| From: | Matb <mbreton@**.NETCOM.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [TK] A Slow Burn (2 of 3) (long!) |
| Date: | Mon, 9 Jun 1997 03:01:29 -0700 |
>>>>>[So I overheard that Mac wants me ta give this kid some experience on
the rough streets - y'know, I really think these deckheads are used to snappin their
fingers and makin' things derez in Virt space, and start thinkin the same thing happens
here.
So Macky wants this new guy Push shown the streets, and it's gotta be me
to do it. "Fine," I says, 'cause I've been trainin' street muscle for
twelve years, but the next thing I know the kid's rappin on my door and
givin me a headache full of attitude. And I try jokin' with him, and
it's like he's trying not to take the joke, bein a stodgy unreasonable
blagger. Well, you know what to do if they can't take a joke.
I guess you can tell Macky that his little birdie's ready to fly. He's
lookin to have his deck back, so I better log off now. Tell you after
how the kid fared.]<<<<<
+++++ Override system name
-- Kant <20:25:44/06-07-58>
*****PRIVATE: Macapagal
>>>>>[The great events of last night.
+++++Video footage: Primary source (44MP)
+++++Audio footage: Secondary source (22MP): Obviously overdubbed at a
later point.
Kant's muttering the entire way to the warehouse, playing with his Bic.
Flick on, flick off. I've got two canisters of Sterno (or whatever)
next to me and from him it's flick on, flick off. I'm not in any danger
and my rational mind keeps telling me this, but --
But, like his Russian Roulette, the cigaret lighter's an annoying
habit. I figured out his gun trick a while ago; anyone could do the
same. It's all a show on Kant's part, specifically designed, it seems,
to tick me off. And (flick) it's working.
Speaking of guns, Kant's got his Warhawk. I'm going in unarmed, a
jerrycan in each hand. I've got Kant's zipgun strapped around my shin,
though - feels like I broke my leg and put it in a splint. I don't plan
on using it.
We spent about half an hour outside the warehouse - we couldn't park
that close, and it took time for their heat sigs to bleed through the
night air. An occasional wind would pick up and push the heat shadow
from the next building over across our field of vision, and eveerything
would blur
until the night grew calm again. And all the while, Kant was playing
with the lighter. We finally spotted the two guards, Mac, stationed
where you said they'd be, and nobody else was around; Kant grabs the
revolver and I lug the two canisters out of the hovervan; showtime,
Betty.
+++++Video compression (3.5MP compressed)
Kant sweats more than I do while I'm working the maglock. The codes you
gave us, Mac, work, but I want to make sure there's no system log of the
entrance or exit.
There's a small management office in the back of the warehouse. It's a
little pit of a room, two walls filled with racks of paper printouts of
merchandise shipped out long ago. One of the guards is stationed there,
but he's got the HVAC turned up - to keep him warm on those chilly
summer
nights, I guess. I go in high, Kant goes low - he's a Dwarf, so that's
pretty low.
The guard isn't where either of us thought he was, though - the
electronic surveillence equipment pumps out quite a bit of heat by
itself. I grab the guard by the shirt collar, but his arms are free
and scrabbling for the comm panel.
Kant slams his fist down onto it. shattering the PANICbutton the guard
had been reaching for.... There's a weak sproing, and the button pops
out of its casing.
"You hit the fraggin things hard enough," Kant says, "and you break the
switch without setting it off. Learned that doing hold-ups."
The guard struggles in my grip. I'm trying not to look into his eyes,
because I know his name. Jimmy Kopitz; same class as him in school.
Mac told us the guards were on the take, but we still have to make it
look they were roughed up.
Kopitz doesn't recognize me; he's scared and maybe, just maybe, you
never let him in on what was happening tonight, Mac? Is that the case?
I can't bring myself to hit him, but we can't leave him up here. I'm
looking over my shoulder, trying to find some rope or cable to tie him
up with, when Kant leaps off the desktop and slams into both of us. I
trip, not very gracefully, considering I have the zip forcing my leg
straight.
Kopitz' head slams into the concrete, this hollow popping sound, like
when you hit a baseball. He's unconscious, and I check to make sure
he's breathing.
The security system should have been scuttled in the '40s. It records a
half hour's worth of footage, makes a backup on location, sends another
copy to an outside security company (Secur-Gard) and then begins all
over again. While I'm dummying up thirty minutes of dead footage and
some security bywords on my travelling deck, Kant's busy with Kopitz. I
got a look at him before we left the office; Kant wasn't happy with
fracturing his skull. The ropes were going to cut off circulation, but
- fuck it - I couldn't bring myself to complain. Not in the middle of a
run.
We're out of the office, and heading down the stairs to finish our deed
when out of nowhere, a gunshot; puff of plaster by Kant's head. I duck
low, as the world bursts into vivid reds, oranges, surrounded by cold
black. A small marquee (THERMOGRAPHICS ENGAGED) appears, disappears.
Kant's voice, urgent: "Off to the left - go!" He slaps, hard, pushes
me into motion.
Dash forward, pause behind some crates. Still haven't spotted the guy.
