Fade to Black

by Nyx Smith

  There was also the action in the rear of the van.

  Dok worked on Filly for more than an hour, long after it became obvious to Rico that what little Dok could do with the gear on hand just wouldn't cut it. Maybe if he'd had a full surgical kit with respirators and all the drek like in the average emergency ward, maybe then something too good to believe might have happened. The way things were, with all their asses on the line, they had to get clear, and everything else took second place.

  Filly never moved. She didn't breathe. She didn't show the least sign of life. Whatever had hit the back of her head had penetrated bone. It had probably been over in an instant, before she could feel the pain, before she even knew what hit her.

  If it was gonna happen, that was the way it oughta happen. That was how Rico wanted to go. Here one moment, gone the next. A death with some dignity.

  That didn't help Dok.

  "She lived how she wanted, amigo," Rico finally said , "She was true to herself and true to you. She was real. She had to be there. She wouldn't've let you go alone. No effing way, compadre."

  Shank grunted, nodded agreement, and told Dok, "We're with you, bro."

  Dok turned his head toward the ceiling and closed his eyes and said nothing. Clamped his eyes tightly shut and clenched his teeth together till the muscles in his jaw were twitching. Trying hard to keep things inside. Rico knew what that was like. He also knew it was no use. Some feelings were just too powerful.

  It was almost dawn when they got to Little Asia. Thorvin turned the van down the narrow alley to their latest bolthole and parked. No sign of pursuit or surveillance. Rico got out, looked around. The van's side door slid open and Bandit stepped out, also looking around. Inside the rear of the van, Dok sat staring at Filly's body. "Come on, bro," Shank said.

  "I wanna be alone," Dok said harshly.

  "Come on, chummer."

  "Leave me alone!"

  "Dok," Rico said, letting an edge slip into his voice, "you're still bleeding. Shank's bleeding. We're all bleeding. You come inside, take care of biz. You want time then, you got it."

  The speech seemed to work, but the minute Dok stepped out of the van he started cursing. Getting mad, crazy with fury. His words rose into snarls like an animal might make. He turned and began slamming his fists into the side of the van. Then he rammed his head into the metal. Once wasn't enough. He couldn't stop. Probably, he wanted Filly so bad he'd do anything, take any risk, go up against anybody, kill anybody, to get her back. He couldn't just quietly accept the truth. He had to do something.

  A woman was always a woman, even just lying in bed asleep. It wasn't like that for most men, and, Rico knew, it wasn't like that for Dok. He was a soldier as much as one was a doc. He was a former mercenary.

  Just saving lives was never enough. He had to prove himself as a man. He had to do things. Crazy, dangerous things like shadowrunning, even if it got him killed. It was more than just machismo. It was pride and self-esteem and an essential part of his identity. He had to do something about Filly, even if anything he could do would be futile.

  Even if it was just pounding himself bloody against the side of a van.

  Rico watched for maybe three seconds, then grabbed Dok by the arm, jerked him around and thrust him back bodily against the van. Dok struggled, pounding at Rico's shoulders and shouting, but Rico kept shoving, pinning him against the metal. Shank helped. Grief ultimately beat out fury, and that grief was too much to contain.

  A man strong enough to love, really love, opened himself to the possibility of pain. A man who could do that didn't give a damn who knew how much it hurt or how the pain showed.

  The flood subsided abruptly. Dok sagged, his eyes going wide, his face turning pale. Rico caught him up hard, gripping him around the body.

  "I'm hit," Dok murmured. "Christ ..."

  Rico said nothing.

  Shank helped carry Dok inside.

  The moment Piper heard the rumble of the van, she snatched up her automatic and hurried up the hall to the alleyway door. A brief glance through the peephole confirmed her suspicions. She pulled the door open, then stood and watched as Dok climbed out of the van, as he cursed and shouted, and, finally, as Rico and Shank carried him toward the door. Glancing back and forth, she felt only confusion until she saw the reddish stains on Rico's cheek and hands, and then the lower legs of someone lying just inside the open sidedoor of the van. On those legs was a pair of dark hi-top boots. Filly's boots. Piper looked at the blood staining Dok's jacket and the rips in Shank's armored vest and the scratches on his arms and knew right then that the meet had gone very badly.

