2xs

by Nigel Findley

  SHADOWRUN 4

  2XS

  NIGEL FINDLEY

  Acknowledgments:

  To HTL

  Thanks for putting up with the necessary schizophrenia of the novelist. Reality ends here.

  Chapter 1.

  If this thing could be said to have started anywhere, I suppose it started with a woman with a gun.

  It had been one of those days. I was scragged to the bone, so tired I could barely keep my eyes open as I climbed the two flights of stairs to my doss in the La Jolla Apartments. (Don't be fooled. The name may be fancy, but that's about all that can make the claim on D Street in Auburn.) Assorted lacerations and abrasions about my neck and chest were making their presence felt, and a nasty contusion on my left thigh-where my armored duster had just barely stopped a small-caliber round-throbbed dully. On the bright side, the certified credstick in my pants pocket bulged with nuyen and was like a comfortable warmth. I could never be sure when dealing with Anwar the fixer, but this time he had paid my fee in full.

  I was glad to see that the corridor leading to my door was empty. Security at the La Jolla is a laugh when it comes to keeping out serious trouble, but it's generally enough to keep out the gutterpunks and chippies. Just as well, too. Scragged as I was, I wouldn't have been much good at persuading some half-drowned squatter to step aside. Reaching my door, I thumbed the lock, then stepped inside with a sigh.

  The message light on my telecom was flashing, the sequence indicating the number of calls that had come in. I gave up counting at nine. What could I expect after being out of the sprawl for almost five days?

  For a while I'd had a portable phone, but I'd quit carrying it when the damn thing went off during a surveillance job. I'd forgotten to disable the buzzer, and almost got my head blown off. Right now I wasn't in any drekking mood to deal with phone messages, but, it was possible one of the calls might be related to a case I was working on. Even better, there might be an offer to take on a new case.

  Case. Why not use the word most people would for what I do? Shadowrun.

  To me, there's a difference, that's why. Other people might not recognize it, but the distinction matters to me. Circumstances may have forced me to edge my way into the shadows, but I emphatically do not consider myself a shadowrunner. A shadowrunner will usually take on any kind of operation he's physically able to handle: extraction, datasteal, lift-out, transport, muscle, even-in some cases-out-and-out wetwork.

  Me, I'm selective. I'll do surveillance, I'll do recovery, I'll even do close-cover if I figure the body I'm guarding is worth keeping alive. But I've got to know the why before I'll take any job, and the reason has to make at least a bit of sense to me. The world's a dark place, full of people who either enjoy making it darker or else don't give a frag if that's how it works out. I'm not so dense as to believe I can reverse that trend all by my lonesome, but I sure as drek can decide not to make it any worse. And even if I did want to make it worse, hell, I'd have too much competition.

  Remember about twelve years back that revival of old-I mean old- pre-simsense, "hard-boiled" detective fiction? It was real period stuff, set maybe a century ago, but it seemed to really click with some people. If I'd been in business in those old days, I'd probably have had a license, an office-maybe with my name on the frosted glass door, "Derek Montgomery, Investigations"-and a gun. Now? No license, and my office is wherever I happen to be at the time. I've got the gun, though.

  The throbbing in my left thigh reminded me that, unfortunately, so does everybody else. And too many people aren't afraid to use that firepower, no matter how small the provocation. Take today, for example.

  The guy who shot me wasn't even involved with the case I was working. He was just some wireheaded kid who'd slotted one too many "Slade the Sniper" chips and decided to unload his Streetline Special into a crowd of pedestrians. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The kid's luck wasn't any better. Very calmly, very professionally, the guy beside me handled the situation by sending a magical fireball back along the line of fire and cooking the kid where he stood. Then the mage just as calmly moved off down an alley, and that was that. Such is life (and death) in the Awakened world.

