—BlazingmeltingdeathhotdeathburnsWHYdyingkillingthebomb—
I stumbled back, and it was gone. All the horror of the spirits, the bomb, the ritual, everything. The astral here was clean and pure.
So that’s what it does… Grinning, I picked it up and tossed it in the air like a beach ball, catching it with an “Oof!” just as my commlink chattered for my attention.
“Hello?”
Slim’s icon of a disheveled youth appeared on the screen, smiling. “I just made contact with Ranes.”
“Shouldn’t you be recovering from surgery or something?”
“I am! I’m almost all healed up, and there’s no reason I can’t be jacked in while I do. We’ve set the time and place for the meet. You ready to go with Pretty tonight?”
“Sure.” I grinned. “I’ll head over now.”
Pretty dressed for a casual night out, a thick cable knit sweater and jeans, but I wore my nice suit. I placed a quick call to Halian, offering to buy him a cup of coffee after the meet, and placed the Orb in my bag. Commlink and all its bells and whistles accounted for, we got in the van and made for the meet.
“If this works out, Ranes might become our new fence.”
I turned to Pretty with mock surprise. She was initiating conversation, seemingly for its own sake. She smirked at my reaction and flipped me off.
“You think Needles will want us pursuing more jobs like this?”
“Nah,” I said. “Despite all its capacity for crime, Needles wants to reintegrate the pack into mainstream society as much as possible, and make a good impression with the Farm. That means living as law-abiding citizens, or at least as close to it as possible.”
She nodded, taking a turn on a side road. “He really does have our best interests at heart.”
“Yeah, he does.”
She looked thoughtful. “You two are good friends.”
“Yeah. Well, we used to be. With all that’s happened lately, I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.”
She shot me a surprised look, sending her chrome earrings dancing. “Well, the ghouls in the warren view you as his primary competition for leader of the pack.”
“What?!”
“Don’t sound so surprised. You were the one who defused the situation between Barnes and Needles. Everyone was there to see it. You gave Slim hope that he could live a normal life outside the warren someday. Some of the more sentient ghouls hope for the same thing, and word gets around. Some of us are starting to think Needles will never build anything more substantial than a sanctuary out of the warren. And the ferals may respect Needles now for staring down Barnes last week, but they remember you as the one who killed the queen.”
I slumped back in my seat, shocked.
“You mean the pack wants me to replace him?”
“I didn’t say that…not yet, anyway. But the strongest leads. It’s instinctual. And since we’re all Infected, you’re fair game for the position.”
“Pretty, I don’t want to lead them.”
A mask fell into place. “Why not?”
I tried to choose my words carefully. “Well it’s…look, I’m…I’m not cut out to lead like he is.”
She frowned. “You’ve done all right so far.”
“That wasn’t leadership! It was single instances of troubleshooting. I know how to solve a problem looking at it from the outside. Imagine when Barnes left, how that might have been handled if I had been in Needles’s place.”
“It might not have happened at all, in that case.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I’m an outsider. That gives me a unique perspective on things in the warren.”
She smiled sadly and slowly shook her head. “You just don’t get it.”
“What?”
“You still think of yourself as an outsider. But you’re the only one in the pack who thinks that, now.”
“I’ve only been here a month!”
“And look how much you’ve been a part of in that time.”
“I don’t know the first thing about leading a community.”
“You’ve never tried.”
“I’m not cut out for the lifestyle!”
She turned to look at me steadily. “Is there something wrong with it?”
I sighed, knowing there was no way to walk on eggshells anymore. Not with her. I should have learned that lesson a while ago.
“It’s me, Marie. I’m the one who can’t handle it. My life has been a rollercoaster even a born ghoul might be impressed by, and…”
“And you’d rather come home to a sense of normalcy than a pack of flesh eaters?” She sounded hurt.
I fixed her with a frank stare. “Marie, I eat souls to stay alive. I was in hibernation twice, and lost decades of my life, not to mention everything else that went with them. I was born seeing whispers of magic before the Awakening, and that’s before getting turned by a vampire, which spiked dormant genes into elfhood. The only girlfriend I’ve had in the past sixty years was a shadowrunner that died in my arms. I’ve won and lost millions of nuyen. Oh, and my ex-ally spirit seems to have taken up obsessing about me as her raison d’être. So if anyone has a right to a little normalcy in their life, it’s me.”
The silence in the van as unbroken but for the rattle of boxes as we passed over bumps, the occasional honk of a distant horn.
“That’s my world you’re talking about, Rick. My life.”
“But it’s not mine.”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “Why can’t it be?”
I hadn’t expected that. In my mind, I alternated between asking for an explanation and coming up with an answer when we pulled up. She dabbed her tear away with the sleeve of her sweater, sniffled once, and took a deep breath. A mask fell into place, cold, competent, and confident. She turned to look at me with alien eyes.
“Let’s go.”
