The Lucifer Deck

by Lisa Smedman

  For several weeks, the Ork Rights Committee had been trying to organize a meeting with Governor Shultz, to voice its concern over the lack of Lone Star response to the wave of recent ork-bashings by the Humanis Policlub. Earlier in the day, twelve ORC members had forced their way into the Governor’s office and staged a sit-in. They’d been dragged out by Metroplex security guards and unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk. Now ORC had mobilized their people in protest.

  Pita had learned of the protest when she’d powered up an old trideo set she found in the basement of the building where she’d holed up last night. She had to keep the sound down low, and the screen had an annoying flicker. But she’d seen enough in the news stories about the protest to send a shiver of anger through her. No wonder the governor wasn’t willing to do anything, she thought grimly, recalling the recent deaths of her chummers. The Lone Star cops themselves were doing the killing.

  Although the story on the sit-in had been brief, it aired on a number of the trideo stations’ six o’clock newscasts. The most strident reports had come from the Orks First! pirates, who had interrupted he newscasts, urging Seattle’s ork population to "rise up out of the Underground and show Governor Schultz what you think about the way this city treats orks."

  Pita felt compelled to join in the protest. To say something. She owed it to Chen, Shaz and Mohan—her dead chummers. She had to be there. She’d be safe enough—just another ork face in the crowd. If the goons were still looking for her, it was doubtful they’d be able to spot her. And, being human, they’d stand out like sore thumbs.

  Orks of every description—and a smattering of trolls, as well—were firmly in place in front of Metroplex Hall. Even the slight drizzle of rain that had started to fall wasn’t budging them. They completely filled the street in front of the building; at the edges, car horns honked angrily. Traffic had come to a standstill. A pair of cops tried urgently to sort out the snarl of vehicles, waving their arms and blowing whistles in futile gestures.

  A woman holding a megaphone stood at the front entrance to Metroplex Hall. Pita recognized her as a member of the Ork Rights Committee. The woman was dwarfed by the statues of the Indian chief Seattle and Charles C. Lindstrom—first governor of Seattle Metroplex—but her amplified voice rang out as she led the crowd in a series of chants: "Orks unite! Demand your rights!" Behind her, Metroplex Hall security guards eyed the crowd through the triple-thick safety glass of the building’s main doors. The woman changed to a different slogan: "One, two, three, four. We won’t take it any more! Five, six, seven, eight. The cops don’t come ’til it’s too late!"

  Pita gingerly stepped around seated orks, trying to make her way to the front, where the woman with the megaphone stood. The closer she got, the more tightly people were packed. She finally squeezed herself in a few meters from the front, and sat down between two burly men. The woman had begun a speech—Pita caught the words "priorities." "inadequate presence." and "Lone Star procedures." She waited for a break in the tirade, occasionally waving a hand and at the same time screwing up her courage. She hoped that the committee member would let her speak. She wanted to tell everyone how the Lone Star cops had gunned down her chummers. It would be even better than going on trid—here, the audience was live. Carla and Masaki at KKRU might have strung her along with false promises to do a news story on her friends. But these people—these orks—would listen. If only Pita could catch the woman’s eye . . .

  The speaker paused, startled, as something flew through the air a few meters away. A beer bottle smashed against the side of the building, painting the smoked glass wall with a trail of foamy liquid. She pointed her megaphone at the portion of the crowd from which the bottle had come. "Please!" she urged them. "This is meant to be a peaceful protest. Let’s keep it that way! We don’t want to give the police any excuse to—"

  A few meters away from Pita, an ork leaped to his feet. He was in his twenties, with wild, uncombed hair, wearing a black leather trench coat studded with jagged bits of chrome. Waving his arms to get the crowd’s attention, he used the pause in the speech to start a new chant: "Bash back!" clap, clap "Bash back!" clap, clap "Bash back!" He alternately thrust a fist in the air in time with the chant, then led the clapping that punctuated the simple phrase. As people jumped to their feet to join him in the new chant, the woman with the megaphone tried to get the crowd back on track. But more and more people were picking up the younger ork’s angry chant, stamping their feet in time with it. At last Pita also clambered to her feet. It was either that or get stepped on.

