| From: | Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Reunion - Part 3 |
| Date: | Mon, 10 May 1999 00:33:51 -0700 (PDT) |
"Damn it, Micky, would you just listen to me for a minute?" I
bellowed. "Your boss is out to get you!" I quickly calmed myself down
and looked somewhat furtively around the bar. It isn’t often a smart
move to raise your voice when you aren’t on home turf – especially when
you’re discussing a contracted killing. No one seemed to be paying much
attention – one of the benefits of picking a low dive to do your
dealings in. The big drawback to such a strategy, however, is that it
tends to be a lot cheaper and easier for people to find out what you
were talking about, if anyone DID happen to be taking surreptitious
notes. It was most unlikely that Big Jimmy D would ever even hear
enough about this little meet to know to ask questions, though. I
suppose that was the one reason I was ever glad Big Jimmy was a
stuck-up snob. Apart from his shadow ops, he didn’t know anyone from
the seedy side of the streets.
Anyway, I leaned forward and grabbed Micky’s wrist tightly. "He was
sitting so close I could have reached out and tweaked his snotty nose!"
I hissed and shook his arm. "You KNOW I’ve done work for him, Micky. I
swear to you, Mr. James Edward Darcy-Rutherford sat just where you are
now and offered me half a mil if I’d get you out of his hair
permanently!" I tossed his arm away and sat back with a disgusted sigh.
"What do you find so hard to believe about all this?"
Micky was shaking his head in disbelief, his expression stunned. "He
wouldn’t do that, Bobby. I know he doesn’t like me, but he doesn’t like
anyone, really."
I shook my head. "Correction, Micky. He doesn’t like anyone, true –
but he HATES you. But that’s not why he wants you dead anyway." I
paused somewhat dramatically, then plunged forward in a rush, as if I
was uncomfortable telling him this. "He heard about your little
performance the other night, Micky – he heard about the threats." Micky
let out a groan and I tried not to smile. Score one for Blood.
Actually, at the time I still wasn’t exactly sure what had set Big
Jimmy off. I’d found out about Micky’s little pub-crawl through some
discreet digging, but I wasn’t able to confirm that that was why Jimmy
D wanted him dead until some time later. It was a very good guess at
the time, though. "You and I both know he’s the most paranoid slot in
existence. He thinks you’re serious and he wants you dead before you do
unto him."
Micky was as pale as a vampire by this time. "Are you sure?" he asked
in a little-boy kind of voice that I hadn’t heard from him since we
were kids. That in itself was quite remarkable. I could’ve sworn you’d
never be able to get a sound that soft out of him. Micky was a very big
guy – bigger than me, even, and that was saying something. That was
probably one of the reasons he intimated Big Jimmy. Hell, he even
intimidated me when he was angry.
I nodded solemnly. I hated to do this to the poor guy, but it was for
his own good. "Very sure, Micky."
"What did you do?" he asked, even more subdued than before.
Uh-oh. Lie time. I could feel the little fragger screaming and clawing
at my throat as I began to speak. Second Unwritten Law of the Streets –
you don’t lie to your chummers.
"Turned him down, of course," I said easily.
The truth never even stood a chance. I had the lie out and winging its
way to Micky’s ears before it could do more than tickle my slick little
gullet. You see, that law works well when you’re just a punk ganger.
When you’re a shadowrunner, though, you learn that things aren’t as
clear-cut as you thought they were. We runners have a little qualifier
we stick onto the end of that law – ‘unless you can get away with it’.
I’d had a lot of practise lying to chummers over the years, so it
didn’t cause me more than a momentary twinge of guilt – and I’m used to
those. "But that’s not the point. By now he’s gone on to his
second-string crew and he’s got someone to take the job. Not everyone
he asks is going to be an old chummer of yours, Micky."
Suddenly, he got suspicious. I guess the initial shock had passed.
"Why’d he come to the Service anyway, Bobby? He knows you guys don’t do
that kind of job. And you never screw your Johnson unless he screws you
first. So what gives?"
