The elf crooked the left side of his mouth. “Wouldn’t say no to it.”
“What are you drinking?”
“Bourbon and tequila.”
“At the same time?”
Bannickburn nodded.
“Be right back.”
Bourbon and tequila, Bailey thought. If he wanted to have any sort of lucid conversation with this man, he’d have to talk fast.
2
It looked like Bel Red Road, but the signs were a mess, and so was Bannickburn’s vision. He squinted, then opened his eyes wide, then squinted again. It started with a “B,” ended with a “d,” and had a capital letter in the middle. Had to be Bel Red. About damn time— seemed like he’d been wandering for half an hour.
Bannickburn prided himself on his ability to walk firm and straight no matter how much he’d had to drink. While he managed to look sober to anyone who watched him take five or ten steps, someone who decided to follow him for half a block or more would quickly notice that he didn’t seem to have any idea where he was going. He often made 180-degree turns when he came to a street, walking back over a block he had just traveled, or he’d make consecutive right turns and walk in large circles. As a result, journeys home after drinking took a good five to ten times their normal duration.
He didn’t mind. He wanted to be out on the streets. He wanted to be seen, especially by the people out at this time of night—this time of morning, rather. He wanted them to see, to have just some idea who he was.
He walked down the road he hoped was Bel Red. He guessed he was walking northeast. He passed gutter punks with whiskey stains on their ripped jackets, needle-haired gangers, and a considerable number of his fellow drunks. He also passed a handful of visitors drawn to Touristville for the chance to gape at the rougher elements Bannickburn had passed.
Bannickburn looked down his nose at everyone he saw, especially the ones who looked like they thought they were tough, daring anyone to challenge him about anything. Do you know what I’ve seen? he thought as he looked at each one of them. Do you know who I’ve fought? Do you know who I’ve killed? Who are you next to them? Who are you next to me?
He felt good. He felt very, very good—better than he’d felt since he’d come to this city, the mightiest rodent’s nest in the Western hemisphere if not the world. His self-doubt, that unfamiliar feeling that had grown to cover his soul like a blanket, had dropped away around the time Bailey brought him his sixth drink.
Ah, Bailey. He was a good lad. He’d spent most of the night quenching Bannickburn’s thirst and feeding his ego. He’d asked a little about Bannickbum’s background, and though of course the elf didn’t tell him everything about who he was—who he used to be—he’d let enough out that Bailey had asked to hear some war stories, and Bannickburn was ready with some of his best ones. Soon the whole table was hanging on his every word, laughing when they were supposed to laugh, gasping when they were supposed to gasp. They were entertained and impressed, exactly as they should be. Even Jimmy, a good Irish lad himself, was involved— more energetic than Bannickburn had seen him, maybe even impressed.
That by itself, though, wouldn’t have been enough to put him in the mood he was in. It was what Bailey did next. The conversation moved on to other topics, as it tends to do, but Bailey moved closer to Bannickburn and talked to him in lowered tones. He talked about the unpleasant subject that Bannickburn generally tried to avoid thinking about, let alone discussing—the present. Bailey was interested in what he was doing, asking who he was working for, assuming not only that he was employable but that several parties might actually be competing for his services. Bannickburn felt the world shifting beneath him as Bailey talked. No longer was he buried under all of it—he actually found his way on top of it, or at least on top of a small piece of it.
The gambling helped, too. After Bailey ballooned his confidence, Bannickburn had drifted to the blackjack tables for a while (he wasn’t sober enough to play anything that required more concentration, but he wasn’t about to flush his money down the slot machines). The cards had fallen on him like manna from heaven, building up to a pair of fours that he’d split, hitting one to twenty and the other to twenty-one. He wasn’t walking home with a lot of extra nuyen in his pocket since he didn’t have much of a stake to start with, but the few hundred he had won should buy some nice luxuries for him and Jackie. He should probably buy her a good dinner.