  Well, at least I could turn my back on all that for the next twelve hours. Even better, I wouldn't have to worry about people pointing guns at me. And if they did, I'd be too sound asleep to know it. I kicked the door shut, made sure the maglock was engaged, and hung my duster on a hook in the corner. The drab wash of the rainy Auburn twilight leaked through the partially polarized window, giving the one-room doss a dull, tired illumination that perfectly suited my mood. I considered turning on a light, then decided against it. I could find the bed even in the dark, and that's all I really wanted to do. For one fleeting moment I thought about food. My stomach felt like a clenched fist, but even the half-minute it would take to flash one of the packs of Soyamenu stashed in the freezer would mean a half-minute I wasn't sleeping. Easy decision. I sat on the edge of the bed, pulled off my boots, and flopped back, still fully clothed. I swear I was falling asleep even before my head hit the pillow.

  I was drifting through a warm, drowsy haze when the door chimed. Probably one of my neighbors, making a courtesy call. "Frag off and die!" I shouted in my best neighborly, courteous manner.

  The slag at the door didn't take my subtle hint. The chime sounded again. With another neighborly curse, I flailed around on the bedside table, creating minor havoc until I found the remote control. Thumbing a button, I opened one eye to look at the telecom screen.

  The tiny security camera hidden in the wall above the door-courtesy of a chummer of mine-picked up the image of my visitor and splashed it onto the screen. I opened my other eye for a better look.

  Even foreshortened by the camera angle, the visitor was definitely worth the additional effort. Tall and slim-just under a meter-eight, I judged-with short, straight coppery hair. From this perspective, it was hard to make out features, but the camera's angle of vision showed me the chrome-edged datajack I might not have immediately spotted otherwise. Her clothes weren't quite haute couture, but they were certainly a cut above anything seen on the street of southwest Auburn, particularly after the sun goes down. The tailored gray synthleather suit enhanced rather than concealed the arresting curves of her figure, but-considering the place and time-I'd have bet that jacket was as armored as it was stylish. Mid-level corp, I tagged her. But the look of her clothes told me she wasn't in working-class Auburn for the rush of putting her pretty body on the line-that foolish game some people called "sprawling." No, for that her outfit would have been newer but would have looked older.

  I hit another button on the remote. "Yeah, whaddaya want?" I growled.

  The redhead jumped at the sound of my voice, then glanced around for the speaker. Her cool gray eyes scanned the area around the door, seeming to pick out the camera's location almost immediately.

  (Interesting, I thought. You have to know something about tech to pick out my toys.)

  "Derek Montgomery?" she inquired. Her voice was low and smooth, but with a touch of nervous edge.

  I wondered what it would be like to hear her say my name without that edge.

  "What do you want?" I repeated, enunciating a little better.

  I knew she couldn't see me, but I had the strange sensation those eyes were fixed on mine. "I want to talk to you," she said levelly. "It's important. It's . .." She hesitated.

  "... A matter of life and death?" I finished for her. If she noticed the irony in my voice, she gave no sign. "Yes," she shot back. "Yes, that's just what it is."

  I gave her one final scan. Her clothes said money, her manner said money. When you do what I do, the problem isn't finding people who want your services. It's finding people who can pay for your services.r />
  "Yeah, well, maybe," I grumbled. "And just who are you?"

  I expected some kind of street handle, but she surprised me. "My name is Jocasta Yzerman," she said matter-of-factly.

  "All right," I told her, "give me a tick."

  I keyed up the lights, killed the security camera, and clambered out of bed. Checking the mirror, I saw that my eyes were bloodshot and my clothes looked like I'd slept in them-no surprise there. I raked fingers through my hair, rumpling one side to erase the flat spot made by the pillow. Then I crossed to the door and swung it open.

  "Come on in," I said, stepping out of her way.

  In the flesh my visitor looked even better than on the screen. The thin, tight line of her mouth said she was obviously distressed about something, but I liked imagining how those lips would look in a smile.

  Stepping inside, she didn't spare my place even a quick glance. Just as I'd figured, she was business, all business.

  "Grab a seat," I told her, shutting the door and double-checking the maglock. Then I turned back to her, giving Jocasta Yzerman my best professional poker face.

