by John Helfers
“He didn’t want our help, and we don’t want his. Besides, this isn’t a gig Raven would buy into. It’s just us.”
In Wasp’s words and Sting’s reaction to them, I sensed another point of contention between them. It looked as though Sting wanted to depose Wasp, and judging by Wasp’s anger, the battle for succession would intensify relatively soon. More important, I also gained the impression that someone or some corp was yanking Wasp’s chain and Sting did not like it.
“Just us, huh? Just our blood, you mean.” Sting spat on the ground. “Are they paying us by the pint this time? When are you going to learn that those corporators see pitting one gang against another gang as a real economical means of metahuman birth control!”
The remark slashed him, but before Wasp could reply, I broke in. “I was never given to believe the Ancients danced to a corporator’s tune.”
Wasp wheeled on me, giving full vent to his fury. “Who the hell cares what you believe? You’re not even part of this gang, so you don’t stand for shit, got it?”
Sting stabbed a finger razor down through the map. “Well, I am a member of this gang, and I think this deal sucks. You better have a good plan for this ‘consolidation,’ Wasp, because I’m sick and tired of shedding blood so a new Stutter Shack can spring up on some new corner.”
“I do have a plan, Sting, one that should make even you happy.” He pointed at the intersection of Republican and Dexter. “We link up here with the Eastsiders and just sweep down through the neighborhood. We take out pockets of resistance and move on. We just roll them up.”
Despite the nods of assent from the gathered Elves, Sting remained unconvinced. “And what happens after we clear one block and move on to the next? The Meat Junkies will pour back in and occupy our building from the rear. Stupid plan, Wasp.”
“You have a better one?”
“Yeah. We start at the north end of Aurora and the Eastsiders start at Denny Way. We work toward the middle and squeeze the Meat Junkies out.”
Wasp shook his head. “Now that we’ve heard from the Custer Military Academy…”
“Pig!” Sting’s hand convulsed, shredding the map. “You know your plan leaves us open to an attack by the Emerald Dogs!”
“The Emerald Dogs are not a factor!” Wasp bared his teeth in a feral snarl. “With our firepower,” he growled as magical energy arced from left hand to right, “the Meat Junkies will die quick. This is not a protracted war, it’s a lightning assault. In quick and force them out. Bang, done!”
“That’s what you said the last time we tangled with the Tigers, but your corporator’s intelligence bit, and we got gnawed real good.” She swept her hair back from the side of her face and I saw the ragged scar from her left eye to her pointed ear. “I remember that fuck-up every day. With this plan of yours, the only thing that’s going to get done is the Ancients!”
“That was different and you know it, Sting!”
“Do I? Have the corpgeeks cut your puppet strings?”
As Sting drew in a breath to continue her tirade, I sampled the gang’s mood and knew my time had come. I coughed lightly and placed both hands palm-down on the table. “If you will forgive an uninitiated outsider making a suggestion...”
Surprised by my action, Wasp and Sting both glared at me, then nodded their assent.
“I would point out that caution against dividing your strength is well grounded when considering a battle, quick or long. On the other hand, having mobile flanking elements able to react to threats is also indisputably wise.”
“Thanks for the flash from the front,” Wasp sneered, evoking new laughter from his compatriots. “Now that we’ve heard from the Moronic Majority...”
“Wait!” The edge in my voice calmed the laughter, but not the tension that spawned it. “I have an idea. As you will recall Virgil admonishing the Romans, all that is necessary to win this conflict is to ‘subdue the arrogant.’” I started to explain that with the sniper rifle in my pack, I could easily eliminate the leader of the Meat junkies with a single, through-and-through gunshot wound to the head. I knew that the Meat Junkies would be disorganized and powerless without a leader. They would be impotent until another strong leader arose among them, and that would be a painful process. Before I could unfold my plan, Wasp cut me off.
“Dandelion talk and chip-dreams!” Wasp’s anger gathered like a thunderhead. “I don’t know this Virgil fellow—didn’t catch his simsense show—but he don’t know squat about battles in the Sprawl. Neither do you. We’ve got a battle to fight tonight, and we ain’t got time to nursemaid some greenie from the forests. All I can do is give you your first lesson: I run the Ancients. I do the thinking! I do the planning!”
