Shadowrun, p.14
Shadowrun, page 14
I glanced from one card to the next, seeing the strong dog in front of the ork, and then moving to the grizzled dog behind the powerful woman. I collapsed to my knees, realizing that what he said was true. I could feel the connection, the bond, only it was flowing from me to him…and I knew I would do whatever he asked.
“Tell me your story,” he commanded. “It will amuse me…for now.”
DRAGONBOUND
(THE DRAGON)
AARON ROSENBERG
The sky beckons. The clouds call out. The sun beams down, welcoming, inviting. Enticing.
But restraints limit movement. Metal clanks on metal. Links slither and clatter against one another, old but unyielding.
The sky retreats. The world rushes in, tamping down, tethering and tying, binding.
All is heavy and dull once more.
“You look like a troll took a dump on your face,” Lanos remarked, lounging in his seat, feet up on the dash and crossed at the ankles.
“Gee, thanks,” Allie Fiddich shot back without lifting her hands from the wheel or her gaze from the road and the route mapped out in translucent green on the windshield. “I love you, too.”
The elf beside her snorted at that, and Allie smothered a smile, determined to make him think she was angry with him, at least for a minute. It was no use, though. They’d been partners for three years now. He knew her too well.
“Seriously,” he continued, some of the mocking fading from his tone, “you okay? You look beat.”
“I’m fine.” She pushed back a lock of hair that had sprung loose from the ponytail, swaying in her peripheral vision like an albino snake eager to strike. “Just not sleeping well, I guess.”
The cross street she wanted suddenly loomed in her vision, the blinking map indicating the turn, and she yanked the wheel hard right, sending the ambulance careening around the corner.
“Gods!” Lanos cursed, his right hand clutching at the strap above his door. “Slow it down, Allie! We’re trying to get to an accident, not be one!”
“Yeah, yeah,” she groused, but eased off the gas a little to appease him. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to her driving by now, and they both knew she’d never had an accident. She couldn’t handle going slow, that was all—it was either nothing or full speed ahead. But maybe she had been going just a little fast.
Still, people were waiting on them. And Detroit was a big place, too big to dawdle on their way.
“This is it,” Lanos remarked as Allie hit the brakes, the ambulance screeching to a halt. She pulled up onto the curb and left it there, lights spiraling, as they hopped out and studied the building. It was old, pre-UCAS for sure, with a red brick front decorated here and there by pale stone elements to match the broad steps leading up to the front door.
“Nice,” Allie said, and her partner nodded. Nicer than her place over in Dearborn, that was certain. And Lanos lived all the way out in Windsor, across the river, in one of the all-elven enclaves. “Which apartment?” she asked, reminding herself they were here to do a job.
“4D,” he answered as they took the stairs two at a time. The information was hovering in a corner of her helmet visor, of course, but she hadn’t felt like clicking on it. Since her partner had his projected directly into his corneal implants, she knew he’d already have the info on hand, and it was just easier to ask him for it. One of the other reasons they worked so well together—they both put up with each other’s idiosyncrasies.
A small, mousy woman was waiting for them, and pushed open the front door as they reached it. She’d obviously spotted the Ares logo on the ambulance, and the IDs projected from their uniforms’ breast pockets, so she knew they were legit.
“I’m the one who called,” she explained, stepping to one side so Lanos and then Allie could ease into the entrance hall. “Skulldrinker is my next-door neighbor.”
She wore an AR visor set into old-fashioned glasses that curved up at the ends and did nothing to make her plain features more interesting, and she pushed them up her nose as she trailed Allie and Lanos past the handsome brass bars of a small elevator—Lanos didn’t even ask, knowing how much Allie hated enclosed spaces—toward the broad central staircase. “He’s not a bad man, he’s actually very nice most of the time, but sometimes he gets a little out of control. Today’s been a bad day. I heard shouting, and the sound of things breaking, and then more shouting and cursing, and more breaking, and—”
“—and you’re afraid he’s gonna hurt himself, or someone else,” Allie finished for her. The woman nodded. “Is he on anything?”
The neighbor looked away, but finally nodded again. “I think so,” she managed in a near-whisper. “I’m sorry.”
Allie exchanged a look with her partner. She knew they had to be thinking the same thing: should they or shouldn’t they?
They were paramedics. If Mr. Skulldrinker was suffering the ill effects of some drug, they could help him. If he’d hurt himself, they could help him.
But if he was upset about something and having an old-fashioned hissy fit, there wasn’t much they could do. And this should be a matter for Knight Errant, the Ares security force that handled all local law enforcement.
After a second, Allie nodded. Lanos sighed, but then shrugged. She knew he’d have her back.
Together they started up the stairs.
“We’re going to see what we can do for him,” Allie called back over her shoulder as they ascended. The woman hadn’t made a move to follow. “But if we’re not back down in ten, you need to call the Knights.” Their uniforms had built-in red buttons for just such a need, of course, but if the worst happened and neither of them were conscious to hit the link, this was a good back-up. And it gave the woman something to focus on beside her fear.
