Shadowplay Page 5

  For a few moments his eyes, which had adapted to the bright streetlights, were blind. While taking a couple of tentative steps forward, waiting for his night vision to return, his right foot struck something. Something yielding.

  “Hey!”

  The grunt from the darkness was enough to scare the drek out of him. Falcon backed away a step.

  His night vision was slowly returning. Sitting on the alley floor, leaning back against the wall was the vague outline of a human-sized figure. He’d stumbled into one of the individual’s outstretched legs.

  “Watch where you’re walking, chummer,” came the voice again. A deep male voice, resonant, but overlaid with a hint of fatigue. The figure moved, drew its legs under it, began to stand.

  He was big, Falcon realized, taking a step back. “Hey, sorry,” he began hurriedly, “if this is your squat, you’re welcome to it. I—”

  The man cut him off. “I’m no squatter. Can’t a man sit down and take a rest without someone calling him a squatter?”

  Falcon could see the figure more clearly now. He was tall, close to two meters, almost two heads taller than Falcon, and heavily built; not fat, but bulky and muscular. Long, straight black hair pulled back from his face in a ponytail. High cheekbones, a strong, aquiline nose, and deep-set dark eyes. Falcon thought his complexion must be dark normally—maybe a little darker than Falcon’s own—but at the moment the man looked somewhat pale. An Amerindian? Almost certainly.

  The figure wore what Falcon thought of as a “business suit,” the kind of close-fitting, dark jumpsuit that shadowrunners and street ops always wore on the trid and in simsense.

  Falcon took another step back. “Sorry.”

  “Ah, forget it.” The man sounded even more tired as he leaned back against the wall. With his right hand he reached around under his left arm, probing at his ribs. When he brought his hand back, the fingers were dark, shining with something wet. “Frag,” he muttered. “It’s opened up again. I guess you don’t have a slap patch on you?” He snorted. “Didn’t think so.”

  To his surprise, Falcon felt his fear slipping away. The squatter who wasn’t a squatter was big enough to be daunting, and something about him hinted of lethal competence. But there was also something that convinced Falcon the man didn’t make trouble just for the frag of it. Unlike the Disassemblers, for example. Give him reason to come after you, though, and may the spirits help you. “What happened?” he asked.

  The Amerindian smiled grimly. “Didn’t dodge fast enough,” he said. “High-velocity bullets always have the right of way.”

  Falcon looked at the stranger with increased respect. He'd seen someone take a bullet wound once—a First Nation member shot in the leg by a Screamer in a gang war. Just a scratch was all it had looked like, but what the trid called “wound shock” had really trashed his chummer out, knocked him flat on his butt. All he could do was lie there, staring dully at the blood seeping through his jeans. In contrast this guy had taken a bullet in the ribs—a nasty wound, judging by the amount of blood showing on his fingers—but he was handling it okay. Sure, he was tired, probably from blood loss, but he could still joke about it.

  “You . . . like, you want some help?” Falcon asked tentatively.

  The Amerindian snorted. “From you?”

  Falcon drew himself up to his full height. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

  “Why not?” A weary smile spread across the man’s face. “Don’t sweat it, chummer, I’ll take care of myself. But . . . good thought, you know? Good offer. Thanks.” He gestured down the alley in the direction Falcon had been heading. “You’ve got to be somewhere, right?” Falcon hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I . .

  A deep-throated yell cut him off. “There ’e is,” a booming voice announced. “Told you I seen ’im!” Falcon spun in horror. Four figures stood in the mouth of the alley, silhouetted against the streetlights. Huge, asymmetrical shapes. Even though he couldn’t see the colors, Falcon knew they wore gray and white leathers.

  The four Disassemblers stepped forward into the alley. “Led us a merry fraggin’ chase, dintcha?” one of them snarled. “I seen you limpin’. Let’s see you do it again now.”

  For a moment, Falcon considered running. But he knew with sick certainty that the troll was right. His ankle was fragged; they’d catch him before he’d gone a dozen meters. He looked around desperately for a weapon of some kind—anything.

