| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Stealing His Thunda |
| Date: | Mon, 13 Jan 1997 21:58:15 +0000 |
+++++begin video
"Kurtz, sitrep." Lynch says laconically.
"Glad to have you back, El-Tee. It's steadied up some, round here. The
sentry guns on the factory front have got us held back, that InterPol
sniper with the Barrett's plinking them but it's slow and not much else
seems to work. Some guys in a Bison crashed out, ran right through our
fire, then the helos toasted it, steel confetti time. Another missile
got shot at it, but it dropped enough flares for the Fourth of July and
got away clean. I got one wounded, Rosy, and we pulled forward to cover
the flank. Figured your Gomers might try and break."
"Outstanding, Kurtz. Imp?"
"Trying to snipe the sentry guns so we can move forward and back you up,
and we're duking it out with a couple of guys who were shooting up the
wounded cops and lobbing thumpers at the tenement. Can't get in and kill
them until the Sentries shut down, but we got them pinned and shooting
at us instead."
"D'Arkan?"
"This is Crawley, Chris is hit but he'll be okay. We're moving to cover
the west and north flanks. We got nailed pretty hard, snipers, grenades
and LAWs. Chris dealt with the LSS officer - if he lives, he's on
charges. We're on it."
"They were gunning for Feds. How about the cops?"
"They've got about forty down, including both SWAT teams. Canson is
blaming it all on you."
"I'll deal with him later." Lynch takes a deep breath. "Okay, Imp,
you're in command out there, I got Thunda to take down."
"I bet that hurt to say." smirks Lilith.
"Offer thee silence, wench, lest I silence thee with a wrench-"
"Lynch? You sonofabitch! What the hell do you mean, some guy called
Imp's in charge! I have four dozen of my men down thanks to your
bonehead-"
"Clear the net and shout later." Lynch sounds angry himself, but is
calmer than the LS officer. "We'll work out who to blame at debrief. Now
do your fucking job." He closes the channel, though its "signal" light
blinks.
"Just what we need. I hope Crawley can keep the cops under control" he
mutters. "Matt, you there?"
"Yeah. All four down. Where you want us?"
"Cover our backs and don't let him get out, or any of his other friends
get in."
"You got it. Easy wants in with you, I'm cool." Blade is as calm as
usual.
Lynch pauses. "Okay." The Elf comes through, carefully.
"Easy, don't get separated from us." Lilith sounds serious. "He can beat
any of us individually. Don't let him get you alone." The Elven samurai
nods wordlessly as Lynch rises and moves forward through the jungle of
debris, Lilith behind him and Easy backing them up. They pick a path
through the wreckage, cover-and-moving slowly forwards-
Lilith fires a long burst, bullets ricocheting and clanging, and Lynch
catches a glimpse of a fleeting form and sprays it too, with no effect.
Mocking laughter booms over the PA system.
"Try again. Try harder. You can't catch me, you can't stop me, I'm
invincible!" Lilith snarls something in Japanese as they continue their
advance, Lynch firing aimed single shots at anything that might hide a
man.
"That's scary, Lynch, you shot a console. And now you killed some pipe!
Did you learn that in the Marines? Whereas I do stuff like this-" a
warning groan makes Lynch look up, then bolt forward as a hopper of
scrap dumps onto where they were standing, Lilith picking herself up
from where she'd thrown herself clear.
"Oh, no! I only killed one of you!" Thunda mocks. "Easy was, well, easy.
One down, two to go."
"Think he means it?" Lilith subvocalises.
"Doubt it. Easy's faster than us, but she's on her own. Maybe that's
what he meant."
"Hope so, for her sake." Lilith scans the darkness. "I kind of like her,
psycho or not."
"Going to sit and talk all say?" Thunda's voice booms over the speakers.
"I knew it all along, Lynch, you're a coward, probably a faggot as
well."
Lynch moves ahead, still firing at anything that might hide an enemy.
"Oh come on, Jason - can I call you Jason? That won't work. You won't
catch me like that. And as for you, Lilith... look behind you!"
Lilith leaps aside before she turns, as a steel beam, studded with
sharpened pieces of rebar, whips through the air where she had been a
second earlier: had she turned, she'd have caught it in the small of the
back.