“Preferably before the angry man upstairs caves in our skulls and, well, lives up to his name,” Lanos muttered. Allie shot him a glare, but didn’t bother elbowing him. She was going to need all her energy to get up all these stairs.
“Okay, here we go,” Allie said. They stood outside apartment 4D, listening. From inside came the sound of someone clomping about, muffled curses, and noises that sounded like furniture being shoved aside. So clearly Mr. Skulldrinker was still conscious, and still in a crappy mood.
Swell.
Lanos was still gasping for breath—she’d have to tease him about that later—and Allie felt fine, so she took the lead. “Mr. Skulldrinker?” she called out, loud enough that he’d be able to hear her through the thick safety door. Too bad their med sensors couldn’t pierce the reinforced wood and metal to just show them where he was! “My name is Allie, I’m a paramedic, I work for the city. Are you in need of medical attention?”
No answer.
She tried again. “Mr. Skulldrinker, we received a call that you might need help. Is that true? Do you need help?”
Still nothing.
“We’re going to come in and just make sure you’re okay, all right?” she said, pointing at the doorknob. Lanos nodded and grasped it firmly, his long fingers wrapping around the metal knob. He muttered several words Allie couldn’t make out, but that sent a chill down her spine and a thrill up from her toes nonetheless, and with a sharp click the door unlocked. Lanos pushed it open, and slid inside, with Allie right behind him.
She could see right away that Mr. Skulldrinker had been busy. Everywhere she looked, furniture was in disarray, pictures were knocked off the wall, throw pillows and all sorts of other décor had been scattered about—it looked like a small hurricane had ripped through here.
A second later, that hurricane leaped out, snorting and snarling like a maddened boar.
Which wasn’t an inaccurate comparison, Allie found herself thinking with the part of her brain that wasn’t frozen in fear, watching as a large, powerful figure came stomping toward them from a back room. Skulldrinker was built like a typical ork, complete with heavy brow, jutting tusks, thick tufts of hair, and pointed ears. Unlike many of his brethren, he wasn’t sporting any obvious tattoos or piercings, and he wore a nice suit instead of leathers—or rags—but his big hands were still wadded into fists, and his muscles still bulged beneath his clothes.
He didn’t look very happy to see them.
He also doesn’t look entirely lucid, Allie thought, studying the sweat beading his brow and the glassy look in his eyes, her visor automatically cataloging and recording the data. His neighbor had been right—he was definitely on something.
Unfortunately, that only meant he’d be even harder to reason with.
But he clearly had other ideas. He swung a heavy arm in a wide, fast arc, and his fist crashed into Lanos, sending him reeling backward. Then the ork turned toward Allie.
“Don’t,” she warned, her own hands rising defensively toward her face. “We’re just trying to help—”
The ork either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. His fist lashed out again, this time straight in front of him, leaping the gap between him and Allie like a missile. The blow caught her full in the chest, and now she was the one falling, arms flailing as she tried to right herself in time—
—and then, suddenly, she wasn’t.
There was what felt like a rush of wind, brisk and invigorating. Somehow Allie found herself back on her feet, centered and stable, and within arm’s reach of the crazed ork. He took another swing at her, but this time she blocked the blow, his massive arm unbelievably sliding off her much slighter limb, the force of the impact jarring her but not enough to make her shift her stance in the slightest.
Then she retaliated, her own hand balling into a fist that rocketed forward to connect with the ork’s sloping brow like a sledgehammer.
One punch. One punch was all it took. One punch that knocked Skulldrinker right off his feet, his head snapping back from the force of the blow, dismissing his consciousness so that when he dropped back to the ground it was to collapse in a heap before them, body limp, eyes shut.
She had knocked him out.
Allie paused to let that sink in. She had knocked him out. She, Allie Fiddich, had just knocked out an ork. With one punch. And her hand didn’t even hurt, which it definitely should—hell, it should be a mess, considering how tough orks were compared to humans, but nothing felt broken or even bruised. Her hand looked and felt…fine.
Huh.
“You okay?” she asked Lanos, who had just righted himself.
“Fine,” he answered. “Even better if no one ever hears about what happened to me.” He eyed Allie carefully. “You?”
“Five by five,” Allie answered, an old saying she’d read in one of her books. “Let’s get him restrained and call it in.” She hit the downed ork with a hypo-spray, just to be on the safe side, then tugged a pair of zipties from one of her vest pockets. Once they’d trussed him up, the two of them struggled to get the unconscious ork back downstairs and to their ambulance.
“So what was that?” Lanos asked as they cleared the first landing. “Was I still dizzy, or did you really put him down with one punch?” He eyed her hands, clearly expecting the one she’d used to be pulped or at least torn up.
Allie shrugged and shifted her grip so her hand wasn’t as visible. “Just got lucky, I guess.”
But deep down, she didn’t entirely believe that.
The sky calls. Open and endless, sweeping and grand, it begs to be explored, to be traveled. To be dominated.
Still, the chains bind. Still, they restrain.
