Shadowrun: Crimson

by Kevin R. Czarnecki

  If there was one advantage, it came from my tradition. A pre-Awakening fusion of Black and Chaos paradigms, it drew on the piecemeal adaptation of the latter while thriving on the ecstatic order of the former. For me, magic was as much about symbolism as it was about forcing my will upon reality. The shuddering pleasure of ego was a heady rush, and a distraction every Black mage had to overcome, but it served well if tamed into an incentive to keep practicing, keep growing. Growing back into the man I had been, and discovering who I would yet become.

  I reveled in sense of rightness and power suffusing me, opening my eyes to the string of broken masonry and concrete I held suspended all around me, slowly spinning them in a vortex of debris before launching them into the air. Only when I had released them into their course to fly beyond my sight did my vision blur. I swooned, steadied myself, and grinned. Not the vast exercises of power I’d once enjoyed, but I was getting it back, and was better at maintaining more spells at once than before.

  I meandered back to the warren without any plan more complicated than grabbing a bottle of bug blood and sleeping the day away when I heard Needles talking in an agitated tone with Pretty, who sounded, if anything, like a petulant teen. I guess rest and protein salves really had worked well.

  “He saved your life, Pretty.”

  “I didn’t ask him to.”

  “Just what do you have against him?”

  “I don’t like the way he looks. I don’t like the way he talks. I don’t like his attitude, or his style, or his mouth.”

  “His mouth?”

  A momentary pause. I leaned against the wall and inched my ear closer to the doorway. “Uh, yeah… the way he talks.”

  “Uh-huh.” Needles sounded anything but convinced.

  “Why do you want me to do this, Needles? Why do I have to owe him?”

  “Because you do!” he exploded. “Didn’t I try to instill some kind of honor in you? He risked life and limb bringing you back when no one else could. I’m still waiting to hear what bad quality of his is worth erasing that supposed good deed!”

  The silence was laden with her sullen brooding. I couldn’t tell if it was another act or her honestly being a teenage girl, ghoul or not.

  I decided to walk away quietly. What did Needles want her to do for me? I immediately turned away the idea that he was asking her to do anything carnal. I mean, that just wasn’t his style. Strangely enough, though, I couldn’t think of anything else. It had been a very long time, after all.

  I did my level best to avoid thinking of Pretty like that as I settled down on my cot with an old vodka bottle filled with greenish-gray ant blood.

  I woke up early the next evening to find a folded slip of paper on my chest. I could just make out a trace of Pretty’s perfume on it. Perplexed, I opened the note.

  Rick,

  I haven’t had the chance to properly thank you since Monday night. Maybe you’d like to come out with me for a drink? Meet me in the old control room around ten.

  Pretty

  Huh. So that was what Needles had asked her to do. I smiled to myself. He’d always thought of me as a playboy, a reputation I felt was undeserved. This was probably his way of getting me to go on a date. By his reckoning, what else could I want more?

  Checking the time on my commlink, I found the signal scrambled beyond recognition. I ran for Slim’s quarters.

  I stepped in to find him, as usual, engrossed in whatever it was he was doing. What was so unusual was the sound of scribbling. He was hunched over his workplace, the area before him cleared, as though he had swept the clutter aside. The scratch of pen on paper was frenzied, stopping as I heard the nervous tick of his pen tapping on the desk, as though he was deep in thought. I think he was more nervous than usual. I waited until he leaned back from his work before diplomatically coughing.

  He jumped again, worse than ever. I smiled and walked up as he scrambled to hide whatever it was behind his back. I stopped, giving him his space, still friendly.

  “You okay, Slim?”

  He was breathing hard. “Yeah, yeah, I’m wiz…you?”

  I held out my Meta-Link. “My commlink’s busted. Think you can take a look at it?”

  “Sure, sure, no problem.” He reached out with an adrenaline-shaking hand and took it in filed fingers. I just got a glimpse of what looked like a handwritten letter, but I didn’t ask him about it. He’d talk about it if he was comfortable doing so.

  He swiveled around in his chair and popped the case off, poking about in its innards. Looking around, I waited a moment or two before cutting in, “Hey, I really just need to know what time it is. I’m going out tonight.”

  Slim’s eyes flicked downward for a moment, seeing something I couldn’t, probably a clock in his vision. “It’s seven p.m.” Then he paused in his work and looked up slowly, a thought occurring to him. “You’re going into town tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned to me with a light in his eyes that even cyber replacements couldn’t conceal. “Could you do me a huge, huge favor?”

  I grinned. He was so sincere. “Yeah, chummer, what do you need?”

  He smiled nervously, almost a giggle, and turned back to his mystery letter. Folding it meticulously and placing it in a remarkably clean plastic envelope with address code chip, he handed it to me. “Could you mail that for me? The postage is there and everything, could you just drop it in a mail chute?”

  “Who’s it for?” I marveled that our resident hacker would want to send anything in hardcopy. Must be sentimental… or confidential. He blushed a furious blue, so I threw up my hands and backed off. “Okay, null sheen, chummer. I’ll send it out tonight.”

