by Mel Odom
Collapsing into a soccer tackle, Hawke managed to slide under the bullets cutting the air only centimeters over his head. The asphalt grated against his legs and hip as he tackled the troll. It felt like hitting a tree trunk, and the troll didn’t budge more than was necessary to point his pistols down at Hawke.
Fighting street samurais at point-blank range was suicidally stupid. Besides the exterior armor, many also had subdermal layers tucked into their flesh to protect vulnerable spots. They were huge and heavy and hard to injure.
Unless someone knew what he was doing.
Hawke did. He rolled free and twisted to backslash across the troll’s ankles. The katar’s monofilament blade sliced through his opponent’s hamstrings, and he lost control over his foundation.
“He’s on me, Deckard! The drekker just cut my feet!” The troll fired into the asphalt, but Hawke was already gone. The bullets blasted small craters in the rough surface.
Deckard turned blindly, one eye ruined and the other still in synaptic shock from the light show, and fired at his companion, apparently hoping to tag Hawke. The bullets tore into the other troll. Most bounced off the metahuman’s armor or subdermal plating, but a few ripped through unprotected flesh as well.
The troll squalled in pain and fear and tried to move. When he did, his maimed feet betrayed him, and he went down in a rush of falling meat.
With his right katar, Hawke slashed the troll’s throat. The monofilament blade raked through the reinforced cartilage over the larynx. Thick blood sprayed out into the alley. The unmistakable smell filled Hawke’s nostrils, and he switched to breathing through his mouth.
The squalling was replaced by a thick, strangled gurgle as the troll bled out.
“Cobb!” Deckard bellowed as he backed away and reloaded his pistols. “Cobb!”
Curling into a ball, Hawke got his feet under him and stood. He moved soundlessly and vectored in on Deckard from the side. The street sam turned, evidently catching sight or sound of his approach. He thrust his pistols out and started firing again.
Hawke ducked beneath the pistol on the right and let it slide past his shoulder. He used his left katar to shove the other pistol away. Then he twisted his shoulder and hip, putting all his weight into a straight punch to Deckard’s chest.
For a moment the armor held, then the subdermal ceramic reinforcement over the sternum held, but in the end Hawke’s blow sliced into the street samurai’s heart.
The troll stood frozen in agony and shock. He looked down in disbelief with his good eye.
“Frag you, Hawke,” Deckard snarled through bloody spittle.
“This didn’t have to be personal. It was just biz.”
“Everything’s personal, you double-crossing drekker.”
In case Deckard had a back-up heart and some kind of shutdown relay for the injured one, Hawke withdrew his right katar and launched a powerful uppercut with the left. The blade ripped through the subdermal armor at the troll’s throat and speared into his brain.
The troll’s corpse sagged and dropped. By the time CrashCart or one of the other emergency medical services arrived, the resuscitation window would be closed. Deckard would just be an organ donor and cyber scrapheap waiting for scavengers.
A lot of shadowrunners ended up that way. Running wasn’t a forgiving business, and the learning curve was lethal.
Hawke sprinted after Mr. Johnson as Lone Star sirens warbled over the sprawl.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mr. Johnson was out of shape, and had barely made it past the far end of the alley. Hawke easily caught up to the man and grabbed him by the elbow. At the sudden restraint, Mr. Johnson yelled and tried to pull away.
“Throttle down,” Hawke advised. “They’re dealt with.”
Since the third troll hadn’t put in an appearance, Hawke felt safe assuming Deckard’s companion had gone down under the minigun fire. But that didn’t slow him in keeping his charge moving down the street.
“I won’t tell anyone.” Pale and shaking, Mr. Johnson staggered at Hawke’s side. “I swear.”
At first, Hawke wasn’t certain how to handle the man. A lot of Mr. Johnsons were often every bit as dangerous as whatever clandestine thing they were contracting for. Too many of them tried to eliminate shadowrunners they’d hired in order to sever any links to themselves.
