The others spread out and stomped on their accelerators, closing the distance even as they tried to avoid Emu’s line of fire, but not before two more slugs from the Commodore’s shotgun turned another go-ganger’s torso into a ruined mess.
Through the Commodore’s rear sensors, Emu saw the four remaining go-gangers toss their bike chains aside and draw guns, returning her fire as they closed in around the Commodore. Several bullets chewed holes through the car’s rear bumper and windshield, which her control rig converted to a series of hard punches against her lower back.
Growling in pain and irritation, Emu skidded almost to a stop, prompting a furious honk from a driver who was forced to swerve around her. The Hellhounds shot forward thanks to the sudden difference in speed, and she grinned ferally as she flipped the Commodore’s other Mossberg over to burst-fire mode. Let’s see how you fraggers like getting shot in the arse!
The shotgun kicked, and the two go-gangers nearest Emu discovered that they liked it even less than the rigger had, tumbling from their bikes at speed as the Mossberg’s slugs drilled into their backs. Realizing that the odds were very much against them and steadily getting worse, the remaining two Hellhounds wisely decided to quit before they got any further behind.
Emu was perfectly happy to let the remaining Hellhounds go, using the break in the action to put as much distance as possible between her and the scene of the firefight. The 405 was busy enough that someone had undoubtedly called Knight Errant to report the battle, and she knew the best way to keep them off her back was to make herself unprofitable to track down; the pawns might be a law-enforcement corp, but they were still a corp, and just as prone to thinking with their bottom line as any other.
To Emu’s great relief, the rest of the drive to meet her smuggler contact was uneventful. She skirted the heavy police presence at the marina proper, instead heading north to Edgewater Beach and its long-disused pier.
The smuggler she was meeting, Jericho, made regular runs between Seattle and Melbourne. Emu knew better than to ask how a one-man operation got past the various border patrols, not to mention making trips across the Pacific. Likewise, Jericho didn’t comment on how the box Emu handed him had a couple of obvious bullet holes in it, beyond offering to patch them up with speed tape. Emu readily agreed, and once she’d paid the smuggler’s fees—which, somehow, was cheaper than the legitimate shipping companies, despite offering better service—she headed back to her car.
As Emu sped away from the docks, swearing she’d never haul Lyara’s “personal items” again, she drafted a message by DNI.
Emu blinked, at the message.
Emu burst out laughing as comprehension dawned.
Emu started to compose a reply, but deleted it. She’ll find out soon enough, the rigger decided as she turned the Commodore down the freeway.
A day and a half after their breakfast meet, Emu heard back from Draper. The dispatcher had refused to discuss what he’d found by commlink, so they’d agreed to meet at the same place they’d first run into each other: Black’s Junk Yard, an auto-parts and scrap dealership in Puyallup, just before the shop closed for the night.
Emu had opted to show up early, as much to browse the shop’s stock as anything; for a rigger, wandering around a place like Black’s was like being in a kid in a candy store. The other best thing about Black’s was Hardpoint. The dwarf was Emu’s counterpart on the first team Ms. Myth had put together, and he’d become something of a mentor to her since she arrived in Seattle. Hardpoint used the workshop at Black’s sometimes, and the pair usually ended up talking shop if he happened to be there when Emu stopped by—and this time, he was.
“Hisashiburi ne, Haadopointo-senpai.” Emu waved as she entered the shop and sauntered toward the work area where the dwarf rigger was hanging out. She’d picked up a bit of Japanese when she was a kid, and after learning that Hardpoint spoke the language, she’d gotten into the habit of practicing it with him so she didn’t forget it.
“Hm?” Hardpoint looked up from the workbench. “Ahh, hisashiburi. Ogenki desu ka?”
“Genki da yo! Senpai wa–at is that?” Emu’s eyebrows shot up when she saw what Hardpoint was working on—a model of drone she’d never seen before.
