“Nobody said anything about an inside job,” I finally say, talking slowly to make the preceding pause feel more natural. But as I say it, I’m thinking. My tone is exploratory. They let me think it through. Poor little dumb Johnson, doesn’t know the score. All right, all right. It makes sense. So much intel, so much planning. It’s not hard to figure out, and it is, in fact, something Renraku routinely does to test runners. I just didn’t bother thinking about it till now. One half of my brain tells me this is fine, all the better if it’s an inside job. The other half of my brain is ringing a small bell that there’s something I’m missing. I don’t like that, but I have to ignore it for a minute, because I gotta get these shadowrunners to take the job. Who doesn’t take inside jobs? Like seriously, who cares?
“Your convictions are your own. I’m sure you have your reasons. I’m not here to beg. You know the terms. Are you in or out?” Truth is I am gonna kind of have to beg if they say no. I don’t have a backup team to fill this slot. I hope they don’t know that.
Vanity gives me a charming little smile and lets it hang. My eye twitches.
“What’s your name?” she asks me.
Aw shit. I don’t like her. She’s transparent about how she’s trying to get to me, and the fact that it’s working, even a little, irritates the hell out of me.
“Martin,” I answer, keeping eye contact. I’m not about to let myself be intimidated by her.
“Well, Martin, there is something about you I like. We’ll take the job. We will meet at the Opera in two nights from now.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t noticed I was holding, but quietly. They get up with the same fluidity and grace they sat with. Vanity leans over, putting her face close to mine. I make a superhuman effort to stare into her eyes and not her suspended cleavage. See, I’m professional.
She speaks slowly, but with an incredible flow and crispness in her words, like a Tahitian waterfall. “We’ll take fifty percent of the payment up front, and we’ll take ten thousand more nuyen than you offered.” I am mesmerized by her perfectly articulating red lips, the same shade as the raccoon-band makeup. She’s not asking for anything I wasn’t prepared to give already, but I let her believe her techniques are what’s winning the day. I say nothing as I stare back into her eyes, which is all she needs to know.
She breaks the spell and joins Angel by the door as they leave.
In the quick cab ride back to my hotel I send a text to my boss. “Teams hired, within budget. No issues. Will report back Thursday.” I glance up at the glass towers of downtown a couple of blocks from my own glass tower hotel. Capital of the C.A.S., huh? It’s all right, but I don’t really like it here. I’ll be glad to get back to Manhattan. Think I’ll pop some vacation after this.
I’m pretty beat as I hit my room. I’m kind of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and my drinks have made me sleepy. I turn on the trid, just to have some sort of background noise, and I brush my teeth. I admire the bathroom and reflect how much better it is than the Ramada. Life is like that, really. It’s not about what you have, or where you are. It’s where you came from and what you had. It’s the delta. The difference between had and have. In a way, I’m grateful for the Ramada. It makes me appreciate this. I wonder fleetingly about scarface troll. I wonder if he’ll ever be happy chasing my corporate nuyen. But he’s not very interesting, and he’ll be dead in less than twenty-four hours. A flash of Vanity enters my mind, bent over and almost whispering her deal in my face. My dick moves a little. Down, boy.
I swing back to my lofty bed. I notice my commlink is showing a new message. Except it’s not my normal Matrix service. This gets my attention. I sit on my bed, with my shirt half unbuttoned, staring at my commlink. I have an ARO rotating in mid-air, using an unusual icon. I peer at it closer and see it’s using an encryption routine I haven’t seen in years. A while back, I was part of a test for a new secure communications app Renraku built for us Johnsons. I worked closely with the lead programmer that made it for us, and the testers were me, my boss at the time, and a colleague, Matthew. The project was mothballed after headquarters decided to go with another solution, which is now in widespread use. So, really, there are only three other people in the world that may be able to communicate with me this way, if I include the programmer. I open the secure message, which is text-only.
“You’re being burned. This is a fall job. They are coming for you. Hide. Will do what I can, but this is big. —Wolfman”
Wolfman is Matthew. It’s from an inside joke only the two of us know about, so, combined with the super-secret channel, I’m thinking he’s serious. Shit. My mind freezes. Instead of thinking at full speed, I just sit there like a dumbass. Work, you useless brain, work! Why can’t I think about anything? I turn off the trid with a whip of my hand.
