Preying for Keeps

by Mel Odom

  Skater came up out of the water, gasping harshly while his lungs burned. He shook the water out of his eyes and got his bearings.

  Elvis was pulling Trey’s body out of sight into the amphibian. Skater didn’t know whether the mage had been hit or was seriously spent from his magical exertions.

  The kraken was near the surface now, and all twelve of its appendages were visible as it flailed the water and stirred up undercurrents. Overhead, the yakuza helo circled the bobbing Fiat-Fokker while someone using a loudhailer demanded that everyone inside the plane debark.

  Dodging one of the kraken’s suckered tentacles, Skater swam for the amphibian. Laser sights lit up the water near him, the ruby ellipses giving him just enough warning to dive before the bullets chased him under.

  He surfaced again, almost within reach. Duran was hauling Shiva from the water now. She was covered with blood. Clambering onto the pontoon, Skater managed to throw himself into the amphibian. Elvis was manning a Vindicator minigun, its multiple barrels chewing through a fifty-round belt in a handful of seconds.

  Reluctantly, the helo backed off.

  “Hang on.” Wheeler called from the cockpit. “That fragging overgrown guppy-snatcher is coming for us again.” The Fiat-Fokker shivered with increased power and began to skim along the water’s surface.

  Skater took his Predator 11 and fired through an entire clip, aiming at the monster’s head.

  Abruptly, the kraken broke off the attack and turned its attention to the yak helo. Three of its tentacles whipped around the chopper’s landing skids and tightened, pulling the aircraft toward the ocean’s surface.

  Rotors whining, the helo struggled against the pull of the creature’s tentacles. An instant after the first blade touched the water’s surface and shattered to flying shrapnel, the helo exploded in an orange and black roil of fire and smoke. Hurt and surprised, the kraken released its prize and sank back into the black water.

  Skater felt the amphibian’s pontoons come free of the sea as the wings cut into the air and achieved lift. He took his flash from his pocket and played it over Shiva.

  Her dead eyes gleamed wetly back at him. Bloody splotches left by the suckers of the kraken’s tentacles marred her features.

  Skater switched off the light, not wanting to see any more.

  “Tough break.” Duran commented.

  Not for the first time, Skater wondered if that was the extent of a shadowrunner’s lot. Seemed like not even your chummers missed you when you checked out. “What about Archangel and Trey?”

  “Back among the living, chummer.” the mage said as he sat up. “Nearly got my astral hoop kicked, though. That yakuza shaman was good.” His cocky grin faded when he saw Shiva.

  “I think Archangel’s going to be okay.” Elvis rumbled. He’d yanked a sleeping bag from the equipment stores and made her as comfortable as possible.

  Skater glanced through the open cargo doors. The Sapphire Seahawk was still blazing merrily, embers chasing themselves up into the gray smoke stream.

  “She’d better come through.” Duran said, rolling the cargo door shut. “If she doesn’t, then this whole run was a royal hose-up and we’re all out a lot of capital investment. Not to mention Shiva dying for nothing.”

  Skater rested his forearms on his bent knees and concentrated first on breathing, then on dwindling inside himself to a place where nothing could touch him. It was the only place he’d ever felt safe, and the one he knew for sure was all an illusion.

  * * *

  Despite the active net Lone Star and the shore patrol put up, Wheeler managed an uninterrupted landing at the tourist puddle-jumper agency where the team had arranged docking for the amphibian. The rigger powered the amphib expertly into the U-shaped dock and cut the engine.

  Throwing open the cargo door, Skater looked out across the smooth glimmer of Elliot Bay mirroring the kaleidoscopic scramble of neon advertising plastering the nearby buildings.

  Long John Hurley stood in the shadows on the dock smoking a cigarro. He was gray, tall and lean, chromed over with obsolete cyberware.

  “What the frag you people think you were doing?” Hurley groused. He paced along the dock nervously, sucking the cigarro like an automaton, his cyberleg whining with the effort.

  Duran shoved his way out of the plane and onto the dock, ignoring Hurley.

  “I mean, that drek with the Sapphire Seahawk was your handiwork tonight, right?” Hurley slunk back from Duran as the ork turned on him.