Taken together, the camaraderie, the winnings, the hero-worship he felt from Shivers and his friends all added to one feeling—power. He felt powerful. Not the kind of power he was used to, but these days some power, any power, was a novelty. It didn’t flow through his entire body like it used to, but he at least could feel it in his fingertips. It was something.
All the businesses on this stretch of road in Tourist-ville had closed long ago, and the plate glass windows revealed the blinking lights of numerous state-of-the-art alarm systems. The apartments above these brick storefronts were all dark. He was on the edge of the Barrens, close enough to the pits to attract plenty of criminals but close enough to money and the infrastructure of civilization to allow for some measure of security and safety. Some of Seattle’s wealthier criminals preferred to live here, as it gave them good access to the Barrens, while also allowing Matrix hookups and other facets of the good life. Most of the bleeding-edge stuff here belonged to them.
This block was empty of pedestrians. No one for Ban-nickburn to stare down. He tried to walk faster to get to a more populous area, but he felt himself swaying back and forth a little, and had to slow down.
A chopper turned the corner, engine grumbling, waiting to be kicked up a notch or six. Two Lone Star guards, all bright and shiny in mirrored sunglasses and polished helmets, did everything in their power to intimidate wrongdoers by their mere presence. The one in back fixed his eyes—or at least his lenses—on Bannick-burn while the driver in front kept scanning the rest of the block.
Bannickburn drew himself to his full height and fell back on an old trick he had learned long ago—he looked for his own reflection in the sunglasses. It gave his stare a certain intensity and directness.
The Lone Star patrolman didn’t back down. But he didn’t stop, either. Bannickburn was clearly in violation of curfew, but the patrol didn’t stop. They knew, Bannickburn thought, that it wasn’t worth pulling in someone who looked as tough as Bannickburn for something as minor as a curfew violation, especially not in a neighborhood as iffy as Touristville.
Either that, or Bannickburn was too small of a fish for them to bother with. They cruised by.
Bannickburn shouted after them, an unintelligible slur of a word that he hoped conveyed defiance. Whatever he said was lost in the noise of the engine as it gunned to life, hurling the guards forward to something more important than a lone drunk.
He glanced behind him a few times on the off chance that the guards had turned around and come back. He had known so many ways to deal with them, once. He wouldn’t have worried about two street cops any more than he would have worried about a couple of flies.
But in this damn city he had to worry. Sure, there were guns—he’d always had to worry about guns. Now, though, he had to worry about stupid things, like one of them landing a punch. A punch! A security guard—a street punk with a uniform—could lay him out with his hands! The prospect was more humiliating than Ban-nickburn could bear.
Not tonight, though. No one could touch him tonight. He had power again. Nothing like what he used to have, but more than he’d possessed since he’d set foot on this continent.
He entered the warehouse basement with a flourish. “I’m back,” he announced.
Jackie was plugged in. Her physical eyes saw him, but didn’t register anything about his appearance. “That’s nice,” she said absently.
“No, girl, you don’t understand. I’m back. Back! I’m me again.”
“Great. Who were you before tonight?”
“Some helpless, no-name slag. A nothing.
But that’s over now, and good riddance to it all.”
He sat in the chair with the torn velvet upholstery, and put his feet up on the crate that served as an ottoman. Perhaps, he thought, that’s what he should do with his winnings from the night—invest in a new chair for Jackie’s lair. A throne to fit his new mood.
Jackie removed the plug from the side of her head, idly rubbed her short blond hair, and swiveled to face Bannickburn. Her sharp features and dark eyes made him smile.
“So what happened?” she asked. “Find some royal blood in your past?”
“Pfft, ” Bannickburn said with a hand wave. “That sort of information mining is your department. No, nothing really happened. It’s just a feeling. I went through a period of adjustment, and now I’ve adjusted. I’m ready to rise to conquer.”
“Drek, what were you doing tonight? Sitting in a corner snorting a kilo of bliss?”