I stepped out of the van into the chill December night, slamming the door and looking around. The back alley behind a series of stores was an older part of town, faded red brick barely visible in the muck of built-up pollution. Light fell in that uniquely urban way, reflected in dull carmine against the heavy clouds overhead. Rows of back doors and loading docks lined the alleyway, and in the trash I could hear the scurry of rats fighting for food. Not devil rats; stray wisps of Strain III would consume them. Pretty tapped the horn in sequence, two long, two short, and slammed the door, waiting.
A single silhouette moved from a niche beside one of the loading docks, the glow from his cigarette as he pulled a long drag revealing Ranes’s angular, carefully disheveled features.
He grinned. “I take it that’s for me?”
“The van isn’t,” Pretty said with the cold confidence of a seasoned negotiator, “but all the boxes inside labeled ‘MCT’ are.”
Ranes chuckled and gestured, probably beckoning a few goons to come unload the merchandise. I turned to look at Pretty just when my ’link’s incoming call beeped urgent. Slim’s avatar came up.
“Red, are you at the meet?!”
“Yeah, everything’s—”
“Get the hell out of there!”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I cleaned up Pretty’s eyecam shots, and got a look at her attackers’ faces.” A series of mug shots scrolled across my view. “One of ’em could be working for Ranes. If the same thugs see her, they’ll blow the meet!”
Through the HUD one of the mug shots passed translucently over one of the goon’s faces, matching perfectly for the briefest instant. His eyes turned from me toward Pretty, drifting up her legs to her face and freezing in a moment of horrifying recognition. Pretty’s eyes locked on his, and their mirrored expressions let me know all hell was about to break loose.
The goon pulled a revolver from his jacket even as Pretty dove for the back of the van, knocking two others out of the way. The shot rang out loudly in the confined space of the alley, sending everyone dodging for cover. I ran for the back of the van too, finding Pretty
with a Streetline Special and a look caught between terror and hatred.
“It’s them, Rick, it’s them…”
I listened in the silence, the whispers of the goon to Ranes barely audible. “It’s her, boss, the one with Edgar when we shot him…”
There was a pause as Pretty and I looked at each other before Ranes’ brogue echoed over to us. “Hey, boyo… you listenin’?”
“Yeah,” I responded in my Hertfordshire accent.
“I didn’t know about your joygirl, there. I thought that was separate business, over and done with. I’m sorry about my boy here pullin’ his piece… It won’t happen again.”
Pretty’s eyes bored into mine, demanding vengeance.
“You listening, boyo? It’s in the past! Live and let live, right?” I looked to Pretty again. She smoldered.
“How do I know you won’t just shoot us now like you tried then?” I called out.
“Boyo!” he called amicably, almost covering the sound of guns being cocked. “If I went and did things like that, how would I ever stay in business?”
I smirked at Pretty, and she handed me one of the Lone Star flash-bangs. “Stay here,” I whispered.
I stepped out from cover, the battery-sized flash-bang concealed in my palm. For all his talk of peace, Ranes and his boys were all pointing pistols my way.
“Where’s the other one?”
I shrugged. “Staying out of sight until we know you’re a man of your word.”
He smiled, handling his chromed Ruger with cavalier indifference. “Boyo, you’re giving me what’s in that van. Why would I ruin my reputation by killing you? ‘Sides, bullets cost, and I came here to profit, not to bury.”
I walked forward slowly, hands in my pockets, keeping my cool. I could probably survive whatever they threw at me. I just needed to keep them on me, and away from Pretty.
“Could you guys set your guns down? I’m feeling a little antsy with all that iron facing me.”
Ranes grinned. “While your girl’s back there with shooters of her own?”
“She hasn’t got anything.”
“Good.”
His shot was straight on. In the closed alleyway, it thundered just like it does in the trideos, catching me in the throat and sending me spinning. Pretty’s scream echoed strangely as my face pressed against the ground, cold asphalt giving my blood a path to spread. Ranes’ worn boot made the mildest splash in the red puddle, the click of the hammer being pulled just before I felt the press of the cold metal barrel against the back of my head.
“You done good, boyo. Shame we didn’t get to work together again. Any last words I should pass on to your friends when I find them for the other half of my merchandise?”
I clicked the arming button on the flash-bang and held it up in time to feel my palm burn and hear their yelps of surprise and pain through the explosive cracks. A few more gunshots went off, and I rolled away, dizzily jumping up and dashing for the van. Pretty fired a few rounds, clipping one thug and sending him yelping to the ground, clutching his leg.
I crouched next to her. She stared at me with naked relief, throwing her arms around me and burying her face in my shoulder. “Oh, spirits, I thought they—”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” It was the truth, too. My flesh was already regenerating, nothing but bloodstains on my shirt and neck. Sirens began to wail in the distance.
“Shit.”
I reached up to open the back door, pushing Pretty inside just as a security drone flew overhead, spotlight shining right on my face. My commlink beeped as it was scanned. I looked away as gunfire pelted the drone, and it sped forward to start recording the faces of Ranes and his boys. I jumped into the van just as Pretty started the engine and gunned it out of there, almost rolling us as she took a corner hard. I turned to look just as Ranes slammed against the windshield, rolling to the side. I couldn’t tell if he survived or not.