"How did he..." Lynch whispers.
"Cameras. He's got to be watching us." Lilith replies/
"Sonofabitch... radio linked? Couldn't string fibre,"
"Yeah." Lilith grins, her slightly-too-large canines visible, "radio
linked. Come on, Mister Electronic Warfare."
"What, you want me to do this?" Lynch's headware display is blurring
through scanning and tracking, breaking out and locking up frequencies:
eight camera channels, all now receiving the same broadcast of a 1980s
heavy metal track at full power.
"Oh, old music. That's cute, Lynch, that's real cute, that crap rots
your brain. What is that Ace of Spades shit? You're pretty pale for a
prairie nigger, Lynchie, can't be talking about you."
Lilith smiles at her husband as he changes magazines and they resume
their advance, silently this time. "Think that's it?" she asks aloud.
"Might have some on fibre. Or maybe some other tricks. He's a sneaky
snivelling chickenshit son-of-a-bitch-"
"FUCK YOU!!!" Thunda shouts. "I don't take that shit from anyone!"
"Sucker!!!!" Lilith subvocalises, smirking, as they turn, the thermal
overlay on Lynch's vision being emphasised as he scans the cluttered
darkness-
A point of warmth atop one of the furnaces, a small warm object painted
the same rust-brown as everything else in this place.
"See that?"
Lilith's rifle stutters and the drone falls out of sight, a crash
audible. "See what?"
"Think that's funny?" Thunda's voice booms over the PA. "Laugh _this_
off!" Both Lilith and Lynch dive for cover as an explosion sends
shrapnel and debris flying."
"Ouch." mutters Lynch, picking a chunk of steel out of his chest armour,
as they crawl clear of the smoke.
"You can't stop me! You can't even slow me down!" Thunda rants, another
explosion hitting something that falls with a screech of tearing metal
and a crash. "And you're going to be running for the REST OF YOUR
FUCKING LIVES!!! I'm gonna be in every shadow! Every crowd! I'm gonna
chase you down, rip your eyes out and skull-fuck you to death!"
Lynch comes up, scans the darkness over the sights of his rifle, then is
thrown sideways by another explosion.
"You dead yet, Lynch? You're gonna wish you were! You better pray I kill
you here and now! 'Cause if you're alive when I get to you, I'm going to
make Hell seem like a fucking VACATION!" Bullets ricochet off something
near Lilith's head.
"Two shooters?" asks Lynch softly.
"Sounded like a rifle. Thunda's using a big thumper." Lilith moves,
comes up and fires a short burst, ducks and dashes away as another
grenade blasts where she fired from: Lynch rises, drops as muzzle
flashes wink and bullets crack overhead.
"Fuck this. Blade, there's a guy with a good view-"
"I see him. Next time he moves, he's dead. You okay in there?"
"So far."
"You think you're going to walk away from this, Lynch? I got people all
through this building! You walk out, they'll slow you down, and I'll be
there to fuck you over permanently!" Thunda bellows.
A distant voice shouts "Federal officers! This area clear!" almost in
reply.
"Lynch?" Crawley's voice. "We're coming in loud to let the fragger know
he's boxed in."
"Do it. Carefully. And thanks." Lynch comes up, fires a long burst
towards Thunda's sniper, darts behind an overturned air compressor as
bullets clang and ricochet, then you hear the thudding of another FN-
HAR-
"Sniper down." Blade's calm voice.
Elsewhere in the building, you hear gunfire, occasional explosions,
shouts. "Federal officers!" and "FBI! Nobody move!"
"Hey, Thunda! Looks like you don't got people all through the building
no more!" shouts Lynch.
"SO FUCKING WHAT?" A phosphorous grenade bursts against the compressor
and Lynch flings himself to the floor, slashing with controlled panic at
the smoking sleeve of his jacket with his spurs. The Nomex has saved him
from a severe burn, but his left arm is now bare apart from the glove on
his hand: a dramatic and beautiful tattoo of a dragon envelops the
entire arm.
"Missed again, Thunda!" Lynch mocks. "Guess you washed out on
marksmanship too, huh?"