But the clanking is different now, the tone sharper, more urgent. The scrape of metal against metal fiercer, more aggressive.
And almost hidden among that noise is the sharp whine of metal being twisted, pulled out of shape.
It is the sound of chains beginning to break.
“Looks like you’ve got an admirer,” Lanos told her over lunch the next day. He must have read the utter confusion in Allie’s ice-blue stare, because he laughed and waved his chopsticks toward his left. “Behind me, long hair, pale, sharp suit. Been watching you.” He grinned around his noodles. “Want me to scare him off?”
“No worries,” Allie replied, scooping up another big bite of spicy chicken and using the motion to cover her search for the man. “I’ve got this.” Her helmet sat beside her, which meant she couldn’t use its visual enhancement to get a better look, so hopefully the guy in question was close enough she wouldn’t need it.
There. He matched Lanos’s description, such as it was—tall, slender, long hair as white as her own, good suit. There was something familiar about him, though she was sure she’d never seen him in her life. And he was definitely watching her. Allie took another quick bite before setting the remains of her lunch aside and hopping to her feet. She took off at a fast walk straight at the guy, determined to get some answers.
But he saw her coming a kilometer away. She was close enough to see his thin lips curve into just the hint of a smile before he stepped back and allowed the noon crowd to swallow him up. Allie cursed under her breath. She didn’t know why or how, but she was sure this was connected to what’d happened the other night.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she’d be getting any answers any time soon.
“Coming, Allie?”
She glanced up from stowing her gear in her locker. “Hm?”
Tina, one of the other paramedics, grinned from under her mass of glowing red curls. “It’s my birthday, remember? We’re all going parasailing?”
“Oh. Right.” To be honest, Allie hadn’t planned to go. Not that she didn’t like Tina, but she wasn’t much of the party type. Nor did she go in for thrill-seeking. Especially if it involved heights.
“Ah, you know she won’t,” Tina’s partner Grittan said with a deep chuckle that sent the braids of his beard dancing across his broad chest. “Not Ice Queen Allie.”
Lanos materialized behind the dwarf and glowered down at him. “Watch it.”
“What?” Grittan threw up his hands, his smile wicked beneath his beard. “I’m just saying. She never deigns to mingle with us lesser mortals. Do you, Allie?”
The challenge was obvious—no one had ever accused Grittan of being subtle—and normally Allie would just roll her eyes and ignore it. But tonight she found herself grabbing her jacket out of the locker before slamming it shut and rising to her feet. “You know what?” she declared, tugging the light jacket on as she stepped closer to the others. “I’m in.”
“Really?” Lanos looked surprised, as did Grittan. That, and the fact that Tina was practically squealing with delight, made the decision worth it.
At least Allie hoped so.
“Oh my gods, what am I doing?” Allie wailed. “Why can’t we just do something nice and safe, like sim-jump into active volcanoes? I’m going to die!”
“You’re fine,” Lanos assured her for the tenth time. “Just relax.” A smile tugged at his lips. “You might even enjoy this.”
She just glared at him as he ignored her complaints and entreaties and checked the straps and buckles of her harness. “Good to go,” he said at last, stepping back and giving the boat captain a thumbs-up.
Allie shrieked one final time as the boat revved its engine and shot forward—and she rose up from the water, the parasail filling with air and lofting her into the night sky.
For a second, she was terrified, looking down at the Detroit River and the city to either side of it. Her hands clutched the straps so tight her fingers were bone-white, and her legs swung frantically, desperate for anything solid to kick against.
But then the breeze tickled her cheek, the smell of the water and the crisp upper air inflated her lungs, and she breathed deep, her thrashing slowing, her cries fading away.
It was so beautiful up here! Why had she never thought to try this before?
The boat raced along, carrying her behind it, and she just floated, head tilted back, letting her pale braid flap behind her like a kite’s tail. For the first time she could remember, Allie felt totally at peace.
And then something else rose up within her, like a sea beast slowly cresting the surface.
She was hungry.
But not for food. No, this was the same burning need she felt when she was behind the wheel. The hunger for speed.
She wanted more. Faster. She wanted to race through the night, the wind whipping past her, cutting through the air like an arrow, swift and silent and deadly.
She tugged on the straps connecting her to the boat, but the captain either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because he didn’t speed up. The leisurely excursion continued, with Allie chafing to cut loose and really soar.
Eventually it ended, the boat powering down, and she drifted gently lower, until she was floating on the water, the parasail draped behind her like an enormous silken cape. Lanos was waiting, along with Tina and Grittan and a few of the others who had already gone.
“What’d you think?” her partner asked as he waded over to Allie and helped her unbuckle. “Great, right?”
“Yeah, it was great,” she agreed, and if her tone was less than ebullient her smile convinced him she was telling the truth. Nor was she lying, really. It had been great being up in the air, far more so than she would have believed.
But deep down, Allie knew she’d never do this again. Not because she hadn’t liked it, but because she’d liked it too much, and because it hadn’t been enough. Floating along like that had been a taunt, teasing her with what she really wanted, but then denying it to her.
