Shadowrun

by Dylan Birtolo

  “Oh for the good old days of Lone Star,” she muttered. The previous contractor for city police hadn’t been quite the same as KE.

  Inside the main room, Rude had Melanie pushed down on the couch, one of his big pistols leveled. She was wearing athletic clothes; behind her the trid was frozen on a popular workout video. The elf’s attention was clearly fixed on the big troll, so Zipfile hung back, in the cusp of the hallway, content to let Rude take the lead for a second.

  “Anybody in the other rooms?” he growled.

  Zipfile automatically checked both her own and Melanie’s AR and found no other icons.

  “Go to hell,” Melanie said. “You’re not Knight Errant.”

  “Oh?”

  “Look at how you’re dressed,” the elf said, her disdain sharp as a knife.

  Zipfile stifled a chuckle.

  she commed.

  “Ever hear a’ undercover?”

  Melanie sneered at him. “You couldn’t pretend to be a log.”

  Rude shook his head. “I don’t get paid enough for this.” He turned and looked back at Zipfile. “You got questions for this elf ’fore I shoot her?”

  When the troll spoke, Melanie looked and saw Zipfile. Too many years and too many elves had taught Zipfile exactly what to look for, and she saw the usual disdain for dwarves flash across Melanie’s face.

  That was enough to erase any lingering doubts that Zip felt about breaking into the woman’s house.

  Not that she’d had all that many in the first place.

  Zipfile stepped fully into the room. She held up her cyberdeck on its sling. “You know what this is?”

  “Illegal,” Melanie said.

  “Then you know no one is coming to help you,” Zip said. “Tell us about Simon Dennis.”

  “Who?”

  Zipfile grinned. She walked over and pulled a barstool almost as tall as she was away from the high table and climbed up on it. She settled her deck on her lap and stared at the elf.

  “Simon Dennis,” Zipfile repeated. “Chief operations officer at AVR Optronics.”

  “Never heard of it,” Melanie said. She looked back up at Rude. “You sure you amateurs got the right place?”

  Zipfile thought about the way Yu had described Melanie to him, as if she’d done very well at finishing school. Professional, buttoned up. That didn’t match the woman in front of him. She was haughty, braggadocious. As if she knew there was nothing she or Rude could do to her.

  she sent to Rude.

 

  “I think you called him Mr. Miller,” Zip said.

  Melanie glared at her. Then, without a single betraying motion, leaped up from the sofa and tried to get past Rude.

  The troll was ready. He snatched her out of the air by the arm and slammed her back down on the couch with a roar. She twisted like an eel on the cushions, trying to get across the back, but he grabbed her shoulder, flipped her over, and hammered a quick jab into her solar plexus. She fell forward, alternately wheezing and retching.

  “Where’d ya think yer going?” Rude asked. He chuckled. “Youse elfs are all the same.”

  It took Melanie a minute to catch her breath. Zip spent that minute engrossed in her AR, digging deeper into Melanie’s home network. She had a spotlight program running, which would highlight the icon of any device trying to hide itself in the Matrix. So far, nothing, but…

  “I’m escaping,” the elf wheezed. “You broke in here. Gods only know what you’re going to do to me.” She looked at Zipfile with teary eyes, but Zip knew that was just the physical reaction to getting punched by a troll. Melanie was not a woman to let her emotions get the best of her.

  “Exactly when I mentioned Miller,” Zip prodded. “Funny that.”

  “I don’t know who that is, either,” Melanie said.

  “I don’t believe you,” Rude rumbled.

  Zipfile’s AR pinged. She checked the notification, then shut it down. “Doesn’t matter,” she told both of them. “I found what I was looking for.”

  Rude laughed, but Melanie said nothing. She watched Zipfile go into her kitchen, to the tray beneath the over. Zip reached down—it wasn’t that low for her—and pulled it open. The rack screeched. Inside were the usual pans that no one ever really used.