“And we do the bleeding.” Sting’s comment sank in to the hilt and brought Wasp up short. She glanced at me. “I don’t know what this Sears biker has in mind, and I don’t care, but I do want some flexibility in this plan of yours. We have to be able to cover our backs in case the Emerald Dogs or Meat Junkies show us more than you guesstimate they have.”
Wasp stared from Sting to me and back. “Fine, you want a reactionary force? Great. You, Pearl, Tiny, and the greenie. Pick out another half-dozen people, and you’re it. We hit a hard point, you take it out. You happy?”
Sting took the minor concession, and with a sly grin, turned it into a major victory. “ I’ll be happy if we don’t have to save your ass too many times. Fresh perspectives and other plans will keep us alive, Wasp.”
“Then let’s hope that if you are needed, you do succeed.” Wasp turned from the table and pointed back to where our bikes waited. “Mount up, my brothers. Tonight we remind the city we do not tolerate encroachment on our turf.”
A general war-whoop filled the warehouse, but I did not allow it to distract me. I saw Wasp watching me out of the corner of his eye, and I knew he had quickly assessed my role in settling the dispute between him and Sting. Whether by accident or design, I had mediated between them for the briefest of moments, assuming a position of power. Draping an arm around Pearl’s shoulder, he whispered into his ear.
I smiled slightly, but knew I’d have to be careful. Who would detect malice in an accidental shooting during a rumble? A quick push from cover and I would make a perfect target for some Meat Junkie. If that was the game and those were the rules, I was more than willing to play.
II
Knowing my Ranger Arms sniper rifle would not be of much use in the close combat I anticipated, I drew an Ingram from the Ancients’ armory as well as enough magazines to last me well into the next century. As the roar of countless motorcycles filled the warehouse, I joined up with Sting, Pearl, and the rest of our taskforce. Tiny, the other Elf designated to join us, looked large enough—and ugly enough-to have been the result of an unholy union between Elf and Troll.
As I rode up and swung in beside him, he folded his arms across his chest. “You gotta name, chummer?”
I shrugged in an easy, almost friendly manner. “In the Tir, I was known as Alejandro Kylisearn, but among you, having a colorful nom de guerre is the way things are done.” I stopped there, my voice betraying a dilettante’s enthusiasm for a sinfully sinister adventure.
Tiny’s face screwed up in confusion. “You need a street name.”
“My thought precisely. I was thinking I would call myself...”
My voice faded to nothing as Tiny vehemently shook his head. “You can’t name yourself. Only the leader can give you a name.”
Pearl pulled up on my right, sandwiching me between him and Tiny. “I think, for now, we’ll call you Greenie.”
I graced him with a plastic smile. “You have no idea how that makes me feel, Pearl.”
Further discourse with him was cut off as the lead elements headed out of the warehouse. We brought up the rear and I let Pearl’s bike slide in ahead of mine. Tiny, for reasons only he could fathom, had obviously decided he would be my “pal.” He joined me at the back of the pack. As we rode from the warehouse, a huge d
oor slowly descended, shutting up the building.
Seattle’s streets, laid out in a motley confusion of grids blanketing countless hills, glowed pink-neon beneath sodium lights. The day’s earlier misting of rain and wisps of fog drifting in from the Sound, gave the Sprawl a sweaty, steamy feel. The tall, dark buildings closed in tighter than the redwoods of the Tir and I felt much the alien in this stone landscape.
As we headed down a hill, I saw the whole leather and steel line of Ancients writhing through the streets like a snake. Pedestrians froze like frightened deer in the glare of our headlights, or scrambled off into the haven offered by dark alleys. Normal citizens looked out from upper-story windows, exposing only their eyes and the tops of their heads. They believed themselves safe this time, but I could taste the fear on the wind.
In Seattle, the Ancients are regarded not so much as a biker gang, but a force of nature.
Wasp swung us east to pick up the Eastsiders, then headed us off west down Republican. The addition of the Eastsiders increased our forces by roughly half. From the hardware bristling on the Ancients’ bikes and bodies, I judged we were as well-equipped as most private armies, yet I doubted we had the discipline and tactical training to be quite as effective.
