Shadowrun, p.4
Shadowrun, page 4
“Got a problem?” Faye asked Spaceboy, who practically had to force himself to look away from her.
“Anyway, none of that matters,” Adam said.
“We’re gettin’ ’im back,” I continued. “Alive. Before those fuckers can move ’im out of town. We need magical cover. You down?”
She was down.
“Just out of curiosity, Devil,” Faye asked, twenty minutes later, her arms wrapped around my waist as she rode on the back of my Suzuki, “does this pay anything?”
By the time we had everybody gathered back at the doss, the sun had risen, burnin’ away the smog. We decided to wait till nightfall before hittin’ the place. Uncle Rabo had Skraacha and Bot’Kham in plainclothes watchin’ the slaughterhouse in case they tried to move Kham before then. Faye sent some of her watcher spirits to do the same, then spent most of the day summonin’ a much bigger spirit, an air elemental, to give us cover.
We spent the day in a smoky Tacoma doss some chummer’d lent us, just a block from the meatpackin’ plant. Just a dozen trogs from the hood, blastin’ goblin rock, drinkin’ hurlg, and plannin’ mass murder.
Skeeter showed up around noon while I was catchin’ some sleep, carryin’ a megasack from Taco Temple in one hairy fist and two duffel bags filled with assault weapons and combat drugs in the other. He was a dwarf fixer who worked out of Puyallup’s world-famous Crime Mall. The Bot’Kham helped him with shipments and security—I’d worked both for him myself—so he was willin’ to put this on our tab.
My shopping list had included, among other things, a dozen “clean” AK-97s—Lil’ Rabo wanted a laser sight and a grenade launcher on his—ammo, a dozen frag grenades, a dozen smoke grenades, rebreathers and thermal optics for those of us who didn’t have either one already. Plus ten armored vests (for anyone too dumb or too poor to own their own), burner commlinks to keep in touch with each other, then toss once the job was done, a dozen poppers of Jazz and a dozen ampoules of Kamikaze.
“I could only score two doses of K on such short notice,” Skeeter said. “And I barely scammed that. The shit is hard to find.”
“Shotgun,” Lil’ Rabo said, barkin’ a laugh as he snatched up one of the syrettes of murky, ominous red liquid.
“And I’ll take the other one, because it was my fuckin’ idea,” I said, stashin’ it in one of the two small pockets of my shorts.
“I wish you kids would stay away from that shit,” Uncle Rabo grumbled from where he was calibratin’ the hardpoint on a big drone that took up most of the middle of the doss’s livin’ room. All the furniture—threadbare as it was—had been shoved up against one wall to make room for it.
“Those Yaks have chipped reflexes, serious mojo, and who knows what else,” I said. “We need an edge.”
“An edge is one thing, sure, huff your Jazz, whatever,” he grumbled. “But that Kamikaze shit, you’re lucky if it just makes your heart explode, instead a rippin’ your own arm out of its socket and beatin’ yer best chummer ta death with it while screamin’ bloody murder.”
I ignored him. This was djoto: all-out war on the streets, not some sneaky shadow op. Professionalism could eat a dick.
Skeeter had also brought “The Bitch,” a Panther XXL assault cannon that’d been in the family for ages, since it was used by Kham himself when he ran the shadows. We all took turns pickin’ it up and rubbin’ it for good luck, like it was a religious artifact we were payin’ homage to.
The halfer wished us good luck and buzzed later in the afternoon. He wanted no part of pissin’ off the Shotozumi-gumi, and we all agreed to forget his name, at least until it was time to pay him. Uncle Rabo was there since before I woke up, coordinatin’ shit. I kinda felt like he was stealin’ my thunder, but age before beauty or some such shit. The important thing was gettin’ Grampa Kham back in one piece.
Accordin’ to the plan I worked out with Uncle Rabo, Sheila and Kass would be with about ten other volunteers from the Bot’Kham and the Skraacha, mannin’ the “blockin’ positions” in the war wagons, up-armored GMC Bulldogs mounted with guns, to make sure none of the Yaks could rabbit when the shit went down. Grazz would be in position on a rooftop opposite the plant to provide overwatch with The Bitch (lucky trog), along with Spaceboy and two Bot’Kham shooters to watch their backs. Uncle Rabo had taken an old drone out of storage and was patchin’ it up. He’d be riggin’ it from the back of one of the battlewagons to provide fire support.