  Another bottle arced through the air. At one corner of the building, the crowd had moved forward until its front ranks were up against the building’s glass wall. They pounded on it with fists, sticks, and bottles, a wild drumbeat of anger that drowned out even the chants and claps.

  Behind Pita, there was a sudden jostling as the now-standing crowd surged to one side. She turned, stood on tiptoe, and tried to look out over the crowd. At one end of the street, Lone Star officers in full armor and helmets had materialized—as if out of thin air—and drawn up in a line across the street. Those in the front rank held stun batons, and were thumping them rhythmically on their shields. They advanced slowly on the assembly of orks, stepping in time with the thud of their batons. Behind them, other cops in riot gear held the oversized guns that were used to fire gel rounds. At least, Pita hoped they held gel rounds.

  The sight of the gun-toting cops turned her stomach to ice. She let out a small whimper of fear. She had to get away. Now. Things were going to get ugly, and soon.

  A Star drone zoomed around one corner of the Metroplex Hall. It flew low over the crowd of orks, broadcasting the same message over and over: "This is an illegal gathering. Please disperse. Return quietly to your homes. This is an illegal gathering ..."

  A wave of people swept up the steps that led to the building’s front entrance, carrying Pita with it. The wave broke against the front doors, pushing Pita face-first into the hard, unforgiving glass. The woman who had been addressing the crowd from the step had disappeared in the rash forward, but a burly troll had grabbed her megaphone. "Open the doors!" he shouted through it. Hands poured on the locked doors. "Let us in!" Inside the building, the Metroplex Hall security guards backed away from the door and looked at each other with uncertain glances.

  Pita fought her way down the steps to the street. The bulk of the crowd was moving now, hurrying away from the advancing line of riot officers. But then an armored Star vehicle rambled into their path. It rolled to a stop in the intersection, oblivious of the people who were scattering away from it in every direction.

  Hatches opened, and Pita heard dull thumps as canisters were fired out. The canisters exploded against the pavement with a loud crack and immediately began to release hissing clouds of white vapor. Pita caught a whiff of it and blinked rapidly as her eyes began to sting. Tear gas.

  There were screams and angry shouts as the orks realized they were hemmed in, with the line of riot cops on one side and the armored vehicle on the other. More bottles arced through the air, breaking against the armored vehicle that now blocked the intersection. Other, braver orks had wrapped T-shirts around their faces and were picking up the tear gas canisters and hurling them into the ranks of the riot cops. It was a futile gesture; the cops were masked as well as armored. From behind the cops with shields came the crack of gunfire as the second rank of cops aimed and fired gel-rounds into the crowd. People screamed, clasped suddenly bruised flesh, and jostled against each other.

  The sight of the Star using their weapons terrified Pita. Tears were pouring down her face—either from the whiff of gas she’d inhaled or from simple fear. She fought to reach the edge of the crowd, to escape. Bodies jostled her from every side; hands grabbed at her or pushed her this way and that. Someone yanked her jacket, choking her. Someone else tripped over the curb, crashed into her, and nearly knocked her down. What had once been an organized, peaceful protest now was a maddened mob. Everyone—inc
luding Pita—had only one thought: escape. And none of them knew which way to run.

  Pita balled her fists in frustration and sobbed. It was stupid of her to have joined the protest, to have thought that her presence would matter. She never should have come here. What good had it done? None. All the protest had done was give the cops an excuse to vent their prejudices against the "porkies." To put them back in their place. To drive them back Underground, where they belonged.

  A space cleared around Pita for a moment, allowing her to catch her breath. An ork boy, perhaps six or seven years old, was hunched on the ground, clasping a bloodied knee and trying not to cry. Pita turned to help him, then froze as the front rank of riot officers charged forward at a trot, batons raised. From somewhere behind Pita, a teenager with bright purple feathers woven into his hair ran forward, gesturing at the cops. An invisible force slammed into the shields of two officers, knocking them sprawling on their butts. Then one of the cops behind them aimed her gun, fired. Purple feathers and blood exploded as the gel round caught the teenager in the eye, shattering his skull.