Yet, depending on Wasp’s performance as a battle-leader, I might revise my assessment of the Ancients. Many a leader is not fully adept at politics but is more than capable in a firefight. Though Sting had raised objections to past plans and assaults, the very fact of Wasp’s continued leadership of the group suggested abilities I had yet to see.
As we reached the northern perimeter of the area we were to conquer, Wasp issued orders in a commanding voice. He had half his people dismount to act as shock troops, while the rest split into two groups. One group shot over to Aurora, and the other set off down Dexter. The mobile pincers would isolate the first block, from Republican to Harrison, while the others would clean it out.
That may have been the plan, but the Meat Junkies quickly raised objections. Pouring into the disputed area on Thomas Street, they formed up on Dexter on the other side of the monorail line. Their foot soldiers were arrayed behind two heavily armored trucks and a phalanx of riders. From what I could see, they outnumbered us, but their weaponry could not match ours. This mixed group of Humans and Grunges was, nevertheless, not about to give up their turf without a nasty battle.
A loudspeaker mounted on one of the trucks spewed a guttural curse that could only have come from the throat of an Ork. “Dandelion wine gonna run in the streets if you Ancients ain’t cleared out in a minute.”
In response, we remounted our bikes. Wasp turned to shake his head at Sting. “No, you and your team stand down. It was your wish. You stay on your feet and watch our asses.”
“But!”
“No buts, Sting. It was your call. Now live with it.” Wasp dropped onto his Harley’s seat and raised his right hand. He let it fall, and like an electrical switch, it jolted power through the Ancients. Motorcycles screaming like captive beasts, the Ancients surged into battle.
The Meat Junkies likewise charged forward. As the two lines closed, one Ancient sighted a LAAW rocket in on the lead truck. It burned a fiery course through the night, but missed its target.
The missile struck a bike and scattered it into flaming debris, but did nothing to slow the onrushing war wagon. Sparks glanced from the truck’s armored front as Ancients sought to stop it with small arms fire. The truck merely shrugged off their bullets as if they were raindrops spattering off the back of a rhino.
The first truck blasted into and through the Ancient line, plastering one bike and rider like a bug on its front grill. Another bike exploded as a wheel rolled over its teardrop gas tank, and that set the truck’s tires blazing. Ancients scattered from in front of the truck, then turned their weapons against it, stitching holes across the vehicle’s poorly armored aft section.
The truck’s mate never even made it to the Ancients’ line.
Wasp slung his bike around and laid it down as gently as he could. His hands upraised, golden energy surrounded them with a magical nimbus. A sorcerous bolt of energy shot from his hands to skewer the armor plate on the driver’s side of the cab. A second later, as the truck began to drift, a LAAW rocket struck it in the off-side wheel-well, blowing flaming rubber chunks all over Dexter. The truck’s fender dug into the street, then the whole war-wagon pitched up in a somersault with a half twist. It came down hard, flattening its back before the gas tank exploded and sent up a column of flame taller than the surrounding buildings.
Sting turned her attention to the first truck as the Meat Junkies in it boiled out, guns spitting bullets as fast as the shooters could feed them magazines. Many of the Junkies hit the ground and didn’t get up, but enough had Kevlar-lined clothes to keep them in the fray beyond the first couple of exchanges.
Sting’s HK227 submachine gun steadily lipped flame. Instead of burning bullets with careless abandon, Sting picked her shots with deadly accuracy. When the passenger door opened on the cab, an Ork started to swing down, but jerked to a stop as three red holes opened in his chest. He slumped to the ground.
Midway down Dexter, the Ancients scythed through the Meat Junkie line. Bikes tangled as the two forces met head-on. Men and metal careened madly through the air as more than one Meat Junkie slid his bike into the Ancients. Like Cossacks driving their warhorses through peasant hordes, Ancients vaulted their bikes up over their foes, crushing Meat Junkies beneath them. Some Ancients did not survive the Kamikaze tactics, but the gaps opened in the Meat Junkie lines grinned back at us like a jack-o’ lantern’s smile.