There’s a soft crunching noise outside my door, like feet against crisp carpet, which suspiciously stops dead when I turn off the trid. I stand in silence. It stands in silence. One second stretches into, two, three … four. My brain comes back online, just like that, boom. I start moving, grab my commlink. As I move, the presence outside the door must have similarly come to the conclusion the jig is up. There is a rustling sound. I hear the card reader on my door beep, and it opens. A tall elf with a white hair top-knot, face painted white and jet black cybereyes stands framed in the doorway. He is carrying a blade. Clearly, he’s not room service. He heads straight for me. The glint in his eyes is unmistakable. If you ever have the misfortune of coming face to face with someone who has, beyond all doubt, decided to end your life, it’s something you won’t ever forget. No negotiation, no surrender, no saying your life decisions were bad and you now realize the mistake of your ways. You want to just fall to your knees and give everything up, go back to school, make a new life. You see flashes of you eating cereal as an eight-year-old boy with your mom lovingly cleaning up after you, and you see the first person you kissed and remember what the sky looked like on one particularly clear day, and you wonder how it all went wrong.
Yeah, all that, but not today. I ain’t dying today. That’s all I have to say about that. That’s all it comes down to. I grab the nearest object, which happens to be a lamp, and chuck it at his face. Not exactly a killing blow—it just makes him angry. But it broke his speed just long enough for me to reach into my shirt and grasp the little glass marble I have hanging around a chain necklace. It was a parting gift from a girlfriend. Or “the” girlfriend, if I want to be accurate. Marie was the only real girlfriend I ever had. After her, it was just girls. We tried for a while, we really did, and I even invested time and emotions and all that junk in the whole thing, but it ended anyway, like things do. Before we parted for good, she gave me with this little gift. She knew what I did for a living, and she said if I ever got into trouble, I should break it. I take her at her word, and since she was a mage, I believe that whatever this thing is going to do will be good. A final leap of faith for her.
Psycho Killer Elf comes back at me, and I’m within range of his knife. I surprise the hell out of him when I attack, smashing my little marble in his face. Light flashes brilliantly white, and he flies clear across the room, taking part of the bed with him. There’s a big gust of wind, shit goes flying everywhere. Not bad. But he’s still alive. Come on, Marie, couldn’t you give me something lethal? Oh well. This was indeed her style. She was a much better person than I ever was, which is why it didn’t work out between us. But I can reminisce later. For now, I hop over the mess on the floor and run the hell out of my room. And I mean I run. I tear down the carpeted hallway and get to the stairs. Right before I crash through the stairwell door, I see Elf Guy run into the hallway. He turns the wrong way, doesn’t see me, and flips around. Then he sees me. Boy, does he look angry. There’s fucking rage in his eyes. But it’s nothing compared to the look on his face after I pull the fire alarm.
A strident old-school bell starts ringing loudly, very loudly. Now that I’ve infuriated my would-be murderer, I blaze down th
e stairs. I can hear the elf right behind me. Thankfully, I’m only some ten stories up; yeah, only. I have no idea how this’ll play out. I’m running down the stairs, jumping the last four, five steps, landing, turning, running down the next flight, and so on. The elf is doing roughly the same, except he’s better at it. My ankles and the flats of my feet are killing me from all the stair jumping. But it doesn’t seem to bother him much. I have my nice Italian shoes. He has combat boots. I realize this is a losing proposition.
However, on the third floor, just as he’s about to pounce on me, with barely half a flight of stairs between us, people get into the stairwell with us. That’s right! Fire alarm in a hotel; can’t use elevators, right? Now, I know damn well witnesses wouldn’t stop him from knifing me. I also don’t expect an off-duty SWAT guy to happen to be there and decide to help me. All I need are meat shields. Okay, that’s a little heartless. But I’d rather be heartless than dead.
I push the first guy I can reach onto the elf. With minimal effect—the elf effortlessly tosses him against the wall. The guy hits the wall so hard I see blood as he moans a deep “Oof.” The elf smirks. He enjoyed that. Sadism and hired killers go hand in hand.