Hardpoint chuckled. “Oh, this? You’ve heard about Ares’ new stealth close air support drone, the Black Sky? That’s Mitsuhama’s refinement, the Shingetsu.” He gestured to the craft with his torque wrench.
“She’s a beaut,” Emu said, full of admiration—and no small share of jealousy. “How does she fly? Have you taken her out yet?”
“Just a brief test flight to see how well the handling’s dialed in. It’s slightly less than twice as fast as a Roto-Drone with the same payload, and approximately thirty-three percent more maneuverable.”
“Mmm.” Emu craned her neck to get a better look, and stepped as close as she dared, though she was careful not to get any closer than Hardpoint himself. A rigger’s workspace is hallowed ground, and she knew better than to impose on someone else’s. “So, most important question.” She grinned.
Hardpoint cracked a grin of his own. “No, I haven’t decided what I’m going to arm it with yet. But at its optimal engagement range, a Barrett anti-materiel rifle is probably the most effective choice, or possibly a missile launcher. There’s no reason to get any closer than that.”
“Good point.” The door chime went off, and Emu looked over to see Draper entering the shop. “Oh, here’s my contact. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Take care.” The dwarf went back to tinkering.
Emu waved Draper over to the other end of the shop, out of Hardpoint’s earshot; she knew her fellow rigger probably wouldn’t eavesdrop, but better safe than sorry. “How’s it going, mate?”
“Good, good.” The words didn’t match the dispatcher’s wearied expression. “I found your guy: Haruki Satou. GPS places the commlink on Harbor Island when it was called in. Here’s the full report.” Draper gestured in mid-air, and an icon representing a file appeared in Emu’s AR field.
“That’s great.” For the first time since the ambush at the warehouse, Emu felt her shoulders relax a little. She withdrew a credstick from her pocket and handed it to Draper. “Second half, as promised. Let me know if you ever need something I can help with.”
Draper nodded and pocketed the credstick. “I will. So uh, you gonna go after this guy?”
“Depends on what else I learn about him. I won’t say I’m not tempted, but there could be consequences if I push too hard,” Emu said.
“Yeah, I’ll bet. You’ve got a team and stuff though, right?”
Emu raised an eyebrow. “You’re full of questions today.”
“I am? I’m, uh, I’m just a curious guy, I guess.” Draper’s plastic smile was as unconvincing as his too-stiff attempt at a casual shrug.
“In that case, I’ll let you know how it turns out. I’d better run for now, though. Don’t work too hard, alright?” Emu noted the disappointment on Draper’s face when she excused herself, but to her relief, he didn’t try to stop her from leaving. Outside, the rigger circled to the alley behind the junkyard, walking back to her car as quickly as she could without looking like she was in a rush.
Like many riggers’ cars, the Commodore had a smuggling compartment inside its trunk. Emu’s was lined with a Faraday cage to prevent any Matrix transmissions from getting in or out—all it took was one RFID tag transmitting its signal at the wrong time t
o blow an entire run—and once she’d retrieved a backup Meta Link from the cabin, she shut her real commlink off and tossed it into the smuggling compartment, then called Zipfile.
“Yeah?” The dwarf’s frowning face appeared in Emu’s AR field. “Emu? Why are you calling from a different commcode than normal?”
“I think Renraku flipped one of my contacts,” Emu said. “The police dispatcher. I asked him if he could look up some info that would help us find the Renraku Johnson. When I met him just now, he started asking me about what I planned to do about it, and whether I worked with a team.”
Zipfile’s eyes went wide. “Oh, drek.”
“Too right. The file he gave me went through my main commlink, so I chucked it in the smuggling compartment in case it had a worm or something.”
“Good thinking. I’ll scrub it when you get back to the safehouse,” the decker said.
“Thanks, mate. See you soon.” Emu ended the call and shoved the replacement commlink in her pocket as she closed the Commodore’s boot with a thump.
At least, she assumed there was a thump. She didn’t actually hear it, because someone chose that moment to try to kill her.
