Shadowrun 45 - Aftershock

by Jean Rabe, John Helfers (v1. 0) (epub)

  The rest of the gang had lined up on one side of the street, their idling bikes in a neat row. The leader had just finished heading down to the end of the street nearest to Hood’s vantage point, and did an endo to turn his heavily modified Mitsuhama Blaze around. He twisted the handlebar, revving the engine to the red. His left hand snapped out to his side, and the troll spotted the gleam of stainless-steel triple-spurs flick out of his hand.

  I do not like the look of this. Shaking his head, Hood looked down at the other end of the street, already knowing what he was going to see there.

  In the middle of the lane stood Khase, beaten and bloody, his left arm hanging loosely at his side. Hood started to rise, unwilling to let the elf get sliced to bits, but as he did so his eyes met the adept’s, and he froze.

  Khase locked gazes with Hood and ever so slightly shook his head. Then, before the troll could do anything else, he raised his right hand, and made a “bring it on” motion.

  The leader was enthusiastic. Hood had to give him that. Screaming like an oni, the punk rewed his engine in first until the back tire was a blur, lost in a cloud of white smoke. Then he popped the clutch and rocketed forward, lifting the front of the bike in a smooth wheelie as he roared down the street, hand spurs extended, ready to slice and dice right through the elf.

  Khase remained motionless, waiting. Not a muscle twitched, the elven adept didn’t even blink as the man sped directly toward him. The cycle hit fourth gear, doing at least ninety kilometers an hour. When the cycle was about fifteen meters from Khase, the rider’s mouth opened in a silent scream, and the adept burst into action.

  Crouching, Khase sprang forward, aiming to fly not past the bike, but directly at it. Arms locked in front of him, the elf jabbed his stiffened fingers into the leader’s face, who was gasping in shock as he realized what was about to happen. The blow snapped his head back, and his hand popped loose from the handlebar. The adept’s forward motion carried the biker off his ride and into the ground, the elf landing on top of him and skidding to a stop. The modified racing cycle careened out of control down the street, tipping over in spray of sparks as it crashed into a building.

  Khase rolled off the bloody, unconscious ganger, bowed to the rest of them, and ran like hell for the alley. There was a moment of shocked silence, then two thugs raced for their leader, and the rest revved up and headed straight for the elf. Khase hit the alley with not a second to spare, arms and legs pumping as he ran up the loading ramp and leapt for the fire escape ladder. The bikers were right behind him, with one of them actually riding his cycle up the ramp and launching himself into the air, hoping to knock the elf off his perch. Khase heard him coming, however, and lashed out with a booted foot, hitting the man’s shoulder and sending him flying—but not before his bike smashed into the fire escape framework, snapping bolts and making the whole thing sag a few inches lower.

  Khase shot up the stairs. He hit the top, and didn’t even have to say a word to Hood, as the troll was already working on levering the fire escape away from the side of the building with a long length of steel pipe he had found on the roof. With a screech of metal and grind of steel on steel, the entire framework peeled away from the building to collapse in the alley, burying the three gangers who weren’t lucky enough to get out of the way fast enough.

  Khase didn’t spare them a second glance, trotting to Sindje and picking her up again. “Let’s go.” The two leapt over alleys and across the roofs of the close-packed buildings, leaving the cycles howling impotently behind them.

  The first thing Sindje became aware of as she returned to consciousness was that she reeked like nothing she had ever smelled before. Cachu, what is that stench? Opening her eyes, she looked down and saw that the front of her skinsuit was covered in muck and grime that brought with it the unpleasant odor of—

  “Good thing we found that big sewer grate.” Khase squatted next to her, holding out a steaming plastic mug of soykaf. “Who’d have thunk that gang would have found us again so quickly? Although I would have thought we’d need to grease Hood’s sides to get him through it. Sorry about the mess, by the way. We uh, sort of dropped you on the way down.” Khase smelled of gas and exhaust, and his clothes were a little more shredded than she remembered before she had passed out.

  Sindje wrapped her hands around the mug and sipped I he hot liquid. “What happened to you? Where are we? And where’s Max? Is she all right?”