“There’s nothing artificial about this, my dear girl,” Bannickburn said, affronted. “This is a natural reaction to the night’s events. I had a lovely time at the blackjack tables, was vastly entertaining to my fine Celtic friends, and met a new man who seems to be a person of influence and who was quite taken with me. A fine night all in all.”
“Great. You won a few nuyen and told some funny stories. So now you’re king of the world.”
Jackie was very lucky, Bannickburn thought, that the considerable quantity of alcohol he had swallowed had luzzed up his emotions. If it hadn’t, he might be taking some offense at her efforts to darken his mood. He decided that he could best preserve his good nature by changing the subject. He let his eyes wander around the dark cellar.
“I was thinking of purchasing something for you,” he said. “A piece of furniture. A chair, perhaps. Bring the place up a level.”
He had said something wrong. He didn’t know what, but Jackie’s eyes were suddenly horizontal slits. Muscles at the edge of her mouth clenched and unclenched. He knew she was preparing to say something, but was waiting until she had it worded just right in her head.
“You’re saying, then,” she finally said, “that my home needs assistance? That I haven’t done enough?”
All of the power Bannickburn had felt himself gathering during the night seemed to have no effect on Jackie. “Of course not.”
“Do you think abandoned warehouses are the least bit hospitable? Do you know what I had to do just so you could sleep comfortably in this place? I was on the run when I came here, remember? A little hitch with my old employer? So while I’m dodging the goons they sent after me, I still managed to bring in electricity, heat, water. I patched the walls, I fixed the ceilings—you have no idea all the stuff I did here. And you think I need you to buy me a chair to bring my home ‘up a level’? My home is doing fine without your assistance.” Bannickburn knew this was a losing battle, and one he would not be able to fight well in his inebriated state. He surrendered. “I’m sorry. I meant nothing by it.”
He watched Jackie’s face—saw her considering whether she should still be mad at him, then deciding it was too late to bother. “All right,” she said, then walked over to her bed. Bannickburn hoped, as he did every night, that she’d invite him over. As always, he was disappointed.
“I’m glad you had a good night,” she said, stretching her legs and folding her arms across her chest. He thought she’d close her eyes and drift off for her customary three hours of sleep, but her eyes stayed open. “You’re being careful, right?” she said.
It was Bannickburn’s turn to feel offended. “What kind of question is that? Am I a child?”
She sighed. “No, no, of course not. It’s just . . . your friend. Shivers. I don’t really trust him.”
Bannickburn dismissed her with a wandering wave of his arm. “Don’t take this personally, my dear, but you seem not to trust anyone. You’ve no reason to worry, though—James is a fine boy.”
“Is he.”
“Indeed.”
She sat silently, chewing on her bottom lip. Then she spoke again.
“Do you know who he . . . Do you know what people call . . . Do you know everything about him?”
There was something she wasn’t saying. Even in his drunken, increasingly tired state, Bannickburn could see that. Tomorrow he’d figure out what it was. Tonight he’d just reassure her.
“Of course I don’t know everything about him. But he’s been good to me, and that counts for a lot. Just like you’ve been good to me. There’s plenty I don’t know about you, too. But you’re good to me.”
She didn’t like the comparison between James and her; Bannickburn could see it on her face. But she understood what he was saying. Whatever she was thinking of saying to him, she decided it could wait.
“Just ... be careful. I know, I know, you’re careful, you know what you’re doing, I know. So keep it up. When Shivers is around.”
Bannickburn’s lids drooped. He shifted in the chair, slumped down, shifted again. He was definitely going to get her some new furniture.
“I’ll be careful,” he said, his voice sounding distant inside his own head.
3
Bannickburn dreamed of fire. He dreamed of electricity. He dreamed of a storm moving over the highlands, of lightning flashing across the plains. The rain fell, watering him like a plant, and he grew. Not in size, though. He took the storm into him, and it filled him, and power rushed through his veins. The world was his.