That left me, Adam, Lil’ Rabo, and Faye to come burstin’ in through the front doors.
Shortly before sunset, Faye asked my Uncle if she could do some magic on the Bitch.
“Sure, sure, girlie,” he said reluctantly. “Just don’t break it. Dat bang-bang’s been in da family for ages!”
“I will be very careful,” she said with an innocent smile. Then she started etchin’ somethin’ along the Panther’s massive barrel in this glowing green ink that smelled real funny.
“What’s dat?” Lil’ Rabo asked when she was finished, squintin’ at the English portion of the inscription—most of it was in unrecognizable arcane runes. He snorted. “Looks like some sissy keeb poetry.”
“You trogs are so racist,” Spaceboy remarked from the couch, where he was threadin’ a silencer onto his light pistol. Fortunately for him, everyone ignored him.
I read the inscription that spiraled in Faye’s fancy script along The Bitch’s enormous, vented barrel: SO NOTE ALL YE LOVERS IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND/YOUR WORLD BE SHATTERED WITH NARY A NOTE. I was touched to see that she’d incorporated the Cupid Killers’ tag into her magical decorations, too.
“Actually, I think it’s pretty wiz,” I said. “So now The Bitch is like, what? A magic gun? A gun focus?”
“No such thing,” Faye explained. “But it’ll make whoever picks it up a way better shot. Which is why no one should touch her until it’s time to rock and roll.”
It was time to rock and roll. The blockers were already in place, Rabo had his drone in the air and facing all the trogs in my eth, I popped my inhaler of Jazz into my lungs, and started my rousing speech, keying my commlink so my chummers outside the squat could hear too.
“SKRAA! Djoto is a code of honor, a way of life. You don’t talk to quaalz, you don’t sell out your cerri to the corps, you watch each others’ backs. You put in work for your ereth’cerri, and you give back to your set. When the time comes, you’re ready to throw down a fahd for your cerri. And if someone fucks with your set, you give them the buunda! I mean drundeah. You put them in the fuckin’ ground! Skraa?”
I judged from the general, bestial roar of approval that I’d done alright in the rousin’ speech department—either that or the Jazz they’d popped (Faye demurred) made them an especially good audience for pre-ass-kickin’ monologues. Flickin’ our commlinks to hidden and doin’ one last check of arms and ammo, we piled out of the doss and into the street.
Ricochet Faye had her spirit conceal us. I didn’t feel any more concealed—and I could still see Faye, Lil’ Rabo, and Adam clear as day—but when we got within thirty meters of the slaughterhouse’s front, the two Yaks out front sure didn’t seem to notice us.
The front of the building had a long concrete loading dock with two garage doors spaced about twenty meters apart. The two Yaks patrollin’ the front looked bored as fuck. The garage door farther down from us was propped open, but the nearest one was closed. A row of pimped-out Hyundais were parked in a row out front.
A chibi-style cartoon chimp in a silvery, old-fashioned spacesuit popped up in my AR overlay.
“I scoped the commlinks of everybody in the building,” Spaceboy said. “They were running hidden, but no one hides from Spaceboy. I’m syncing ’em to your AR feed.”
My goggles’ display link showed me a picture-in-picture window of the place’s floorplans. Yakuza commlink positions flashed up on it as yellow dots. I counted fifteen, plus the two outside.
We took cover across the street behind a Toyota Gopher that had seen better days. I could feel the Jazz burnin’ in my veins like my blood was thermite, my whole body twitchy and tense for action. It was time to fuckin’ hurt some people.
I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t a little worried that once I slammed the Kamikaze on top of the Jazz, my heart might explode like Uncle Rabo had said.
“Watch my shoes,” Faye hissed, havin’ sat cross-legged on the pavement. I barely was able to catch her head with my hand as she slumped over.
“Astral recon,” I explained, to a momentarily confused-looking Adam, watchin’ as Lil’ Rabo punched his hypo of Kamikaze into his shoulder.
“Youse guys in position?” Rabo asked over my commlink. “Da mage must be doin’ her job right, because I can’t see none ’o youse.”
“Affirm,” I responded.
“Well, den. We’re ready to start da fireworks on your go.”
“Let’s fuckin’ do it now!” Lil’ Rabo hissed, his eyes bloodshot.
“Hold your fuckin’ horses,” Adam replied.