  It took her a moment to put it all together: Dok's rage, Filly's boots. No sign of Ansell Surikov.

  The slotting corporates had fragged them again. Now someone was dead, another good person was dead, and more were wounded. Piper couldn't just stand there and watch the wounded bleed. The anger and the frustration that came welling up from inside demanded that she respond. It was her duty.

  She turned and hurried back down the hall. From her knapsack, she took a clip containing hard ammo, twelve armor-piercing rounds. At the touch of a switch the clip full of soft ammo dropped from her Ares Special Service. She thrust the new clip in, pulled on the slide, and released it. One soft round popped out and fell to the floor. A hard round took its place.

  She stepped into the bedroom.

  Farris lay there on the floor, on her side, arms cuffed behind her back. The little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth was nothing compared to what she deserved, and what she was going to get.

  Those who served the megacorps were no better than the nefarious scum who ruled over the corporate hierarchy. They were the enemies of every moral person, of all metahumanity. They deserved no mercy.

  For their crimes against the Earth and every future generation, they deserved to die. They deserved to rot in hell.

  "Kuso-jitsugyoka," Piper snarled.

  Farris looked at her, gaping, and then shrieked.

  Piper pointed the auto at Farris' face and squeezed down on the trigger, but them something brushed her side and bumped her back. A huge hand swept along the outside of her arm, encompassed her forearm and tugged it upward, lifting her right off her feet.

  "You fragging bent?" Shank growled.

  He tugged the gun from her hand.

  Dangling above the floor, Piper cursed at him wrathfully in Japanese.

  Then Rico was there in the doorway, looking from her to Farris and back again. Piper stopped, stopped struggling, stopped cursing. Contained herself. Completely. Shank lowered her to the floor. She rubbed her aching arm and glanced at Rico, but could not meet his eyes.

  "What's this?" Rico said.

  Piper shook her head, said nothing.

  "What the frag's going on?"

  "It was necessary."

  Rico glared and curtly motioned her out of the room.

  As Piper stepped into the main room, Dok looked up from the couch, met her eyes and said, "Filly punched out."

  Piper couldn't help but be moved by the emotion in his face and voice. Despite her most immediate difficulty.

  Despite Rico's anger. She had known Filly for several years, almost as long as she had known Dok.

  She regarded them as friends. She knew how close the couple that been. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "Very sorry. I'll pray for her. Pray that the kami are kind to her spirit."

  Dok nodded, looked away.

  In that moment, Thorvin came into the room, hopping forward on one leg. Blood was dripping from the engineer's boot on his left foot. He paused and leaned against the wall. "Freaking slug came right through the door!" he growled. "Musta found a gap in the freaking armor."

  Suddenly everything seemed to be going wrong.

  They must have offended the kami.

  She most of all.

  Dok was hit, but no worse than anybody else-of them that survived the meet. They'd all been blooded, all except Bandit, who had the devil's own l
uck.

  Getting Dok to tend the wounded took some work. He kept staring into space like he was in a trance or something. He kept forgetting the names of things he needed out of his kit. He made such a mess of one bandage he tried putting around Shank's arm that he had to pull it off and start over. He wasn't all there.

  Rico could understand that, but he also understood that none of them could afford an infected wound or the loss of any more blood than they had already shed.

  Once the team was patched, Rico drew Dok into the bedroom to check on Marena Farris. She was on one of the sleeping rolls, sitting up and free of the cuffs. She looked anxious, upset. Rico didn't blame her.

  He'd be upset too if somebody pointed a gun in his face.

  Dok checked her out. One side of her mouth was a little puffy. Nothing to worry about. Nothing for Dok or Farris to worry about.

