| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Thinking |
| Date: | Fri, 5 Jun 1998 23:53:23 +0100 |
>>>>>[He's still talking to himself. I take it that was part of the
programming?
+++++begin diary
Guess I made an impression on somebody: Lilith's had my Shadowland
access restricted. Oh, well, no more taunting the zoo for a while.
Amazing, how totally hypocritical they are out there, though. Paraquat
slags Lilith, Quinn stands up for her, and listen to the whines about
"the Gods closing ranks".
I point out some home truths, and suddenly they're all lining up
together, whining like an Electrolux. But that's all right, because
these guys are _shadowrunners_! That magic word that lets them get away
with anything they damn well want.
The new mayhem machine works. We served an outstanding warrant on some
Mafioso, Nicky Padoglio, known as "the Stallion" to his cronies. Paid
him a house call and the security decided to fight, he had a dozen or so
hired guns there. Four of them wired to various extents. Nice weapons,
lots of toys.
Didn't help them.
+++++begin video
Mitchell is adjusting the L7 on its sling, checking that both magazines
are in place and the weapon is ready. They're in the back of a van, by
the look of things.
"Playing with your weapon again? I hear it stunts the growth." Lilith
says slyly. She, too, is in raid gear, and is assembling a Steyr AUG
from a foam-lined metal case that contains many more parts than
expected: allowing her, as here, to swap everything down to the bolt
group, before locking a ported and weighted barrel into place and
clamping a cut-down Defiance shotgun underneath. "You wouldn't want it
to... go off prematurely, now do you?"
"Safety's on. For now." the SEAL replies, bringing his helmet visor
down. "How far?"
"Half a mile. We set?" She taps a magazine of 7.62mm APSE on her helmet,
locks it in place, chambers the first round: begins feeding fat red
twelve-gauge shells into the shotgun.
Mitchell draws his Guardian automatic, checks the safety's on, the
hammer down, the magazine full and a round in the chamber: replaces it
and fastens the holster snap. "Ready to roll." He picks up a five-foot
crucifix, pads of something duct-taped to the ends, yellow cord along
the arms and a small box at their junction.
"Street's clear." The van slows, and Lilith is first out, Mitchell
following with the cross: placing it against the eight-foot wall that
bounds one of this affluent area's houses, he yanks on a ringpull. "Fire
in the hole!" he shouts, and he and Lilith race around the corner:
waiting for half-a-dozen heartbeats.
A sharp, clear concussion, black smoke and dust rising into the night
sky, and the pair round the corner to see a ragged breach blown in the
wall. Lilith uses it as cover, as Mitchell sprints for the house. A
small garden, not a rolling expanse, it's a dozen paces to the double
front door in its elegant portico.
There, still unopposed, he slaps four yellow-and-black packages the size
of cigarette packets down the join in the doors, setting off the
friction ignitors on all three before retreating.
The series of explosions belch smoke out of the doorway, but not much
debris flies: the charges are small and well shaped. Lilith arrives as
Mitchell throws two grenades through the ruined doors, flash to blind
any defenders and concussion to stun and confuse them, and follows
through with the L7's twin muzzles seeking targets. Bright light washes
through the windows, a Lone Star helicopter spearing the house in its
spotlight, someone using the Sky Shout to boom that this is a raid,
throw down your weapons, surrender.
The burly Dwarf coming out of a doorway with a shotgun obviously isn't
listening, so Lilith explains matters to him with a short burst of
gunfire. The Dwarf agrees with her conclusions, dropping the shotgun and
falling to the carpet.
A strobing muzzle flash at the top of the staircase and bullets blow
chunks of plaster out of the wall, ruining the wallpaper. Mitchell fires
twice in return, the L7's rounds muffled in volume but bright as cannon
tracers, leaving eyeblink streaks of fire before they explode in angry
red flame. Someone upstairs begins to scream in agony, and a terrified
male voice begins to shout in Italian.
Behind him, Lilith is clearing the lower floor. A burst from her rifle,
then two rounds from a shotgun, and the argument upstairs is getting
furious: someone waves a submachinegun around the corner, blind-firing
down the stairs.
"That only works in simsense, dimwit." Mitchell mutters, lasing for
range and firing another HE round: then charging up the stairs, spraying
the landing with fire from the carbine.
Bodies lie scattered at the landing as the SEAL crashes into the master
bedroom. Two occupants, a pot-bellied middle-aged man in silk boxer
shorts trying to hide behind the bed and a lean Ork in a suit, the
muzzle of his Ingram flaring as he fires at Mitchell, Mitchell firing
one shot back: the weapon detecting the close range and the carbine's
empty magazine, automatically choosing one of the reserve KEAP rounds.
The Ork flies back, dead before he hit the floor, a, inch-wide hole
blown through his chest. The man in his underwear babbles in Italian,
hands raised, obviously surrendering, as Lilith appears in the doorway.
"I got him." Mitchell says.
"Yeah." Lilith shouts something in Italian: the reply is defiant but
fearful. Activity outside can be heard, police arriving, the helicopter
still flooding the house with its million-candela Midnight Sun. "Few
guards still alive, they're staying put.
Mitchell looks down, at the bodies by the door: an Elven girl,
surgically beautiful, naked, very dead. Padoglio's bodyguard and
mistress combined? Hit by a L7 round in the hip, her leg is gone and
she's leaking loops of intestine onto the carpet, her expensively
perfect body torn by the watchspring shrapnel. Another man bled to death
from a severed femoral artery, already pale and cold: the last has lost
most of his face to a near-miss. He keeps pawing at the ruined flesh,
moaning softly, oblivious to his other wounds.
The SEAL shifts his gaze to his L7. "Oh, _momma_." he whispers, slightly
awestruck at its results, before changing the magazine in the carbine.
Downstairs the police are following up.
"Impressive, I'm sure." Lilith says coldly, still covering the landing
and its other doors. "Are you having fun there?"
"Yeah. I _love_ this gun."
"I thought you would. Get some cuffs on Laughing Boy and let's get out
of here."
+++++end video
An arrest, to shut up the moaners who complain we only kill people. A
legal one, too. Warrant was to check for "unlicenced automatic weapons
and explosives", that allowed us a maximum-violence entry, and the first
hood we killed tagged everyone in the house with first-degree homicide.
Gotta love the law.
Padoglio's headed for jail. Small-time Mafia, but I figure he'll give us
something bigger. If I get him the right cellmate, pass the right word
so the guards look the wrong way, he'll _beg_ to be allowed to blab
after a while. I'm starting to like this job.
Don't know why Lilith isn't happier. We're winning, for once.
+++++end diary]<<<<<
-- Furrow <23:53:53/06-05-59>
