“Everyone down!” Spindle screamed, just before a flurry of bullets struck the left side of the van. A dozen rounds, then two dozen, then more walloped the vehicle. Spindle swerved this way and that, but the pursuers finally had the position they wanted and they kept on blasting. Daylight showed through one bullet hole, then two, then three. Jackie and X-Prime, sitting on the driver’s side of the van, squirmed to the right, trying to get away from the deadly fire.
The bullets kept coming. When one gunman paused to reload, the others kept on firing. The side of the van would be nothing more than Swiss cheese in a moment.
“What?” Spindle said. Bannickburn looked around, not sure what she was responding to. “Bailey!” she said, reacting to a voice only she could hear. “Holy drek, what are you—? Never mind, just help us!”
There was a distant boom outside, followed by an explosion that rattled through the van’s sides.
“He got that one!” Spindle crowed.
“What’s going on?” Bannickburn asked.
“It’s Bailey,” Spindle said. “He came down with half a dozen cars. They’ve got the Finnigans on the run.” “Finnigans?”
“He said that’s who our pursuers were.”
Of course, thought Bannickburn. Only makes sense. He eased back into his seat, relaxing every part of himself except his arms, which clutched the bottle of water.
“Let’s get going back north,” he said. “Quinn should take care of our friends. Get us out of here.”
“Amen,” Spindle said. Wind whistled through the bullet holes on the left side as the van shuddered forward.
They kept going for about five kilometers. Bannickburn was content to stay away from the highway and travel back roads as long as they could. Stay away from possible reinforcements.
Something in the road ahead caught his eye. “What’s that? That glint?”
“Hold on,” Spindle said. Bannickburn waited while she tried to get a good reading on what he had seen.
“More cars,” she said. “Four of them. Sitting in the middle of the road.”
“Is anyone in them? Are they running?”
“I can’t tell.”
“See if you can call them on the radio.”
Spindle tried frequency after frequency without receiving a response. She shrugged. “Either there’s no one there, or they’re not hearing me, or they’re ignoring me.
Bannickburn squinted at the cars sitting ahead. They were blocking the entire road. His instincts told him this was not a good thing.
“What’s happening behind us?” he asked “Finnigans know they’re outnumbered, so they’re trying not to engage Bailey, but they also don’t want to let us get away. They’re just kind of dancing around back there. We’ve got more than a kilometer on them.”
“Okay. If we’ve got some room, let’s slow down before we get too close to these guys.”
Spindle obediently cut her speed. Bannickburn did not take his eyes off the cars ahead of him, waiting to see if they moved. They looked like muscle cars in four different shades—red, black, yellow, blue. Their headlights were round, their front grilles thrusting forward like the prows of ship’s, their windshields tinted. All four faced the van and did nothing.
Bannickburn decided he definitely didn’t like this. “Turn around,” he said.
“There’re Finnigans back there,” Spindle reminded him.
At that moment, the headlights of all four cars suddenly came on, and Bannickburn could hear four engines roar to life.
“Turn around!” he yelled.
Spindle didn’t need any more convincing. She threw the van into a skid, made a quick U-turn, and headed south.
“They’re coming after us,” she reported. Bannickburn was not at all surprised.
He looked ahead and saw Bailey’s car. Bailey was in a black Mercedes, most likely as heavily armored as a tank. It even had a retractable gun turret where most cars had a sunroof. The rooftop guns were blazing now, firing randomly at the Finnigans skittering around him. Three smaller cars and a motorcycle orbited Bailey’s Mercedes like small satellites, occasionally making a run at a Finnigan, only to pull back close.
“I thought Bailey had six vehicles,” Bannickburn said.
“He lost a motorcycle early on,” Spindle replied.
That meant they had six vehicles total—a motorcycle, a van that had taken plenty of abuse, three small sports cars, and Bailey’s Mercedes. The Finnigans had a motorcycle, three sedans, and the four muscle cars behind them. Six versus eight. Not good, Bannickburn thought.