Cars whizzed by on the street. Groups of people flowed from the bars, bodegas, and Stuffer Shacks on both sides of them, pooling and spooling in the shadows and neon. A Santa Fe Lone Star heavy cruiser slid to a stop in front of Tang’s. The manager and the cooks knelt in the street with their hands clasped behind their heads. The Johnson started following their lead.
“Get up.” Rolling his eyes, Hawke pulled at Mr. Johnson’s collar to keep him on his feet. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“What about the trolls?”
“Fragged. They won’t be following us. Lone Star’s another problem.” Hawke pushed the man ahead of him. “Did you drive?”
“No. I took a cab from the airport.”
So Mr. Johnson wasn’t local. Hawke filed the info away. “What about a hotel?”
The man shook his head. “This was a turnaround. Either we had a deal or we didn’t. I wasn’t going to be staying.”
Hawke kept walking quickly down the sidewalk. He held Mr. Johnson’s upper right arm tightly, and kept him in lockstep with him.
“Thanks for saving me back there.”
Hawke nodded, but didn’t mention that he’d had no choice. Letting Mr. Johnson get killed or jacked would have been bad for biz. Furthermore, if Mr. Johnson had been captured by Lone Star, even more drek could burn along Hawke’s backtrail.
“What about the restaurant’s video? I could be recognized.”
“Got a record?”
“No.” Mr. Johnson looked affronted. “No record. But I’ve got a profile at my corp.”
Glancing at the man, Hawke wondered if that was actually the truth, or if Mr. Johnson was paranoid or inflating his ego. Whoever had sent him wouldn’t have sent someone that could be easily identified.
“You won’t get recognized from anything at Tang’s.” Hawke accessed his Personal Area Network and tagged breaking screamsheets about the action at the restaurant. The scanty details mentioned no names and rolled the blurry footage from Tang’s. “Did you see the way the employees filed out into the street on their knees? That’s so they won’t accidentally be shot.”
“But the video—”
“Clear enough to show no Tang employee was involved in the dust-up, but not clear enough to allow any guests to be identified. That’s part of why the charges are so high there. Plus, I had a white noise generator equipped with a video-mask. Everything at our table will show up distorted. I don’t want to be identified either.”
“Oh.”
Two blocks down, Hawke guided Mr. Johnson into an alley. At the other end, he slotted a credstick to open the gates of a private parking area patrolled by sec-drones. Hawke threw passwords at the sec-drones, then linked with the burgundy colored Shin-Hyung sedan he was currently driving.
He’d had the vehicle’s rear spoiler removed to blend in with traffic. None of the performance had been sacrificed, and several offensive and defensive systems had been added. Keeping a car was expensive. Keeping the same car was expensive and dangerous, and maybe borderline foolish. The investments in this one were solely for personal protection while on the street.
“Where are we going?” Mr. Johnson stepped back as the remote controlled Shin-Hyung glided to a stop in front of them. Neon-green ground effects lit up his feet as the doors opened.
“The airport.” Hawke settled into the driver’s seat, which immediately embraced him and strapped him in. Inside the car, safe within the armor and weapons array, he relaxed a little more. “You need to get out of town.”
Mr. Johnson hurried around the car and got into the passenger seat. The windshield glowed blue and scanned him with a bar of light from head to toe.
>
Hawke’s PAN seized the information that the car’s intel systems gleaned from the cyberware snooping his passenger. The upload filled a ghost-thin overlay in his vision. The scan picked up the stores Mr. Johnson had gotten his clothing, shoes, wallet, and accessories from. It also detected the kind of cologne and deodorant he wore.
Nothing in Mr. Johnson’s body had been cybered or remodeled. He’d had his appendix taken out, but nothing had been put in its place. Seatbelts wrapped the man up, and would have doubled as personal restraints at a word.
UNKNOWN PASSENGER flashed across Hawke’s PAN overlay.
Hawke initiated the passcodes to shut down the vehicle’s self-defense array as he powered through the open parking gates and down the alley. In seconds he was out on the street, rolling through the sprawl toward the airport, zipping past the bustling stores and bars.