I get down another flight. I feel the elf grab my collar. I lose some balance and land into more people in the stairwell landing, people who stopped to take in the commotion, much like sheep. I smash into two dazzled guys, and the four of us are now stumbling in front of the bleating spectators. The elf stabs at my face, with a swift, professional movement aimed at accessing my brain by going through my eye. But because of the people between us he misses the mark, grazing my temple. It stings like hell, and I feel just how insanely sharp his chrome switchblade is. I manage to push some people at him. Psycho stabs the first guy, just like that. The guy screams, clutches his gut, and leans against the wall. Panic finally sets into the herd and there’s screaming, shouts, and warnings. It’s funny how stuff like that works. It’s a bunch of strangers in a stairwell; nobody knows each other. One knife-wielding maniac stabs one of them. Suddenly, they are as one. One herd closing rank, defending itself against a predator. Ancient, pre-historic instinct. They all turn against him. Two burly guys try to grab his arms, push him back. Another guy tries to disarm him.
It’s a nice sentiment, but this is 2076 and that elf is a pro. He has augmentations. He thinks nothing of killing people and is too much for them to overpower. He fights back by slicing, punching, and kneeing them in the head. He makes a bloody mess. I don’t see the detail, because I am gone the second after they grab him, but from the sounds I deduce what went down. Three lives, three full seconds of distance between me and the Destroyer.
I reach ground level and bolt back onto the carpeted floors of the lobby. There are more people, all slowly heading out, wondering if this is a real fire alarm or some sort of annoying exercise. I hear murmurs as they ask each other what’s going on. The louder, bolder ones make passive-aggressive jokes about how the hotel should reimburse them for their trouble. Then, as they notice me run by them like a freaking rocket, they hesitate between thinking I’m an idiot for taking this alarm so seriously, versus wondering if I know something they don’t.
The latter fact becomes clear as the elf crosses the lobby at full speed after me. He’s covered in blood, his arms red up to the elbows, and there’s splatter on his painted white face and clothes. He is not inconspicuous. At this point, some people are calling the cops, but that’s not going to help me in the short term.
Now, I work out. I go to the gym, and I have a virtual trainer app on my commlink that tells me exactly what to do to reach my stated goal of weight burn and muscle development. I’m actually quite proud that I manage to train consistently twice a week. But does this make me an athlete? Absolutely, without a doubt, not. I am nowhere near in the same kind of shape as my pursuer. So given the exertion of the chase I think I’m going to vomit my lungs soon. My breathing is hard and shallow. I’m getting tunnel vision, chest pains. All I hear is the blood rushing in my ears. My higher thought functions are out the window. I’m driving on pure instinct. In a straight-up race, I’m dead. While he favors knife, I must assume the elf must have a gun. That means I need to get into cover, and I need to break up the straight run; great, awesome plan. How do I do that? My adrenaline-hyped brain provides the only logical answer: run into traffic.
The hotel is in the middle of Atlanta, facing a busy boulevard, with sleek cars zooming by, their high-speed efficiency controlled by GridGuide. I run right into oncoming traffic, managing not to die instantly. Wide-eyed drivers throw on emergency overrides to disengage GridGuide, or GridGuide reads the danger and brings vehicles to a quick halt. The perfect flow of traffic disintegrates. People aren’t used to manual controls, so the ones that hit the override add chaos to the mix. One car hits the divider at an angle, causing it to spiral and land on its roof, sliding a few meters. A delivery truck slams into the side of a commuter car. Safety glass bits fly everywhere.
GridGuide detects the problem and reroutes further incoming traffic. Still, I got my wish. There are busted cars and debris all around me. Which is desirable because I was right: The asshole has a gun. He takes one look at me blitzing into traffic and figures, why do that? He pulls out a handgun and starts shooting. He hits cars, hits people in the cars; who cares, right? They’re collateral damage. There is an eerie sort of silence to the whole thing. I mean, after the crashes, and once GridGuide reroutes traffic, there really isn’t any noise. Those gunshots—one bullet, a significant pause, then another—are all I hear as I dodge and take cover. You know you’re screwed when the shooter takes time to aim. He’s not worried. He’s not panicked. He lives in the moment. And his one and only desire right now is to kill me. I’d admire that if I wasn’t terrified. He’s calmly getting closer to me, flanking my cover. He shoots at me only if I try to leave. He is basically, all by himself, suppressing me while he flanks my position. Wow, I suck.