The world lurched, spinning downward like Emu had slipped on the Puyallup ash, but something was stopping her from falling, like she was leaning against the edge of a table. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. She clawed at her throat, swung her arms behind her as rational thought gave way to sheer panic. Too late.
Something heavy pushed against her hand, weighing it down. Dark. Air. Need air… Struggling. Thrashing. Drumroll. Drumroll? Emu thought as she felt herself falling.
The darkness was giving way to light. Maybe the drumroll was her outro to whatever lay beyond. The white glow turned ash-gray. The afterlife looked like Puyallup, apparently, which Emu found a little disappointing. Then she felt pain. That didn’t seem fair. You’re not supposed to hurt when you’re dead.
Oh. She wasn’t.
The realization exploded into Emu’s mind like a lead pipe to the back of her head—or maybe that was her hitting the concrete. Something wrenched her shoulder, crushed her arm, knocked the wind out of her.
She rolled on to her side, gasping for breath, trying to figure out what had just happened. When she looked up—well, “up” from the ground, behind where she’d been standing—she saw someone stumble and fall on their arse, clutching their leg. Someone holding a garrote.
The person who’d tried to kill her.
Adrenaline and Emu’s cybernetic reaction enhancers finally started doing their jobs. Her arm wasn’t moving properly, but she dragged her Crusader from its holster and made a game attempt to line up the sights, then pulled the trigger. Then she did it again, and again, and again, until all she heard was clicks and the gun stopped trying to buck out of her hands.
Emu didn’t see her attacker moving anymore—and after a moment, neither could she. The Crusader clattered to the pavement, and her vision went black again.
Emu awoke with a start. It took her a second to realize she was propped up against a wall. She was in a dark room, and her head was killing her—and so was her shoulder, she quickly learned, when she raised her arm to clutch her head. A moment later, it registered that her hands weren’t bound.
With some effort, she stood. Her legs were wobbly, but seemed to be functioning. Her entire body looked and felt encrusted in grime. When she looked around to get her bearings, she saw that she was in some kind of storage room. In the distance, she heard muffled screeching and banging, crunching noises, mechanical whines. There was a door in front of her. Emu twisted the knob, and to her surprise, it moved. She pulled the door open to reveal…Hardpoint, standing at the workbench and tinkering with his newfangled drone.
Oh. So that’s what the storage room at Black’s looked like.
Hardpoint looked up when he heard the door open. “Hey, take it easy. You should sit down, you got beat up pretty badly.” He pointed at a nearby chair.
Emu was in no position to argue. She flopped down, wincing at the bright overhead lights. “The frag happened?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Hardpoint said. “I looked at the security feed when someone started shooting the windows out, and all I saw was you unconscious and some bakayaro trying to stand up to finish the job. Are you in trouble?”
It was a bit of a trick question, Emu knew; Hardpoint wasn’t the type to ask something like that unless he already knew the answer. Making it a question just gave her the chance to save face by claiming it was no big deal, instead of forcing her to admit she couldn’t handle it on her own.
“A Johnson backstabbed us,” she said, figuring being honest was the least she could do when Hardpoint had just saved her life. “Renraku bloke. We did the job, and when we went to collect our pay, we found a Knight Errant HTR team instead. Someone knocked over one of our safehouses at the same time. We’ve been trying to track down the Johnson and get some dirt on him so he’ll back off, but Rude disappeared the same night as the meeting, and Frostburn vanished the next day.”
“Chikusho,” Hardpoint breathed. “Is the guy you were meeting earlier involved somehow?”
Emu started to shake her head, then changed her mind and began to nod, but gave up entirely when the all the head motions made the throbbing worse. “He’s a dispatcher for Knight Errant. I asked him to find out who put in the 911 call the night of the ambush. The meeting just now was him giving me the paydata, but he was acting really strange, asking more questions than usual.”
“Like he was wearing a wire.”