  Without seeming to move quickly, Duran seized the tour owner by the shirt, ripping the material in one gnarled fist. A keen blade in his hand shattered the thin moonlight. “I’d say I got me a walkaway working here tonight.” the ork told him. “I slit one more throat, ain’t going to matter.” He pulled Hurley closer. “Not to anyone else, and damn sure not to me. You scan?”

  “Yeah.” The iron drained right out of Hurley’s spine. His eyes slid away. “I just don’t want a blue crew knocking on my door in the morning.”

  “They find us,” Skater said in a hard voice, “they find you. Simple math.” Hurley had been as fair and as trustworthy as could be expected, but the team had never run a profile this high before.

  The ork went into the small office, then returned moments later pushing a rolling cart. As they loaded the weapons they used aboard the Fiat-Fokker into the cart. Skater glanced around the marina. They’d chosen the place because it was berthed between two major domestic freight lines that ran “free trade” on the side and had enough grease to keep most groundhounds away.

  With all the guns stashed, Elvis handed out Shiva’s body, zipped up into one of the sleeping bags.

  Skater took the weight with difficulty and forced himself not to think about what was inside. Death was a part of life; he’d learned that in the Council lands from his grandfather, but it had never become a casual thing for him in spite of everything the sprawl had taught him to the contrary. He laid the sleeping bag on top of the pile of weapons and pulled a dark sheet over everything.

  Archangel climbed out of the amphibian on her own, her eyes smudged with dark circles. She wiped a small trickle of blood from her right nostril with a handkerchief.

  “How you doing?” Skater asked.

  “I’m alive.” she said. “After a run like tonight’s, I’d say that’s pretty good.”

  Skater shook his head and looked over at the sleeping bag holding all that was left of Shiva. “Too bad Shiva can’t say that.”

  Archangel’s face was expressionless as ever, but her voice softened. “Don’t get twisted with this, Jack. You told us things could get dicey. Shiva knew that as well as the rest of us.”

  Skater looked at her for a moment, but said nothing more. There was too much else to do. “You know the drill.” he told them. “I’ll stash our gear and weapons, then meet you back at base.”

  “I’m going with you.” Callously, Duran plucked at the sleeping bag. “You got some extra baggage tonight. I want to make sure it’s disposed of properly.”

  * * *

  “Tell you the truth.” Hyde Tallow said to Skater almost an hour later as he unzipped the sleeping bag and saw the bloody red hair spill from inside, “I’ve kind of been expecting this.”

  “Expecting what?” Skater asked. Duran stood behind him. Their voices were low and muffled by the stacks of crates and packages filling the small warehouse off Clay Street where Tallow did business. By day, the warehouse handled soy and artificial foods shipped in from the United Canadian and American States. By night, Tallow moonlighted as an organlegger for Nightingale’s Body Parts when product was needed and wouldn’t be too closely questioned as to the source. As long as it was good.

  “You needing to dispose of a woman’s body.” Tallow slipped on a pair of transparent gloves with elastic snaps. “Shine that light over here.”

  Skater moved the flash beam over to Shiva’s upper body. “Wait.” Tallow took a step closer and cupped Shiva’s face in his hand. The street doc wa
s years from practicing legally, but still ran parts and pieces through the shadows. He was short and broad, but had long white fingers on hands that looked like pale spiders crawling across Shiva’s corpse. “This isn't the dancer from SybreSpace.”

  “No.” Skater said. “It’s not.”

  “I figured you two was quits when I started seeing her with other guys. Though I gotta tell you they seemed even less her style than you were.”

  Skater kept his face impassive, but he felt a twist of pain to think of Larisa with anyone else. It had been five months since he’d seen her, though only days since they’d talked.

  Duran shifted uneasily beside Skater. “This guy know you?”

  Skater shrugged. “Sometimes we hang at the same spots.” That was how he’d first met Tallow, though he’d never used the man before, nor would he again.