The zipgun is clamped around my leg. I can't tell where Kant's gone,
can't tell where this guy is. I guess maybe he decided money wasn't
enough of an incentive to stay silent - and seeing how Kant beat Kopitz,
I can agree.
I'm dashing forward - trying to get back to Kant, really - when the
guard tackles me from behind. On going down a second time with that
damn gun fastened around my leg, my knee decides it's had enough and
tries to secede from my body. I can feel tendons stretch, rip, and my
leg seems
to burst into flame. It HURTS.
I guess the guard thinks the zipgun is just a lead pipe; he tears it off
my leg on throws it into the shadows. "You fuck," he hisses,
handcuffing me to a standpipe. "I've got you, and I'm going to get your
buddy, too."
+++++Video capture: 1.14MP
Hope you recognize this guy, Mac.
++++++Video compression: 2.25MP
Kant comes up to me, his Warhawk in his hand. "Push, you're gonna get
the both of us killed!" He grits his teeth, and pulls against the
standpipe. "One of the bolts is rusted loose, Betty; I think
I can this thing off. You seen that guard anywhere?"
I nod my head, but as I'm doing so, the guard steps out of the shadows.
"Kant!" I grunt, and the guard fires at almost the exact same moment; I
squint my eyes against the expected muzzle flash and find that Kant
isn't by my side any longer. The bullet ricochets off the drywall
behind me, clipping on of my ears as it flies.
The guard wheels around, trying to stay cool; Kant moves faster than any
Dwarf I've ever seen and I'm sure the guard is just as surprised.
"Where'd your buddy go?" he asks, levelling his pistol at me.
I shake my head, knowing my jaw's dropped stupidly open; I'm trying to
say something, anything he might like to hear, just so long as he
doesn't fire. I'm perplexed when he suddenly ducks and cuts, but a
trail of bullets follows him into the dark. I can hear Kant curse in
the shadows.
I set about trying to pull the pipe from the wall. Kant pushed it with
relative ease but to me, it weighs a ton; by pulling against it, letting
go, and pulling it again I set up a swing-like motion of about an inch
and a quarter. A little bit more, a little bit more --
There's a shot from behind me, and another muffled one; and then there's
a yelp of pain. A hard, metallic sound; someone grunting, and then
silence.
One bolt's worked itself loose; if a second one slips, I can work my
cuffs free.
More noise, and then both Kant and the guard appear again. Neither one
has a gun; they're facing off, doing the danger dance, discovering each
other's reach. The Dwarf's more solidly built, but the guard has a
knife, putting Kant off-balance. The guard knows how to use it,
sweeping
odd arcs into the air, a practiced random waltz, no pattern to be seen
and broken.
Kant swings his meaty fist, misses. The guard kicks him low, reward for
his efforts.
Kants swings again, and again the guard kicks. The knife's sort of
hovering in the background, implying danger: I'm keeping things simple,
it seems to say. I could do worse.
It's becoming apparent that despite his solid build, Kant has no great
skill in brawling. He swings again; the guard finally nicks him.
The second bolt pops free; the pipe echoes with a low, humming sound.
The guard notices, but doesn't let it distract him; Kant notices, and it
throws him completely off balance. The guard slashes forward, ripping
into into Kant's arm. But Kant roundhouses him, knocking the guard to
the floor. Before Kant's followup kick connects, the guard has rolled
away, behind some barrels.
The zipgun. It's somewhere around here.
Kant charges the guard, lost somewhere in the maze of crates and
barrels. There's a loud crash, sound of small, metallic things - nails,
probably - spilling on the floor.
There it is. Sprint down the aisle, toward Kant.
High-pitched scream; I barely recognize the soprano as Kant. Hurry
before he's dead. I whip around the corner, ready to fire.
Kant's on his knees, blood streaming from a long gash in his cheek.
Small tusks poke out, spread the wound. Kant's trying to pull a knife
out of a crate with his left hand; it takes me a moment to realize his
right isn't bracing the wood, it's caught by the knife. A black mass of
wire and circuitry protrude from the wound: his smartgun link.
I can't see the guard anywhere. "Kant!" I hiss. He looks up; it looks
like the guard sliced open his forehead as well. Head wounds always
have a lot of blood, I reassure myself.
"Push!" Kant's voice is hoarse, weak. "Get the frag outta here!"
His chivalry is touching, but I can't go. I've got a job to do. And,
damn it, I've got something to prove to Kant.
I make a shushing motion to Kant, try to step quietly across the floor.
The nails keep on catching, though, drawing on the concrete floor and
making small metallic screams. I stop walking, glance around, behind
me, up.
If he stays put, his heat sig bleeds through the background clutter. He
moves, my audio picks up the scuffling of his boot leather. His knife's
stuck in Kant, his gun's lying empty on the floor. I've got the
zipgun. One shot, it's all I got, but odds are in my favor.
Movement behind me. I turn, raising the zip, but I'm far too slow. The
guard's kick catches me in midsection; my breath escapes, feels like it
exploded inside me. I still manage to catch to guard with the butt of
the gun. The pipe, heavy to absorb recoil, smashes him in the chin. He
spits out a tooth. He's smart, though, knows he has to stay close, too
close for me to use the gun.