We waited a couple of tense minutes, Lil’ Rabo obviously rarin’ to go. Then Faye’s pretty black eyes finally snapped open.
“One ork toward the middle of the building, lightly augmented, hurt, pissed, and scared,” she reported. “I’m guessing that’s your grandpa. And about fifteen humans—most heavily chromed—all looking bored. I’m guessing they’re faking it, though. They had wards up, but I slipped through them without setting off any alarms.”
“Anythin’ else?” I asked, helping her to her feet. She even smelled good.
“Yeah. No mage on-site but…guardian spirits. Two of them. And not fucking around.”
“Can you take ’em?” I took in her worried expression. Then Adam jabbed my shoulder. I looked over and saw Lil’ Rabo janderin’ across the street toward the Yaks, Ingram Smartgun X held behind his back, a crazy grin displayin’ his gleamin’, platinum-capped tusks.
“I fuckin’ hope so,” I said. “Because we’re goin’ right now.”
I slipped my katana out of the sheath real quietly as I crept up behind the Yak on the left. The Yak on the right had noticed Lil’ Rabo and was askin’ him somethin’ in Japanese, one hand under his coat.
I clamped my hand over “my” Yak’s mouth as I pulled him backward and pushed my katana forward. Its blood-covered point burst out the front of his chest. I watched through my goggles’ thermal overlay as the heat drained from his body, along with his life, then I gingerly lowered him to the ground, pullin’ my katana free with a satisfyin’ sound that reminded me of sushi.
I looked across and I saw the other Yak fall asleep in a boneless pile. Glancin’ sideways at Faye, I saw her hands raised in an arcane gesture, witchfire dancing on her fingertips.
Apparently, sleepin’ wasn’t good enough for Lil’ Rabo, who stepped up and put a burst of five rounds into the sleepin’ breeder’s head.
The good news was the Ingram had a suppressor.
The bad news was Lil’ Rabo’s Kamikaze-stewed brain decided to have him fire twenty more rounds into the air while screamin’, “GRUMOGE, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!” at the top of his lungs.
“Subtle,” Spaceboy and Faye said simultaneously.
Fuckin’ Kamikaze. That reminded me, and I injected mine.
Then everything seemed to speed up and slow down all at once.
I think I noticed the Yaks spillin’ out of the open garage door, machine pistols and SMGs in hand, a split-second before the first explosion. It was after the zippy little sports cars started leapin’ into the air one after another, propelled by a chain reaction of enormous, deafening fireballs, that I registered the sound of “The Bitch”—similar to a football stuffed with grenades being punted right next to your head, even at this range—being fired from Grazz’s overwatch position. Then I felt the heat of the successive detonations rush over me, a hot wind scorching my face.
Then Uncle Rabo’s Cyberspace-Designs Dalmatian opened fire with its underslung Ingram Valiant LMG from across the street from where it was hoverin’ twenty meters in the air. Which exponentially increased the subtlety of the situation.
I vaulted onto the concrete dock and sprinted along it, centimeters away from the flamin’ wreckage of the Yaks’ cars. A Yakuza seemed to appear in front of me out of nowhere—maybe he’d been knocked down, but not out by the explosion—trainin’ an SCK-100 on me. I thought I was a goner for the whole second I had to think, then The Bitch caught him in the shoulder from across the street, and his entire smartly dressed upper body exploded into a shower of gore, like an X-rated Japanese piñata.
I slid inside the abattoir at a run, shiftin’ the katana to my left hand and drawin’ my Roomsweeper with my right. Light automatic weapons fire threw up sparks all around me, not findin’ its target. My smartlink was findin’ ’em, though, the Roomsweeper already throwin’ flechettes across the room. I saw Faye, Lil’ Rabo, and Adam run in, backlit by the flames. Lil’ Rabo had dropped or stashed the Ingram, and was now firin’ his pimped-out AK in full-on rock and roll mode. Adam had brought up his Defiance T-250, its short barrel spittin’ fire.
The slaughterhouse floor was a vast, cavernous cinderblock space. It smelled overwhelmingly of ancient cuts of pork and beef, long ago butchered, sold, eaten, digested and forgotten. Metal chains with hooks on the end—the kind once used to hold slabs of frozen meat—dangled from tracked runners on the ceiling all over the place. Without the frosty cow carcasses, the place felt empty.
My trogs and I filled it with gunfire and screams and glory and death.