I almost grinned. That was my Micky – stubborn, hardheaded and not a
little paranoid himself. "He’s always going on to me about how we’re
his best crew, Micky. I guess he really means it." That elicited a
reluctant nod. "Anyway, I guess the big money offer was supposed to
salve our consciences." Then I did grin. "Apparently he doesn’t know we
go back. That’s why I’m telling you. Anyway, I didn’t take the job, so
he’s not my Johnson right now – so technically I’m not screwing him."
Micky whistled admiringly. "That’s one slick bit of sophistry, Bobby."
I laughed rather delightedly. Playing with meaning and intent and the
letter of an agreement is Micky’s stock-in-trade, so I’m always pleased
when I can impress him. "You like?"
Micky nodded and that was when I knew I had him. Two from two. I was
on a roll. "So what do I do?"
I let a slow smile spread across my lips. "You hire us, that’s what
you do."
Micky was obviously puzzled. "To do what?"
"To kill Jimmy D, of course."
That one rocked him. I could tell. "Say what?"
"You hire the Service to kill one James Edward Darcy-Rutherford the
Third. We’re good, we’re professional and we’ll only charge you fifty K
all up – a tenth what Big Jimmy was offering."
"But you don’t do wetwork."
I shrugged. "Well, actually, I’m doing this to save your miserable
little hide – so, technically, it isn’t wetwork. Let’s call it
preemptive bodyguarding, shall we?"
Micky’s eyes lit up and he whistled again. Twice in one night! Damn,
I’m good! "Frag, Bobby, you play as fast and loose with your ethics as
any corp bloodsucker I’ve ever run across."
I just smiled. "I try."
"I’ll just bet you do." Much calmer now, Micky downed what was left of
his beer. He paused, then slowly shook his head. "I can’t, Bobby.
Things just aren’t done like that in the corporation. We play by
different rules."
"Damn it, Micky, what do I have to say to get it through your thick
skull?" I yelled, slamming my fist against the table and leaving a
rather large dent. That’s par for the course in a place like this.
You’d think the management would have figured out by now that when half
your clientele are street thugs with more muscles than a troll on
steroids, reinforcing the tables is a Good Idea(TM). "This ain’t
Fuchi-land, boy! You’re in the RAD and that means you’re playing by
street rules – MY rules! You want to live past the end of the week, you
listen to what I have to say and then you do what I tell you to do!"
This guy! Even now, after all these years in the corporate world, he
still tried to play fair. I was amazed he’d survived as long as he had.
Micky was still going to argue. I could see it in his eyes.
Fortunately, other events preempted him. As he began to speak again, I
saw some people moving up in the front of the bar. Okay, I know what
you’re thinking. "You saw some people moving? So what? If that’s a big
thing then you’re getting as paranoid as Big Jimmy." Maybe, but on the
streets, paranoia is a survival tool. You just have to learn to focus
it. That’s the difference between Big Jimmy D and I; his paranoia is
unfocused – he thinks everyone is out to get him. Me on the other hand
– well, I can just tell when something is out of place. You spend
enough time on the streets and you learn to distinguish between real
and imagined threats. That’s a talent that’s kept me alive for years
now – so when I saw four people stand up in different places around the
bar almost simultaneously, I could tell something was going down. Maybe
it wasn’t to do with us, but I knew enough to keep an eye on them and
that’s what saved our hides.
"Micky," I said quietly. "Shut the frag up. Do you or do you not want
to live past the end of the week?"
Micky blinked in astonishment. "Of course I do, Bobby. What do you
think I am, suicidal?"
"Okay, then…" my voice trailed off as I saw the four hitmen make their
move. The closest, a short, beautiful woman with extraordinarily spiky,
fluorescent green hair, whipped out a Ingram SuperMach SMG and two of
the others produced various other weaponry. The last, a tall, stately
man with short, black hair raised his hands in an odd gesture that
screamed ‘mage!’ Major bad news.
"…duck!" I continued, reaching out and dragging Micky down and away
from the table as the woman opened up, laughing wildly.
