. But the competition was stiffer than ever, and the corps were out after them with a vengeance. Virtual meetings seemed a lot safer.

  “Hear ye, hear ye, I call this emergency meeting of the IronHell Council to order,” said Dore, rapping some more.

  “Chief Captain presiding. We’ll pass on roll call. I can see you’re all here. First item on the agenda, hell, the only item—”

  “At this hour?” yawned a bald norm in a rumpled tee and boxers. In the background was a huge rumpled bed with a pair of nubile female elves sleeping on opposite sides, the middle empty. “Couldn’t ya have waited till noon like a normal person?”

  “Dock your skivies, Base Defense, this is fleet biz,” snapped Chief Captain, leaning forward in his throne.

  “Tiz?” The sleep was instantly gone from the man’s face.

  “Yar.” Chief Captain glared at the telecoms before him, watching the faces of his commanders awake with frightening speed. “I’ve just received an emergency message torp from one of our mimes in Old Dome saying that the city guards have killed a pirate.”

  “Well, whoopdie-fragging-do,” said Master Engineer, rubbing his scarred face with a plastic face. “Send his widow a buncha roses and a death bonus and let’s get back to sleep.”

  “Aye, what is this drek?” demanded an unshaven ork.

  “We lose crew everyday,” agreed an Amerind, knotting his bathrobe closed.

  “Or was there something special about this?” asked a grizzled old troll, both of his tusks capped in gold, his horns diakoted to a brilliant, and armor-piercing, sheen.

  “Aye, Recon, there was,” confirmed Chief Captain. “Our man was kilt after he identified himself as a pirate and after it was confirmed by their security division.”

  Shocked faces filled the screens.

  “Are ye daft!”

  “They’d never do that!”

  “That’s a declaration of war!”

  “We gots an agreement wid ’em!” raged another. “Signed in blood!”

  “This is a hard-data download,” said Chief Captain, speaking softly, knowing full well that would catch their attention. “End of trans. A done deed.”

  “Well, then ...” A grizzled man in a flowing red beard of classic styling started, stopped, then began again. “Then I say enough is enough. Let’s juke the gleebs.”

  “Qua? Zap the whole installation?” asked a beautiful black norm, one eye covered with a white patch. “Think of the nuyen we’ll lose, not to mention the high-quality supplies!”
<
br />   “And the ships,” added a young ork, stiffly formal in a spotless uniform. “If the report is true, then they’ve got something special waiting for us.”

  “Aye, Intelligence and Escort are right,” stated a grossly fat elf in a Jamaican mumu, accepting a steaming mug from off-screen. “We’ll be losing a lot of tonnage and crew attacking them.” She took a careful sip.

  “Men and nuyen.”

  “Gonna kill the golden goose?”

  “Aye!"

  “Aye!”

  “No,” said Chief Captain, hitting the reverb button on the arm of his throne, making his words thunder over their telecoms. “The golden goose, as Covert Ops said, has already turned and bitten us in the hoop. We know these corporate gleebs have been hiring yabos and mercs and shadowrunners to find our HQ so they can pressure us to renegotiate the deal. Threaten to expose us to Atlantic Security for smaller tribute, or none at all! Well, that’s a fair dare. If we’re not strong enough to protect ourselves, we should go down to Davy.”

  A muttered chorus of agreement.

  Chief Captain slammed a fist onto the arm of the chair. “Only now they’re moving openly against us. And why, I ask you, why?”

  “Okay,” rumbled Intelligence in a surly manner. “Tell us why.”

  Chief Captain stared at them for a full three ticks. “Because he said a forbidden word.”

  “What?”

  A forbidden word?

  Codes went pale as her scars. “Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, Harvin must have some kind of military secret she’s terrified we might discover.”

  “A new weapon,” said Master Engineer, then he shouted, “they’ve invented a new fragging weapon!”

  “Aye, makes sense,” agreed Covert Ops. “But was this merely a slip? Or is it a trap to lure us in and burn our fleet?” A thick silence.

  “What’s your opinion, Tactics?” asked Port Defense, looking to his left.

  On Chief Captain’s right, a voluptuous blonde norm cracked her knuckles thoughtfully. “I think it’s a slip,” she decided. “And unless we move fast, they’ll be ready for us and kick our combined hoops all the way to the Straits of Magellan.”

  Pensive murmurs.

  Scratching under a breast, Tactics continued, “I say we strike with a retaliatory fleet of, say, five ships. Just to teach ’em a lesson.” A slow grimace took her features. “Unless they do have a special surprise for us, then we hit them with everything we’ve got. Attack from both sides and blow ’em to Davy! Then loot the ruins!”

  “The whole fleet?” asked Recon.

  “That takes a formal vote,” decried Base Defense.

  “I didn’t wake ya to ogle your pretty faces,” stated Chief Captain gruffly. “I second the motion for a full strike. So hit the buttons and decide. Should we ignore this affront to our authority and wait for more rebellion. Or teach them, once and for fragging all, that nobody frags with IronHell!”

  Grim faces turned away from their screens to talk with aides or to check the current battle simulation to see what would be the theoretical result of a surprise attack by IronHell on Old Dome using the full resources of the pirate fleet, both outside the bubblecity and within. In staggered steps, the red lights on every telecom blinked green, and the submonitor in the arm of Rore’s chair showed the results. It was as expected.

  “Okay, mateys, drop your dips and grab your chips,” he said, standing up. “Cause this is Old Dome’s day in the barrel. We’re going to war!”