  Tallow turned to him and smiled. His gloves were already coated with Shiva’s blood. “Don’t have to worry about me.” the street doc said. “Without guys like you, I’d be out combing the alleys looking for skells the Halloweeners or some other street gang might have iced and left for ratmeat.” He patted Shiva’s dead cheek. “At least this way, I get some healthy merch to deal. And well within the ischemic time of tissue survival for resale. Wouldn’t do much good trying to sell dead organs. Bring her over here.”

  Skater and Duran grabbed the sides of the sleeping bag and followed the street doc into a barren office in the back. A nameplate announced that the office belonged to D. Madden. Congealed blood matted the material of the sleeping bag. They put the corpse on a desk Tallow cleared off. Talking to himself, the street doc opened a concealed vault hidden in the wall and removed a tray of medical instruments, all gleaming and sharp. The room had no windows, so when he switched on the high-intensity lamp over the desk after screwing in another bulb, the light died before leaving the room.

  Tallow pushed Shiva’s arms toward Skater. “Hold her.

  I’ve got to cut her out of these clothes.” A scalpel gleamed in his hand as it whisked through the clothing. In seconds, the corpse was naked.

  Skater tried not to react. His grandfather had always insisted a new life awaited after the physical one was spent. He hoped it was so, and he hoped Shiva wasn’t looking in on him as he helped cut up what remained of her.

  Tallow switched on the laser saw and opened up the corpse’s chest, then used a chest spreader that looked like a praying mantis to pull it apart. He talked to himself as he listed the organs that appeared to be in good shape. There wasn’t much blood, and Skater was glad of it. By morning, what had once been Shiva would be scattered over the city as black-market organs and bone.

  “So how’d Romeo happen to lose his fair Juliet?” Tallow lifted the undamaged heart from the chest cavity. He plopped it into a freon-chilled chamber that had come from the vault as well.

  Face hard, tight with the effort to bottle up all the emotions of the moment as well as from memories of the past, Skater said, “She was afraid I’d end up on your table some night.”

  Duran leaned in, intimidating with his size and black synthleather. “More chopping,” he said, “and less fragging yap.”

  * * *

  “I don’t know exactly what I snatched, but it was well-guarded.” Archangel told them, seated in the rented room deep in the Ork Underground a couple of hours later. “I downloaded everything I could, but I still don’t know what I got.”

  Skater stood behind Wheeler Iron-Nerve and beside Elvis, scanning the monitor as Archangel scrolled through the files. Figures and symbols raced across the screen, moving vertically and horizontally in random colors.

  “It’s coded.” Skater said.

  Archangel nodded. “If I had more time, maybe I’d be able to break it.”

  “The one thing we don’t have is time.” Duran muttered. He stood in one corner, dark and brooding, arms folded across his broad chest. “The yaks are combing the streets looking for the team that hit the Sapphire Seahawk tonight.”

  A cruel smile twisted Elvis’s lips in the shadows of his tusks. “You mean they’re giving us all the credit?” The room was small, nearly filled to bursting by the 225-kilogram troll himself. Wooden casks of cheap wine and beer were stacked against the back wall. The Bloody Rosebud of Phelia, named after the ork warrior-woman who died defending her charges at a children’s hospital during the Night of Rage, didn’t have many customers at one a.m. of a Wednesday morning. A few cheap fuel-oil lanterns with the bar’s logo printed on them filled a few handmade wooden shelves on the wall. Cullen Trey sat in a straight-backed chair, paging through a dusty book that had been painstakingly reassembled.

  Duran nodded without mirth and ran a hand through his ork’s thick mane. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “What are we going to do with the load?” Archangel asked. “We don’t have a buyer, and we’re not even sure of what we’ve got to sell.” As always, she looked like she was under zero-sweat.

  “Can you copy it?” Skater asked.

  “I copied it from the freighter’s system, didn’t I?”

  “Then make four more copies.” Skater said. “Give them to everyone else in the room. Not me.”

  “Why everyone else and not you?” Elvis demanded. “Because,” Wheeler said, “if he already had a buyer, he could cut us out of the loop in a heartbeat. Jack’s trying to play square with us. This way he has nothing to sell without us.”

  “Maybe.” Duran said, maintaining his icy expression. “And maybe copies of those files are a way to target the rest of the team.”

