Shadowrun

by Dylan Birtolo

  She pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped. She had circled enough that they were only four blocks from AVR. Streets were being blocked off, and crowds were gathering. It was time to get far from here.

  “We’re not coming after you, because we’re done with you. Unless you decide you’re not done with us. Are you done?”

  Dennis nodded twice, but then his eyes widened as he heard a voice coming through a police loudspeaker.

  “GMC Commodore! All occupants please exit the car with your hands visible!”

  She turned and glared at him.

  “PanicButton. I hit it as soon as I recognized you. We hadn’t…we hadn’t come to an understanding.”

  “You get one freebie. But we’re done. Get out.”

  He couldn’t exit the car fast enough—with his hands up, as the cops demanded.

  Emu rubbed the steering wheel of the Commodore. When she got up this morning, she wasn’t sure if she’d get to outrun Knight Errant. The day was looking up.

  “This is your last warning! Exit the car!”

  They wanted to open fire. They were unnerved by the explosion and probably jumpy as hell. She couldn’t count on them to be contained at all.

  Time to jump in.

  The adjustments she made to the vehicle were instinctual and almost instantaneous. Tighten suspension. Turn off traction control. Switch off the things the designers put in to protect people who didn’t know how to drive.

  When you’re meat driving, you think of mechanics and processes—depress brake, lightly press gas, then go off brake and floor it.

  Jumped in? You surge. You leap. You pounce. You just go.

  Business-district streets feel great, both smooth and grippy. Very little rubble. The Commodore leaped to life. A few anxious, quick-fingered cops fired several rounds, which felt like pebbles hitting her back. They didn’t come close to anything vital. She fishtailed a little peeling out from her parking space, but she figured that just made her look cool. Then she was off.

  She had modified the Commodore, but it was still a Commodore, meaning it wasn’t going to beat too many cars off the line. But it could corner.

  Job one was getting away from the cops behind her. Job two was getting away from the AVR site. That meant turning right.

  The cops were prepared. Two prowlers, closing the gap right in front of her. Making a V that pointed away from her. Which was a mistake.

  She hit the bottom of that V at a good clip. Both cars spun away from her. The crash on her front felt like her shoulders caving in. But not breaking. She lunged ahead, felt more bullets hit her, and was past.

  Keep turning. Don’t be predictable. Main streets would be blocked. Find something else.

  She went the wrong way down a one-way street. Crossed over a curb and some grass meant to keep two streets from connecting. Raced down a diagonal street, saw a cop coming to cut her off, drifted sideways into a park with a broad sidewalk and then used that to cut across the whole park. People scurried away, but they would have been safer staying put. Emu would only hit what she wanted to.

  She could feel the damage, scrapes all over her body. No deep pain, though. Everything still worked.

  Mentally, she could do this forever, run and keep running. But physically, cars needed fuel, people needed food. She’d have to stop at some point. She needed an endgame.

  The car was toast. Its description and identification were everywhere. She’d never be able to drive it in Seattle again. So she had to figure out where its last hurrah would leave her.

  Then she saw an H in a circle, and she knew. She knew this place. She knew what would work. She darted off a quick message as she approached a horrendous intersection—the street she was on was ending, intersecting with a north-south street that had just had a piece of it branch off, curving southeast. Then there was another north-south street about a half-block away. There wasn’t enough space between these roads for any buildings, so the spots were paved over, left as parking spaces or just empty plascrete.

  It was also a lot of pavement to play with.

  Police cars were heading up the curved street to cut her off. She hard turned left, then right as soon as she got any traction, taking her in a tight S. The police cars had gone straight, so they missed her. She kept the right turn going and shot down the curved street they had taken. She had another two on her tail, cars that had chased her pretty much since she started moving. More were probably coming up the curved road. She shot down it and saw those other pursuers, but she was going to beat them to her spot, which was barely more than a dirt road. It was short, a driveway really, leading behind a utility building. Cop cars squared behind her to follow. She only stayed on the road for thirty meters, then she bumped over a thin divider of ground separating the driveway from a half-full parking lot.

  Two cop cars came after her. Two others anticipated her, shooting ahead to try to cut her off. She skirted the edge of the parking lot and then turned onto a connector road. She was in front of a hospital complex, a half-dozen buildings with walkways between them and a drive leading through the heart of them. The connecting road took her to the drive—the cops cutting her off had gone straight up it. They had broader roads and fewer turns. It would be close.

  She cut her turn on the left side of the road. She would have slammed into any cars going the opposite way of her, but there were none.

  She careened down the drive. It was pretty fresh, light-colored plascrete, smooth and easy. Cool, even. But two hundred meters away, it would end in a cul-de-sac around a fountain.

  The cops knew. Two of them stopped, blocking the road with a V set up in the right direction.

  Too bad she wouldn’t have the chance to try to crash through them.

  She barreled toward the cul-de-sac. This next move was going to hurt.

  One arc of the cul-de-sac was separated from a broad plaza by a set of concrete bollards. She aimed the car so the bollards didn’t line up with the tires, and gunned it.