  “You bakin’ somethin’ in there?” Rude called.

  “Not quite,” Zip replied. She reached beneath the pans and pulled out an Ares commlink. She held it up so it was visible over the countertop. She kept her hand up until she came back out of the kitchen and could see Melanie’s face.

  “You don’t know Miller or Dennis,” Zipfile said. “I’ve only got one more name.”

  Melanie glared at her. If looks could be venomous Zip would be convulsing on the floor.

  “How about Henrik Gould?”

  Zipfile held Melanie’s stare until the elf looked away. Gotcha, she thought. For the first time since the Telestrian job, Zipfile felt like she was starting to understand what was happening.

  Right up until the first gunshot.

  The first bullet took Rude in the shoulder. Zip heard the sound and saw him lurch forward at the same time. She stood there, a little bit away from him, still brandishing the commlink.

  He fell across the couch, crushing Melanie beneath him, roaring with pain and defiance. Before Zip had time to even process what was happening he was back up on his knee, firing the big pistol in his hand back toward the hallway Zipfile had entered through.

  She looked that way.

  Black shapes in body armor filled the hallway. Bulbous full-head helmets hid their features, and they carried short subguns with long, thick sound suppressors. The lead attacker fired again, the crack of the bullets loud in the small space of the condo, but probably inaudible outside the building.

  “Eish!” she shouted and dropped to the floor. She didn’t even think of drawing her own revolver. This was more than she could process at once. This wasn’t like fighting the drones with Emu. That had felt more like a game.

  This was real.

  It was right here.

  Rude sent.

 

 

  Rude found something heavier than his pistol, either a subgun from one of the attackers or a long gun he’d had under his coat this whole time. A line of shots stitched up the front of the lead black-clad gunner until the last one tore out his throat. He fell to the floor, thrashing, both hands wrapped around the ruin of his neck as his life’s blood pumped out faster and faster as panic drove his heartrate up. Behind him, the trid was still frozen in the workout program and in a disgusting caricature the performer on the screen was stuck in a similar post.

  Zipfile stared at the bleeding man, horrified.

  This was her fault.

  She was supposed to know what was going on.

  How had these guys snuck up on them? How had they even known she and Rude were here? She wanted to dive into the Matrix and go back through the video logs, to see where they’d come from. If this were a normal run and the team had been surprised, that’s just what she’d do.

  But here, now…here she was in the middle of it.

  Movement distracted Zipfile. She looked toward the overturned couch and saw Melanie crouched there, a look of determination painted on her fine features. She eyed the next commando in line. Zipfile looked back and forth between them. Then the commando’s subgun ran dry and the magazine fell free.

  Melanie scurried across the floor toward the kitchen while the man reloading blocked the fire of the bad guys behind him. Zipfile twisted on the floor and watched where Melanie went but she vanished behind a cabinet island.

  The commando got his subgun reloaded and ripped a burst at where Rude was hiding, but the troll wasn’t there. He’d shimmied across the floor and was crouched against a wall, out of the hallway’s line of sight. He was watching Zipfile. When she met his gaze, he raised his hands and mouthed well? silently.


  He’s right, Zipfile realized. I need to get in this fight.

  Pushing with her hands, Zip slid backward until she was in the kitchen. She realized she was behind the same island as Melanie when she bumped the elf’s foot. The former secretary turned and snarled at her with a ferocity that would have made Rude proud.

  Zip rolled her eyes.

  Popping up her AR, she looked for the icons of the attackers. They didn’t want to show up, but Zipfile had code for that. It was the work of a couple seconds to get insight into what tech they had that was broadcasting.

  “You don’t have much time,” Melanie whispered.

  Zip looked at her. “What?”

  “In a second they’ll realize I’m not in there with your friend. And then they’ll come this way.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” Melanie said.

  Zipfile went back to her work. The subguns were smartguns, all networked into the shooters’ PANs. Zip picked at the code, using attacks she’d perfected before. Telltales over each smartgun glowed red, until one blinked yellow.

  she told Rude, and fed him a tag for the failing smartgun.