Now, whatever anyone tells you, the Ingram SuperMach is not a wimpy
gun. Sure, it only packs light pistol rounds, the kind of things that
flatten out against even the lightest body armour you can find. But if
you’re good enough, even a light pistol can do some nasty damage. And
when you’re firing explosive APDS and those rounds are coming faster
than drek out of a tourist in Aztlan, it doesn’t really matter how much
armour you’re wearing.
As the two of us rolled across the crowded floor, the crazy woman
turned our table into little more than a bad memory. Popping to my
feet, I jacked on my wired reflexes and everything went into slow-mo.
My Savalette Guardian virtually jumped into my hand as the emerald
witch adjusted her aim towards us again. The bar had dissolved into
screaming, running masses of people. A number of them had actually
opened up, some at me and Micky, some at the hit team, some at each
other. One thing to be said for insane fear and barely controlled
aggression – it makes it damned hard for a group of assassins on one
side of a crowded bar to get to the other.
That left Micky and I to face the emerald witch. Reaching down my left
hand I grabbed Micky by the collar and hauled him to his feet. My other
hand, my metal hand, pointed my gun towards the woman. My smartlink
painted a red dot on the centre of her chest and I squeezed the
trigger.
The loose sleeve of my armoured jacket ballooned as the counterweights
of my cyberarm gyromount popped out near my wrist to absorb the recoil.
A three-round burst exploded from the muzzle of the Guardian and
stitched a line of fire across the emerald witch’s chest. She let out
an unholy screech and dropped out of sight.
Micky’s eyes were wide and staring as I turned towards him. I cursed.
Seems it had been a while since Micky had found himself in the middle
of a firefight. NOT a good time for him to zone out on me. "C’mon,
Micky!" I bellowed. "We’re outta here!"
Micky nodded and the pair of us raced towards the exit. That’s another
thing being big is good for. Even in the middle of a riot, people’s
instincts tell them to get the frag out of the way of anyone bigger
than them – and there ain’t many bigger than Micky and I.
Unfortunately, it seems that little aphorism works just as well when
you’re dealing with a mage. Just as we were closing on the door, tall,
dark and stately stepped out of the crowd in front of us.
"Frag!" I yelped. The mage’s hands were slowly coming up as I glanced
around wildly. I spotted the large front window of the bar not three
feet away and, lacking better inspiration, I headed towards it,
dragging Micky by the collar of his suit. "I think you should cover
your head, Micky!" I shouted. Then I jumped.
Micky’s extra weight made things a little less graceful than normal,
but I still managed to tuck and roll as we flew through the window. The
glass shattered around us in a wave of tinkling shards, then we hit the
ground. An instant later the mage’s spell, a huge, billowing ball of
flames, flooded out and around us. We were still rolling, though, and
it barely scorched us.
I dragged Micky to his feet again, whirled and pumped another burst
back into the bar at the mage. He ducked out of the way and we were off
before he could follow up on his first spell.
Micky looked at me as we pounded down the street towards my car, fear
written all over his face. "They were…after…us…weren’t they…Bobby?" he
puffed. Seemed like firefights weren’t the only thing Micky hadn’t been
in for a while. I decided I’d have to take him down to the old gym
again – if we survived this little adventure, of course.
"No, Micky. They weren’t after us. They were after YOU."
Micky paused, then nodded. "What do…I need…to do…Bobby?"
I smiled. Seemed the attack had been just the thing to convince Micky
he needed to take my advice. As that guy they call ‘The Bard’ – you
know, Willie Shakespeare – might have said, ‘It is a most fortuitous
happenstance when a bungled assassination doth serve your own ends’.
Poetic fellow, that Willie.
"You hire the Service to take out Big Jimmy, Micky. That’s the only
thing you can do."
"Okay. You’re…on, Bobby."
As we pelted down the street, my smile widened. Stage two complete.
Next step – go see Jimmy D again and try to save the lives of these two
stubborn fools.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, the First Unwritten Law of the Streets is
‘Don’t screw your chummers’. Shadowrunners’ addendum – ‘unless you can
get away with it’.
==Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow)
.sig Sauer
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