  Rico remembered the trickle of red he'd seen coursing down from the corner of her mouth. She hadn't got that lying on the floor. She'd been in the other room when the team left for the meet and her hands had been cuffed in front, not behind her back. The obvious conclusion was that, for whatever reason, Piper had gotten a little rough. If Rico hadn't seen her pointing an Ares at Farris' face literally as he came through the door, he probably wouldn't have believed it.

  But for the swelling by the mouth, Farris' stylishly contoured face was otherwise unmarked. The worst Piper could've done was slap her, maybe slap her a couple of good ones. That wasn't the point, though. The point had to do with what was right and what was wrong, what he could let pass and what he couldn't tolerate. He had serious problems with any woman getting beaten or abused, especially one like Farris, who obviously presented no real physical threat to anyone. The fact that another woman had done the beating made no difference. The fact that Farris had been cuffed and totally helpless only made the matter worse.

  It made him want to throw up.

  Once Dok stepped out of the room, Rico said, "What happened here won't happen again. You can take that for a promise."

  Farris nodded, looking troubled. "What happens now? To me, I mean."

  "That ain't decided."

  Farris hesitated, then said, "Have you spoken to your woman?"

  "What woman?"

  "The Asian woman. I don't know your names."

  "Who said she's my woman?"

  Farris seemed disturbed by the edge that slipped into Rico's voice. "I'm sorry," she said in a hushed voice. "I just assumed ..."

  "Don't assume nothing."

  "Yes, of course. Excuse me. But you should still speak to her. There are things you should know. We talked."

  "We'll get to that later."

  "There's something you have to tell me?"

  Rico nodded. "The meet didn't go too good."

  "How is Ansell?"

  "He didn't make it."

  "You mean he's dead?"

  Rico nodded again.

  Farris looked more than just saddened by the news. How much more Rico couldn't tell. Farris lowered her head. She wiped at her eyes. "Could I be alone, please?" she said. "This is ... I'm afraid I'm getting rather upset..."

  "If you want anything, just ask."

  She shook her head, her hair falling forward, shielding her face.

  Rico left her and went into the front room where he found Piper waiting. The look on her face was getting familiar: embarrassment, shame. Rico nodded toward the alley door. She preceded him up the hall and out into the alley. Rico spent a moment glancing around, checking that the alley was clear, then turned to Piper and said, "You wanna tell me what you thought you were doing in there?"

  "It would be very difficult," Piper replied, looking everywhere but at him.

  "Do it anyway."

  She took a while getting to it. "I wasn't really thinking," she said in a whisper. "I saw that the meet had gone bad, jefe. I saw you were wounded. I saw Filly lying there in the van. I realized she was dead. I felt I had to do something. I felt it was my duty."

  "Murdering Marena Farris."

  "She is a corporate. Corporates are our enemies."

  "Yeah? Let's talk about duty. You had a duty to me to watch out for Farris. You had a duty to the team."

  Piper's face turned a dark shade of red.

  She covered it with her hands.

  "Please ... ," she moaned.

  Rico turned and walked away a few steps, then lit a cheroot. It was that or bust a gut, or get violent.

  The frustration was almost too much. The way he felt now, Piper seemed like a complete stranger, a total mystery, a disaster waiting to happen, a slight against his honor that he didn't even want to consider. She was as gentle as a dove in bed. How the hell could she attempt cold-blooded murder? Did her hatred of corps run that deep?

  Maybe the old saying was true.

  Never trust an elf...

  In a voice that wavered with emotion, Piper said, "I am shamed. It is my way, jefe. I have always been shamed. From the moment of my conception. I am kawaruhito. You cannot imagine ... In Japan, all metahumans are vile. Reviled. They are hated. I was sent to Jigoku-To-Shi. That is Hell City. That is its name, jefe. It is a horrible place. I escaped. I found a way to Seattle, UCAS. I had heard of the promised land. The land of promise. Tir Tairngire. But they would not let me in. My own people. Elves like me. Like my father, they rejected me. So I am doubly shamed."

