Shadowplay Page 6

“Denny Park. How far’s that?”

  Falcon looked around. They were near Sixth and Pine. “About a klick, maybe more,” he guessed.

  “Frag!” Nightwalker hacked a cough and spat on the ground. Falcon saw that the dribble of saliva on the Amerindian’s lips was dark with blood. The big man leaned back against a wall, closed his eyes for a moment, his face haggard with exhaustion and pain. When he opened his eyes again they were feverishly bright, fixed on Falcon’s face. “You said ‘we’ a while ago,” he began quietly. “We. You still want to help me?”

  Falcon hesitated, but only for a moment. “Yeah.” He tried to keep his voice cool, conceal the excitement he felt. “Yeah, I want to help. What do you need?”

  The shadowrunner shot him a smile, tired but knowing. “Get me to the meet,” he said. “I’ll make it, but I won’t have much left, you know what I mean? I want you to cover me. Watch my back, watch out for my interests. You understand?”

  “You don’t trust your partners?”

  Nightwalker’s chuckle became a painful, wracking cough. He spat again, wiped a dribble of bloody saliva from his chin. “Trust isn’t a common thing in the shadows, chummer. We’ve got to get you a gun.”

  * * *

  Falcon weighed the pistol in his hand. It was heavier than he’d expected, and it felt cold and lethal. A Fichetti Security 500, the ork gunlegger had called it. A light pistol, chambered for fairly light ammo, just one step up from a hold-out. But in his relatively small hand it felt bulky.

  He’d never bought a gun before. Truth to tell, he’d never used one or even held one. Not a real pistol. Like most of the First Nation gangers, he’d bought himself a “Saturday night special”—a jury-rigged, single-shot zip gun, picked up for about twenty nuyen from a bartender in a dockside tavern. But—again like most of his First Nation colleagues—he’d never used the weapon, never intended to use it. Owning a zip gun, carrying it in his waistband, wasn’t much more than macho posturing. He knew that a few of the gang leaders had real guns; one had even put a slug into the leg of a rival ganger. For most of the others, a gun was more a prop, like a jacket with the gang colors, not a tool to be used.

  The gunlegger had only smiled when Falcon asked for a pistol. But he’d stopped laughing quickly enough when the youth pulled out the certified credstick Nightwalker had given him. He took Falcon's hand, examined the size of his palm, then pulled out the Lightfire. “Not much gun,” the ork grunted, “but this should do you well.” The gun had cost 425 nuyen, which Falcon had paid without trying to bargain the gunlegger down. No time. He knew for sure he’d over-paid when the ork threw in an extra ammo clip as part of the deal.

  Now he held the gun out toward Nightwalker.

  The Amerindian looked like drek, his complexion sallow, eyes red and sunken, forehead pricked with beads of sweat. He was sitting on the roadway, back against the wall of a building, looking for all the world like a halfdead rubby. This was exactly where Falcon had left him before heading for the gunlegger’s doss, and it didn't look like the runner had moved a hair in the meantime.

  “So you got yourself a toy, huh?” Nightwalker’s smile and voice were both dull, exhausted.

  “I got you something, too,” Falcon told him. “Here.” He tossed a small package into Nightwalker’s lap.

  With clumsy fingers, the Amerindian opened the package, pulled out a small circular patch sealed in a plastic pouch. He shook out the other contents of the packet onto his palm: three small octagonal pills, a bright warning red in color. He looked up at Falcon. “Stimpatch?” he asked.

  Falcon nodded. “And those are metas. Metam . . . something.”

  “Metamphetamines,” Nightwalker finished. “The runner’s friend.”

  “The gunlegger said they’d pick you up.”

  “Pick me up?” Nightwalker grunted with amusement. “Yeah, pick me up, take away the pain, make me invulnerable ... or at least make me think I’m invulnerable. And then when they wear off, I crash, and I crash hard."

  Falcon glanced away. “I thought they’d help.”

  “They will help,” Nightwalker confirmed. “You did good. If I take them, I’ll hate life tomorrow.” He laughed. “But if I don’t take them, I won’t see tomorrow.” He grinned. “I guess you didn’t bring a glass of water too, huh?”

