Shadowrun

by Russell Zimmerman

  “You come in here, you spook my associate, you break bread with me without my invitation, and after all that you want a favor?”

  “You really think there’s bread in this?” I cracked a grin as I stubbed out my Target on my—or rather, his—half-eaten slice of pizza.

  “Figure of speech,” he said, still half-glaring.

  “I’m not askin’ a favor from you, Enzo. I’m offering you one.”

  My headware worked its magic, and I paid close attention. It read his posture, expression, pupil dilation, body temperature. Between the chrome in my head and the gut-full of experience I had at this sort of thing, all I had to do was play my cards right and he was mine.

  “Hear me out. I don’t want all the girls for myself, just one for a case. The rest, if they want, can turn. Work for you outta that joint in Loveland or wherever. We tell your Uncle Joe the whole thing was your idea, and you called me in to help, right? The Kenran-kai take a hit, the Gianellis get some new working girls, you look like a good earner. You want to make capo? You gotta show some initiative.”

  I’d caught him between hits of novacoke. He licked his lips like he was thirsty, and I knew he was thinking about his next hit as much as he was listening to me. Good. It made him pliable, and when he did take a hit, he’d convince himself this was the best idea ever.

  “Easy deal,” I said, shrugging and looking casual as could be. “I go in, hit their wards, the rest of you storm in and we hit ’em from all sides at once. We clean ’em out, drive off with the girls, torch the place. Any of the skirts that want out of the life get out of the life—on my dime, not yours—and the rest go to work for you instead of the Yaks.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  I had the hook in, now I just had to reel a little. I put my feet under me, stood up, and made like I was ready to leave, like I was just going to stroll across town and go do it all by myself instead, and leave him here eating pizza and getting fatter.

  “Hold on now, Jimmy. Let’s work out the details.” He reached across the table to shake my hand instead, pulling me back into the conversation. I talked shop with him while he tugged a popper, a one-shot inhaler, from his pocket. The higher he got, the faster he nodded.

  Seven

  We weren’t hitting the bunraku parlor until four in the morning. They were supposed to close around then, and the smaller the crowd the better. I’d parked in an alley down the street, killed the engine, leaned the seat back, and drank myself into a nap while Ariana sat on overwatch. She liked to look out for me. I wasn’t getting a whole lot of sleep lately. I just dozed off when I could, and hoped the dream-memories weren’t too bright or sharp.

  “I’m glad he’s not here because I don’t like him!” Ari’s sulking voice woke me up.

  “Whozzawhat?” I hauled my hat up off my face and tried to figure out what the heck she was talking about.

  “Uranus.” She didn’t giggle when she said his name. She didn’t get the joke, which was probably for the best. “That jerk Enzo just drove by and I flew into his stupid van to see if Uranus was with him and he’s not and I’m glad he’s not because I don’t like him.”

  “Enzo’s here?” That sat me upright.

  “He just drove by and they stopped down the street and Uranus isn’t with him and I’m glad.” Her tone was terribly matter-of-fact. “Because I don’t like him.”

  “What’ve you got against the guy?” I smiled at her after getting my seat fixed, then slid out of the car. She flew through the hood and windshield to follow me. Skip and Trace were at the other end of the alley, talking and loading fresh magazines for tonight’s raid. I wasn’t crazy about the Uranus punk, either, of course, but Ari’d really taken a disliking to him.

  “He likes air spirits.” She mustered up the words with the disgust a human girl her age might reserve for a detested boy-band. I’d shaped Ariana from earth, not air. Ally spirits or not, certain elemental animosities remained even after being summoned and fully formed.

  “Yeah, I thought he seemed the type.” I fought a smile as I reached into my coat pocket for a Target.

  “He has a bunch of them bound. I could see them.” She stuck out her ruby-red bottom lip to pout, stark against the grayscale city. Spirits didn’t like being bound, but some mages didn’t care much. It wasn’t a trick I pulled real often. I was different from most folks in my Tradition that way.

  “Yeah.” Lighting up, I crossed the street toward Enzo’s big black SUV, which was about as subtle as it was fuel-efficient. “I thought he seemed that type, too.”

  “I’m glad you don’t bind spirits.” Ariana gave me her bright, childish smile. It’s the one she gives me that shows just how much she adores and respects me. It makes me feel guilty every time. “Even just air spirits!”