“Yeah.” Emu sighed. “I’d just gotten off the comm with Zipfile when the other slot snuck up on me. I honestly don’t know how I survived.”
“I’m sure Renraku’s lax recruitment standards didn’t help.” Hardpoint raised a hand when he saw Emu’s hurt expression. “That wasn’t a criticism of you. Here, let me show you the cam footage.”
The dwarf was silent for a moment as he accessed the shop’s security system. The bright AR display hurt Emu’s eyes a little, but she was able to take in most of the image. The camera had been at the wrong angle to capture her assailant’s face—or, more likely, her assailant had gone out of their way to conceal it—but the view was otherwise decent. Emu saw the attacker sneaking up behind her while she chatted with Zipfile, then struggle, and then…
Emu’s cheeks grew hot as she realized her savior had been the little Walther holdout pistol she kept up her sleeve. Her flailing had dropped the gun from its arm slide into her hand, so that when she’d reflexively pulled the trigger, the pistol’s muzzle was already lined up with the would-be assassin’s leg. Even a light round like the Walther fired left nasty wounds when six of them hit roughly the same spot.
“I see.” Emu was too absorbed in her own thoughts to say anything else. Hardpoint had been kind enough to let her save face by pointing the blame at Renraku’s poor hiring choice, but the reality was that Emu had only survived the attempt on her life because her assassin was too incompetent or overconfident to line up a headshot instead of walking across an empty parking lot. The idea that she was alive because someone else had made a mistake—instead of because she’d successfully defended herself—was too much to process immediately.
For a few moments, Hardpoint didn’t say anything either, until enough time had passed that the topic seemed closed. “I’ve already contacted Yu and Zipfile about what happened, and programmed your car’s autopilot to take an indirect route back to your safehouse to avoid any pursuit. I’ll have one of my drones shadow you to make sure you get there safely.”
“That’s sweet of you, but I’ve driven in worse shape than this—”
The dwarf clucked his tongue in disapproval. “The medkit autodoc said you have a concussion. Black doesn’t have a proper med-drone here, and I’m no doctor. If that blow to the head damaged your control rig, trying to jump in could fry something important. Manual or autopilot only until a cyberdoc clears you,” he ordered in the t
one of a disapproving parent.
“But…” Emu sighed. “Ugh, fine.” She knew Hardpoint, as a fellow rigger, knew just how aggravating it was to be in a vehicle she didn’t control. She also knew he was right about the risks of malfunctioning headware; Rude had told her once that his amnesia was caused by taking a blow to the skull that had made his augmentations burn out and cook part of his brain. Then again, the troll had a pretty morbid sense of humor, and so much of his feelings had been replaced with chrome that Emu could never quite tell when he was joking.
When she felt like her legs could carry her, Emu collected her gear from Hardpoint—including a few trinkets he’d taken from her assailant—and bade him farewell. True to his word, the dwarf sent one of his Roto-Drones to watch over her. As Emu trudged back to the Commodore, she noted that the would-be assassin’s body had vanished from the parking lot. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about it wrecking her rear bumper when she backed over it.
Inside the Commodore, Emu groaned when she saw the autopilot route Hardpoint had programmed—both because it was autopilot, and because it would take a solid two hours for her to get back to the safehouse. Resigned to her fate, the rigger sent Yu and Zipfile messages to inform them of her ETA, so they’d know to come looking for her if anything went wrong.
A two-hour road trip seemed like the perfect opportunity for Emu to take a nap, but once again, she was too tense to fall asleep. She was freezing, even with the heat turned all the way up. Every little noise made her jump. The sensation of having the life choked out of her played through her mind on an endless loop. When she reached for the steering wheel, trying to clear her head by focusing on the road, her hands shook. Emu swore in frustration. The danger was over, so why was she still so rattled? Sure, she’d almost died, but that was nothing new; her run-ins with the Knight Errant helicopter and the 405 Hellhounds could have killed her, too. How was almost getting strangled by an assassin any different?
Shadowrun Page 10