  * * *

  Nightwalker still looked like drek, Falcon thought, but at least he didn't look like he was going to croak any moment. Falcon had applied the stimpatch to the ugly puncture wound in the Amerindian’s ribs, a wound that looked even worse than Falcon expected. And then Nightwalker had swallowed the metas, coughing painfully as the dry pills caught in his throat.

  Fascinated, Falcon watched for a reaction. If the metas were as powerful as Nightwalker said ... He didn't have to wait long. Like a spreading flush, the blood returned to the Amerindian’s face. His eyes, formerly glazed, cleared visibly. With a grunt of pain, he forced himself to his feet. He still looks like drek, Falcon thought, but at least he doesn’t look dead.

  Carefully, Nightwalker stretched, testing the mobility of his body. He twisted at the waist, hissed with pain as the movement stretched the wound in his side.

  “How’re you doing?” Falcon asked.

  “Good as can be expected,” Nightwalker said, “which is pretty fragging lousy. What I really need’s some magic. I don't suppose you’re a shaman? Didn’t think so.” Slowly he did a deep knee bend. “Okay, I can move. Not fast, but I’ll make it.” He grinned at Falcon, slapped the ganger on the shoulder. “You want to lead?”

  5

  2343 hours, November 12, 2053

  What is it about elevators and public stairwells that makes men want to void their bladders? Sly wondered, smelling the miasmic air. (And women too, she thought, remembering the wasted-looking bag lady she'd once seen squatting down on the open platform of the Westlake Center monorail station.) In cynical moments she wondered whether it was the same instinct that made wolves and dogs mark out their territory. In her mind’s eye Sly could see a go-gang filling their bellies with water before the nightly cruise of their territory. She chuckled quietly, then forced the vagrant thoughts from her mind. Time to concentrate on biz.

  She was near the northern end of Alaskan Way, down by Pier 70, across the road from the newly renovated Edgewater Inn. A strange part of town, paradoxical, almost schizoid, she thought. On the west side of the road were flashy hotels like the Edgewater, expensive restaurants catering to rich visitors, tourist-trap stores selling Seattle souvenirs and “genuine Amerindian artwork” produced on computer-controlled lathes and extrusion machines. Bright lights everywhere, high-tone cars being tended by chromed-up valets who doubled as sec-guards. And on the east side of the road . . .

  Deepest, darkest scum-land. Rusting railroad tracks, deserted warehouses. Burned out or stripped hulks of cars. Reeking dumpsters. And rats, both the four-legged and two-legged varieties. It made for a weird ambiance, the juxtaposition of tourist-land and the urban realities of all too much of the sprawl.

  Sly leaned against a ferroconcrete wall, in the shadows of a warehouse doorway. Disused, derelict, the place was boarded up, probably condemned for demolition when the city engineers got around to it. The doorway where Sly sheltered had once been sealed up too, but someone had torn off the plastisheet, probably an enterprising squatter who'd used it to construct some stinking hovel in the squat-city that had sprung up at the south end of the docks. The walls were liberally spray-painted with graffiti, and on the door behind her was the spray-painted notice—“Do not enter or you'll die.” The trash and empty drug ampoules strewn all around said that not too many people took the warning seriously.

  Sly checked her watch—twenty-three forty-three. She’d been here an hour, and the air was chill with gray drizzle. She shivered. How much longer?

  As soon as the ruckus at The Armadillo had settled down, she’d slipped out the back way and started to track Modal. Not too tough a job for somebody with her range of contacts. Just spre
ad the word, hand out her cel phone number (the number her phone was currently jury-rigged to accept, to be precise), and wait for some response. Questioning a couple of squatters just outside Smeland’s establishment, she’d learned that “the black elf with the big fragging gun” had taken off on a big black BMW Blitzen bike. The same make and model Modal had ridden during the time he and Sly were trying to rekindle their affair. He’d always been a man of habit—a real risk in the biz—and she’d often ragged him about it. Now, of course, she was glad he was a man of unchanging patterns; it made her job so much easier.

  She hadn’t expected instant response. Usually it took hours or days for her information network to pull in pay-data. Tonight she'd lucked out. The first call had come in after less than an hour, followed immediately by independent confirmation. Someone had spotted Modal jandering into Kamikaze Sushi at the old Washington State Ferries pier—Pier 68, was it?