Ten deliciously interminable seconds later, the abattoir floor was covered in at least as much blood and gore as it must have seen on Schlesinger’s Meats busiest operatin’ day. I counted at least six dead Yaks, but the grenade that Lil’ Rabo had launched had made quite the mess.
I felt beyond invincible. I felt like Neil the motherfuckin’ Ork Barbarian.
Feelin’ like the baddest bitch alive, I reloaded my Roomsweeper with shakin’ hands. Shakin’ from the Kamikaze—I don’t want you to think I was traumatized by makin’ sure there were a few less breeders in the world.
“Which way?” I demanded.
“Second door from the right,” Spaceboy replied, highlightin’ it on my HUD.
We were all headed over to the door to open it like a normal person would when Lil’ Rabo launched a grenade, blowin’ it to shrapnel that skittered across the ground less than a meter from us.
“Watch it with that, asshole!” Faye shouted.
Lil’ Rabo cheerfully flipped her off, then pushed forward into the hallway through the blown-out door.
“Da perimeter’s clear,” Uncle Rabo said. “We’ll cover da exits, and your hoops, from outside.”
“Affirm,” I said, followin’ Adam through, just ahead of Faye.
We didn’t even notice the beautiful art spray-painted on the cinderblock walls on either side of the corridor until it was too late. By which I mean until it was already movin’. First, the stylized tiger on the left hand wall padded out into the hall, one two-dimensional paw after another becomin’ solid and real as it set foot on the gritty three-dimensional floor.
I tried to scream a warnin’, but all I know for sure is that when it pounced on Lil’ Rabo from behind, I was screamin’.
By that time, the Eastern Dragon rendered in red spray paint on the right hand wall had already crawled out to meet us in three dimensions and livin’ color, not as big as the real thing, but bigger than the tiger maulin’ Lil’ Rabo.
I fired my Roomsweeper at the same time Adam fired his shotgun, but it took no notice of the flechettes that should have torn it to pieces, and unleashed a blast of flame from its snout that sent me and Adam crashin’ to the floor, rollin’ around and swattin’ at our burning clothes.
I looked up, still smoking, the wind knocked out of me and the Roomsweeper knocked out of my hand, to see Adam still rollin’ and burnin’. Behind him, the dragon-spirit-whatever-the-frag-it-was padded toward us, its forked tongue flickin’ out of its toothy snout. Behind that, Lil’ Rabo screamed with battle rage, rollin’ and over with the tiger spirit as it shredded him with its claws, givin’ as good as he got, ramming his spurs into its side again and again.
Even through the Kamikaze, I definitely felt less than invincible in that moment. In fact, I felt decidedly fucking vincible.
Then a pissed off tornado with arms and legs appeared out of thin air, tackling the dragon-shaped guardian spirit and smashing it straight through the opposite fuckin’ wall.
I struggled to my feet and dragged Adam to his. By that point, the tiger was steppin’ off Lil’ Rabo’s corpse and headin’ toward us, leavin’ bloody footprints on the plascrete. It had torn his throat out with its teeth, and its side was riddled with gashes and punctures from the price he’d made it pay. To our right, I saw the battle between air elemental and guardian spirit continue tearin’ down the rest of the damn building. They crashed out of the room they’d burst into through another cinderblock wall, causing plaster dust and broken tiles to rain from the roof. Adam raised his gun—too slowly—as I tried to bring my katana up to guard. Although my hopes against surviving against this thing in close weren’t too high, I had Kamikaze to thank for even considerin’ it at all.
Then I heard Faye’s voice fill the air, cryin’ out in a language I didn’t know, and a halo of silver and white fire surrounded the tiger. It roared in defiance as the monochrome fire burned it out of our world and back to its home. Faye collapsed to one knee, an aura of the same color fadin’ from around her. Her nose was bleedin’, her eyes looked bruised and unfocused, and she swayed unsteadily.
On some level, it was a relief to see her lookin’ even a hair less than perfect.
“Banished it,” she said, sounding as if she’d just run five consecutive marathons.
“Can you do anythin’ for ’im?” Adam asked, lookin’ at Lil’ Rabo’s lifeless body lyin’ in a pool of blood. The titanic struggle between spirits continued crashing through adjacent rooms. I didn’t know who was gonna win, and while obviously I knew who I was rootin’ for, I wasn’t too keen on findin’ out.