Waking up in a warehouse, then, came as a disappointment.
Light trickled through the large room’s three windows, filtered by the dark plastic that covered them. Bannickburn rubbed his eyes and looked groggily for Jackie. Naturally, she was next to her deck, jacked in. He’d have to make sure she got some sunlight today, if any of it managed to penetrate the clouds and grime that usually hovered over Avondale.
He tried to sit up straighter in his chair, but his back balked. He rubbed it, thinking maybe he should buy a bed. But the last thing he wanted to do was give Jackie an easy excuse to keep him out of her bed. He didn’t like to be pitied, but if he needed to make her feel guilty about forcing him to sleep on a chair, that’s what he’d do.
The more he shifted, the more aches and pains he found. Knees, wrists, and, most of all, head. He was old. He shouldn’t be—middle-aged, sure, but not old. In his glory days he’d managed to keep a lot of the effects of age at bay, healing himself of any aches and pains without much thought. Now, though, a few decades of dangerous living had caught up to him, were taking their toll, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Well, nothing here. He’d met a few people, including his good friend James, who had showed him new ways to deal with pain and lethargy. He was careful—he’d seen the long-term effect of those substances and knew they weren’t to be used lightly—but the chance to duplicate some of the effects he’d been able to perform in the Scotsprawl wasn’t something he could easily resist.
Then, of course, there were the more permanent solutions. The replacement parts, the body enhancements. If he got enough of them, he’d almost be a mage again. But not really—and he would condemn himself to never regaining his old powers. Enhancing himself would mean admitting defeat, and he hadn’t done that yet.
But right here, right now, he ached. Maybe he should get in touch with James. He’d asked Jackie if she had any contacts for these substances, and she’d steadfastly refused him. James, on the other hand, was always accommodating.
“Jackie,” he said. She didn’t glance at him. “Jackie!”
She heard him. He knew. He’d seen her hold a conversation in real life while her persona talked to someone else on the Matrix. Hell, he’d seen her have an RL conversation while hacking through some stubborn IC.
He grabbed a metal slug lying on the floor and flicked it between his thumb and forefinger. It spun through the air and hit Jackie in the shoulder. She didn’t make a noise, but she flinched and rubbed the spot the disk had hit.
“Jackie!”
She glare
d at him and held one finger up in the air. He was on the verge of being offended when he saw it was her index finger. He considered looking for another slug, but thought better of it and plopped back down in his chair.
Exactly one minute later she turned to look at him, though she stayed jacked in. “What?”
“Good morning,” Bannickburn said sweetly.
“Good morning. What?”
“I need to call James.”
She rolled her eyes. “What are you, an infant? Then call him! The cell’s on the table.”
“I just thought that since you were already jacked in . . .”
“Call him yourself!” Her eyes glazed, nearly rolling back into her head. She was no longer focused on anything in front of her.
Bannickburn groaned loudly as he stood, but no sympathy was forthcoming. He ambled over to the cell phone and dialed James’ number. In a moment, James, looking as alert and composed as he had the previous night, appeared on the small screen. His red hair was combed straight back and he showed no ill effects from the wagonload of alcohol he had consumed.
“Good morning, Robert.”
“Hello, James. Thanks again for getting us all together at the casino last night. I had a fine time.”
Shivers nodded, accepting Bannickburn’s words as a simple statement of fact rather than any sort of compliment.
“And I hate to ask you for a favor so soon after an enjoyable night, but I need your assistance on a matter. That . . . gentleman you introduced me to last week? At the docks? I’d like to . . . renew my acquaintance with him.”
Shivers’ long face remained expressionless, his narrow mouth a small line. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Large man, mostly metal on his right side, had a compartment in his chest holding a dozen vials?”
Shivers made a show of thinking. “No, I don’t know anybody like that.”
“Good God, man, it was just last week! How could you . . . ?” Then Bannickburn understood what was going on.
Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption Page 2