We took turn after turn, finally pulling onto the interstate and blending into traffic. One of the advantages of having such a damn old car was its lack of modern transponders. As long as we stayed away from scanning zones, we’d be effectively invisible.
“Pretty…Pretty…Marie, listen to me.” She looked up at me, more tears in her eyes. “You’ve got to get out of here. LS’s involved, and they’ve seen my face. I’m a liability to the warren now.”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“Yes, it does. I’ve got to get out of here. Don’t you see? It’s not just the law. I’m dragging the whole warren down. I’m a threat to Needles staying in charge, right when he’s finally got the right idea how to do it. I’m dividing loyalties and second-guessing people, leading them down paths they wouldn’t normally take. The way I do things, I’ll get everyone in trouble. I’m better off on my own, far away from here.”
She didn’t respond, only sniffling and pulling off the road near Bucktown.
I knelt in the van next to her, waiting until she could look at me again. She did, her face as naked as I had ever seen it, the features of a heartbroken, scared girl with tears in her eyes.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
“You are going to get out of here. Take this stuff back to the farm. You can still use most of it.”
“What about you?”
I looked her in the eye.
“I’ll find my own way. Tell the others I didn’t make it. Tell Needles you saw me take a few shots to the head before you got out of there.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s for the best if the warren thinks I’m dead. Then there’s no one worrying about me. Let me be dead, at least until things have stabilized there. I swear I’ll come back someday.”
“You promise?”
“My word.”
I grabbed my coat and the bag with the Orb. The windows were down as I slammed the door. I turned to look back and say my goodbyes.
She dashed forward, her lips meeting mine in a shocking moment. Every ounce of passion I had doubted existed in her came rushing to the fore in that instant, blazing through in a single kiss.
She pulled back, fresh tears falling, but not a sob to be seen as she smiled weakly. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
The first snowflake of the season drifted onto her cheek, melting to join the tears falling along the curl of her smirk. I smiled with a confidence I didn’t feel, and turned to blend into the last of the Christmas shopping crowd.
How ironic. Now she was the honest one with her tears, and I was the one wearing the mask.
Chapter 14
Adieu
The subsprawl streets finally emptied, with all the happy corporate families going home to enjoy a hot cup of Koko choco-sub by the light of the trideo on this first snowfall of the year. Others less fortunate would be huddled in shelters or around steam vents, as Chicago’s brutal winters made heat as valuable a resource as clean water.
I walked through it all as casually as I could, constantly checking my HUD to make sure it was in passive/hidden mode. Paranoia was my closest friend right now, and the glow of the coffee house might have been Mecca to my weary gaze. I resisted the urge to burst in and strolled over as casually as I could, finally stopping at the window to gaze inside.
Halian sat at his usual small table, fiddling with his PAN. As he sipped his drink, he caught sight of me through the window and smiled, beckoning me in. Wary of the store’s auto-check of my commlink, I gestured for him to come out and join me, instead. His smile faltering, he got up and came outside. It was strange, but in all our meetings, we had been seated, facing each other eye to eye. Looking down on his 1.2-meter-frame, I was reminded just how different we were.
“What’s wrong, Rick?”
“I’m in a jam,” I began, stopping and darting my gaze about as sirens rang in the distance. That seemed to provide him with ample explanation, and he nodded, beckoning me to follow him. He led me to a midsize sedan parked around the corner, and unlocked it. Getting into his dwarf-sized seat, he activated
the heaters and flipped the switch for a white noise generator. My ears popped from the double pressure change and I sighed, sinking into the seat and relaxing for the first time in hours.
“What has happened, my friend?”
I sniffed in derisive laughter. “I trashed my identity.”
“That seems like a foolish thing to do.”
I nodded, zoning out on the distant street lights and the hypnotic pattern of falling snow in the beam of light.
“Would you care to tell me how it happened?”
“Off the record?”
“Naturally.”
I sighed and began my tale of the events of the evening. After wrapping it up where I met with him, the car grew silent. I suddenly became acutely aware of the sanctuary around me, and the danger into which Halian was putting himself by harboring me. For his part, he sat and nodded, taking it all in and thinking before responding.
“You’ll need a place to stay while we find another identity for you.”
Startled, I looked at him. “You can’t put yourself at that kind of risk.”
He turned his gaze on me, surprised and amused. “I’m at equal risk every day for the things I do. Sheltering a relatively innocent fugitive hardly seems like a worthy crime to add to the list at this point.”
I laughed. “Relatively innocent?”
“You didn’t hurt anyone who leads a simple, crime-free life. Those who did get hurt were scum who threw the first punch. If it weren’t for your SINless status, I imagine you could have played it off as a mugging and been none the worse for wear.”
“You’re a complicated cat, Halian.”
“Remaining impartial in my information distribution does not preclude my having a moral code.”
I conceded the point, and he told me to buckle up. “Where are we going?”
“Someplace they never look for criminals.”
The University of Chicago’s library boiler room was as warm and welcoming as a log cabin in the woods, sealed up and clean but for a fine layer of dust. A small chair and table sat near the furnace, a couple of hardcopy books and a pitcher and glass sitting fresh and dust-free.
Shadowrun: Crimson Page 23