Mr. Johnson twitched uncomfortably. “What am I supposed to do?”
Hawke checked the radar overlay on his PAN. The car’s systems showed they were alone and attracting no undue attention. Out of habit and in spite of the tech, he checked the rear-view and side mirrors.
“Get out of Santa Fe. Go home. Stay safe.”
Mr. Johnson nervously licked his lips. “What about the run?”
“If it’s a go, I’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Lemme see yer face.”
The demand came from a stainless steel box beside the heavy sec-gates enclosing the salvage yard outside the Santa Fe sprawl. This far out, only the yard’s sec lights punched holes in the night.
Hawke rolled his heavily-tinted window down and turned his face toward the camera mounted on the box. To the casual observer, it looked like two camera lenses were inset in the device. However, he knew one of them covered the barrel of an Enfield AS-7 assault shotgun. If the retina scan wasn’t recognized, the shotgun took off the interloper’s head.
“Come ahead, chummer.” The mechanical voice squawked through an old school speaker box.
The massive gates parted as Hawke thumbed the window back up. The sedan rolled across the steel bridge that could retract and drop a car between heartbeats if the salvage yard owner so desired. Spikes waited at the end of the four-meter drop, and napalm flushed the area almost immediately afterward.
Krank liked his solitude, and protected it vigorously.
Drones and wild pigs provided roving security between tall stacks of wrecked cars and heavy equipment. The drones were armed and programmed to attack and take evasive action. According to Krank, the pigs were Arkansas razorbacks, trained to kill and eat intruders.
A small drone flitted into position in front of Hawke’s windshield and hovered for a moment. It didn’t linger long enough for him to spot what kind of weapon it carried.
A short distance farther on, one of the pigs—weighing at least three hundred kilos— brushed up against the sports car hard enough to rock it.
Hawke opened the comm to the main building. “If that mutated slab of bacon dents my car, I’m gonna slit its throat and donate its carcass to the nearest homeless squat.”
“You just leave Alice alone.” The voice on the other end of the connection was deep and musical. “She’s with child. Gonna gimme a whole new litter of guard pigs. ’Sides, that was just a love tap. If she’d meant anything by it, she’d’ve knocked you over.”
Two stories tall and covered with cheap metal, the main warehouse looked flimsy. But like the box at the front gate, looks were deceptive. The structure could take direct hits from miniguns, and even a cannon. The long rectangle had a few round windows that could be used as gun ports.
As Hawke neared the building, the large doors parted and he drove inside. When he was through, they slid closed behind him.
The spacious warehouse was occupied only by a few cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Parking space was provided at one end, and the other was a motor pool, where block and tackles hung over three grease pits.
The air inside was cool, despite the outside heat. Krank pulled down a lot of cred with the operation, especially so close to the Aztlan border, so he could afford AC for the entire space.
Hawke pulled the car into the parking area, switched off the engine, set the security systems, and got out. He walked toward the grease pit, his boots clicking against the pavement. The sound echoed over the whine of a drill coming from one of the grease pits.
Krank stood in the bottom. The dwarf wasn’t quite four feet tall, and looked almost that broad. A shaggy gray-brown beard framed his heavy-featured face. The stump of a cigar jutted from the corner of his downturned mouth. He wore coveralls and an equipment belt. Goggles protected his eyes, and kept him hooked into the sec-video streaming through his PAN.
Hawke knelt at the edge of the pit and glanced at the Rover SUV. Most of the body panels had been removed to allow the mounting of bulletproof armor.
Krank glanced up at him. “Got in a bit of a dust-up, did you?”
Hawke just stared down at the man.
Krank pointed an oily, gloved finger at him. “Took a couple heavy rounds in the chest. Good thing your armor held, chummer.”
Hawke slipped a hand inside his shirt and stuck fingers through the bullet holes. “Yeah.”
“The car?”
“Slick as a gut. No damage.”
Krank nodded, then took the cigar from his mouth and spat on the grease-caked floor. “Got anybody looking for you?”
“Lone Star, probably.”
