| From: | Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Reunion - Part 1 (was Re: Sweet Oblivion - Part 9) |
| Date: | Wed, 5 May 1999 19:19:01 -0700 (PDT) |
how, if they are very good, they can survive the screw-job. In three
days, Sweet Oblivion in its entirety will be posted at:
> http://members.xoom.com/Nevlin/shadowrun/fiction.htm
> --Strago
Hah!
If you liked that one, check out the following.
Errr...or not.
I should warn you, this is VERY different to Sweet Oblivion.
A note again. - - indicates thoughts.
Anyway, read on, if you dare...
=========REUNION - Part 1
Micky Donovan had been having a bad day. No, let me rephrase that.
Micky Donovan had been having a bad year. He’d also been having a VERY
bad day. So I suppose it was somewhat understandable when he went out
that night and got himself totally pissed.
Micky Donovan had a boss. Don’t we all? The difference is, though, who
that is. See, I’m my own boss and most of the time I’m a pretty damn
decent boss. Micky, though – well, his boss’ name was James. James
Edward Darcy-Rutherford. The Third. Mr. Darcy-Rutherford, quite unlike
myself, was an absolute bastard of a man to work for. He’s the kind of
boss people don’t just DREAM about killing – if you know what I mean.
And that was on his good days.
The big problem, you see, was that our Mr. Darcy-Rutherford absolutely
despised poor old Micky. Ever since Micky had transferred to his
department a year ago, Mr. Darcy-Rutherford had made it his mission in
life to turn Micky’s life into a living hell. And if there was one
thing you could say for Mr. Darcy-Rutherford it was that he was good at
his job. Very good, in fact. Unfortunately for Micky. So it was
understandable that, while he was pissed that night, Micky started
making threats. Vivid threats. In excruciating detail.
The problem with THAT, however, was that Micky worked for Fuchi. In
particular, Micky worked in Fuchi’s ‘Resources Adjustment Department’,
or RAD for short. If you don’t already know, a ‘Resources Adjuster’ is
Fuchi-speak for a professional Johnson. In other words, Micky was the
guy who hired shadowrunners to do the dirty on other people. So when
Micky started making threats, the truth of the matter was that he was
entirely capable of having them carried out – if he’d been so inclined
– which he wasn’t. He was just drunk.
Unfortunately for Micky, our Mr. Darcy-Rutherford was a paranoid slot.
As paranoid as they come. That was probably one of the reasons why he
was still around to be Micky’s boss. He’s the kind of guy who believes
in preemptive strikes. In other words, if you start making threats,
he’ll take you out first. And he could do that – he was a Resources
Adjuster too.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
I’d done some work for Mr. Darcy-Rutherford previously and, according
to him, my crew and I were the best runners he’d ever worked with. Now
I had no idea whether he was telling the truth, or just winding us up
in the hope that we’d work cheaper (knowing him as I did, it was most
probably the latter), but whatever the case he came to me first – or at
least, no one took the job before he approached me.
As I recall, I’d been in my favourite dive that night, drinking
heavily. It had not been a good day for me, either, but that was beside
the point. I wasn’t drinking to forget, I was just drinking to get
drunk. Not a very intelligent pastime, I know, but there’s something
about waking up in the morning with the mother of all hangovers to put
all your problems into perspective.
"Well," I remember slurring, "if it isn’t Big Jimmy D!" I often
called
him that. He absolutely hated it. I’m that kind of person, in case you
hadn’t guessed. I think we’ll call him that from now on in my little
manuscript. There’s no way he’ll ever set eyes on this in his lifetime,
but some day his ghost will look down and see that the only memorial to
his existence in the entire world is a book that calls him Big Jimmy D.
And that’ll slot him off to no end.
"Blood," he said with a frown. He was always frowning at me. I
actually kind of liked it.
I waved my arm in an expansive gesture and just managed to avoid
ending up on the floor. "Take a seat, Jimmy! I’m feeling nice enough to
put up with anyone tonight, even a slot like you."
"So kind," he murmured, seating himself fastidiously. That was another
annoying thing about old Jimmy D. He was so CAREFUL about keeping clean
it made me want to yarf. I know, cleanliness is next to godliness and
all that, but there are limits. I always got the feeling that Big Jimmy
would have worn some kind of environment suit to our meets if that
wouldn’t have gotten the drek beaten out of him. At the very least.
Funny thing was, good old Jimmy was such a weird, scrawny looking guy
that anything, even a bit of drek, could have improved his appearance.