Bullets flew into the back of the van, causing Bannickburn to jump. “They caught up to us?” he asked.
“They’re fast,” Spindle replied. “Bailey, we’ve got trouble back here.”
As soon as Spindle said this, the Mercedes jumped forward, its turret turning to face front, moving to engage the muscle cars.
“Bailey says to follow him once he passes us,” Spindle says.
“Do it,” Bannickburn said. The van was already turning as the Mercedes raced by.
Bailey’s car was flanked by two of his flunkies’ sports cars. Muzzle flashes came from each car, but the only rounds that made contact bounced harmlessly off the muscle cars’ windshields.
“Nice cars,” X-Prime said admiringly from the back.
“Who are these guys?” Bannickburn asked. No one replied.
Bailey’s car cruised ahead, and did what the bullets couldn’t—parting the muscle cars, whose drivers didn’t want to collide with the Mercedes’ sheer bulk. They bent around after Bailey’s cars and the van passed through. Now Bannickburn, Bailey, and company were heading north with eight pursuers at their backs.
Bannickburn could only look ahead, blind to what was happening behind him. Two of Bailey’s cars dropped back to engage the pursuers, disappearing from Bannickburn’s view. He wished he had Spindle’s perspective on the battle.
“Here they come!” she said. Bannickburn assumed she meant this as a warning for the others to brace themselves.
Gunfire erupted all around, though mostly to the rear. Tires screeched, people outside screamed, and the road continued to rumble underneath. The van shimmied back and forth, weaving, serpentining, hoping to avoid the terrible number of bullets coming from the rear.
There was a loud report, then another. The back of the van sagged and its speed dropped.
“I’ve lost my two rear tires!” Spindle yelled. “I can’t run!” She sounded like her own legs had been cut off.
Jackie pointed ahead. “Summerdale Glen!” she yelled.
Sure enough, in the middle of the weeds and dirt rose what had to be four dozen houses, packed close together, all of them identical. All of them shelter.
“Get there!” Bannickburn yelled. “Tell Bailey what we’re doing so he can keep them off us until we get there. Everyone get a gun and load up.”
X-Prime passed the guns and ammo around. Loading was difficult, as the van’s bare rear rims passed every little bump in the road into the frame, jolting everyone. Behind them, Bannickburn could hear the sound of engines passing back and forth, trying to keep the pursuers away from the hobbled van. At least once Bannickburn heard the unmistakable crunch of metal on metal, followed by glass shattering and metal folding as a car rolled. He had no idea who it was.
Then the homes loomed ahead. Their doors and windows were boarded, chimneys crumbled, siding loose in many spots. All of them were tan with brown shutters, all of them stood in front of weedy patches that had once been manicured lawns.
The streets in the subdivision were narrow. Bannick-burn scanned the houses, not exactly sure what he was looking for. Then he saw it.
“There! Past the bend, on the outside! See that house? With the garage door a little open?”
“Yeah,” Spindle said.
“That’s our new home. Run there as fast as you can, then slam on the brakes.” He looked at the rest of his team, and the large submachine gun resting in Cayman’s arms caught
his eyes. “Nice,” he said. Then he made assignments, hoping he wasn’t sentencing his team members to death.
The van came around the turn. Most of the other cars had turned down other streets and were skirmishing with each other, but Spindle reported two cars behind them. Bannickburn took a deep breath, then crowded around the sliding door with Jackie, Kross, Cayman, and X-Prime.
Spindle swerved to the left side of the street, then hit the brakes, while the others leaned forward, to keep from falling to the back of the van. The pursuers, having seen this trick before, were ready for it. They didn’t race past, but instead began slowing to trap the van.
The van stopped, the door slid open, and five people holding seven guns between them let loose with everything they had. The interior of the car nearest them filled with red mist. The other car, realizing it was outgunned, squealed off.