  A moment later the icon blinked green.

  The subgun noise stopped. Zifpfile heard muffled cursing from the commando. She rolled around the corner of the island enough to see what was happening.

  To his credit, the shooter didn’t waste more than a second pulling the trigger of his subgun to no effect. He dropped it and reached for a pistol at his waist.

  But even that second was too long.

  Cued by the icon, Rude leaned around and put a bullet through his throat. It was a surer hit than the helmet; there was no guarantee the round would penetrate the armor. He fell to the floor, rolling through the spreading pool of blood left by his teammate, hands around his neck, desperately trying to hold off the inevitable.

  Zipfile slid back and checked her AR.

  “Three left,” she told Melanie.

  The elf sneered at her. “That’s two more than they need.”

  The three remaining commandos seemed to come to the same decision. Zipfile watched them on her AR; one leaned against the wall and started firing short, timed bursts toward Rude’s position.

  The other two broke into a run toward the island where Melanie and Zipfile huddled.

  “Eish,” she said, and clawed for the pistol at the small of her back.

  Melanie must have realized what was going on. She chopped Zipfile in the side of the head and reached for the revolver. It was her long fingers, not Zipfile’s short ones, that wrapped around the butt of the pistol and raised it.

  Zipfile lolled, disorientated. It was as though she was watching all this on the trid. She really, really wished she was watching this on trid.

  The gaping back maw of a suppressor appeared over the island. A moment later a black helmet appeared; the commando was sliding across the island, thinking they were deeper in the kitchen.

  Melanie put the muzzle of Zipfile’s pistol against the faceplate and pulled the trigger three quick times. The commando spasmed and fell across them. Zipfile felt the man’s dead weight hit her. It knocked the breath from her chest.

  The other commando stuck his subgun over the island and held the trigger down.

  Bullets tore into the body covering Zipfile. She felt the shocks through the corpse, but the man’s ballistic cloth clothing stopped the rounds from penetrating. She was fine, but fear tore through her sense of shock like being drenched in icy water.

  Blood splashed as the bullets struck Melanie, who didn’t have a dead man to hide beneath. Shouts of pain Zip was sure were involuntary filled the room.

  Zipfile thrashed, ignoring her burning lungs. Any moment the shooter would realize he hadn’t hurt one of his targets.

  The black maw of the subgun barrel shifted toward her.

  And then it was gone.

  A roaring filled its place.

  Zip worked her way out from beneath the dead man. Melanie lay next to her, revolver forgotten, both hands clutched against the bloody mess that was her stomach.

  Zip climbed to her knees and then to her feet. She crouched and peeked over the countertop.

  Rude was literally beating one of the commandos to death with the other.

  He held one by the boots and roared, swinging him like a board, slamming him down on top of the other. At the apex of one swing the black helmet flew off, revealing the bleeding, black-skinned face of an ork Zipfile didn’t recognize.

  After a few more swings Rude dropped the body and stood there, panting. He looked at Zipfile and said something, but she didn’t hear him. She was looking down at Melanie’s body.

  The elf was pale and still atop a spreading pool of blood and other fluids. She’d released her stomach with one hand and was reaching toward a drawer. Bloody prints showed where she’d tried to get the drawer open.

  “You okay?” Rude said. He was standing next to her.

  Zipfile didn’t realize he had moved.

  Her ears rang. Even Rude’s gravelly bass sounded somewhat tinny.

  “Zip?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, or tried to.

  “Ya okay?” He repeated. “Ya hit?”

  “I’m okay,” she repeated, louder this time.

  “What the hell just happened?” the troll asked. “I mean, we got lit up, but why? Who was that, and what’d they want with us?”

  Zipfile didn’t answer. She just looked down at Melanie’s body.

  “I’ll get us a ride,” Rude said.