  “Not real often, kiddo. Not if I can help it.”

  Enzo and his boys were climbing out of his Suburban, and I gave a little laugh around my Target. The Italians were all suited up and ready to play. Tactical vests, kneepads, assault rifles, gas masks against the Puyallup ash as much as anything else. They reminded me of the old Lone Star FRT guys, playing dress-up before an op. Enzo had promised six guys, and that he’d stay home. Instead I counted three, plus Enzo himself.

  “What’s that stuff in your trunk?” He ran a hand over his slick hair when he saw Skiptrace across the street from us, checked his reflection in the tinted windows of his SUV. The razorgirl and hacker were both hauling grocery bags stuffed full of something bulky and light blue out of my Ford, and Enzo was too high to focus long enough to figure it out.

  “Blankets for the dames,” I said, turning up my collar against the rain and blowing some smoke downwind.

  He turned and gave the bounty hunters a long look. Both of them just wore sports bras and cargo pants under heavy armored jackets, not yet zipping them up against incoming fire. They both had little circuitry-stylized tattoos ringing their navels, Skip’s dark against her skin, Trace’s faintly glowing and animated.

  “Yeah,” Enzo leered. “If I was dressed like them, I’d want a blanket, too.”

  His men snickered. I didn’t.

  “Not those dames, Enzo. And if you talk like that in front of them, what happens to you ain’t no one’s fault but yours.”

  I flicked my smoke away and headed back across the street to check in with Skiptrace. The Ford’s trunk was slammed shut, both of them content with the bottled water, the cheap blankets, and the sliver of kindness I’d prepared for the girls we were about to free. My plan wasn’t very elegant, but it was simple. That didn’t mean everyone liked it, though.

  “Are you sure we gotta do this your way?” Skip glowered, checking the magazine in her pink AK. Trace looked grim, but stayed quiet and focused on loading her smaller smartgun. Ari manifested between them and tried her best to look dour and businesslike and professional, like a shadowrunner from a trid show.

  “Yeah. It’s the only way to make it work.” I tried to give them a reassuring smile, but couldn’t quite muster it up. I didn’t have all the pieces of my plan—not this little assault, but a real plan—in place just yet, but I knew this part was important.

  I gave it a tick to let either of the girls respond, and when they didn’t, I sauntered down the street and into the ‘massage parlor.’ I paused at the door, making a big deal about shaking the rain and ash off my coat, when in reality I was taking my time, merging my aura with the wards that wrapped around the place, and carefully pushing my way through them.

  The inside of the place was dazzlingly gaudy. The well-dressed killer inside the door tried to tell me they were closed, but I flashed my credstick and he grudgingly let me in. The AR assault was almost overwhelming, the layer upon layer of sex ads just pissing me off instead of firing me up. I eventually picked one of the popup menus at random and ordered a naughty librarian, hoping that would at least get me a girl of legal age. Dirty schoolgirls had two of their own submenus, and through the AR overlays I saw a couple of lo
unging, half-naked girls that looked far too young to do anything but turn my stomach. The despair and soul-grinding degradation of the place had soaked into the building like a stain, and I felt my already tenuous grasp on magic slip a little farther from me.

  I followed the AR directions to get to my room, paying attention to how many Kenran-kai family thugs I spotted along the way upstairs. I was an impeccable gentleman with the working girl that met me in my assigned room. She was sprawled lazily on the bed, which made me feel not quite so bad when I chanted in Enochian and poured mana into her until she was unconscious; at least I didn’t have to worry about her falling over. Somewhere between the chanting and the background count my throat was raw already, and I knew my work was just getting started.

  One hand rested on the wall of the Sleeping Tiger, the other clung to the wand at my hip, and I started chanting again. Ariana and I hammered at the wards at the same time, from both sides, and in a few heartbeats that felt like hours, they shattered. Alone, she could have done the same thing. Alone, I couldn’t have.

  When a look out the window showed me Enzo’s assault team closing in and his big revolver blasting the outside guard off his feet, I swung out into the hallway. My Colt bucked twice in my hand, and the suit-clad guard stationed at the top of the stairs dropped like he’d been poleaxed.