"You Marine FUCK!" the PA bellows.
"Out of friends, escape routes and ideas. What else can-" A sharp crack
and a puff of smoke, and fragments ring and clatter.
"Keep trying!" Lynch yells, though he's breathing harder as he picks
himself up. Lilith gives him a hand signal and he nods.
"What, you didn't like that?" Thunda laughs loudly. Lynch pulls the
rifle back into his shoulder, muttering to himself in Lakota, and his
vision scans across the ruined machinery in front of him, then moves
around and pulls himself partly up it, the rifle held one-handed and
swinging around the foundry-
A sharp 'pop' and more smoke, and Lynch sighs with relief, dropping back
down. He grins at Lilith, whose expression of worry is only just fading.
"Your explosives skills match your shooting, Thunda!" he shouts,
regarding the small rectangle - stamped with the words FACE TOWARDS
ENEMY - and the smouldering wire where its detonator had been. He must
have pulled the detonator while he stood in front of it, you realise, as
an incoherent bellow of rage booms over the speakers.
Lynch subvocalises to Lilith "He can see me, where is he?"
"Another drone?" she suggests.
"Not by radio, have to be fibre to control the drones... Control the
drone! That damn furnace!"
Coming back up, he turns and fires, the twenty-three rounds remaining in
the magazine all expended into the tuyeres of one furnace. Lilith also
rises, the air vents of the furnace a mass of sparks and strikes. An
agonised scream echoes, dying rapidly into a choked gurgle.
"Scratch one rigger, I say scratch one rigger!" Lynch shouts cheerily as
he reloads.
"You think that's good? Try THIS!" A drumming roar of explosions and
clanging metal, smoke and dust rising and flame billowing an orange
light across the foundry. Screams can be heard, and Thunda laughs again.
"Scratch a dozen Feds! Real funny, huh, Lynchy? Real fucken funny!
Julienne fried Fed! Who's laughing now?"
Faint shouts in the background, the Federal agents dealing with their
wounded and continuing their inch-by-inch clearance of the steelworks.
"You missed some, Thunda!
"I'll kill them after I rip you a new asshole! Then I'm gonna make you
watch me kill your wife while you lie there bleeding! You're a dead man,
Lynch!"
The mercenary advances through the tangled machinery, the rifle's front
sight and the smartgun cursor tracking across twisted ironwork and torn
conduits. "Running out of friends, Thunda! Everything you set up to stop
me, I get past! Everyone you send, we kill!" He's moving into a clearer
area-
Lynch sees the warm manshape and is falling aside as bullets tear past
him, firing the FN-HAR one-handed as he throws himself behind an ore
cart, landing on his feet and running forward still wildly firing back,
the gunfire still tracking him as he crashes against an overturned,
burned-out forklift, the automatic fire ending abruptly.
He looks out, ducks again as Thunda sprays the forklift with another
long burst, and puts a hand up over the forklift's side: a sub-display
from the camera in his thumb fuzzes, then comes to life and shows Thunda
advancing slowly, an Ingram held in each hand.
"HEY, ASSHOLE!" bellows Lilith's startlingly loud voice and Thunda
whirls, firing one Ingram at the new threat: Lynch rises and rakes
Thunda with a burst from the rifle, making him stagger before the
smartlink's ammo readout registers zero and the HAR clicks empty.
Reaching for a magazine, Lynch pauses, looks down at the flapping, empty
pouches across his chest: eight magazines, nearly three hundred rounds,
expended in a few minutes. Cursing softly, he lays the rifle aside,
drawing his stainless-steel Colt Python.
Thunda is sprawled on the ground, looking around: first at Lynch, then
Lilith as she emerges, then back at a battered Easy - minus her helmet,
the side of her face a mass of blood. He tosses both Ingrams aside.
"Okay, I guess I give myself up." He laughs. "Read me my rights and show
me where to sign for bail."
"No way." says Easy flatly.
"Fuck you, bitch!" Thunda shouts, then recoils as she aims her rifle.
"No. You're Feds. Right? You have to arrest me. You got to play by the
rules. Rules say, you arrest me. You charge me. You put me on trial and
send me to prison. That's the game, isn't it?"