  Sly knew Kamikaze Sushi, had been there a few times herself. It was another of the contradictory aspects of the north pier area, seemingly out of place on the west side of Alaskan Way. A small and rowdy restaurant, it was known for its all-night parties (in blatant defiance of licensing laws) and for the fact that it featured classic rock music at brain-numbing volume. Old stuff—the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Genesis, Yes—bands that had kicked off half a fragging century ago. The owner of Kamikaze Sushi was a big Japanese guy who called himself Tiger, and when it was him working behind the sushi bar, he was the restaurant’s biggest draw. Cybered reflexes made Tiger the fastest sushi chef in the plex, but his habit of matching customers drink for drink—even trolls who outmassed him by fifty kilos—tended to take the edge off his skill. Thanks to “minor accidents” while under the influence, four fingers on his left hand and two on his right were cyber. (One recurring rumor claimed that the day he lopped off his left pinky he’d served it to an inebriated customer on rice with a dab of wasabe . . . and said customer promptly ate it.) But none of that seemed to slow Tiger down.

  It had taken Sly about half an hour to get from Puyallup to the piers, worrying that Modal would have moved on by the time she made it. But no, when she took up her position across the road from Kamikaze Sushi, his big Blitzen was still parked out front. For the past hour she’d been cooling her heels in the doorway, waiting for the elf to reappear. Listening to the music, which she could hear clearly even at this distance, she fantasized about warming herself with a thimble-cup of hot sake. Impossible, of course. The whole purpose of this exercise was to cut Modal out of the pack, drag him off somewhere quiet, and ask him some probing questions. (She suddenly shivered again, but this time not with cold. An image of little Louis flashed through her mind, Louis screaming his way through an interrogation. With an effort, she pushed the picture back into the furthest recesses of her brain.)

  This whole thing really had her going. She needed to know what Modal was up to, had to know what he knew about Yamatetsu and the hit on her Mr. Johnson, had to know why he was trying to find her. If he was working for the other side—assuming she wasn't just being paranoid—things could get dicey. Modal was quick and dangerous; she’d seen ample evidence of that a few hours ago. She was fairly confident that with the element of surprise on her side she could take him out quick and clean. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She needed him alive, unhurt and able to answer questions. And if it turned out he didn’t have some nefarious purpose for trying to find her, she had to avoid hurting his pride or enraging him so much he wouldn't reveal what she needed to know. She sighed. Nobody said this would be easy. She checked her watch again. Come on, Modal. Hurry up . . .

  As though the thought had been a charm to summon him, the familiar figure of Modal in his blue leathers suddenly appeared in the restaurant doorway. He paused briefly, apparently letting the cool night air clear the fog of sake fumes and smoke from his head. Then the elf jandered over to his bike, swung one long leg over, and settled into the saddle.

  Sly held her breath. The next moments would make all the difference. The elf had held tenaciously to one pattern—the big bike he used to love so much. Would he hold to another as well?

  Yes! Instead of simply firing up the bike and taking off, he reached deep into a pocket, searching for something. Sly knew what it was, the small computer module that controlled all the sophisticated functions of the Blitzen. Preferring not to depend on alarms and other theft-deterrent devices to protect his bike. Modal had modified the control panel so that the computer module fitted into a shuttle-mount, just like those used for car stereos. Whenever he parked the bike, he removed the module and slipped it into a pocket. Without it, the bike was inert, dead. A thief couldn’t even start up the ignition, let alone control the mass of metal whose stability relied so much on the computer-controlled gyroscope mounted below the engine block. Unmounting and remounting the computer module took several seconds— seconds that could mean the difference between life and death in a scrape—but Modal had decided the risk was worth safeguarding his beloved bike.

  That meant she had a few precious seconds while the elf brought the Blitzen back to life. She’d chosen her position with that in mind, and the gamble had paid off.

  Head up, eyes still on Modal, Sly burst from her hiding place and sprinted across the road. She was behind him, out of his range of vision ... or so she hoped. This was probably the biggest risk. If he caught even a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, if he turned to look, his reflexes could bring his Ares Predator out of the holster to drop her in her tracks even before he recognized who she was.