  She was standing, almost quiveringly alert, in the middle of the room. But after the first millisecond I didn't even notice her bearing. That was because all my attention was focused on the weapon that had sprung into existence in her left hand.

  Officially, the Colt America L36 is classed as a light pistol, barely one step up from a holdout: five mil, with an eight-centimeter barrel. But even the lightest pistol seems to have a bore like a subway tunnel when you're looking down the business end of one. From the way the barrel-top laser sight flared in my vision, I knew its ruby-red targeting point was centered between my eyes.

  I gauged the distance between us. A couple of meters. If I tried to go for her gun, I'd almost make it before she got off a shot. It would be real close, but close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and dancing. So instead I showed her my empty hands, forced a disarming smile onto my face, and put on my best let's-keep-calm-here tone of voice.

  "Hey, let's keep calm here," I said somewhat lamely. "If there's a problem, we can talk about it and-"

  She cut me off, her voice cold as steel. "You killed my sister." she announced.

  "And now you're going to kill me? Makes perfect sense."

  Again, she missed the irony. "That's right," she said. "You killed Lolita."

  "Lolita. . ." That's when it hit me. It must have been my general grogginess that kept me from realizing her surname was familiar. Lolita Yzerman, a name from the past. We'd met a few years back when I'd helped her out of a real bad spot. It wasn't long before we got something hot and heavy going, but then Lolita iced me out of her life, probably figuring a chummer like me wasn't what you'd call an asset for a smart, ambitious girl like her. It had been, frag, almost a year since we'd spoken.

  And now she was dead. Little Lolly, of the bubbly laugh and big blue eyes.

  "That's right-Lolita," said Jocasta Yzerman, jolting me back to the present. "I'm glad you remember her name."

  It was my turn to ignore the irony. "Hey, look," I told her, "I know Lolita . . . knew her, we had a thing going. You probably know that. But the last time I talked to her, the last time I saw her, was sometime early last year. I didn't kill your sister. Why would I?"

  As I spoke, I watched her eyes. You can learn a lot from somebody's eyes. If nothing else, you can sometimes tell when they're about to pull the trigger. There was a shadow of ... something ... in Jocasta's gray eyes. It wasn't quite doubt, but it was enough to give me hope. No matter how steady she held that gun, her eyes told me she didn't really want to use it, not deep down. She'd steeled herself to this point, and she could probably steel herself enough to actually pull the trigger. But she didn't want to. She wanted to find some reason not to take my life. And that was a desire I could fully support.

  "You had your reasons," she said.

  "What reasons?" I asked, spreading my hands and taking a slow step backward. Noticing the move, Jocasta did the natural thing in response: she took a couple of steps forward. The distance between us was a little less. Not much, but it was a step in the right direction. "What reasons?" I repeated.

  "To get out from under," Jocasta said coldly. "It was the only way to stop her from blackmailing you."

  I stared at her. Blackmail... Sure, from what I'd seen of Lolly, she was capable of trying to carry off blackmail if the stakes were high enough. But I was safe. She hadn't known enough about me.

  "Believe me," I said, becoming sincerity personified, "Lolly couldn't blackmail me because she had nothing on me." Again I stepped back, again Jocasta stepped forward. This time the little gavotte cut the distance between us to slightly less than two meters.

  And not a moment too soon, for something changed in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was sharper, more strained. She was working up her anger so that she'd be able to pull the trigger. "You're lying," she snapped. "You're a liar and a murderer. You did something bad and my sister knew about it, so you killed her. You killed my sister." She was crying now, almost hysterical.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Die, you motherfragger."

  In that instant, I moved. I pivoted sideways, my torso and head swinging down and to the left, my right foot scything up and around. Just in time. Jocasta's silenced pistol coughed, the bullet making a whipcrack as it split the air terrifyingly close to my head, then shattered something behind me. My right foot swung on through, slamming into the inside of the woman's wrist. A perfect scythe-kick disarm. That kick would have made my instructors at Lone Star proud, though they'd probably have been sorry her bullet hadn't connected.

