Shadowrun: Spells & Chrome

by John Helfers

  He slapped the side of his head with his palm, rattling the GPS just enough to get him back on track. “Around the corner. Down the alley,” he said. “Later,” he told the elf-geese. Then he was gone, his wired reflexes giving him a boost of speed that took him around the edge of the all-night pharmacy, down half a block and into the alley. He didn’t hear any sirens, but he figured sooner or later someone would call about the troll bleeding out on the sidewalk. It had been self-defense, hadn’t it? The troll had been carrying a gun, after all.

  There weren’t any snakes at the mouth of the alley. There was plenty of water for them, as Moses sloshed through one puddle after the next as he made his way around trash receptacles sitting outside the backdoors of bars, sex shops, and diners. But there weren’t any neon signs, and it was the signs that gave birth to the best snakes. Moses felt better when there were snakes around. Moses was supposed to have snakes.

  “Exodus four-three and four,” Moses said. Why was it he could remember the Bible verses so easy but not the color of the whatever-it-was he had on layaway with Doc? “And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand.” He sucked in a deep breath and went farther down the alley. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

  A cat hissed and shot in front of him, disappearing behind crates stacked at a barber’s back door.

  “Hurry with this,” Moses told himself. He wanted to get the nuyen and get back out on the street. Find that cherry-grape snake again and ogle it a little longer before he visited Doc and had … what was that he was going to the clinic for? “Hair.” He was pleased that he remembered that. “Hair and—” Hair and something else. He’d put his mind to it after this was over. Put his head to it. “Head. Head. Head.”

  Moses scratched the bumps above his eyes and brightened. “And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as the lord commanded Moses. Leviticus eight-nine.”

  What was his sister’s address? Eight Nine something. Ruth, right? Yeah, Ruth. Wither-though-goest-Ruth.

  Halfway down the alley, that’s where the GPS tugged him.

  “Didja bring the nuyen?”

  Moses stopped, peering into the shadows, insect-like compound cybereyes separating the grays and blacks and finding the man … dwarf … thickset, grubby-looking. They all were dirty-looking, the ones who dealt in these sorts of things.

  “Did you bring the beetles?” Moses returned.

  The dwarf stepped away from the wall.

  And the good ones were rich.

  “Nuyen. Nuyen. Nuyen,” Moses whispered. His ears whirred and clicked, picking up the dwarf’s heartbeat and the slow slap of his shoes in the puddles sadly devoid of snakes. Moses needed snakes. Picking up the dwarf’s breathing. Insect-like compound cybereyes with heat-sensors finding the dwarf, finding rats scurrying along in either direction, finding garbage piled up outside the back door of a Chinese restaurant, finding things he didn’t want to get too close a look at. Finding nothing else.

  For once, Moses was glad he couldn’t smell anything.

  “Did you bring the beetles?” Moses repeated. He heard the faintest of whirring and clicks. The dwarf was checking him out, too. “I’m alone. No guns.”

  “I know.”

  “The beetles.” Moses added a hint of desperation to his voice, like he was a junkie in desperate need of a fix. He was, but not for the beetles. He remembered the goat horns he had on layaway. If he didn’t pay them off and get them installed soon, he’d lose his deposit. “Did you bring the beetles?”

  “Better than life,” the dwarf cooed, stepping closer.

  “Better than human,” Moses said, thinking about the horns and the fins and echolocation bioware and maybe some extended volume for his lungs and elastic joints for his knees.

  “Better than anything,” the dwarf said. “Yeah, I have beetles. You have nuyen?”

  Moses pulled out the troll’s credstick. Good thing he’d run into the troll. He’d forgotten his meager credstick back at his place. He hadn’t forgotten it the last time he pulled this stunt, or the time before that or before that. Had to have a credstick to make them think you were actually buying something. Had to have the black market contacts to get the names and locations of beetle-sellers. Better-than-life chips were still illegal and you couldn’t buy them just anywhere. He didn’t want the chips, just the credsticks the beetle-seller would have on him. It was a theft that would never be reported. Moses had done this a dozen times. Or was that two dozen?