  It was like twin baseball bats straight to her head. She couldn’t see after the impact. She knew bad things had happened to the axle, but it was still rolling. It just wouldn’t do anything fancy now.

  It was straight for a few seconds, then she had to pivot around a crescent-moon garden. Then pivot back to hit some blessedly regular road.

  She’d carved a path for anyone to follow, but she had the advantage of surprise. The first car pursuing her hadn’t anticipated the turn, and had reacted too slow to follow her, but the second careened through at a high speed—too high to steer clear of the crescent-moon garden. It went into the garden and didn’t come out.

  The drive she was on was short, ending by intersecting another small road that ran along the back of the hospital.

  She didn’t intend to use that road.

  On the other side of the road was a chain-link fence. Her car was hobbled, but it could still handle chain-link. She crashed through.

  She was driving on grass. Barely. She was hobbling. Limping. But still moving. The grass was mostly dead with a few lively green circles—it had been a golf course, but it had fallen into disuse. The heavily watered former greens were the last signs of life.

  Three trees were in front of her, a whole stand to her right, with a small gap between them. She pointed the car at the gap. She patted the dashboard, moved to the passenger side, opened the door a crack—as small a crack as she could—and rolled out as the car pulled even with the cluster of trees. She swiped out with her hand as she fell, making contact with the door and closing it. She rolled into the trees and lay flat.

  The Commodore kept rolling, taking a nice slow drive toward the fourteenth hole. A police car followed it almost immediately, then another.

  Emu dropped her connection with the car. At this point, it was a relief, because she didn’t have to feel the wounds that the car had collected anymore. She stayed low, crawling on elbows and knees back toward the hospital. The car would stop soon, and the cops would find out s
he wasn’t in it.

  There was another copse of trees twenty meters to the east. She looked toward where the Commodore had gone. It had stopped. The police officers were out of their cars, approaching it slowly. She stayed low, using bushes for cover, and made it to the next copse. It was thicker than the first, stretching all along the fence. She followed it, making it to the corner of the old course. Some other interlopers had pried open the fence here. She shimmied through it.

  She looked to her left. A car was parked, with a familiar logo glowing in the windshield. The driver poked his head out of the window.

  “Are you Carol?”

  She smiled. “Sure am!”

  She jogged to the car and slid in the back seat of the Jitnee she had called when she first entered the complex intersection a few blocks away.

  “Where to?”

  Emu sat back, smiled, and got away.

  * * *

  The Unwanted

  Yu

  Yu got away easily, Frostburn and Rude with him. They were at the Bulldog when the mage Yu had hired sent his lightning bolt, and the car was already moving as the building fell. Plenty of cars were in the street, and they moved faster once the booms started, so there was no cause to notice the van. If any security footage was sent offsite so it still existed, it would show them entering the building, but separately, and not suspiciously. There was little any law enforcement authorities would gather that would implicate them.

  Not that law enforcement would lack for things to look at. That was part of the point of the whole exercise.

  Zipfile

  Zipfile had a little more difficulty getting away. Since she was the one who saw Dennis, she had to be present when the building fell, which meant she was caught up in the panic of people running, screaming, and surging into the street. She had no travel options besides feet, and she didn’t want to do anything that would draw any attention. She turned everything off besides a commlink, which she used to monitor police chatter. She hated it—she felt like she was walking around with her head cut off—but she didn’t hear anything targeting her.

  She wasn’t eager to leave any sort of Matrix trail or burn another SIM (Lesedi Kriege was likely gone forever; maybe she’d show up in Neo-Tokyo or something if she wanted to throw investigators a curveball). She also didn’t want to walk all the way to the safehouse, but she didn’t want to reach out to the other team members, either. In short, she liked none of her options.

  But the worst decision would be staying around and waiting for Dennis to catch sight of her again. She opted to walk a few more blocks, then hail a cab the old-fashioned way, with a raised arm and a ready credstick.

  Everyone was waiting for her at the safehouse, even Emu. Rude was sleeping on the sofa, Emu and Yu were drinking something cold, and Frostburn was packing. The mood was good, but not yet relaxed. They still had a final meeting to get through.

  Yu

  Yu had sent a message to Mr. Johnson signaling their availability for a meeting at any time. It might not have been necessary—if he was paying any attention to the world, the news of the AVR building’s collapse would have reached him—but Yu figured it never hurt to let Mr. Johnson know they were still alive.

  The lack of an immediate response was not surprising. Like a popular kid in high school, Mr. Johnson usually knew the importance of not appearing overeager. Even after a couple of hours, not hearing anything was not alarming. But as the normal workday was ending and the sun was lowering, Yu started to find the lack of a response alarming.

  He did the things you always do. He turned his commlink on and off. He refreshed his message window several times. He sent himself a few messages to make sure the functions were working right. Everything told him that the reason he hadn’t gotten a message from Mr. Johnson yet was simply that Mr. Johnson hadn’t sent one.

  He didn’t like that. At all.