"So what can I do for you, you old bastard?" I asked him. Jimmy D was
smart enough not to be offended by that – even if I did mean every word
of it.
"I have a job for you, Blood," he said to me and pulled out one of his
damned files. I really didn’t like his files. If you didn’t check out
anything and everything in them, you’d tend to get some rather nasty
surprises sprung on you.
"What kind?" It was always important to get that out of the way up
front with Big Jimmy D – otherwise you’d tend to get some rather nasty
surprises sprung on you.
Jimmy looked around rather furtively, somehow managing to look even
more shifty than usual – and that was saying something. Finally he
leant forward and whispered, "Wetwork."
Now that was a nasty surprise – even more than the fact that I hadn’t
actually killed Jimmy the first time I met him. See, despite the
handle, my crew and I didn’t do assassinations and Big Jimmy knew that.
I’d turned down a number of jobs from him over the years, specifically
because they involved wetwork. He was a stubborn slot, though, and
never knew to leave well enough alone. I’d thought he’d been learning,
though – and evidently he had, because when I sat back and cocked an
eyebrow at him he looked rather apologetic. That was a minor miracle in
and of itself. I don’t think the fragger had ever been sorry for
anything in his whole life, so I didn’t think he even knew what a
regretful expression looked like. Guess he’d been practising in the
mirror.
"I know, Blood, I know. I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t important.
This guy wants me dead, though, and when I think about it, the action I
keep coming back to – the only way I’ll survive – is if you take him
out first." See what I meant about pre-emptive strikes?
"Who?" I asked. I didn’t intend to take the job at the time – I
wouldn’t have shed a single tear if this mystery assassin had offed old
Jimmy D – but curiousity never hurt, or so I thought. Anyway, it always
paid to get that out of the way from the start with Big Jimmy –
otherwise you’d tend to get some rather nasty…well, you get the idea.
Jimmy-boy just pointed to the file – that was an annoying habit of
his. One among legions. So, like a putz, I blithely opened the file –
and guess whose face I saw staring back at me.
Now, I suppose I should make something clear at this point. The reason
I have a story to tell about this little episode at all is not because
I’m an amazingly kindhearted slot who couldn’t hurt a fly if it didn’t
deserve it. No, it’s because I worked my way up from the mean streets
of Seattle. I started out as a punk ganger with the Cutters years ago,
ended up doing some work for the Mob after the Cutters’ little ‘run-in’
with the Ancients and eventually managed to make my own way in the
world. I like being my own boss and I wouldn’t pass it up for anything.
Whoops, getting a bit off-track there. Anyway, the point is that when
you’re on the streets with a gang and when you’re doing biz for the
Mafia, you learn the meaning and value of loyalty. And that’s why I
have a story to tell. So shut up and listen.
Now when I opened that file and Big Jimmy saw this look of surprise
spread over my face, he must have figured that I knew Micky Donovan
from somewhere. I did, but even his wildest guess wouldn’t have come
close. "How much?" I asked immediately, dropping my voice into an angry
growl. That gave him the idea that wherever I knew Micky from, it was
the kind of association that wouldn’t hinder the operation – and might
even aid it.
"Twenty each," he told me. Not a bad price for a hit, I knew. With a
crew of five, that’d cost him a hundred K. Still, I knew something that
he didn’t know I knew – namely, that Micky worked with him in Fuchi’s
RAD. The PPD they could have called it – Professional Paranoia
Department. Arranging a hit on one of their Johnsons was not the piece
of cake you’d expect. So I upped the ante.
"A hundred each, half up front."
Heh, I know what you’re saying now. "Whoa, you’re CRAZY, man. Asking
for five times what the Johnson’s just offered? You can kiss this and
any other jobs from him ever again goodbye." Well, normally, yes, I’d
agree with you. But what you don’t know is that my boys and I are a
pretty high-priced crew as it is – and Big Jimmy was asking us to do
something we normally just don’t do. Still, I did expect him to sputter
a bit at that. What I didn’t expect was for him to blink once, look at
me steadily and say, "Done."
You could have cut the silence at our table with a cyberspur. My first
thought ran something along the lines of a quote from an old flatscreen
I’d seen once – -Inconceivable-! My second thought was, -Drek, there’s
really something wrong between Big Jimmy and Micky.-
Time for my second point, I’d say. The other thing Jimmy D didn’t know
was from where I knew Micky Donovan. I’d known Micky since the pair of
us had been little punks on Seattle’s mean streets, making as much
trouble for ‘The Man’ as we could. We’d both been with the Cutters
before that little episode with the Ancients and while I’d gone on to
the Mafia, he’d turned legit. We always kept in touch, though. About
the time I was breaking my Mob ties, he was selling his soul to Fuchi.