  He sighed in shaking relief and grabbed another commlink off a shelf. He held it out. “This one ought to work fine.” As I grabbed it he made a few AR motions from the busted one to the newer one. I knew he was transferring my fake ID. I thanked him and left with my strange cargo.

  Only seven? I thought. Plenty of time to get ready…

  I was climbing out of the ducts into the control room, taking care not to get my nice suit dirty, when I saw her.

  Stunning would be a mild word. She was clad in a clingy, black cocktail dress with sparkling bits all over that set off the lights in her eyes, now almost black themselves, and streaked with gray. Her hair was done up with lacquered chopsticks, strands hanging down with precise frequency to look fresh yet elegant. I would never have placed her for a ghoul.

  She strode to me, heels clicking on the concrete as she reached out to take my hand and lead me to the door. Something had changed in her. She was wearing a mask, but it was different than usual, somehow…

  Our walk through the nasty little neighborhood was amazingly uninterrupted before grabbing a black cab to Naperville-Bollingbrook, and we made good time to a club on its edge.

  The fruits of corporate pairings smoked Ares Black Labels in the neon and ogled the exotic clientele lining up to get in. A quick bribe to the bouncer got us through the door and sitting at a table on the upper level’s VIP section, overlooking the writhing dancers below. The dim lighting and star-spangled blackness was a perfect match for her dress, and I was reminded of Club Penumbra back in Seattle.

  “How did you pick this place out?” I asked.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Just curious.”

  She looked around at the ceiling, the dance floor, the denizens sipping their glowing drinks or moving in time to a remixed Shield Wall tune. “I feel like I can relax in here. Everyone who comes to a club like this wants to stand out. They put on their costumes and pretend they own the world for a night.”

  “And you’ve already got your mask with you.”

  She glanced at me briefly before returning to her observation of the dancers. “Look at them,” she said. “See those retro-goths with the fang implants? Or the girl over there with the elf surgery, or the ork bouncer with the filed down tusks? You can see the bartender’s scars from trimming down hi
s SURGEd bone spurs. Everyone here’s trying to be something they aren’t. Everyone’s trying to be someone else.”

  I followed her gaze, and sure enough, each was on the money. In fact, the more I looked around, the more I saw it. This was a SURGE bar, from the looks of it. Probably one of the last ones left in the city, now that SURGE wasn’t such a vogue thing anymore. Probably more of a poser club now. The more I looked about, the more the place seemed to be a poser itself. This was definitely ripped off Penumbra.

  But Pretty seemed at ease, here. I contemplated her as she watched the dancers, wondering what made her feel more at home: the fact that so many people here had secrets, or that, being social outcasts of one stripe or another, they were more likely to know her pain, and accept her.

  I got up and offered her my hand. “Care to dance?”

  She looked at it, then me, uncertain.

  “You do dance, yes?”

  She smirked uncomfortably, started to offer her hand, then hesitated halfway. I wasn’t sure which of us was more uncomfortable. I smiled and tried to laugh it off. “No, you’re right, those shoes are too nice to dance in.”

  I walked down the steps toward the bar, mentally slapping myself in the head over and over for making things awkward. I was frustrated. How was I supposed to act around her? I hated it when people weren’t straight with me outside of work, but I wasn’t sure if she was capable of being straight with anyone, least of all herself.

  I made my way past the vampire wannabes, somehow uncomfortable getting close to them, and ordered a couple of drinks, something that would look respectable. It didn’t matter, neither of us could drink the stuff. It was more for propriety’s sake. A flash of cash to the filed barkeep, and I was on my way back to the table. I felt even more useless when I found Pretty sitting with a bottle of what looked like wine on the table. The Vino Sanguis label caught my eye and I felt the old hunger stir in me again. I smiled and shook my head, taking a seat.

  “The waiter’s bringing us glasses.”

  “You might have told me,” I said, putting a synth-whiskey sour before her.

  “Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise.” I couldn’t tell if she was honestly annoyed or just being coy.

  Glasses delivered, she poured the too-thick liquid into each, quite full, and raised one to me.

  “Here’s to rescues. Thanks, Rick.”

  She had used my real name. I started to feel suspicious, wondering about this sudden turn of attitude. More than that, I could tell this was an act. I’d seen the honest her, and this was not it. She changed subtly when she put on a front, like a master magician slipping off one mask only to don another before their true face is revealed. But it was easy to spot, now that I had seen the real her. I guess my Suggestion had worn off, after all.

  I sipped the glass and was surprised at the slight, dry bite to its contents. I hadn’t felt that in almost seventy years: The tang of alcohol.

  “You do know I can’t have real alcohol?”

  She smiled knowingly. “I did my research after you met with Ms. Jones. Seems Sanguis offers a tested vintage with alcohol. I guess they get it out of people who are sauced to the gills. Once it’s in the bloodstream, it’s palatable for our kind. Best part is that you just might get drunk off it.”

  Why the need to get drunk?

  I sipped my glass slowly. This was uncharted territory for me, and I was in no mood for a hangover, or whatever the HMHVV-equivalent was. She drained hers quickly and giggled.

  “So, you’ve had this before?”