  “Well, all right is a sort of optimistic term, but she’s still alive, so that’s a good thing.” Khase shifted his weight and looked over his shoulder at a rough pallet where the hacker lay, breath whistling in and out of her mouth. “Snores like a herd of, well, orks, I guess. We’re in the basement of an old church—”

  “Khase, slot and run, we gotta move!” Hood’s voice carried to them across the room.

  “So ka, I’m there in a flash. Listen, chwaer, we need to go get the rest of the plants, so please keep an eye on Max. We’ll be at some place Hood calls the Historic Everett Theatre. We’ll be back for the two of you ASAP, okay?”

  Still too tired to protest, Sindje nodded. “Be careful out there, brawd.”

  “Hey, it’s me, remember?” The adept stood and stretched, then loped off to join Hood at what looked like a large sewer grate. They slipped through it. then a large arm drew the grate closed, leaving Sindje alone with Max.

  The mage took a minute to drain the steaming cup, uncaring about the slight burns she gave herself as she drank, then tossed the cup away. Testing her arms and legs, she thought, Okay, everything works, now let’s put it all together and stand up. She used the wall for support as she dragged herself to her feet. Swaying a bit, she made her way over to the ork, who was still encased in her decksuit. Good thing the bullet entered low enough to miss her mainframe, or we’d have one angry ork on our hands when she wakes up.

  Sindje leaned against the wall as she tried to sort out everything that had happened in the past couple of hours. Although she wanted to sit down again, she knew she’d just end up falling asleep. Think, who’s trying to turn all of us into cold hash? And who was that stiff in the house? Did our Johnson slip a shiv in our collective backs? No, that doesn’t make any sense. He still has to get the plants; without us, he’s got nothing. But how did the Plantech sec find us in the first place? And what the frag is up with those plants anyway? I’m too shagged out to project, but I need a way to find some intel, and my best source is out cold . . . unless. . . .

  Sindje searched deep inside herself and found a flicker of mana glowing there. 1 never thought I’d have to use this spell, but here goes. She coaxed the mana up, whimpering as she broke through a field of strong resistance, and feeling a bit more energy leach from her body. It took longer than she would have liked, but eventually a shimmering golden haze sparkled in front of her eyes, and Sindje took the phosphorescence in her hands and covered Max’s face with it. She wished the ork had only stun damage on her, then a stim-patch would have worked. But there was still physical damage to be dealt with.

  The effect was immediate, as the ork’s eyes snapped open. “Bomb. Big bomb. We gotta move now—”

  Sindje clapped her hand over the hacker’s mouth. “Ssshh, Max, it’s all right, you’re safe, we’re out of Ballard completely.”

  “What the frag happened? Did we meet with the Johnson?” The ork tried to rise up off the pallet, only to groan. “Ow, I feel like a truck hit me. Hey, did we get paid?” “That’s our hacker, always a one track mind,” Sindje smiled through her pain before turning serious. “Look, I’ll have to explain what went down later, ’cause I don’t know how long you’ll be awake. I need you to hit the matrix and find out if there is anything on the newsgrids about the Ballard explosion and a body they found inside.”

  “Oh, drek, is the Johnson dead? Buunda, buunda, buunda. Did the house blow up?—”

  “Max!” the elf’s old irritability surfaced again. “I just told you practically everything I know. Now, if you please, sleaze arou
nd and see what you can find out, okay?” “Okay, okay, I’m going, sheesh.” The ork looked around. “I hurt all over. I suppose a power source would be too much to ask for.”

  “Um, look around, and you tell me.” Sinjde waved her hand at the rotting boxes and stacked piles of moldy wooden pews. “I’m not sure this place ever moved beyond candlelight. Or the twentieth century, for that matter.” “All right, all right, close your trap, keebler, I got enough of a headache already.” The ork shut her eyes and twitched her fingers. “Great, just great. Let’s find a hotspot—ahh, there we go. Hmm, let’s see what the screamsheets have to say. This looks interesting—house destroyed in Ballard blaze.”

  “Skip the newscaster drivel and summarize it, ’kay?” The spell Sindje cast had returned Max to full consciousness, but it wouldn’t last very long. She tapped her foot and tried to conceal her impatience.