“Go!” Bannickburn yelled. They raced across the street and, one by one, slid under the open garage door. Spindle came last, casting sad glances at her battered van as she ran.
“Dammit,” she kept saying. “Dammit.”
“They’ll leave it alone now,” Bannickburn said. “It’s not holding what they want anymore.”
“They’ve already done enough,” Spindle said. “You better have an extra gun for me.”
Bannickburn just smiled as Spindle gracefully passed under the garage door. Then, feeling considerably more clumsy, Bannickburn followed.
“Find the basement,” Bannickburn said, and followed his team into their impromptu headquarters—an abandoned, polluted suburban home in Salish territory.
Bannickburn tried to remember when working for Bailey had been fun, but it seemed to be in the distant past.
26
The sun was setting when X-Prime crept out the back door. He felt like a kid again, sneaking out to play kick the can with the neighborhood kids (he’d been a very mild child—sneaking out to do something like smoke a cigarette or grope a girl would never have occurred to him). Except this time, if he got caught, the consequences would be a little stiffer than getting grounded.
Behind him, he heard Cayman putting the metal sheet they’d found in the basement back into place. It would be secured pretty well—if X-Prime came back in a hurry, pursued by unfriendlies, he’d end up standing in front of the door as he waited for Cayman or someone else to open it. What that meant was, unlike kick the can, if anyone chased him, he wouldn’t have a safe base to run back to.
He kept his head below the level of the backyard fence—tricky, since years of neglect had left gaping holes—stepping through the weeds and over the mounds of dirt that made up the yard, walking quickly to the back. Once there, he scrambled over the fence and out of the development.
On the other side of the fence, there was nothing but more weeds, broken pavement, and rats and squirrels.
He was out of Summerdale Glen, though, and that made him feel a little safer.
He’d been given three jobs. The first was to get some idea where the Finnigans and the muscle-car drivers were. The second was to figure out who was in the muscle cars and what they wanted. The third was not to get killed.
X-Prime had hoped, when he’d been briefed, that the last job would be a bit of a higher priority, but that didn’t seem to be the case. But it was his own top priority.
He ran around the perimeter to the east, heading back to the road they’d taken into the development. He checked the houses he passed, looking for any traces of light inside—or, more obviously, for cars parked in front of them. He didn’t see anything on this side of the development.
They’d already found Bailey. Spindle had snuck out and lifted the radio from her van, bringing it into the house. They’d talked briefly to Bailey, keeping exchanges short and changing frequencies often in case their enemies were listening. As it turned out, the outer arc around the development was called Windswept Lane (the tall metal poles with their purple street signs had remained standing and legible, despite the ruin that had fallen on the area). Bannickburn’s team was at number 403, while Bailey wasn’t too far away, a block west and a block south, at 209 Carnation Drive. Bailey didn’t know where the Finnigans and the others were holed up, but he thought they were somewhere to the west of him.
So, at the eastern entrance to the development, X-Prime was probably as far from the others as he could get. He considered staying there and letting all the others shoot it out, but he felt too exposed in the evening air. And while he didn’t know the others that well, he couldn’t let Cayman and Spindle go down without firing at least a few shots in their defense. He moved on.
He walked west along the main road of the development, peering over fences, seeing nothing. He passed six houses, and was almost at the other end of the development, when he heard whistling. He froze, then squatted low, his Colt cocked and ready in his right hand. He looked around and didn’t see anyone. The whistling was coming from ahead of him.
He stepped carefully, then stepped again. The whistling didn’t change, didn’t give a hint that the whistler knew someone was drawing closer. X-Prime listened for movement, but only heard the song. It was “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” an old Irish gospel song. X-Prime took another step.
The whistling stopped. X-Prime dropped to one knee, gun leveled. No one came into sight.
“If you’re going to walk that slow, this is going to take all night.” The voice came from around the corner, inflected with a light Dublin accent. “Maybe I should take a few steps. Meet you halfway.”
“Don’t move,” X-Prime commanded.