I know, I know. "What about you?" you’re saying. "You work for those
same scumbags and probably do a lot worse things than Micky ever did."
Well, I guess that’s true, to an extent. The thing that you’re missing
there is that Micky sold his soul to those scumbags. I just rent mine
out. And let me tell you, the pay is GREAT.
So there I am, with the fattest contract I’ve ever seen sitting in my
lap. And all I have to do is kill one of my oldest chummers. So what do
I do?
I can hear you all now. "Stand up," you’re saying. "You stand up,
floor the bastard and walk on out of there." That was exactly my first
impulse. So, of course, all I did was look Big Jimmy square in the eye
and say, "Done."
Heh heh heh…I can hear your sputters of outrage now – music to my
ears, let me tell you. "What the HELL is this!" I can hear you
screaming. "All that talk about loyalty and for the sake of a lousy
hundred K you sell out your buddy!" Well, yes, in a way that’s true –
but there are two things you aren’t considering. Firstly, if I didn’t
take the contract then our Jimmy D would’ve just gone to another crew
and someone else would have taken the job and Micky would’ve been just
as dead. And secondly – and most importantly – I had no intention of
killing Micky; but I was going to get at least fifty K just for saying
one word. Not very honourable, I know, but then I’m really just a
semi-reformed gutter-punk at heart, so what the hell do I care about
honour?
So I kept talking. "Have the payment made in the usual fashion and
leave the file with me. I’ll look into it and we’ll get started by the
end of the week."
Big Jimmy shook his head. In the bar’s lighting he appeared remarkably
like an animated skeleton bouncing around inside a sack of skin.
Unhealthy-looking guy. "Tonight," he told me. "I want him dead
tonight."
I just laughed. "You’re kidding, right?" He stared at me and slowly
shook his head and I laughed again. "Okay then. One million each."
Even Big Jimmy blanched at that. "You’re kidding me."
It was my turn to shake my head. "Hardly," I said, deadly serious.
"I’ve locked horns with this guy before and I know he’s in the RAD too.
I don’t know why you want him dead and I don’t want to know-" big fib
there, "-but I do know that unless you give us time to work something
he’ll be a fragging cast-iron slitch to get to. So that leaves you with
three options. First, you pay us five million nuyen to kill him tonight
and we all take our chances; and we probably botch it because of a lack
of preparation and then we all end up in the drekker." I grinned. "You
really think we’re gonna protect you when we can save our hides by
giving you up?" I shook my head. Tip for Johnsons. That’s the reason
you don’t contract work out to people who know who you really are –
especially work like this. It’s just too easy to start naming names to
protect yourself when things go to drek. Yeah, there’s loyalty on the
streets – but it’s to each other, not to the corpers who hire us.
"Second option," I continued. "You pay some chiphead or fragwit ganger
a couple hundred nuyen to take a shot at him; and even if the fragger
somehow manages to get within a mile of him, he’ll blow it and you’ll
be back to square one again. Unless your target’s a suspicious slot and
guesses who sent the punk – then you’re in even more trouble." I could
see that one had scored. Jimmy D was paranoid enough that he found it
easy to believe that everyone else was too. For once that paranoia was
working for me.
"Third option – you give us five hundred K and some time to work with
– and this fragger’s dead in a week." I leant back and crossed my arms.
"So what’s it to be?"
I could barely hold back a smile. I’d hooked Big Jimmy with my first
sentence and landed him long before I’d finished speaking. He was mine
for the taking – I could see it in his eyes. "All right," he said
grudgingly. "All right. You’ve got a week. But that’s it. He HAS to be
gone by then."
I waved a hand both magnanimously and gracefully. Nothing like a hard
bargaining session to clear the head. "Done deal, Jimmy-boy. Now if
you’ll excuse me, your problems aren’t my problems until tomorrow." I
gestured him away and went back to my drinking. At least, that’s what
it looked like to him, so he left me to my amusements. Actually, I was
just beginning to realise I’d gotten myself in pretty deep and it was
time for me to think of a way out of it for me, my crew – and Micky.
It took a while, but I got there.
==Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow)
.sig Sauer
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