  “Yeah, I got the nuyen. Let’s see the chips first.” Moses waved the stick higher. He knew the dwarf had some sort of enhanced vision that would let him pick out the details. “Why don’t you—”

  The back door of one of the bars opened, spilling sickly-yellow light out into the alley and reflecting off the puddles. Moses caught a glimpse of a snake, but it wasn’t a pretty one. Only neon bred the pretty ones. He tried to look away, but it was a snake, and Moses was supposed to have snakes, wasn’t he? Maybe if he cocked his head he could see it breathe. Maybe if—

  The dwarf barreled into him, fist slamming into his stomach, plating absorbing it, but the momentum sending him back. Moses’ tail lashed out, whipping around the dwarf’s muscular forearm. It was a cyberlimb, all metal, no flesh, fingers ungodly strong and grabbing at the tail, squeezing, breaking some of the mirrored scales.

  “Damn you!” Moses cursed. He couldn’t afford to have the tail fixed, not with all the other plans for modifications. Not unless the dwarf had lots and lots of nuyen for selling beetles. Moses’ bone lacing made him strong, and he used that might now to bull-rush the dwarf, bringing his knee up into the smaller man’s chest, pushing him down into the puddle to smother the ugly, yellow snake.

  The dwarf had dermal plating, too. So Moses changed his tactics, pounding his fists against the dwarf’s wide, ruddy face.

  Voices intruded, maybe the man who’d opened the back door and birthed the ugly snake. Someone with him, voices panicked at what was transpiring in their alley. Make it fast, Moses thought. Don’t need someone calling Lone Star. Not that he was doing anything illegal. This was self-defense. The dwarf started it. Moses just intended to finish it.

  “And Moses said unto the Lord in Exodus four-ten, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou has spoken unto they servant; but I am slow of speech, and slow of tongue. But let me be fast of fist. Let my wired reflexes fly.”

  Moses pounded harder until he heard bone crunch. The dwarf didn’t intend to just stay down and die, though, struggling frantically to reach something at his side, succeeding, and pulling free a heavy pistol that he shoved up against Moses’ side. The dwarf fired three times, the first two bouncing off the dermal, but the third punching a hole in the plating and sending a round deep inside.

  Moses registered the pain, but shoved it to the back of his mind and continued to pound, listening to voices spilling out in the alley, listening to the dwarf curse, and hearing another round fire and find its way inside. Then he heard the dwarf cough and felt blood spit up against his face and onto his lips. Good thing he couldn’t taste. Dwarf blood would probably taste bad.

  The dwarf heaved once beneath him, and then fell still. Moses dug through his pockets, finding credstick after credstick after credstick. Twenty five of them—his math subprocessor unit counted things instantly. The proverbial motherload. He shoved them in his own pockets. They wouldn’t all fit, so he stuffed the extras in his kangaroo pouch, which had been a handy modification. Then he pushed off the ground, one hand pressed against his wounded side.

  The voices came closer, accompanied by feet slapping through puddles filled with ugly yellow snakes. The backdoor to the bar was propped open wide and sickly light poured out.

>   “Are you hurt?”

  “Who are you?”

  “What happened?”

  There were more questions from the quintet of barmaids and bartenders. Moses ignored them all and whacked his free palm against the side of his head, kicking in the GPS and tugging him back out the alley, onto the sidewalk and around the corner of the all-night pharmacy.

  Maybe he should go in the pharmacy, he thought. Buy some painkillers and bandages.

  But Doc’s wasn’t terribly far away, five or six blocks tops. Doc could repair the damage from the dwarf’s slugs, put him under for that and do some modifications and hair-grafting at the same time. He certainly had enough nuyen on all these credsticks. Get it all done at the same time. Had the dwarf shot up some of his computer interfaces? Were more systems damaged?

  “Nuyen. Nuyen. Nuyen. Got me lots of that.” Moses staggered up the street, past the body of the bled-out troll that was still lying on the curb, passersby walking around it. No sign of Foxy Foxtail, whom he probably saved.