  The Amerindian casually stepped away from the wall, into the path of the trolls. “Leave him be,” he said calmly. “He has my protection.”

  Falcon saw the eyes of two of the trolls widen in surprise. There was something about the man’s calm, measured manner that made him seem suddenly like a force of nature—lethal and implacable.

  The troll leader didn’t have the sensitivity to pick up on that. Or if he did, he ignored it. “Move it, you scroify breeder,” he snarled. He reached out an arm thicker than Falcon’s thigh to push the man out of his way. Large though the Amerindian was, a hard shove from a troll would still be enough to fling him back into the wall.

  But the Amerindian’s chest wasn’t there to receive the shove. At the last moment he’d twisted out of the way, grabbed the troll’s wrist with both his hands, and pulled. Off-balance, the troll lurched forward. The Amerindian kept on turning. His back to the troll now, he had the creature’s huge arm locked against his body. He repositioned his hands, twisted.

  The sickening crack of breaking bone sounded loud as a gunshot in the alley. The troll bellowed his agony. Not for long. The Amerindian released the troll’s broken arm, made another half-turn and slammed the heel of his right hand up under the Disassembler’s chin. The troll’s teeth slammed together with a clearly audible clash, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in a boneless heap.

  Two of the three remaining trolls leaped forward, roaring in anger at the fate of their leader. The third, the smaller, backed away from the incipient melee, his eyes bugged out in surprise and fear.

  The two larger trolls reached the Amerindian at the same instant, a solid onrushing wall of flesh that would have been enough to smash the man from his feet. Even worse, Falcon saw the glint of steel in one troll’s massive fist. A knife? It had to be. If they’d had guns, they’d never have rushed him. The Amerindian disappeared under the trolls. That’s it. Falcon thought.

  But no, it wasn’t. One of the trolls howled in torment, a soprano whistling cry that made Falcon’s thighs tense in unconscious sympathy. Light flashed, and something clattered to the ground at Falcon’s feet. The troll’s knife.

  One troll was down, unmoving. The other was swinging a brutal haymaker at the Amerindian’s head, but it didn’t connect. The Amerindian ducked low, let the momentum of the troll’s swing carry him on around, then fired two brutal short-arm jabs into the exposed kidneys. Bellowing, the troll arched back.

  The Amerindian took a step and kicked the Disassembler’s legs out from under him. The ganger went over backward. As the troll fell the Amerindian threw his own weight on top of the massive body, riding it down. The first part of the troll to hit the ground was the back of his skull. A loud crunch. The Disassembler convulsed once, then was still.

  A tiny dot of ruby-red light appeared on the Amerindian’s shoulder, tracked up to his head. Falcon spun.

  The sole remaining troll stood in the mouth of the alley, a pistol dwarfed by his huge hands. The sighting laser was burning, and Falcon could see his finger beginning to squeeze the trigger.

  Falcon stooped, snatched up the knife lying at his feet. Threw it, a desperate underhand toss.

  The troll must have seen the knife out the corner of his eye. He twitched, just as the trigger broke. The pistol spat once, then the knife struck him in the head. It was a lousy throw for a real knife expert—the hilt hit first, and the razor-sharp edge did nothing more than nick the troll's chin—but considering the circumstances it was pretty fragging good.

  Not good enough, though. Snarling with anger, the
troll brought the gun back onto line, tightened down on the trigger.

  And magically, the hilt of a knife seemed to sprout from his throat. Gurgling and spraying, he went over backward. He scrabbled desperately, then was still.

  The Amerindian was still lying over the body of the second troll he’d felled. His left arm, the one he’d used to throw his knife, was still outstretched toward the gun-toting ganger. He’d made an underhand cast, much as Falcon had tried to do, but the fact that he was prone made it even more difficult. Difficult or not, the throw was perfect.

  Slowly, the Amerindian pulled himself to his feet, groaning with the effort. For the first time. Falcon saw that the big man’s right arm hung limply at his side. It didn’t take long to understand why: the troll’s bullet had ripped a couple of nuyen’s worth of hamburger from the Amerindian’s biceps. Blood poured from the wound and down his arm, dripping from his fingertips to the alley floor.