  “Ah, here we go, info on the body. Whoa, what’s this? The body found in the remains of the house has been identified as Dr. William Nansct, the head scientist for Plantech, one of the leading small-cap agricorps in Snohomish. What the frag was he doing there? He wasn’t the Johnson.”

  “No drek, genius. But he was there for a reason, and since he was dead on the floor before we arrived, I smell a setup.” The elfs brow wrinkled in thought. “But by whom?”

  “Not much else here, but then—” As quickly as she had come to, Max winked out again, falling back unconscious like someone had flipped a switch on the back of her neck. Sindje wasn’t worried, as she knew the hacker had protocols that would jack her out of the matrix if she ever fell unconscious while inside.

  Her fatigue forgotten, the elf paced the floor, muttering to herself. “Plantech showing up to recover their own guy? Perhaps, and taking us down for a very long count as well. A sting operation—no, Lone Star hadn’t even shown up yet, and beside, the corp sec would want to take care of this internally, so no mess would be made public.”

  On her next pass across the room, she slapped the wall in frustration. “Cachu, I’ve got more questions than answers here! And where the frag are Hood and my itinerant brawd right now?”

  28

  6:36:17 p.m.

  Dressed up in rose and violet neon and draped in necklaces of golden lights, the Everett neighborhood sprawled its gaudy, noisy self just north of the city’s dark heart. It doused itself in the cloying fragrance of Asian cooking spiced with smoke and sweat, and sprinkled its windows with images of coiling, sequined dragons with wide eyes that met the stares of tourists. Neon signs flashed in various languages, but in keeping with tradition, painted caricatures announced the businesses’ names and wares in Japanese, Chinese and Korean. The words proclaimed mah-jongg parlors, hotels, pleasure houses, restaurants, beauty salons, grocers, biotech dealers, storefront temples, smoking emporiums and more. And they touted fried rice, tattoos, “barely legal” girls, imported art, tealeaf readers, sages, sake, rooms by the hour and all manner of medicinal herbs, legal and otherwise.

  Delicate strains of shakuhachi music warred with blaring rock music and with sidewalk peddlers barking to passersby—selling food, trinkets and, in some cases, themselves. The occasional blat of a car horn intruded, and beneath that the melodic hiss of the light rail provided the chorus to the overture. The conversations of people walking this chill fall night were a constant buzz, and from open windows old women hurled down curses at the young plying various dubious trades.

  Khase and Hood stood beneath the awning of a closed fishmonger’s shop. The lights didn’t reach them there, so they could anonymously absorb the night scene. The troll nudged the elf.

  “I see him.” Khase talked in a whisper, though it was unnecessary.

  Across the street a muscular mafia soldier leaned in the doorway of a mah-jongg parlor, scanning the block and looking bored.

  “There’s another one down the block.”

  Khase stifled a yawn. “The mafia run this part of the city with a tight fist. You should know that, Hood. The soldiers are pretty good at keeping the peace. I lived here for almost a year when I had a falling out with my family. Easy to lose yourself here ... if you keep to yourself.”

  “Like you did with that go-gang?”

  “Hey, they wanted to start trouble, and I wanted to finish it. Still, ’we shouldn’t hang around here any longer than necessary, you dig, tad? The problem with these folks is that they have long memories.”

  Most of the residents in this particular neighborhood were from China, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. And though there was a scattering of elves and dwarfs on the street, the vast majority of the populace was human.

  “Like your folks? I thought you had patched things up with your family.”

  “And I went home again for a time.”

  “Then Sindje and you moved out together.”

  “Yeah. A year or so later, when our parents went to Denver. We decided to stay in Seattle and pursue . . . various contracts.”

  “How are they, your parents?”

  Khase shrugged. “All right, I suppose.” He studied the tips of his boots. “The mafia shouldn’t bother us.”

  Hood nodded. “They could care less about plants.” “Not about the kinds of plants we have anyway.”