  She fixed me with a half-smile and a playful eye. “No, Rick, I saved my first drink for you.”

  Yeah, this was flirting.

  I hesitated to pour another for myself, remembering the last time I’d lost control. She, however, seemed intent on making her first time getting drunk as memorable an experience as possible. Another glassful and she was already looking tipsy. Unsurprising, given her age and weight.

  “Pretty?”

  “Yes, Rick?”

  “Why’d you ask me out here tonight?”

  Another mask tried to slip on, but it didn’t seem to make it more than halfway. “To thank you.”

  “Ah.” I toyed with my glass, rotating it slowly as I spoke. I’d donned a mask of my own. “If you’ll pardon me for saying so, that’s not like you.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she set her empty glass down, pouring another as she eyed me. “And what is like me, Red?”

  “Did Needles put you up to this?”

  “Why would he?”

  “I’ll bet you’ve been asking that question yourself.”

  “You’ve got some nerve.”

  “Don’t remember Needles telling you to do something nice for me? Don’t remember him twisting your arm to get you to make some kind of gesture?”

  “Which you can’t seem to accept gracefully. I can’t believe this. I take you out for a drink, and you’re throwing it in my face!”

  “Oh, I never asked for a thank you, Pretty, and I wouldn’t. Nor would I turn down a real one. But I can’t stand when something that should be genuine, something honest, is so fake. And that is much more like you.”

  “So, just how do you think I usually act?”

  I stopped fidgeting and drew my eyes to hers. “Belligerent. Arrogant. Superior. Condescending. Impersonal. Isolated.”

  I have no doubt she had the ability to fake crying. But this was not fake. Her lower lip quivered minutely as her eyes welled up with tears. She grabbed the half-full bottle and made for the stairs, stumbling down them as she upended it in her mouth. I got up and went after her.

  Pushing through the crowd to go back out the door, the bouncer shaking his head at people leaving so soon, I caught up with her as she stumbled her way into Briarwood Flats, a wealthy neighborhood. I didn’t know what I’d said to her, but I didn’t think she knew I was behind her, so I hung back, hands in my pockets, watching as she kept drinking and walking along. We kept that game up for two blocks before she took the last gulp of the bottle and tripped, falling into a bed of red roses. They snapped under her slight weight, and she twisted just in time to land on her bottom with an “Oof.”

  I’d started running to catch her, but as I approached, I could still hear her sniffling. Her makeup was ruined, but she still looked angelic in the diffused moonlight. I came up slowly, crestfallen to see her so sad. I didn’t want this. I hated her masks. I hated her defenses. But I think that made me cherish the girl underneath all the more.

  “Needles didn’t tell me to do this.”

  I squatted on my haunches next to her, staring at her as she picked rose petals off of her dress. Her eyelids were drooping with each passing moment as the alcohol slowly worked its way into her.

  “He told me I ought to do something nice for you. ’Cause you saved me. An’ I don’t like how you make me feel…’cause…”

  She hesitated, like it would be painful to utter the next words. There was no change of masks, this time. Maybe no masks at all.

  “And he never told me, ‘Take him to your favorite club,’ or, ‘Buy him a bottle of wine with your savings’. He just told me I ought to thank you.”

  I felt like the scum of the earth.

  She hiccupped between sniffles, and I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped at her tears. Her makeup came off with it, and I drew that away, as well, revealing her simple, pale skin, still elegant by any standard. She looked up at me, her eyes having reverted to their opaline white now that she wasn’t thinking about it. I might have kissed her, then…but it just wasn’t right. Not like this…if at all.

  I picked her up gently, like I had when I had carried her back to the warren, and placed the empty bottle in her bag as a souvenir. Her free hand toyed with a rose still in her lap.

  “These are wonderful roses, Rick.”

  I carried her all the way back, stopping to drop Slim’s letter at a mailbox, where the wealthy could still afford such archaic luxuries. As I walked I noticed Pretty was
falling asleep.

  “Pretty,” I whispered.

  “Mmmmm?”

  “What’s your real name?”

  She smiled, gently and slowly, and snuggled into me slightly. “It’s Marie.”

  I smiled and carried her home.

  It was just past one when I tucked Pretty into her modest bed. I strolled back out, avoiding the envious glances of Barnes and his ghouls at my suit, my hair, and everything else that let me walk among the mundanes. It wasn’t enough, though.

  “Had a fun time with your joytoy, fanger?”

  I stopped and slowly turned. Barnes may have had the clipped speech that indicated a good education, but his gutterslang was as rough to the ears as anyone’s.

  “That’s not a nice thing to say about either of us. How is that supposed to make me feel?”

  “Where were you?”

  “Just went out for a bite to eat.”

  Barnes nodded, smiling knowingly, hatefully. He looked to the other ghouls fawning around him, some only barely able to comprehend his words, but hanging on them all the same.

  “Look at the flush on his cheeks, boys. Fresh infusion look. I remember it. You get it when you have good, human blood pumped into you. Common temporary side effect of recent feeding in hosts of Ghilani Vyrkolakiviridae as the virus assimilates the new blood.”