  Honestly, the barest case scenario was that something had happened to Mr. Johnson and he was dead. Sure, they’d be out some cash and wouldn’t have the chance to settle things, but it also meant Mr. Johnson wouldn’t be coming after them because he was dead. There were worse possibilities.

  Then the message came.

  That was it. No “Great!” No “Nice job!” Yu didn’t like it at all.

  He walked from the kitchen to the living room.

  “I don’t like this at all.”

  He shared the message with the team.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You want a list? It came late. It’s too laconic. He wants us in Bellevue, in a dark area, by a lake. At night.” He paused. “I think he wants to kill us.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment.

  “Duh,” said Rude.

  “Seriously,” said Zipfile. “Haven’t you been paying attention to what we’ve been doing?”

  “No, I know, but this is confirmation,” Yu said.

  “This is confirmation,” Zipfile said.

  “Yes.”

  “Of what we already believe.”

  “Yes.”

  “And have been planning for this whole time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shocker.”

  Yu shifted uncomfortably. “But there’s a difference between knowing…and knowing.”

  “If you say so. So, we’ve got a site. Let’s make it work.”

  It was tough for Yu to focus. He knew their status. When one Mr. Johnson tries to kill you, you have a clear picture of your value. When you think a second is trending the same way, then you really feel unwanted.

  The word played in his head. Unwanted. He didn’t like it, but then he did. It wasn’t a pleasant label, but it had a ring of truth.

  Frostburn

  One thing shadowrunners think about that normal people don’t is exactly how someone might be planning to kill them. Your average corp drone, bless their heart, doesn’t even think about people trying to kill them. Like, at all. While a shadowrunner knows three different ways someone might kill them when they’re grabbing a burger at McHugh’s.

  After a little conversation, they agreed Mr. Johnson would want the job done quickly. He wasn’t going to talk. He wasn’t going to take the time to monologue or anything, unspooling his genius plan to the runners. They’d served their purpose, so he could take them out. The team’s job was harder—not just survive, but give Mr. Johnson a reason to keep them alive indefinitely.

  In short, Mr. Johnson didn’t need to talk. They did.

  They’d had an outline of a plan from the beginning. They spent the next hour putting some specifics to it. Then they went out again.

  Emu

  The situation was screwed. It would be difficult. Some of them might die.

  But she was going to get to drive something she hadn’t driven recently, so it was okay.

  She drove the whole team to Weowna Park by 11:15. They split up immediately. Most of them were heading south. Emu would be soon, but first, she had to go east, to the lake.

  She had about fifteen minutes to find someone careless. She wouldn’t have the chance to look at every watercraft she saw (and that would be suspicious anyway). She’d have to follow her instincts.

  There were docks off every house here, but to see them you had to walk on the shore, which was private property. If anyone saw her, they might yell at her, which was fine. Or shoot her, which was less good. The main goal was to move casually, smoothly, like someone just wandering on a nice evening, so if anyone saw her, they’d just think she was aimless, but not dangerous.

  Still, it would be best if she took care of things quickly.

  She had a few guidelines. If it was too shiny, pass it by. If it was covered nice and snug, pass it by. If the nearby house was too bright, pass it by.

  Those guidelines carried her by eight houses. She saw an uncovered jet ski and gave it a quick search, but no key was in sight, and the craft was firmly locked to the pier. She moved on. She passed four more piers.

  T
hen she saw it. Covered by a tarp, but sloppily. Drifting far enough from the pier that it was clear it wasn’t firmly locked, or even well tied. Definitely worth a shot.

  The tarp provided great cover. She slipped under it and climbed on the jet ski. Now she could rummage around while being out of sight.

  Her hand reached for the underseat compartment, opening it and reaching in. Sure enough, she felt the coil of the cord attached to the key. She took it out but didn’t insert it. She untied the craft, then slid off the back, standing knee-high in the water. She pushed it out from under its tarp, then pulled herself up some, but left her legs dangling off the back.

  She started frog kicking, slowly moving the jet ski ahead. She had a good distance to cover in a short time.

  Frostburn

  Frostburn was one hundred percent acting on the assumption that Mr. Johnson would have someone on astral overwatch. But that was not a reason not to use magic.

  She made Zipfile invisible. Frostburn was pretty sure that in her heart, Zipfile knew she was being a decoy, but she was still excited about what she had to do. Even if it meant drawing fire.

  Once they had separated from Emu, Frostburn took a round about route to the south side of the park. Zipfile was to the north.

  She hoped their first reaction would not be a fireball to her face. But she was ready if it was.

  Rude

  Rude stewed as he ran. Had they not seen him at AVR last night? How smoothly he moved, how calmly he performed?

  Okay, he’d been invisible. No one had seen it. But still, didn’t they know? He had a lot of things he could do, a lot to bring to the table. Instead of looking at those options, they’d fallen back on the basic troll tank strategy. Did they really think he liked causing mayhem and destruction?

  Okay, he did. And in a campsite full of RVs? Some of those things folded like tissue paper. He was really going to have a chance to tear some things up.