"Make us play it." Lynch replies. "The suspect resisted arrest, the
suspect was shot, the suspect is dead. Think anyone's going to care?"
The fear is naked in Thunda's eyes as he picks himself up, retreats from
the three agents, until his back is pressed against a wall. "You're
Feds. You're wearing uniforms. People are watching! People will know!"
"That's the idea." Easy's voice is soft, her expression almost happy.
"Everyone will know what happens to scum like you. Plus I get to spend
the reward I got with a clear conscience."
"You can't just shoot me! I'm begging you, you can't just kill me!"
Thunda drops to his knees. "See? I'm begging you! Don't kill me! I can
get you money, fix you up! I've got friends, important friends, they'll
be real mad if you kill me!"
"Why are we waiting?" asks Lilith in a stage whisper.
"Because I'm actually enjoying this." replies Easy - you realise one of
her eyes is shattered amidst the blood and torn flesh.
"And because, maybe, just maybe, he's right. We shouldn't just kill him
out of hand, because it's convenient. Or even because we're afraid he
might get traded or released, and kill again." Lynch glances at a
puzzled Easy, an exhausted Lilith, and a Thunda whose face is suddenly
alive with hope.
"That's right, Lynch! That's right! You shouldn't kill me!" Thunda
stares pleadingly at Lynch. "Please! Please!"
"Give me a reason, Thunda. One reason you should live that doesn't
involve you 'fixing me up'." Lynch's voice is dangerously soft.
"Lynch, come on! I don't want to die! I don't want to die! What the fuck
did I do you, should kill me for?" Thunda is still kneeling, pleading,
and either the smoke is making his eyes water or he's crying. "You can't
just kill me!"
"Why not?" Lilith asks sardonically, aiming her FN-HAR at his head. "Let
there be light." Thunda screams and covers his head with his arms,
Lilith laughing as she lowers the rifle.
"I was just doing what I was told, Lynch, I was only obeying orders, I
can give you the whole network!"
"Their Matrix nodes, their IDs, all that wonderful stuff?" Lilith says
as her voice oozes sarcasm. "Won't play, Thunda, Mr Re-Route, Mr Maze-
In-The-Matrix. They cut you off so when you went down you couldn't sell
them out."
Thunda cowers back, arms over his face, sobbing. "I don't want to die...
Please, don't kill me! I don't want to die!"
Easy is about to speak when Lynch silences her with a gesture, the Elf
stepping back and aiming her own rifle.
"Look at me, Thunda." The man on the ground, curled into a foetal ball
and still sobbing, shakes what little you can see of his head.
"Goldsmith, look at me or I'll kill you where you lie." Thunda peels one
arm away from his face, looks up at Lynch.
"Now, sit up and listen."
"You're not going to-"
"Sit up and listen to me." The mercenary's voice is firm, and Thunda
does so, his face wet. "I want you to know why."
Lynch raises the Python and thumbs back the hammer in one smooth
movement.
"For the children."
The shot is very loud.
Thunda's face is frozen in an expression of terror, around the .357 hole
in his forehead. The silence that follows is even louder, and Thunda
falls sideways, and you see how much of his skull the explosive bullet
blew away.
"Lynch to all units. Thunda is dead. I repeat, Thunda is dead." The
mercenary staggers, seizes a pipe for support. "Let's get the hell out
of here."
"What about him?" asks Easy.
"You want him, you drag him." says Lilith.
The Elf manages a smile. "I think we'll leave it to the experts. Just
check every rescue drone." The trio turn to leave and static suddenly
shrills through Lynch's hearing: he doubles over for a moment, clutching
at his head, as a soft voice buzzes across his commlinks...
"Let there be light."
A sharp explosion behind them and they all whirl, weapons out: a cloud
of smoke is rising, and flames are visible. Going back, Thunda's body is
blazing with incredible fervour, the head mostly gone and the flesh
burning as though his blood were gasohol. The squeal of static slowly
fades.
"I guess someone didn't want an autopsy." Lynch mutters, still clutching
the back of his head, and turns back; the group moving with painful gait
to leave the foundry.
Blade and Quinn are waiting, as is D'Arkan, outside the smelter room.