He lunges at me, feints; I'm a sucker and end up punching at a spot
where he no longer is. Reward, a leg sweep that leaves me counting
ceiling tiles. That and a scalpful of scattered nails. Bruce Lee
would've done a handspring, howled his odd monkey noises and broken this
guy's neck in
six places. Me, I'm lucky enough to roll out of the way before his
followup connects.
I roll a bit more, scramble to my knees and take off running. Kant and
I are so far behind schedule it's not funny; we have about three minutes
before we cross into our red zone - LoneStar's Average Response Time.
This has to end, has to end now.
I hear him running behind me. He's faster, but I have a head start. I
tuck the zipgun under my armpit, like Kant showed me; wheel around, and
let fire.
The recoil whips me ninety degrees to the left, into my spin. There's a
roar, backwash rolls over my arms and face. My hands are numb from the
blast, my audio blown out.
I've missed.
The guard stands in front of me, completely untouched and looking like
he himself does not believe it. He looks up at me, and I look up at
him, and I move just a fraction before he does.
I swing the pipe, and it crunches down on his collarbone, driving the
guard to his knees. Maybe his body doesn't even recognize the shock of
impact, because he's trying to grapple me; he curls one hand around my
belt and tries to lift me. I slam the pipe down, into the meat of his
shoulder, and again, and again and again, and he won't fucking let go,
he's bleeding and he won't fucking let go, and I realize I've got to put
him down. I lift the pipe up high over my head, slam it into the
guard's skull. If Kopitz hitting the floor sounded like a base hit,
this is a Babe Ruth home run.
Looking back at it, the clock shows I stood there a grand total of
fourteen seconds, but it felt like hours listening to the guard's wet
breathing noises finally stop.
Kant's no help at all setting the burn up, and it's slow work by
myself. We leave, a grand total of fourteen minutes after we arrive,
two and a half minutes into our Red Zone. Lone Star doesn't show.
Kant plays with his hand on the way home. Says it doesn't even hurt;
I'm not sure if it's bravado, shock, or both. I suspect the throbbing
from his face wounds are overriding the pain from his hand. Also the
fact that the blade bit more into the induction pad of his smartlink.
Playing with it keeps him occupied, focused, so it's all right by me.
But he makes the mistake of trying to tell me it was right what I did,
that the guard mustn't of been on the take, he would've fingered us,
fingered you, Mac, and named any names he knew. About halfway through,
I switch my audio off, but I can still see Kant moving his lips.
+++++ End audio footage
+++++ End video footage
You can scan the screamsheets if you want to make sure the stuff in the
warehouse went up all right. I guess it's obvious that what happened
tonight makes me a made man, Mac; your man.]<<<<<
-- Push <02:41:56/06-08-58>
INTERNAL: East Sumner Community Health Center/SecurityCam DataStore
>>>>>[+++++Video footage (8 MP)
Two figures - a Dwarf and a Human - hobble into the clinic lobby, both
of them bandaged up with gauze but obviously bleeding pretty badly. A
nurse rushes over to them, takes the Dwarf - the worse off of the two -
by the shoulder, and leads him to a gurney, which he climbs up onto and
lies down. She calls out for a doctor and assistant as she wheels the
gurney into a nearby room.
The Human, however, approaches the night nurse and asks for a Doctor
Morrow. She looks sideways at him for a moment, and then, pressing a
button on her console, nods to a door on her left.
The cameraview switches to follow the human to a small room, where he
meets with Dr. Morrow:
PUSH: Doc, thanks for coming through for us like this. I know I hate
it when someone asks for a favor on short notice.
MORROW: You, ah, know I don't have much say in that. But I'll see to
your friend's recovery, yes.
P: What do you mean by -? Oh, never mind. Look, about the Dwarf -
M: Don't tell me names; I don't want to hear them.
P: (laughs) Fine by me. Look, we got into this tussle together, and
it's my fault. I don't want this to go on the usual tab.
M: What do you mean by that?
P: I'll pay for it. But I don't want any word about this going to back
to Upstairs.
M: Does your friend agree with this?
P: By the time he wakes up, he will.
M: I don't like the sound of that.
P: It's not your concern. (Takes out a certified credstick) This is.
This is all you have to worry about. (Morrow reaches for the
credstick) Almost.
M: (Angrily) Get on with it.
P: You see how his hand got slashed open? He had a smartgun link
implanted, which was you'll note was ruined by the wound. Yes? (Morrow
glares, then nods.) The Dwarf was very fond of that smartgun link; he
used it to play a lot of tricks. I'm willing to pay for its
replacement, and, in fact, I want you to, ah, 'upgrade' it.
M: What do you mean by that?
P: I'll be changing the PROM on the firmware. I'll need access to your
mainframe and a good Matrix connection, and about an hour. Keep him
sedated until then, Doc - you're doing fine.
+++++ End video footage]<<<<<
Internal_Security_Bot <03:56:33/06-08-58>