  Luck was with her, again. By the time she hit the other side of the street, the elf had extracted the computer module from his pocket, but was fumbling with it as he tried to slide it into its mount. Drunk? she wondered. Possibly, considering he’d been in Tiger’s place for more than an hour. And if Modal was a friend, the sushi chef would have pushed several drinks on him. From everything she knew about him, the elf would hardly have refused them.

  She slowed her pace from a dead sprint to a more normal brisk walk. The Ruger Super Warhawk heavy revolver with its shortened barrel was a reassuring mass in her coat pocket. She tightened her hand around the grip, made sure the safety was off.

  Almost there. The elf hadn't looked up, hadn’t noticed her. He was still fumbling with the module, muttering Cockney oaths under his breath. Five meters, three . . .

  She was still a pace away from him when his instincts—honed by years on the street and only slightly dimmed by alcohol—finally kicked in. As he snapped his head around, she saw his dark eyes widen in recognition. Then his hand shot under his jacket, reaching for the Predator in its shoulder holster.

  But too late. Sly was already lunging forward, flinging her left arm around his shoulder while grinding the barrel of her Warhawk into his right kidney. “Don’t!” she whispered harshly into his ear.

  His hand stopped, centimeters short of his weapon. For a moment she could feel the tension of his muscles under her arm as he debated. Then he relaxed with a sigh. He was fast, she knew, but not that fast, and he’d recognized and accepted the fact.

  She let herself relax minutely, too. The fear had been very real, the fear that he’d try his modified reflexes against her flesh-and-blood ones. He wouldn’t have made it, lived to tell about it, of that she was sure. Her only choice would have been to put a bullet into his spine, even though he was no use to her dead. Her other problem would have been the urgent need to escape from the well-patrolled pier area—a murderer with her victim’s blood still on her clothes. Not a pleasant concept. (Less pleasant was the idea of killing someone she’d once cared for as more than a friend . . . but she couldn’t dwell on that now.)

  Modal sighed again. “A face from the past,” he said lightly, conversationally. “How is it, Sharon Louise?” To her surprise—and horror—she felt a stab of emotion at the sound of his voice. Sharon Louise. She’d gone by her real name back then, back in Tokyo, before she’d taken Sly as her street moniker. Just Sharon.
But once Modal had discovered her middle name, he always called her by both. Sharon Louise. He was the only one who’d ever called her that. Even now, the name brought back memories—his mellow voice in the dark, the feel of his body against hers . . .

  “Sly,” she snapped, resisting, but only just, the temptation to reinforce the word by jabbing the revolver deeper into his kidney.

  He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “As you like,” he said reasonably. “It’s been quite some time, mate.” She shook her head irritably, more to herself than to him. “We’re taking a walk,” she told him.

  He was silent for a moment. “If you’re going to do me,” he said finally, “do me now and get it over.”

  That shocked her into silence. Not the words, not the sentiment. The idea wasn't alien. She’d have probably felt the same if the tables were turned. If she thought somebody was going to geek her, those last moments would be the worst kind of torture imaginable—the slow walk across the road into the shadows of the warehouses, and then, only then, the bullet into the head or the throat. No, it wasn’t the words that got to her.

  It was the tone of his voice, the calm, unemotional, almost placid way he spoke them. And the fact that she felt no tension at all in the shoulders under her arm. He was discussing his own death as if it made no more difference than . . . than where they’d go for a drink, than whether they’d sleep at his doss or hers. And that was, on some deep level, incredibly disturbing.

  Brutally, she suppressed her reaction. “Your gun,” she said flatly.

  He hesitated for another second, and she could almost feel his thoughts as he calculated odds. Then he shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it.” Slowly, with his left hand, which she knew was his off hand, he reached under his jacket and pulled the Predator from its holster, gripping the butt with two fingers.

  She took it with her own left hand, quickly concealing it under her coat. Then she stepped back, opening a gap of more than a meter between them. From what she knew of him previously, Modal had had his reflexes juiced, but never had any cyber weapons implanted. No spurs, no razors. That had been years ago, though. Sly didn’t think he’d have gone under the laser in the interim—implanted weapons weren’t really his style—but she wasn’t going to bet her life on it. She tightened her grip on the revolver in her coat pocket, shoved it forward a little so the barrel made the fabric bulge. Just for a moment, a reminder that she could still geek him before he could close with her if she had to.