  The charge of adrenalin must have fired me up a little more than usual. Coming around with the force of my momentum, I saw that the kick had done more than take her gun offline and break her grip. I'd literally kicked the woman off her feet. She lay huddled on the floor, whimpering, clutching her quite possibly broken right wrist to her belly.

  I hesitated. It wasn't that I thought she was faking it, the impact had been hard enough to hurt my foot, even through the adrenalin. It was my emotions that were slotting me up. Part of me was glad to see my would-be murderer injured, at least to some minor degree. Had I not reacted, her little bullet would have splashed the thinking part of Derek Montgomery all over my apartment wall. Another part of me, though, saw a woman in pain, and I reacted in the predictable manner. She hadn't wanted to kill me. It was something she thought she had to do, something she had to work herself up to, and something that probably would have fragged up the rest of her life with guilt. I picked up her gun and slipped it into the waistband of my trousers. Then I knelt beside her.

  Jocasta was curled up in fetal position, her slender shoulders shaking with the deep sobs racking her throat. I paused before tentatively reaching out to lay a hand gently on her back, taking care to make the gesture as non-sexual as possible. (That was a further complexity I just didn't want to get into.) She didn't shy away from my touch, but I could feel the muscles of her back tighten as though she might somehow pull her skin away from a loathsome contact.

  I sighed. Okay, if that's the way she wanted it. I stood up, pulled the gun from my waistband, and placed it on a table within easy reach. Then I sat down in the apartment's only chair. Depending on how tough she was, it might be a while before Jocasta could pull herself together. Might as well be comfortable while I waited. I triggered the massage system, another toy courtesy of the chummer who'd done my security camera, then settled back into the armchair's warm embrace. And I watched.

  It didn't take her long at all. Mentally tough, this Jocasta Yzerman. Knowing her sister, that shouldn't have surprised me. First the sobs stopped, then the shaking. Then, slowly, she unwound from her fetal ball.

  When I could see her face again, it seemed unmarked by a single tear nor were her eyes even red or puffy.

  I glanced down at her right wrist, and felt like a slotting bastard. It was already swollen and starting to disco
lor, though I didn't think it was broken. She seemed to pay it no mind as she rose to her feet, as though the pain wasn't worthy of her notice.

  I watched her, fascinated. There was a grace, a kind of poise, to her movements that she hadn't shown before. It was as if her homicidal mission, however unsuccessful, had freed her in some way. Her eyes were steady on my face. They didn't show hatred, they didn't show fear. If anything, they showed resignation, almost fatalism. Her face was calm, any calmer and I'd have declared her dead.

  "I'm sorry," she said quietly, not a trace of emotion in that voice. "I'll go now."

  I was out of the chair before she'd taken a step. I reached out to grasp her shoulder, but pulled my hand back at the last moment. I'd seen emotional control before, and I'd seen what happens when it cracks.

  I didn't want to do anything to trigger that. Instead, I only stretched an arm out across her path like a gate.

  "No," I told her, "don't go."

  She looked up into my eyes. "Why not?" Again, not a hint of anything in her voice, not even curiosity.

  Which was ironic, because curiosity was exactly what was consuming me at the moment. There were some things about this whole slotting mess that I'd better know. I needed a better answer for the lady, though.

  I tried to keep it light. "Oh, I don't know," I temporized. "Call it misplaced hospitality, but I don't feel right if somebody comes over and tries to shoot me, then leaves before I can even offer her a drink."

  The response was just what I'd expected: a whole lot of nothing. At least she'd stopped walking for the door. I hesitated a moment, then grasped her shoulder. Gently, and very slowly I turned her around. I felt that muscle-tension reaction again, but her visible control didn't crack. I gave her a soft push toward my chair. "Go on," I told her. "Have a seat. I'd like to talk." She walked smoothly in the direction I'd pushed her.

  The grace was still there, but it had a kind of mindless-ness now. Her brain was in full control of her body, but that control was below conscious level, like an autopilot. It was like a waking form of sleep-walking.