  Zipfile bent down and pulled open the drawer Melanie had been reaching for. It was filled with dish towels. Zip frowned and looked down at the dead woman. Her eyes were fixed on the drawer. Her blood was brushed across it. Had she just been trying to get a towel to staunch the blood flow?

  Eish. I get shot up, I’m not reaching for the bleeding towels!

  Zip looked down and saw her revolver. She picked it up. The grips were tacky with Melanie’s blood. The elf had used it to kill the first gunman to come for them. The one that had fallen on Zipfile.

  Melanie had saved Zipfile’s life with those shots.

  They’ll realize I’m not in there with your friend, she had said.

  I’m not in there.

  “They were here to kill her,” Zipfile whispered. She looked up at Rude, who was holding a hand to his temple while he commed with someone. Emu, probably, to get a ride before KE or someone else came down on them. “Rude.”

  “What?” The troll blinked. “Ya trackin’ now? ’Cause our ride’ll be here in ten. Emu called in a favor.”

  “They were here to kill her.” She put her revolver back in its holster. “There weren’t here for us.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  Zipfile pointed down at the body. “Her. These guys—” she kicked the body next to her, “—were here to kill Melanie. We were just in the way.”

  “The hell you say,” Rude said. He looked around the room. “Why would anyone want to whack that elf?” He shrugged. “I mean, we were gonna, sure, but we had reasons.”

  Zipfile leaned back over the drawer. She started picking towels out, running her hands across them. She found what she was looking for in the fourth one. There was a bump along the seam. She squeezed it gently through the fabric, feeling the shape.

  “It’s a datachip,” she told Rude.

  “It’s a towel,” Rude said, “but let’s go with whatever gets you movin’, okay?”

  “Inside the towel, idiot,” Zipfile said. She stuffed it in a pocket. “Whatever’s on it, it was the last thing Melanie thought about before she died.”

  “Whatever,” Rude said.

  “You said ten minutes,” Zip asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s take this place apart as much as we can in that time,” Zipfile told him. “Whatever else happened, Melanie was the last person we know of who dealt with Simon Dennis. She was buying things on his behalf. Ma
ybe it was harmless, maybe it wasn’t.”

  “She didn’t act harmless,” Rude muttered.

  “No,” Zipfile agreed, “she didn’t.”

  Rude reached down and pulled the helmet off the man Melanie had shot. They learned two things.

  First, the man was a woman. She had been blond.

  Second…

  “I know this woman,” Rude said. “From somewhere…”

  Zip very carefully didn’t roll her eyes. Rude’s memory was spotty to say the least. He might think he remembered her because he saw a blond woman on the sidewalk earlier. Or she might have been his boon companion for years.

  In Rude’s fractured head, those were sometimes the same thing.

  “She’s a shooter,” he went on.

  Zipfile carefully didn’t say obviously.

  “I know her…”

  There was a chirp on Zipfile’s AR. “Ride’s a couple minutes out,” she told Rude.

  Rude snapped his fingers. It sounded like tree branches breaking.

  “Saroyan. Jesse, or Jamie, or something like that.”

  “Great,” Zip told him. “Car’s still coming. Go check the other rooms.”

  Rude flipped her the bird and wandered off. His giant boots made squelching noises in the blood on the floor.

  Zipfile looked down at Melanie.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She rubbed the pocket she’d stuffed the towel with the hidden datachip into.

  Then she went to look for more.

  “She worked for Wuxing,” Yu said a couple hours later.

  When Zip stared up at him blankly, he went on. “Jenny Saroyan. She was a runner, did a lot of business with Wuxing, according to Myth.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Zip said.

  “No shit.”

  Zip crossed her arms and thought. Why would a Wuxing runner want to stop Melanie? Had Miller or Dennis or whatever name he’d been using when he ran Rip Current Sea Lanes done something to piss Wuxing off? She said as much.

  “No idea,” Yu said. “You get anything off that chip?”