  Still, they waited until the soldier went inside the mah-jongg parlor, and the other one down the street moved on. Then they waited a few more minutes before strolling toward a large movie theater. It was incongruous to most of the businesses in the block, which had renovated their storefronts to keep pace with the times. The theater looked like an antique, with the original brickwork and trim dating back to the early 1950s—so read a historical marker bolted near the cornerstone. It was called the Historic Everett Theatre, and even the neon lights displaying the name were original.

  Posters behind bulletproof glass announced an upcoming martial arts marathon of films from the previous century ... ihough now in trideo format. An elderly Japanese woman sat inside a ticket counter, stoically regarding Hood and Khase. The troll gave her a wink and ushered Khase inside.

  The elf had seen the place only from the outside when Hood dropped the plants there this afternoon before they headed to the ill-fated meeting in Ballard. He didn’t bother to hide his amazement at the lobby. Care, along with considerable nuyen, had gone into restoring and maintaining the old theater. A candy counter had been meticulously rebuilt to its original condition, a black and white photograph of which hung on the wall. An antique popcorn popper was hard at work, scenting the air with a pleasant buttery aroma. Another elderly Asian woman stood behind (he counter, scooping popcorn into cartons and selling them to four teenagers, who quickly shuffled into the auditorium.

  Columns rose in the center of the lobby, looking like something Khase remembered on Greek history trivids; along their tops cherubic faces gleamed down from between security cameras. The carpet was thick and dark to help hide the dirt tracked in by the patrons. The edges were frayed, and the wood floor that poked through between the carpet and the wall looked . . . old. Posters of movies from a hundred years past ringed the room, with placards below them giving a brief history of the films and principal actors. Sonny Chiba. Jet Li. Bruce Lee. Chow Yun-Fat. A wide circular marble staircase swept up the side and led to a balcony.

  Hood started up the stairs and Khase took another long glance around the room before hurrying to catch up.

  “This place is more like a museum than a movie house.” Khase saw more posters on the second floor, three of them heavily yellowed and chipped and showing various scenes featuring a human in green tights with an English longbow. The elf stepped closer and read the placard. “Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin . . . Hood." He raised an eyebrow and regarded the troll. “Hood?”

  “So I have a thing for old movies. Last time I checked that wasn’t a crime.” The troll pushed open a door at the end of a hall and started up another flight of stairs, this one narrow and obviously not intended for the public. Hood’s broad shoulders rubbed against the walls
as he climbed.

  “Maybe not legally, but in taste—that’s another matter.” The elf grinned as he followed the troll up the stairs.

  At the top was an equally tight corridor, the paint dingy and chipped, the carpet so worn through the burlap nap showed. The hall was dimly lit by exposed light bulbs that hung from century-old fixtures. Two doors bisected it, the first leading to a projection booth that was in the midst of being restored.

  “Pan.” Hood opened the door and spoke softly. “I’ve come for those plants.”

  “Ah, Hood-san. Kochi koi-yo!” An old Japanese man, looking similar to the woman behind the candy counter, stood and beamed at the troll. “Kochi koi-yo!"

  Hood complied and walked close, and the old man affectionately wrapped both hands around the troll’s forearm. “I was not here this afternoon. I was at the station, getting a new shipment of holovids and colorized. ...”

  “It was of no consequence, Pan, I was in and out quickly.” Hood turned to Khase. “Pan Geng, this is my . . . associate . . . Khase.” A respectful pause. “Khase, this is my friend Pan Geng. He and his wife and his sister run this theater.”

  Khase bowed deeply, keeping eye contact with Pan. “Kakkoii, Pan.”

  “The plants are up one more flight, Khase. You’re welcome to stay here with Pan.” Hood gestured to a window that looked out over the auditorium and the screen, where a 3D adventure film was showing. “Watch a bit of the movie while I see to our cargo. I’ll be back in a bit.” Hood didn’t wait for the elf’s reply. He left the projection room and creaked his way down the hall.

  In his wake, the elf studied the room. A rusted, dented projector sat in the corner. The modern projector consisted of three small computers that sat on a table beneath the window. A shelf full of movie chips and other equipment was against the wall just inside the door.

  “Come. Sit?” The old man motioned for him to come inside.

  Khase bowed again. “Domo arigato gozaimasu.”

  “You are friends with Hood-san? A long time?”