FBI agents are photographing the scene and collecting evidence.
"Jesus, you look bad." Quinn reaches into a pocket, draws a silver
dollar, flips it and groans. "Should have guessed." She reaches out and
touches Easy's face, and the torn flesh flows back into its accustomed
form leaving only a faint scar under the drying blood: the wrecked
cybereye is more painfully visible, as is a nasty distortion of its
orbit. "That must hurt."
"Caught a sledgehammer in the side of my face, feels like he bent my eye
socket where it hit. Plus some other stuff. He was careless enough to
assume I was dead instead of just stunned and hurting." Easy tugs at a
bloodied rent in her jacket, the Kevlar beneath sliced, but the pale
flesh beneath - though bloodied - is unhurt. "Thanks, Quinn."
The Coyote shaman steps away from Lynch, who flexes his right hand
appreciatively.
"Nice work."
"Null persp." Quinn shrugs, then strokes Lilith's cheeks. "Cool it,
spotty cat." Lilith looks relieved, though still feverish: Quinn leans
against a wall, trying to hide a nosebleed.
"Now we're recovering, what the hell happened?" D'Arkan asks. His jacket
bears a dozen or more small holes and tears and is bloodstained, but he
seems unhurt: evidently he got healed too.
"Thunda's dead. His body blew up and burned, someone didn't want it
examined." Lynch opens the cylinder of the .357, extracts the fired case
and loads a replacement, holsters the pistol and ties the spent casing
in his hair with a few soft words of Lakota. "His bozos are all dead
apart from, maybe, a few in a Bison."
"Which an unmarked gunship helicopter and a Stallion that's apparently
ours, even though we don't have any choppers here, blew into tinfoil
confetti." D'Arkan grins sadly. "Anyway, it sounds like we won."
"Casualties?" asks Lynch.
"Could be worse. Twenty dead, forty-seven wounded, four or five of those
are really bad and may not make it. Mostly the cops and paramedics that
got caught in Thunda's trap."
"Great. I want Milhouse's ass in a sling for that."
"If us and IAD leave anything after we finish chewing on it." D'Arkan
looks disgusted. "Bought, I guess. He was the one who told the cops to
go in early, he was the one who said to follow up and take over the
scene from you. He tried to run, I shot him."
"Fuck it." Lynch shrugs. "Good work, Chris. Let's go, unless you need
us?"
"Go get some rest and get cleaned up. Debrief in two hours at Seneca."
D'Arkan holds Lynch's eyes. "And, Lieutenant Lynch? Thank you."
Lynch nods, and goes back - you guess for the FN-HAR he left behind.
Where Thunda's body had been is now just charred bone, a few metal and
ceramic items, and greasy ashes on a charred patch of concrete floor.
The mercenary crouches, picks up a cyberspur blade warped by the heat
and turns it in his hands for a few moments, then replaces it and
leaves, picking up the rifle as he goes.
Outside, as the daylight fades, the scene is crawling with police and
paramedics, and reporters yelling questions and running camera gear.
Lynch resolutely ignores them, threading his way back to where Lilith
had left her Jensen.
She's standing by it, looking concerned, if much healthier than before.
"What's up? And where are the others?" Lynch asks.
"Easy hitched with Imp, she's going to hospital to get that eye replaced
and her skull straightened out. Blade and Quinn got a ride out with the
Marines. I didn't want to do anything with the car until you'd seen
this."
"Damn, someone's good." says Lynch, focussing on the dashboard: a
single, perfect black rose sits there, a finely-worked silver clasp in
the shape of a 'U' around its stem.
"Think it's safe?"
Lynch opens the passenger door. "Guess so. If they can get past this
car's security, parked in the middle of a street full of cops, then you
have to figure he could kill us if he wanted to." Putting the rifle on
the back seat, he picks up the rose, examines it, smells it cautiously.
"It's beautiful, anyway."
+++++end trideo
That was fucking hard work, excuse my French if you're a religious man,
except if you're a religious man then stop fucking reading Shadowland
and go to fucking church instead.
But see for yourselves, we're fairly confident that Thunda is
dead.]<<<<<
-- The Mighty Quinn <21:47:53/01-13-58>