Then, a moment of desperate yet serendipitous prejudiced thought hits me. This is Atlanta, capital of the Confederated American States. These redneck yahoos all have guns, no? I’m hunkered down behind the yellow Mercury Comet that spiraled over. The guy inside is unconscious. The windows are shattered; a door’s ajar from the impact. I kick it open and reach past the driver and into the glove compartment. Right there, just like that, is a Colt L36. Bullshit? Well, no, not really. Half the people I know have a gun in the glove compartment, and Atlanta is a pretty rough town in parts, so, to be fair, it’s not because they are rednecks. It’s because this is the world they live in.
In any case, now that I’m armed, things are looking up a bit more. I pull myself away from the car, apparently not cautiously enough because a bullet lands about two inches away from my head. He’s totally flanked me now. I see him, to my left, standing amidst the wreckage I’ve caused with a cold, smug smile on his face, his gun pointing right at me. I wheel at him and fire. Fuck you, right in the gut. He doubles over.
Of course, he’s wearing body armor. Who wouldn’t be? I just knocked some wind out of him. In contrast to the ugly, rage-face he gave me when I pulled the fire alarm, now, as he slowly unbends, his face is pretty much devoid of expression. I’ve pissed him off so much he went off the scale and reset to zero. And I’m scared. But I have enough brains left to figure out the very simple and effective next step. I shoot at his legs. I unload. He doesn’t just stand there and take it, of course. He fires back rapid shots as he dodges to the side. In those two full seconds, or two thousand milliseconds, let’s say, I unload, he unloads, he dodges. It’s over in the blink of an eye. I’m still alive. He’s on the floor. There is a red blotch on his leg. All my dreams have come true. I am such a happy little princess.
That’s the end of it. I’d like to kill him, but I have no means to do so. My ammo’s out. So I get up and run. I feel something like a concrete tennis ball hit my shoulder. I swallow a roar of pain while my eyes swim. I stagger, but stay upright and keep going. I duck into an alley
across the hotel. I hear sirens. I keep running.
I am screwed. Utterly and thoroughly. Here’s why. The cops have likely been called several times and are coming. They’re going to be looking mostly for the elf who went all stabby on some innocent bystanders, but they’re also going to be looking for witnesses, people the elf was after, possible accomplices—anything that might help them make sense of what went down. That’s bad for me. At this point, I’m what they call a “person of interest.” I may even be a suspect or an accomplice. There are lots of titles for me. Ultimately, they all spell bad news. If the cops get their mitts on me, they’ll want to bring me in for a talk, and that’s no good. I am fundamentally just as much a criminal as the people I hire. There is no special amnesty for Johnsons. What saves us is a number of layers. Firstly, I am living under a fake alias. If you remember how all this started, I am a “corporate trainer.” I have the identity to prove this. It’s pretty solid stuff, expertly crafted by Renraku. Secondly, if I do get pinched, Renraku lawyers tend to come out of nowhere and get their fine, upstanding corporate citizen out. A few deals, a few threats, and local authorities decide their meager resources are better spent elsewhere, so the corporate citizen is freed. I know this because I was pinched a while back, in Boston. I burned a red light. My ID, which is normally very well crafted, had a hole in it that time. Cops got suspicious; lawyers had to bail me, money changed hands, and so on. Not a very interesting story, but I’m pretty sure the hacker who made my ID got canned. Anyway, I digress. The last reason why Johnsons are hard to pinch is that we take great care to remove ourselves from the mayhem we unleash, so it’s very difficult to get the evidence to nail us down.
All of these layers of protection—all of them—are dependent on our employers. Renraku protects me from everything.
But Renraku wants me dead.
That thought swims inside of me as I make my way through the city, getting as far away from the crime scene as possible. I walk for what must be two or three hours. I find a little nook in the alleys behind some stores. I’ve hit a pretty quiet area, and the graffiti jungle tells me this is a bad part of town. I sit down and take stock of things. First I carefully check my shoulder. I’m almost afraid to assess the damage. I take off my vest. No hole. I touch the skin, and it feels like I’m touching the tip of my dick after too much sex. I wince but see there is no blood on my fingers. My suit is only lightly armored. It must have been a glancing shot to not have penetrated. I put my vest back on, then take out my commlink. Right now, it’s a death beacon. I turned it off a while back, one of the first things I did. Part of me wants to outright destroy it, but I need it. It’s got my passport, my SIN, my banking details. I just make sure it’s completely off, not transmitting anything at all, and stow it in my pocket.
Shadowrun: Nothing Personal Page 2