  Pita clenched her fists. "You fragging bastards!" she screamed, heedless of the line of shields bearing down on her. "Why can’t you just leave us al—"

  She barely glimpsed the stun baton that cracked against her skull. Static exploded in her brain, and suddenly the pavement rushed up toward her. She slammed into the street and felt hands flipping her over roughly. As she lay blinking, cheek to the rain-damp pavement, dazzled by the spots that swam before her eyes, her arms were yanked back. Something tight cinched around her wrists. She saw boots, the cuffs of Kevlar pants—and then the cops were past her, waving their stun batons and running up the street. She lay on the pavement, fighting to control her heaving stomach. The dead boy lay only a meter or two away, his head leaking blood.

  As her head slowly cleared, Pita realized how much trouble she was in. She was busted. And by the same fragging goon squad whose members had flatlined Chen. She closed her eyes and cried.

  18

  Carla stood just outside the line of yellow plastic ribbon that marked off the crime scene, straining for a better look. Inside the Lone Star barrier, two cruisers sat with lights flashing, illuminating the night with swaths of blue and red. Overhead, a surveillance drone took aerial pictures of the street, while on the sidewalk below it, plainclothes detectives bent over three bodies that had been covered with clear plastic sheeting to protect them from the drizzling rain. Other plainclothes officers combed the street, collecting shell casings and placing them in evidence bags.

  The shooting had taken place in front of Underworld 93, a nightclub in Puyallup, a district of Seattle that was heavily controlled by organized crime. Two burly men in expensive suits—probably members of a local crime family—stood off to one side, observing the cops. Given the way things worked here, they’d probably get the details of the investigation before Lone Star did.

  A few young bar patrons, dressed in trendy clothes, stood in a knot in the nightclub’s doorway, answering questions and pointing up the sidewalk to where the bodies lay. Music boomed out through the open door.

  Despite her enhancements, Carla was unable to make out the features of the victims. Rain beaded on the clear plastic that shielded them, blurring their profiles. Smears of red obscured the rest. There was blood—lots of it—on the cement. There hadn’t been time for the rain to wash it away.

  Carla lowered her umbrella, ducked under the crime tape, and approached the Lone Star officer who was keeping an eye on the handful of people who’d gathered in the street to watch the police at work. Given the area, he was probably on the take and wouldn’t be averse to a cash "incentive" to let her know what had gone down here tonight.

  As Carla approached, he immediately turned to confront her, one hand on the stun baton that hung from his belt. "Excuse me, miss. Officers only. Please step back behind the . . As his voice trailed off, his head tipped to one side. With a gloved hand, he reached up and flipped open the tinted visor of his helmet. "Carla?"

  Carla smiled as she recognized the face. Corporal Enzo Samartino. What luck! She’d done an interview with him a few months ago, when the Men of Lone Star pin-up calendar was released. The officers who’d posed for it had gotten into some hot water, despite the fact that the calendar was a fundraiser for the children’s wing of Seattle General Hospital. It seemed that Lone Star’s top brass didn’t like the idea of their officers appearing in nothing but cap and boots. Or maybe it was the creative uses to which some of the models put the Lone Star badge that had slotted the brass off. In any case, Enzo had provided Carla with some of the story’s best quotes. And he’d been the best-looking of the bunch. She shifted her umbrella back to get a good look at his thick, dark moustache and long-lashed eyes.

  "Enzo. Good to see you again! What’s a good-looking fellow like you doing in a place like this?" Enzo returned her smile and touched a finger to the visor of his helmet. "Just my job, ma’am."

  Carla laughed. "Me too."

  "Shouldn’t you be downtown with all the other reporters? Sounds like the orks are really mixing it up with our City Center detachment, outside Metroplex Hall." Carla shook her head. "Not me. I’m the day shift. I’m officially off." She tipped her head toward the spot where the detectives were working. "I heard about this shooting over the scanner in my car as I was driving home. Given the neighborhood, I thought it was just another driveby. But then I heard the description of one of the casualties. Native American, left hand cybered and chromed, right hand tattooed with a black bird . . "

  Enzo jerked a gloved thumb over his shoulder at one of the corpses. "That’s him. You know the guy? We’re still trying to get an ID on him. He wasn’t local. And all he was carrying was a generic credstick."