  Lightning flickered high overhead, followed by a boom of thunder that drowned out the music spilling from bars and sex shops. It would rain soon, thank the Lord, Moses thought. Rain and fill the low spots so the snakes would have more room to swim.

  He watched the snakes as he went, pushing himself between the throng out on the sidewalk, struggling to watch the snakes between all the feet. Bright blue, grass-green, violet, day-glo pink, chartreuse, they shimmied all along Western Avenue. Moses followed the cherry-grape one, and with his free hand fingered one of the many credsticks in his pocket.

  How had he gotten so many credsticks?

  What was he going to spend them on?

  Hair, he remembered hair. He came down here to get him some of that. Hair and … hair and … pearlized goat milk for his sister Ruth. Intreat me not to leave thee, Ruth. Where thou lodgest, Ruth.

  “Where do you lodge?” Moses mused.

  He’d deliver the milk tonight, if only he could remember her address.

  Caliban

  By Phaedra Weldon

  Phaedra Weldon is the author of the urban fantasy series, Zoë Martinique Investigations published by Berkley. She has written in the Star Trek universe and writes fiction and source work in the BattleTech universe for Catalyst Game Labs. She was recently tapped to write a novel in the successful SyFy series, Eureka! Her fourth book in the Zoë series, Revenant, is scheduled for a June 2010 release. Her first Shadowrun novel, Dark Resonance, about a reluctant Technomancer and a familiar Netcat, will be published in 2010.

  I have a problem paying 1000 nuyen for a cup of fancy, swill-tasting soycaf. So when some gacked up ork blows it into ceramic fragments before I can even choke it down—it sort of sets the mood for the rest of the day.

  I make a better cup at home—but I wasn’t at home that morning. I was in Los Angeles—the last place I ever wanted to be. I’m more at home in Seattle—a long way from my present location. I was doing a friend a favor, and getting shot at in the process.

  Welcome to 2072.

  My name’s Derek Montgomery, but most of my chummers call me Dirk. I’ve sort of built up a reputation as a shadowrunner over the past sixteen years. I never call myself that—I’m a detective for lack of a better word. Shadowrunners take on a variety of jobs that respectable clients don’t want to get their hands dirty with.

  I’ve only dipped in that pool when it was necessary—or I was tricked into it. I still cherry pick when I can, and then beg when necessary. I’ve pretty much kept my choices to surveillance and recovery over the years—though I have been pulled into some pretty complicated situations.

  This profession sometimes takes me to different places—not always the more exotic locales like Hong Kong—nobody throws that kind of nuyen my way. And since I’m more of a Seattle name, not much about my reputation has gotten past the borders. Lately the routine had become too much of just that—a routine. I did want to get out of the rain—see some sunshine.

  Los Angeles wasn’t my first choice, and neither was this coffee shop across from the Mega Tri-Plex (that’s the local term for the three Megacorps buildings for Horizon, Ares and Shiawase).

  I was here to do a favor for an old friend’s “nephew.” But let’s get it straight—I knew the guy I was meeting wasn’t really her nephew—because Naomi Takashi didn’t have siblings. Naomi’s an old friend of mine from my short-lived Lone Star days who was now the Central Administrator for Wireless Augmented Reality Reconnaissance at the Lone Star facility in Seattle. The fact she had asked me for a favor—that was enough for me to say yes before I knew what it was she wanted.

  I had a skeletal sob-story fit for the latest teen trideo—of a brother looking for his sister who disappeared. Yeah, I’d heard it before. Null perspiration.

  But hell—it was Naomi—and I owed her my life ten times over.

  So I’d e-mailed the guy—a Knight Errant employee named Kazuma (that’s KAH-zoo-mah, as Naomi corrected me forty times) Tetsu. Tet-sue. His e-mails were professionally encrypted—scaled so that I’d have to enter a password on my end to read them. It was a bit annoying but I liked the guy’s eye for security.

  We’d arranged to meet at Cup O’ Sin on the corner of Dreking and Expensive at ten o’clock. I’d only been there ten minutes before I saw him entering the shop—that was less then two minutes before the ork and his buddies blasted in with weapons firing.