  I held my burner in my right hand, and used a modified tactical-flashlight stance from my Lone Star days; I kept my wand in my left hand, wrists crossed, thumb capping the back-end and the front-end pointing toward trouble. I waited and covered the hallway.

  Girls started screaming, and two more Yakuza toughs— easily marked by their full body tattoos, and the tattoos easily marked by the fact they were butt-naked—scrambled away from their fun and into the hall, guns at the ready. Half a magazine later and my Colt had both of them down. I reloaded while I had the chance.

  There was plenty more shooting from the ground level, so I slid down the hallway, clearing each room as I went and hollering for every girl I found to stay put, until I stood at the top of the stairwell. Another pair of shots dropped a Yakuza man halfway up the staircase, and I moved down. A nine-tailed fox kami fought a Mafia soldier in the main lobby, but even as I watched Ariana swept in to help him out. I double-timed it down the stairs to look for the Shinto magician who’d summoned it. In my haste, I missed something on my TacSoft overlay map.

  My right shoulder exploded in a spray of blood and the overpressure of a rifle firing point-blank sent my head spinning as I sprawled out in a heap. Behind me, half under the stairwell, a suit-clad Yakuza thug laughed. Endorphins coursed through me to blunt the pain to a dull throb, and instead of being hurt, I was just mad.

  The downside to the gorgeous rosewood grips on my Colt Government Model 2061—the fancy 150th anniversary model—though? They didn’t stay put like the ugly, black, rubber ones did, and my Colt tumbled from my hand as I fell.

  The Yakuza killer lowered his Nitama bullpup at me, grinning as he reached down and got ready to use the underbarrel shotgun to finish me off.

  I focused everything I had through my wand, spat an Enochian word of power, and a spear of blue-white energy flashed up to smash into him. In my prime, that spell would have dropped him like a Thor shot. As it was, it was enough to make him stumble, knocking his shot high and wide. My flare compensation and dampening systems fought to overcome the muzzle flash and the roar of his gun so close to my head, and my hand dove for my pocket.

  Just as he got his balance back, I thumbed open my Cougar lockblade and slammed it down on his foot. The weapon focus slid effortlessly through shoe, meat, and bone to handily pin him to the ground. He yowled in pain. I wasn’t sure if I had enough juice in me for another combat spell, but hell if I wasn’t gonna try.

  But before I had to kill myself overcasting, a half-dozen rounds from Skip’s chattering AK tore into his chest and knocked him backward. His left foot tore messily from my too-sharp knife, leaving the Cougar standing there, the Puyallup version of the sword in the stone.

  My mouth was full of blood as I sat up. I knew it was from the violent overcasting, but I muttered something to Skip about my falling down. She knew enough about magicians to know what had really done it, but she also knew enough about pride to just nod brusquely instead of kicking me when I was down. My right shoulder was a train wreck, and it was all I could do to haul myself to my feet and lean heavily against the bloody foyer wall.

  Ari, meanwhile, felt what kind of shape I was in and finished playing around with the fox kami. Impossibly sharp claw-hands simply rent the lesser spirit asunder, and she swooped to my side in a flash of color and concern. She held me still while Trace trotted over and Skip covered us, and before long my shoulder was good as new. My Corpsman stopped chiming in my ear, and I nodded at the girls. There was still fighting to do, and I resented how they doted on me sometimes.

  I heard Enzo shout over sporadic gunfire from another room, high as a kite, his laugh crackling into my headware over our shared channel. He was cursing about how they couldn’t find the damned mage, but had just taken out another spirit.

  The rest of the joint was clear, which only left the basement. The girls and I found him, and the real fight began.

  The Yakuza magician was a half-naked bundle of tattoos and power. Live-looking dragon tattoos glowed as they crawled up and down his arms, his chest was dominated by a faintly glowing tsunami scene, and he threw storms and lightning bolts and gouts of flame and angry spirits at us one after another. He knew his stuff. It was dazzling and over quickly, like it always was when both sides knew what they were doing and one side cheated.

  Trace and Skip poured on fire to make him shore up his physical defenses, and Ari and I kept him busy magically. She slung spells at him and did her best to withstand his return onslaught, but the disrupted astral plane of this place weakened her, and the Yak seemed used to it. I was there to pick up the slack, though. I don’t have the raw power I used to, not by a long shot, but I can still catch incoming spells with the best of them. The very, very, best. This asshole wanted to blast my ally spirit? Not a chance.