  Carla glanced at the figure that lay in a contorted heap on the ground. From the way the plastic sheeting dipped, it didn’t look as if there was much left of the fellow’s head. "He’s a shadowrunner who goes by the name of Raven. Runs with an elf with blond hair—a Caucasian male about thirty or so. But I don’t know his name."

  "We wondered who that was. The sergeant had him pegged as a passerby who got caught in the crossfire. So he was involved too, huh? Doesn’t really matter much, now. We sent him off by ambulance, but he was DOA at the hospital. He won’t be answering any questions." Enzo frowned. "Those two weren’t friends of yours, were they?"

  "Hardly. Just sources, that’s all." She winked. "I only consort with those on the right side of the law." Enzo refused to be sidetracked. "So why the interest in them?"

  "I’m just out ambulance chasing." Carla answered. "Even though I’m off work, old habits die hard. Anywhere there are dead shadowrunners, there’s a story. What can you tell me about what happened here?"

  Enzo chewed his moustache, then glanced back at the plainclothes detectives. "Is this an official interview? I can’t release names until the next of kin are notified. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. If the Homicide sergeant finds out I let anything slip . .." He eyed the woman who was directing the plainclothes officers, then glanced even more nervously at the two gangsters in suits.

  Carla could see that she was about to lose the slight edge she’d gained. If she didn’t convince Enzo to talk in the next few seconds, he would shoo her back behind the tape, and she’d have to wait until the morning’s press conference to find out what had happened here tonight. If, that was, the local ganglords allowed any press release at all. The shooting might have no connection at all with the shadowrunners’ visit to her apartment. Or it might be a vital link in the chain that would lead to her cracking open the Mitsuhama story.

  "Tell you what." she said, deactivating her cybereye. "We’ll keep this strictly off the record. I won’t use your name, or record your image or voice, and I promise to sit on any names you give me until they’re officially released. I won’t pester the relatives of the victims, and I’ll give you whatever information I dig up that might help the Lone Star investigation." She favo
red him with her most winning smile. "If the sergeant asks what you were talking to me about, you can tell her you were finally getting around to asking me out on a second date. Deal?"

  She was amused to see the big cop was blushing.

  "All right." he said grudgingly. "I can give you a little, but you’ll have to talk to the detectives—on the record—to get the full story. All I know is that the runner you said was named Raven tried to force Victim Number One to take a walk with him. Victim Number Two intervened to keep his girlfriend from being dragged away. Somebody started shooting, someone else started tossing mana bolts around, and a few minutes later, all three were dead. Or all four, I should say, since the blond elf also seems to have been involved in this."

  "The names and occupations of the two victims?" Carla prompted.

  "Victim One—a female human by the name of Miyuki Kishi—is a corporate executive. Victim Two—Akira Hirota—is a Japanese citizen who shares a Puyallup address with Victim One. Judging by his tattoos, he’s a real bad boy. A local yakuza. He and the suit make an odd combination, by anyone’s account. But as they say, love is blind."

  Enzo shrugged. "If you ask me, this thing looks like a lover’s spat that turned ugly. Except, of course, that shadowrunners and a corp exec were involved. That could add up to an extraction attempt.

  "Now it’s your turn, Carla. You can’t tell me you just happened to show up here on your way home. You live in Renton. You got an inside scoop on this one?"

  Carla forced herself to keep her face expressionless. Miyuki Kishi! She was one of the wage mages who’d worked with Farazad Samji on the Lucifer Project. Not only that, but Carla had been on her way to pay her a surprise visit when she heard about the shooting on her scanner. She’d tried arranging an interview with Rolf Hosfeld, the other Mitsuhama wage mage, and hadn’t been able to get past his apartment’s security. And now her only other interview possibility was dead. Drek. It just wasn’t her night. Or Miyuki’s, either.