Wasp pumped magical assault after magical assault into the Meat Junkie forces. The fireballs lit grunges into votive candles, while more magic darts savaged junkie bikers. Two other magickers joined Wasp in using magic to augment our physical weapons, but his tactical and strategic strikes were the most telling. He alone kept the small groups of Meat Junkies scattered and unable to mount a counteroffensive.
A heavy hand at my back pushed me forward, stumbling. I ducked and rolled, coming up with my Ingram ready to shoot whoever had touched me, but I kept my finger off the trigger. Tiny reeled back, twin holes ripped through his right shoulder, then tipped back over his own bike.
Concrete chips and lead splatter stung my face and hands as I leaped back behind my own bike. The shots had come from an upstairs window in the building across the way, and looking up, I caught a glimpse of a leather-faced grunge ducking back from the window. “Sting, up there! Ork sniper.”
She gave me a wild smile.
“Waiting for a hunting license? Go get him.”
I kicked Pearl. “Come with me.”
“Me?” Pearl snorted. “In your dreams, Greenie.”
Sting turned on him. “Go with him, Pearl. We’ll cover you.”
I snagged my pack from my bike and looped one strap over my left shoulder. “On three?”
Sting nodded. “One, two, three, go!”
I sprinted forward, then cut left as the sniper reappeared in the window. A fusillade chewed up the window casing and the bricks around it, forcing him back quickly. Though the sniper could not have gotten more than a brief look at the scene below, I had no doubt he knew we were coming after him. Pearl matched my speed as we hit the sidewalk, but I stopped and let him vault up the brownstone’s stairs all by his lonesome. When no gunfire materialized to cut him down, I ran up and entered the foyer two steps behind him.
What might once have been a fine, single-family dwelling was now divided and subdivided into so many living units that it was more like a kennel than an apartment house. It reeked of urine, gunpowder, and decay; faded paint flaked off the walls like dead flesh. A fresh stream of blood running from the doorway to a body at the base of the stairs pointed out the final resting place of one of the Meat Junkies in the truck.
I ran to crouch by his body, then scanned up the stairs to the first landing. I gave Pearl an “all-clear” nod that sent him sprinting
up to where the second flight began. He signaled me to come up, but I hesitated a second to be sure the grunge at my feet was truly dead. Pulling off his mask of rat-skin and chicken-flesh, I felt for a carotid pulse and found none.
Reaching Pearl’s side, I motioned for him to head up to the next landing. He balked and insisted I go. I slipped my right arm through the pack’s strap, firmly anchoring it to my back. Peering into the Ingram’s open bolt, I saw bullets ready to be fired and cautiously mounted the stairs.
Sweat started at my temples and rolled relentlessly down my cheeks as, step by step, I headed up. Unlike the first flight, these stairs opened onto a corridor that led back the length of the building. Any of the ramshackle doors could pop open, disgorging a whole gang of Meat Junkies. Making it worse was the fact that I had to divide my concentration between what might lurk above and wondering whether Pearl was about to shoot me in the back. It did nothing to bolster my confidence.
I bobbed my head up above floor level, then ducked down again as quickly as I could. I had seen nothing to suggest a trap, but the gunfire and explosions from outside provided enough competition that it was hard to be certain I had not missed something. I took another quick look, then took two more steps.
Again I saw nothing.
I had just turned to wave Pearl forward when the bullet hit me in the backpack. The impact tossed me across the stairway and bounced me off the railing on the far side. I hit hard and rebounded out of control. I dropped my Ingram, which clattered its way back down the stairs, me tumbling after it.
Clomping steps rushed toward me and the salty taste of blood made me panic. Adrenaline coursed through my body like lightning through a computer. Though my last somersault landed me flat on my back on the landing, I knew immediately what I had to do to avoid death.
My fist closed on the Ingram as the grunge appeared at the top of the stairs. Shoving the gun in his direction, I tightened down on the trigger. I made no attempt to fight the recoil, but just let it drag the gun upward. The bullets first tore into the stairs less than two meters below him, then sliced him open from groin to forehead.