  Rico had never heard this story before, not these particular details. Piper didn't talk much about herself. And Rico didn't expect a self-effacing Japanese and word-wary decker to give away any more than she might need, certainly no more than she wanted. He'd always been willing to accept whatever she chose to give and just forget the rest. He struggled to do that now. He struggled to see what this excerpt from her life story had to do with almost murdering somebody. Was shame the key point? Had she suffered so much of it that a little more didn't matter? He knew well enough that she wouldn't stand here and ask forgiveness because she'd had a rough We. Please feel sorry for me and forget what I did ... Piper would never say that, not intentionally, anyway. Piper wanted nobody's pity.

  "Shame is my own, jefe. It is all I am capable of. I have failed you twice on this run, and that is my shame. And I will fail you again, no matter what I do. Or how hard I try." She hesitated, then blurted, "You should leave me. For your own good. You should have nothing to do with me."

  Rico clenched his teeth. He didn't believe in "fate." Luck, maybe, but that was different.

  Piper had been acting under impulse, he decided. The shock of seeing Filly dead, the heat of the moment. Every body got that way sometimes, and these hadn't been a great couple of days. The run had become an abortion. "They were all feeling the pressure, and pressure had a way of bending people outta shape.

  It all came down to one point, though. The same point that had been there from the start. "I don't work with killers," Rico said lowly. "Murderers. I won't live with one neither. Work like that, wetwork, it's for scum. The garbage you see in the gutters. That's your choice. You decide what's gonna be."

  Piper started breathing hard before he got halfway done. He barely got out his last word before she said in an anguished voice, "I choose you, jefe. I choose you ..." Her breath caught and she. grunted, almost crying. "I just... I'm just afraid ... the corps, corporates ... they're going to kill us this time!"

  It was a distinct possibility. But it changed nothing.

  Rico drew Piper into his arms and held her. They weren't dead yet, and Rico wasn't about to give up.

  Too many lives, too much at stake. His job was to find a way outta this mess they'd somehow come to own. Quitting wouldn't work. Neither would lying down and dying. "Just don't gimme any more problems, chica," he said. "I got enough already, Comprende?"

  Piper nodded, face buried in his shoulder. "Hai. Wakarimasu, jefe," she said. "I understand."

  29

  The room was small and squarish, the decorations rather crude and the furnishings threadbare. The walls had been painted to l
ook like a forest. A few dying plants slumped here and there in colored pots. The air smelted of incense. The pair of sleeping bags on the floor provided the only place to sit.

  Farrah Moffit ran her eyes around the room one more time, just to prove to herself again that she had no way to escape.

  Even if she could get out of this room, she would need to find a working telecom, then manage to stay alive and free long enough to be picked up. The odds on that seemed long. She had seen and heard enough to guess that she was somewhere in the New York-New Jersey megaplex, but where exactly she did not know. Queens, the Bronx, Westchester-they all looked the same to her. One great mass of grimy ferrocrete. Outside Manhattan, she was lost.

  Certain smells in the alley had made her think of Manhattan's Chinatown, but that probably meant nothing. A great many Asians lived in the urban Northeast. Practically every metroplex in the region had some sort of Asian enclave, some quite large.

  The runners who held her captive had done a very good job of keeping her in the dark.

  If only she could believe the leader's promises that she would not be harmed. Her time with Fuchi had cured her of any such naivete. She would be kept alive for as long as that served the runner's purposes, then, in all likelihood, she would be killed. She had never previously dealt with shadowrunners herself, but she had heard enough and read enough and seen enough on trideo to be acquainted with the breed. Most were glorified gangers, criminals by another name, and quite vicious. They would not allow her to live for the simple reason that she could point them out in a police line-up, should police become involved, and she could testify to their crimes, should matters ever reach a court. They would not leave her behind. They would not simply let her go. Eventually someone, probably that Asian girl, the decker, would come into this room, put a gun to her head and pull the trigger.

  If only she knew more of what was happening. What she would give for just a few minutes in front of a trid.

  She felt so isolated, so alone.

  This, of course, was part of the runners' strategy. They wanted to keep her in a state of mental uncertainty and emotional turmoil, this to persuade her of the value of cooperating fully, of being compliant.