“Please,” the voice said with heavy mockery. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d have died about three houses back. I whistled so you’d finally notice me, after I’d been shadowing you from the other side of the houses. Now just come here and talk like a civilized person.”
“I don’t think so,” X-Prime said.
A heavy sigh traveled around the corner. “Lord. Life is so difficult when we can’t trust one another. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll put myself on the ground and crawl forward. You can tell me to stop crawling anytime you want, and come over and inspect me to make sure I’m neutered enough for your taste. All right?” X-Prime aimed his gun a little lower. “Okay. Crawl.” He heard the person around the corner drop to the ground, then crawl across the dirt. A hand came around the fence first, followed by a head topped with light red hair combed into a curve that flopped down on the left side.
“Stop right there,” he ordered. The man obeyed. “Drop down on your belly, hands spread out.”
“Lord,” the man said again, but complied.
X-Prime approached slowly, keeping an eye peeled for any associates of the man on the ground. He didn't see anyone. He kept the gun steady on the man’s head.
X-Prime made a wide circle around him, keeping out of reach of the man’s hands, then stepped forward quickly, putting his foot on the man’s arm.
“Ow,” the man said.
“Shut up,” X-Prime said. He patted him down thoroughly and didn’t find anything. Not even a knife.
“Okay. You can sit up. You can either put your hands behind your head or sit on them.”
The man sat up and put his hands under him. “I suppose this is more comfortable,” he said. “But the rocks here are unmercifully sharp.”
“Pity,” X-Prime said. “What do you want?”
“First, to introduce myself. My name is James Shivers.” X-Prime nodded. He remembered hearing the name. “Okay,” X-Prime said.
“Second, I want you to go back to your house and tell Mr. Bannickburn that Pm here, and I want his bottle. Mr. Kader and I are here to make sure it leaves in our hands, not yours.”
Kader? X-Prime thought. Kader’s here? That couldn’t be good.
“You’re lucky I found you before Kader did,” Shivers said. “As it turns out, he watched a rather disconcerting video a few hours ago, and it’s gotten his blood up. I was there when he saw it. It wasn’t pleasant to see
him vent his anger. Particularly against you and Mr. Bannickburn. I’m not sure he really cares about your precious water bottle—just having the two of you dead would be satisfaction enough.”
“I’m sure,” X-Prime said. He thought he did an exemplary job of keeping any trace of nervousness from his voice.
“Tell Bannickburn and Bailey that they’re outnumbered. They can’t get away. The easiest thing is just to hand over the water.”
“And if we hand over the water, Kader will just let us walk out of here?” X-Prime said.
“I can talk him into that, yeah. Or at least, the money we plan on making from the bottle will do the convincing. You have my word that if you turn over the bottle, you’ll leave unharmed.”
“Why bother with sending a message?” X-Prime asked. “If your numbers are superior, why not just storm us?”
“Manners. It’s fitting that your people know who they’re dealing with.” Then he shrugged. “And while all of you would die if we stormed you, some of us would, too, and that some of us might include me. It’s something I’d like to avoid if possible.” Then he stared at X-Prime, a cold glint in his eye despite his awkward posture on the ground. “But if that’s what we need to do, we’ll do it. In six hours.”
“And why shouldn’t I just shoot you right now and make the numbers more even?”
Up the street, a pair of round headlights flashed on, and an engine roared to life. The car had been in a garage and must have just rolled out.
“Nothing,” Shivers said. “You could kill me easily. Then all you have to do is outrun a Mustang and you’ll be fine.”
X-Prime looked warily at the headlights. He might have only six hours left to live, but that was six hours more than he’d have if he took out Shivers. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t lower his gun.
“All right. I’ll deliver your message,” X-Prime said, then slowly backed away, keeping the gun leveled at Shivers’ head.
Shivers watched him go, his smirk piercing the night. “Good to meet you, Alex. Tell your bosses you’re a fine employee.”
Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption Page 23