  “Drek-eating fragging son of a slitch," the Amerindian grated. “Two in one day.” He turned tired, pain-dulled eyes on Falcon. “Your offer of help still good?” he asked. “Know anything about first aid?”

  * * *

  Falcon looked askance at the make-do field dressing he’d bound around the Amerindian’s arm. He’d torn the cloth from his own shirt, and the gray fabric was already staining dark. At least he’d slowed the bleeding, of that much he was sure. Otherwise the man would already be dead.

  He walked slowly beside the Amerindian, ready to offer a shoulder if needed. But his companion seemed able to walk on his own, albeit slowly. Again, Falcon was amazed at how much punishment the big man could absorb. He’d sat still while Falcon bound his new wound, but as soon as the job was done he went right back to business—scooping up the troll’s pistol and checking its action, then stashing it and his knife in his jumpsuit. When he got up to get moving again, Falcon had insisted on coming along. The Amerindian had protested, but not too hard. Since then, they’d walked maybe fifteen blocks, all through back alleys, heading into the heart of downtown.

  “My name’s Dennis Falk,” the youth said to fill the silence. “My chummers call me Falcon.”

  The Amerindian glanced down at him, was silent for a moment. Then he said, “John Walks-by-Night. They call me Nightwalker.”

  Falcon considered shaking hands, but Nightwalker didn’t make any move to offer his. “What tribe?” he asked.

  “Tribe? No tribe.”

  Falcon looked up at him in surprise, briefly studying the big man’s strong profile, his complexion, his hair.

  Nightwalker didn’t look at him, but spoke as though he could read the young ganger’s mind. “Yes, I'm Amerindian. But I’m not tribal.” Still without looking down, he smiled. “What tribe are you?"

  “Sioux,” Falcon answered, then corrected himself in a quieter voice. “My mother was Sioux.”

  “Matrilineal descent’s okay with most tribes,” Nightwalker said. “So Falcon’s your tribal name? Given to you by the chiefs?”

  “No,” Falcon said slowly.

  “Have you been officially recognized by a Sioux chief, by any Sioux band?”

  “No.”

  “So, officially speaking, you have no tribe,” Nightwalker said. “Like me. Right?”

  Falcon was silent for a few long moments. “Yes,” he said grudgingly. Then he added fiercely, “But I will have.”

  “No Sioux chiefs in Seattle, chummer.”

  “I’m going to the Sioux Nation.”

  Nightwalker looked down at that, quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? When?”

  Falcon clenched his teeth, swore to himself. “When I’m ready,” he growled.

  “Oh?” repeated Nightwalker. “Something holding you back? Family, maybe? Your gang?”

  Falcon wanted to tell the Amerindian to just frag off, but he couldn’t do it. There was something compelling about the big man, some strange kind of charisma that captured his imagination. “Vision quest,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Vision quest!” Falcon almost yelled. He glared up into Nightwalker’s face, daring the man to make fun of him.

  But Nightwalker just regarded him placidly. An eyebrow quirked again. “Tell me about a vision quest,” he said quietly.

  Falcon snorted. You know what I’m talking about, he thought, but didn't say it. Instead, he explained what he’d learned from Langland’s book.

  When he was finished, Nightwalker seemed to consider his words before speaking. “So when the spirits call you, you’ll go?” he said at last. “Then and only then?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t think I believe that.”

  He quickly raised a hand to still Falcon’s incipient objection. “I’m not calling you a liar,” he explained. “I just don’t buy the philosophy. Your destiny’s your own, that’s what I think, your life’s your own responsibility. And the way I see it, a man’s a fool if he gives up that responsibility to anyone, even the spirits.”

  He shook his head again.