  Wheeler’s face grew dark, but before he could respond, Skater told Archangel, “Give me a copy, too.” He faced Duran. “You can trust me or not.”

  Archangel passed the duplicate chips out among them. “What would you think?” the ork demanded. “You come to us out of the blue with this scam a few weeks ago. You’re not sure exactly what we’re after, but the buzz is it’s worth a few million nuyen to the runners who can nick it and find a buyer. We’ve been doing well enough. We got plenty of Mr. Johnsons with biz for us. We didn’t need this.”

  “No.” Trey said agreeably. “But you didn’t bat an eye when Jack laid it out, did you?”

  “Stay out of this.” Duran snarled.

  “I would,”—the combat mage smiled affably—“except that I’m already neck-deep in it, chummer. Same chopping block as you. Your own greed pushed you into this, not Jack.”

  Skater let the silence fill the room, stilling his impulse to say something in his own defense.

  “So what’s the plan?” Wheeler asked him.

  “We separate and lay low till we find out how deep this goes. Then we try turn it around for ourselves. If we can.”

  “No matter what happens,” Trey said, pushing himself up out of his chair and adjusting his cape, “no one can say these past three years haven’t been a good run.” He held out his hand to Skater. “If I don’t see you again, chummer, it’s been a slice.” His smile seemed genuine.

  In their own ways, Wheeler and Elvis echoed Trey’s sentiments and offered their hands as well.

  Archangel met Skater’s glance full on, but didn’t give him her hand. Skater knew it was her way. “This isn’t over, Jack.” she said softly. “Take care of yourself.”

  Skater didn’t think it was over either, but he nodded.

  “It was no coincidence the yakuza showed up almost at the same time we did.” Duran said.

  Skater knew it was true. With all the shipping in and out of Seattle, the Sapphire Seahawk would have been hard to identify without some kind of tracking device or foreknowledge of its route.

  “That tells me that somebody crossed either us or the yakuza—or both.” The ork’s gaze hardened. “Any idea who that might be?”

  “No.” Skater said.

  “Right.” The sarcasm was as sharp as a monofilament edge. Without another word, Duran turned and walked through the door, and the others quickly trailed after him.

  Skater gr
abbed one of the chairs and sat, waiting to be sure Duran and the rest were long gone before he took his own departure. He wouldn’t let himself think about how he felt. The members of the team could never be called friends, but as runners they were all chummers, and there was no question they’d have laid down their lives for each other on a run. They’d already done it more than once over the past three years.

  His grandfather had died when Skater was twelve, which was why he’d left the Council lands to live with his mother in Seattle. She'd been a fixer, surviving on the dirty edge of the shadows, and Skater had learned early not to trust the men she brought around. They were rough and uncaring, quick to swat when he didn’t move fast enough.

  For the past three years the team had been the closest Skater had ever come to feeling like he belonged somewhere. The closest to something he could call family, even though each one lived with his or her own secrets.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d considered the possibility of one of them betraying him or each other.

  Now they were gone.

  And his last words to them had been a lie, because Skater had a very good idea who’d set them up, even though he couldn’t even begin to guess why. By rights he should have come clean and confessed his suspicions.

  The only problem was, Skater was still in love with the woman.

  4

  “Cutting and running, eh?” the driver of the gypsy cab asked him maybe thirty minutes later.

  For a moment Skater froze, halfway into the vehicle parked at the curbside. The trickers hustling the corner under a working street light only a few meters away took his indecision as possible interest. Dressed in a variety of street synthleathers and revealing lingerie, both sexes came at him, some entreating and some abrasive in their challenges.

  "Get in, chummer.” Kestrel said. “No big sweat that I know part of the score.”

  Skater dropped into the cab’s vinyl-covered back seat only a step ahead of the most aggressive of the street hustlers.

  A thin girl with spiky blond hair who’d found expression through synthleather and piercing pushed her palms and face against the window streaked with road grit. She leaned forward. spilling meaty breasts out of her white top, and dragged her tongue across the glass, leaving a twisting path of gleaming saliva that picked up the rainbow of colors from the neon advertising on the buildings. The earring piercing the tip of her tongue clicked hollowly against the glass.