  Skip blasted round after round as he threw Barrier after Barrier into place, I knocked away or snuffed out every combat spell he tossed at us, and Ari just kept pounding at him with her own—my own, technically—offensive magic to keep him off-balance.

  Eventually it ended when Trace just waded in instead of reloading, surprised him, and smacked him square in the head with the stock of her stubby Ingram. Skip and I gawked at her for a second, then we both just laughed. Some fucking hacker we had, so demure and bookish. Ari started laughing a few seconds after we did, just to fit in. All the laughing died away after we caught our breath, when we got a better look at the basement.

  We were in a med-clinic. A horrible one, judging from the astral taste of the place, but there was no other name for the tables we saw, the hardware and machinery lining the walls. Trace stood protectively next to her as Skip started inspecting a machine that was still turned on, chatting to it like she always did with new pieces of electronics, talking to it soothingly, introducing herself before plunging in entirely, trusting us to watch over her while she worked. It looked like a data terminal to my inexpert eye, not a piece of surgical electronics.

  Ari snatched up the unconscious magician with one hand and waited while Trace and I watched Skip. Ariana didn’t quite get computers, but it was hard to blame her. A cursory inspection of the dataterm prompted Skip to take a break from her VR manipulations and flash me a thumbs-up.

  >I found the files from Kyoko’s headware, she texted me from deep into her electronic reality. >Data transfer, seven hours ago.

  Ariana and I went upstairs, leaving Trace to her work and Skip to her hovering. She dumped the Yak spellslinger onto the ground and hurried over—having forgotten for a bit—to heal the bleeding Mafia thug she’d helped. She decided to save him twice, and she was the only one that could; her healing magic was as good as mine had ever been, and
in moments she had the bleeding stopped and his wounds closed up. He looked at her like she was the Virgin Mary, and I laughed and lit a smoke.

  Enzo found us as the other two of his guys herded about a dozen working girls down the stairs. He’d taken a hit of novacoke to take the edge off his first firefight in who-knows-how-long, and he was riding the high by griping about how the Yakuza had too many guys. I got my first good look at the girls, and didn’t like what I saw. Under the makeup, under the cosmetic surgeries, ignoring their silly little costumes or the lack thereof, I recognized a few of them. In the background, impossible for me to ignore, Enzo yammered on about his offended sensibilities.

  “I can’t get a six-pack of fellas to do a hit for me, but these Jappos, they got twelve fuckin’ guys guarding a whorehouse! You believe this shit, Jimmy? Ha! A dozen fucking guys here! Plus I know they’ve been doin’ freelance work lately to boot! What’s this neighborhood comin’ to?”

  I grabbed onto his adrenaline and novacoke and enthusiasm and used all that energy to push him out the door and leave the place to me. He had too much initiative and not enough work to do, so it was easy to just steer him away. The conversation was as one-sided as if he’d been on a telephone. I chattered at him quick enough for him to keep up, but too fast for him to interrupt, and had him halfway across the street before he realized we were walking anywhere. It’s what I do. Me, and the anger in my gut, and the head full of supercomputer that tells me just what buttons to push? Talking rings around a mook like Enzo was easy as breathin’. I just hoped it wouldn’t catch up to me too soon, once he realized how I was playing him.

  “Leave the gas cans, I’ll take care of torching the place. Nah, don’t worry about the Yak thugs, I’ll handle it, me an’ Skiptrace got plenty of zip ties and all that. We’ll talk about the hardware after Trace is done looking at it. Same with the working dames, don’t worry, we’ll handle the detail work. Skip and Trace will take them to Khayyim’s to get their simrigs pulled, then we’ll talk to them. Half those gals are locals, and I’ll be damned if that blonde one ain’t Ray-Ray’s kid sister. Yeah, I’m calling Ray-Ray to let him know. No, he probably doesn’t want her to keep working for you. I’ll give them a couple square meals and a three-day bus pass myself, if any of them have somewhere else to go, but I swear to God, Enzo, like half of these girls are kids we’ve seen around the neighborhood. You put them to work before a doc helps them out and we give them the chance to retire, I’ll tell your Uncle Joe myself.”