  30

  Stabbing out from other rooftops, four searing stilettos of shimmering light stretched across the skyline of Low Dome, converging on a big water tank set on the roof of the oil refinery. The beams pierced the macroplas effortlessly, shifting slightly in a carefully orchestrated arc. Then the top of the tank came off, the bowed plas dangling from a tow chain. Instantly, armed Guards charged out of the doorway in the roof to surround the tank, while dozens more rapelled down from other locations. Most landed around the container, and a handful landed directly inside, in a real-life strike so perfectly coordinated it could have been a computer simulation.

  “Drek!” cursed a major, standing in knee-deep water. The flash clipped under the barrel of his SMG played over the vacant tank. “They’re not here!” Four other troopers were stationed about him in a two on two pattern, their weapons constantly moving about, fingers on triggers as they hungrily looked for targets.

  “But they were, sir,” stated a trooper, freezing her shoulder lights. In the cone of illumination, a catwalk ringing the inside of the tank was visible.

  “Thermograph shows residual heat signatures of four, maybe five people, within the hour,” announced a Guard, his face shield down, numbers and text scrolling on the visor. He turned slowly in a circle, scanning everything, his left hand holding a Predator, his right hand operating a miniature keypad on his left forearm. “No molecular traces of plastique or powder. No booby traps.”

  “Thank Ghu,” whispered a Guard, wiping his brow.

  “But we missed them!” cursed a sergeant, splashing closer. “How the frag did they do this?”

  “Maybe there’s a mole in City Defense?”

  “Ha! That’ll be the day.”

  “Or one of them is a freaking mage,” grumbled the major, tightening the grip on his SMG. “And they got a freaking elemental helping them.”

  A burst of machine gun fire from outside.

  “Report!” subvocalized the major, deep in his throat. “Nothing to report. A misfire, sir,” said a familiar voice over the radio in his helmet. “Just one of the badges kinda nervous capping at thin air.”

  “Maybe he thought they were invisible,” scoffed a trooper in the tank.

  “God Two, report!” barked the major.

  “Negative on invisible perps,” stated a voice. “Infrared and proximity both show clear.”

  “I want immediate ID on the gleeb who fired!” barked the major suspiciously.

  His radio crackled. “Who, me, sir? Shield 79160, Corporal Buckley.”

  “That’s a confirm, sir,” said a computerized VOX in his helmet. “Carrier sig, vocal patterns, and serial number match for Buckley, John J., Corporal.”

  “Acknowledged,” said the major. “Buckley, you’re demoted to trooper pending further actions. Random firing of auto weapons in a combat situation is strictly forbidden, general order 975.”

  A handful of ticks. “Aye . . . aye, sir.”

  “You, report.” The major pointed at another trooper as he waded over to the group of soldiers clustered on the catwalk.

  “Sir, it looks like they’ve been bouncing a radio wave off the dome,” said a trooper holding a crude assembly of parts and fiber-op wiring. “Trying to access the city mainframe, bypassing the telecom circuits and jackports. The althropic plas is a perfect reflector.”

  “Explains why we couldn’t track ’em by triangulation,” said another Guard.

  “Sir, could they be in contact with the U-boys?” asked a lieutenant intently, SMG held ready in both gloved hands.

  Motioning the woman closer, the major raised his visor and turned off his radio. “Make friends with Buckley,” he said, “because you’re demoted too. Executive Order 5 states we are never to mention the Underground in front of the troops.”

  “But, sir, I. . .”

  “Dismissed,” the major said, slapping his visor down and turning away. He subvocalized, “God One, give me general broadcast, scrambled and coded.”

  “Hot and tight, sir.”

  “All right, hoopholes, download this,” the major rasped. “It’s been six hours since these pirates invaded Old Dome, and they’re still running around loose doing tox knows what! Until further notice all leaves are cancelled, all vacations are cancelled, personnel on sick leave will be recalled, and everybody will do double shifts until we find these motherfraggers and blow ’em to Davy!”

  Triggering his SMG, the major fired a long burst into the air. “Dead! Do ya hear me! I want ’em dead, and I mean
now! As in yesterday!”

  Everybody resolutely chorused in military affirmatives, nobody foolish enough to mention their commanding officer’s random firing of automatic weaponry in a combat situation. Rank did have its little privileges.

  “Sir, shouldn’t we do a perimeter search of the area?” asked a Guard, snapping a salute.

  “Already taken care of, Corporal,” said the major, returning the salute. “We have other teams handling that job”

  * * *

  A macroplas grill in the street alongside the curb was judiciously lifted by a huge hand and a bald head peeked out.

  “Clear,” whispered Thumbs, and he forced the grillwork aside to crawl out. After helping the rest of the team out of the hole, he kicked the grill back into place and they moved off into an alleyway, keeping low and dodging across several streets before allowing themselves to slow to a walk.

  “Where the frag are we?” asked Silver. Low buildings stretched off in either direction, curving out of sight. Before and above them was the transparent dome of the city, a faint chill radiating from its surface. And only a block away was the granite wall they’d seen from the mountaintop outside.

  “This must be the part they call Beyond the Wall,” said Moonfeather.

  “Every city’s gotta have a junkyard,” said Thumbs philosophically. “Might as well use it for insulation.”

  “We’re out of that sewer, that’s all I care about,” said Delphia.

  Coming to a corner, they paused briefly then spread out, checking the other side to make sure it was clear of hostiles before continuing on.

  “And that wasn’t a sewer,” corrected Silver. “It was a storm drain. And that huge machine we traversed was a pumping station. If the dome ever cracks or gets a leak, that’ll return the water back outside and keep the bubblecity from flooding.”

  “Is that what it was?” asked Thumbs, arching one eyebrow. “We crawled through the heart of a giant pump?”

  “Hey, nobody sane would follow us.” Moonfeather gave a rueful laugh. “Or even believe we did it.”

  “I did it and I can’t believe it.”

  “See? We’re safe.”

  “Yar, arctic.”