  “But hell,” he went on with a sudden grin, “I don’t drek on anyone else's religion or philosophy. It isn’t healthy, and who knows? They may be right. More power to you. Falcon, and I hope you hear the totems’ song.”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, Falcon watching the big Amerindian obliquely. Even though the other man didn’t complain, he saw that Nightwalker was in serious pain. And, worse, he was obviously weakened by the blood loss from his two bullet wounds. His face was pale, his skin stretched-looking. His eyes were sunken and glittered with fever. Though he maintained the same pace, his gait had changed from a walk to a kind of shamble. Falcon could tell that it was becoming harder and harder for the man to keep his body under control.

  “Where are we going?” he asked eventually.

  Nightwalker didn’t answer immediately. Then he shook his head slightly, like someone fighting his way back from the verge of sleep. He turned a haggard smile on Falcon. “We?” he asked. “I’m going for a meet with my comrades. You’re going back to wherever it is you came from.”

  Falcon shook his head firmly. “You need me,” he said.

  Nightwalker laughed at that. “Don’t flatter yourself. So you’re fast with a knife and competent with a field dressing. That doesn't mean you can play in the same league as us. Maybe in ten years, but not now.”

  “You’re shadowrunners.”

  The big Amerindian glanced down at him again, this time appraisingly. After a moment, Falcon could see him make a decision. “Yes,” Nightwalker said.

  “What happened?”

  Nightwalker thought about it, then shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you,” he said finally. “It’s not like there’s much to tell. A run went bad. We were waiting for one of our team to finish her part of the job, but”—he shrugged again—“she never came back, let’s put it that way. And then the other team hit us.” He grunted. “Another shadow team. The corp we were hitting on had hired shadowrunners of their own to protect them. We never expected it, but it makes sense. Set a thief to catch a thief.” His voice trailed off, his face went blank, slack. For a moment he looked like a sleepwalker, his body continuing the motions of walking although his consciousness had faded.

  “So what happened?” Falcon prompted. Nightwalker’s head jerked like someone being awakened suddenly. “I’m drifting,” he said quietly. “Blood loss, wound shock. Maybe you should keep me talking.”

  “So what happened?” Falcon asked again.

  “They hit us hard,” Nightwalker told him, his voice emotionless. “There was me and . . . and my friend, plus the rest of my team from Seattle. And then six more from out of the sprawl.” He glanced at Falcon, lips twisted in a grim smile. “Real tribal types, you’d probably have lots to talk about.” Then the smile faded. “It was their run. They brought me on board as tactician and because I know the sprawl. The tribals were good, but only in small-unit actions. They needed me to coordinate the multiple teams. Marci—my friend—and t
he rest of my team were just guns in case things went bad.” His eyes were slightly glazed, his gaze distant. Falcon knew he was replaying events like a trideo show against the screen of his mind.

  “They took Marci out,” the big Amerindian went on quietly. “One slug: in through her upper lip, blew out the whole back of her head. A bunch of the others bought it too, I think.” He shook his head. “Or maybe not, maybe they were just wounded. Anyway, we were split up and had to bug out or they’d have geeked us all.”

  “That’s when you were hit?”

  Nightwalker nodded slowly. “I guess so. I didn’t feel it when it happened. Sometimes you don’t. It was later I felt my ribs were numb.” He glanced down at Falcon.”That’s what a bullet wound often feels like: numb and dead. It only starts hurting later.”

  ”So what do you do now?”

  ”Contingency plans,” Nightwalker said slowly. “We got back-up meeting places, times, procedures. We regroup, see if there’s anything we can do to pull the run out of the fire.”

  “That’s where you’re going now,” Falcon stated. “Uh-huh,” Nightwalker answered dully.

  Suddenly concerned, Falcon looked up at his companion. The big shadowrunner’s voice had been sounding more and more listless, the pitch lower and the words less clearly enunciated. “You okay?” he asked sharply.

  Nightwalker didn’t answer immediately. Then all he said was, “Huh?”

  Falcon stopped, felt his worry escalate as the Amerindian took another couple of steps before noticing and stopping too. “You okay?” he asked again.

  Again a pause before Nightwalker answered. “No,” he said slowly. He shook his head, as if to clear it. “No,” he said again, his voice more definite now. “Frag, I’m fading.”

  “How far’s the meet?”