The dwarf dismissed that threat with a roll of his shoulders. “Null sheen. They don’t find you at first, they won’t come looking unless somebody’s payin’ ’em to. Who tried to put those holes in you?”
“The other was personal biz. I took care of it.” Hawke still didn’t like the idea of telling Krank so much, but the dwarf ran a tight operation.
“I like you, Hawke.” Krank turned his attention back to the vehicle he was working on. “But nobody gets a free pass. Don’t bring anything down on me, or you’ll pay for it. Still heading out today?”
Hawke nodded, then stood and headed to the rooms on the second floor. The metal steps that zig-zagged up the wall looked dangerous. The long series of steps shivered beneath his weight.
The rooms up here were expensive, but worth it. In addition to the best privacy cred could buy, Krank also provided quick underground escape routes that wound under the harsh terrain outside the salvage yard. Years ago, the warehouse had been used for smuggling goods to and from Aztlan, and while Krank didn’t traffic across the border any more, the tunnels remained in place and accessible—for the right price, of course.
Equipped with a bed, small kitchen area, and a bath, the room didn’t offer first-class accommodations. But the Matrix jackpoints were guaranteed clean and untraceable.
Hawke dropped his gear on the bed and took out the datachip Mr. Johnson had given him. He slotted it and sat down to look at the run’s parameters.
Chapter SIX
Seventeen hours later, Hawke stood in a no-name border town cantina located between Aztlan and Texas. He drank beer and ate tortillas while watching a trideo presentation of the smuggler’s run up from Aztlan. Drones relayed the trideo to outlaw channels that paid for access. In some places the event was considered a sport; in others it was a training ground where young wannabes studied the drivers and machinery.
Hawke sat at a table with Doggle, an ork rigger who was a savant at blueprinting engines, but lacked the touch for wheelwork. The man’s face was hard and lean, scarred by both his work and close-in fighting. Both lower canines had been capped in blue silver, and curled up over his upper lip. Thick, black hair hung in wild disarray, but didn’t cover his pointed ears. Scuffmarks and grease stained his leather two-piece uniform.
The bartender took Hawke’s order for another brew and drew one in a tall glass. He set a fresh bowl of salsa in front of him as well.
“In for the race?” he asked while slotted the proffered credstick.
“Yeah.”
The bartender tilted his head toward an elf sitting at a corner table. “Crief’s still taking action. The racers are twenty minutes out, and the local sec teams have been alerted. It’s anybody’s race.”
Hawke nodded as he rolled a tortilla stuffed with salsa and popped it into his mouth.
“Nobody knows who called the Aztlan sec teams.” Doggle’s voice was low and rough. His eyes never left the trid viewer. “They got helos closing in, too. Whoever left word also told ’em this was a grudge smuggling run.”
“Any local favorites?” Hawke sipped his brew.
“Outside of Flicker?”
“Yeah.”
Doggle shook his big head. “Got a guy along from out of town. Supposed to be a real screamstar. Gets covered regularly on holo and in the screamsheets.”
“For illegal smuggling runs?”
A grin split Doggle’s face. “Illegal generally don’t make something unpopular.”
Hawke filled another tortilla and watched the racers. He recognized Flicker’s dirt-covered beige and olive Thundercloud Morgan ATV squirting dirt and rock out from all four tires. The vehicle went suddenly airborne and sailed for a long distance before touching back down again. For a moment the driver fought the car, and Hawke held his breath as Flicker regained control.
A Tata Hotspur off-road racing truck followed the Morgan’s path, going airborne as well. The larger vehicle sailed directly for the Morgan as Flicker fought for traction.
“Son of a slitch!” The wail ripped free of the younger men gathered around the tables. “Gunther’s trying to take Flicker out!”
Roars of anger quickly filled the small bar.
The Hotspur landed within centimeters of Flicker’s vehicle as she veered away. She juked the Morgan to the right, and the Hotspur’s front tires caught up to her in seconds, burning at her rear bumper.
“He’s trying to spin her out,” Doggle rasped, then added inflammatory invective.