  Just my kind of day.

  He was tall and slender and young looking—like most Japanese I’d known. Naomi was my age and I swear she looked as young and beautiful as the day we’d first met. His hair was fashionably cut around his face and ears then pulled back in a long ponytail behind him. It looked as if it’d been dyed a reddish brown as well—but at least it wasn’t something like bright pink or yellow. He wore an expensive suit, black with a mandarin collar and black silk beneath. On his lapel was the KE pen the local branch’s employees wore as a badge as well as his SIN that allowed them access in and out of Knight Errant doors.

  I kept my attention fixed between my contact and the three coming through the front. It was obvious in a pinch they weren’t actually aiming at anything or anybody—more so firing off their weapons to create a panic. My guess was to chase customers out of the shop.

  But then there was always the path of the stray bullet—which found my client somewhere in his upper body. With a grunt I ducked, pulled out my Colt Manhunter and chambered a round. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about this kid’s life—but my own. If something happened to him, Naomi would blame—and possibly kill—me. At the very least she never speak to me again.

  And as a professional, I couldn’t exactly afford not having her as one of my key contacts for information in the Lone Star database.

  As others scrambled out and the three intruders made their way in, I moved quick and low around them and to the right. Kazuma lay on his face behind a felled shelf of token coffee mugs and sugary sweets. I saw blood on the back of his suit and on the polished tile floor beneath.

  But he hadn’t let the wound take him down—the guy was up on all fours, moving as fast as he could toward the back of the shop to the counter, a black leather messenger bag draped around his shoulder. If that’s where his gear was stored and one of the shooters saw it, they’d come after him and take it.

  Tech wasn’t as expensive as it used to be—but still—from the size of the bag I assumed he had one of the new slimline commlinks with an RFID tag on it. Shit-heads like these were always looking for a quick steal and a quick fence.

  With a glance around I moved in behind him, keeping the overturned shelf between us and the intruder’s view. Colt in my right hand, I crouch-stepped over him, threaded my left hand and arm beneath his left side under his arm and pulled him forward with me.

  My back gave a slight protest—he was heavier than he looked—and I was getting too old for this.

  Original intention had been to get him out of the shop—but it looked like that exit was b
locked, and he’d also started to fight to get free of me. I figured whoever didn’t get out in the first few seconds was going to be either a hostage or collateral.

  “Baka let me go!” he hissed at me as one of the shooters, a bulked up, chromed hulk, chased a nice-looking girl out of the shop and then dragged her back in again. Uh oh—that didn’t look good for her. “What are you—” the kid said in a much louder voice.

  I slapped a hand over his mouth and yanked him down to the floor with me to watch the shooters’ actions.

  The ork noticed his companion dragging the girl back in by her hair and moved in himself. If this was gonna be some twisted bit of thrill sex I was just gonna have to drop the kid and do my part. Can’t stand by and watch as some innocent piece of endowment gets gacked.

  But ork took his weapon and held it by the firing end and smashed it hard into his companion’s head. The side not covered in a chrome dome. Blood gushed over the thug’s face and he lost hold of the girl. She screamed but was at least smart enough to get the hell out of there.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Chromedome demanded as he reached behind him and drew a katana from his back.

  Ork didn’t appear to be too afraid of Chromedome’s weapon. He was in his face, his own weapon righted and the barrel inches from the guy’s bloody nose. “We ain’t here for that. You do your part and you get paid. You fuck up again, and I’ll cap your ass and chop you for parts.”

  Chromedome sneered and re-holstered his blade.

  A few other customers were trying to get by and Kazuma was moving in my arms. I pulled my hand away from his face and whispered, “Keep quiet.”

  But that just wasn’t going to happen. “I have to get back there,” he nodded in the direction he was going. “Behind—” he winced “behind the counter, to the right. Central server and network key.”

  Oh? I didn’t ask how this kid would know that—I just did what he said. I released him and he kept low. I crouched down as well but noticed there was a blood trail left by his clothing. That little detail was going to give us away eventually—but at the moment it couldn’t be helped.