A Little Walk

"I'd like to walk for a while" the boss says to me as we leave the.... restaurant? (Ok, something of an exaggeration, I admit, but its a shorter if less accurate name than 'place of vehicle refueling where there is bad food')
In the pause that follows I say "Sure....I'll meet you...."
I trailed off like that as a way of inviting a response, because, in spite of what you might have heard about orks, my mama didn't raise any children stupid enough to join a phys ad on a little 'get-the-kinks-out' trek. I was also fishing for an answer because without some specifics the "walk for a while" might last for 10 hours and involve more than 50 miles.
The boss walked over to the Bear. He threw some odds and ends into a shoulder bag, put on his shades and ball cap and prepared to set out. He took his flute and then stopped to look at me.
"I'll meet you down the road a ways" he said, knowing full well that I was hoping for specifics."I'll call you"
Fine, I'm thinking. I'll just sit here with my thumb up my ass till you call. I nodded but something in my expression must have demonstrated how thrilled I was because then he said. "You might call the guys and see how they're doing. Also, if you want to you could call some of your contacts back home and find out what's happening there." After a few seconds he added. "Or you could just relax for a while....unless you'd like to hike along with me...."
"I'll make the calls, thank you very much, boss." I said while shaking my head. "I walk with you, first of all I'm looking at a massive coronary from overexertion. Secondly, I gotta remote rig the Bear to come get us or we gotta unwalk to get back to the wheels. Now, I'm one hell of a rigger but trusting a vehicle that I ain't taken apart for a remote rig (which I gotta build from paperclips and napkins) in the middle of the ass end of nowhere does not strike me as the smart way to go."
Normally, I'd have gotten some flip response or maybe a line from one of his old vids, but the boss just shrugged, nodded and started walking.
With a sigh I settled into the Bear to make some calls.

*******

Funny thing. When you're working the shadows, I mean, when you're on the job, in the midst of actually risking your life extralegally, you almost never talk about it. I'd say it's because your too busy, but in my experience there are dead times where you're looking to do something in any run.

And afterwards, Hell! Building reputations and bragging about missions accomplished--- I can name you 10 or 15 runners of my acquaintance who are better at that than they are at actually doing the job. While they're on the clock, though- not a peep.

I don't know, its not about not having the time or even being too focused on the goal. Its.... being professional? Yeah, maybe that's it. It's unprofessional to act as though you can see anything clearly while you're actually in the shadows. Fact is, you can't. The "good guys" too often turn out to be the ones trying to scrag ya and the "bad guys" turn out to not be as bad as the good guys. You muddle through as best you can, hopefully sticking to whatever personal code you've come up with for yourself, but you never describe who did what or tried to do what because until its over, you're just guessing..

Lots a jobs guessing's all you ever do.

So when I called Mouse and got a lot of one syllable responses, part of me was disappointed because I really wanted to hear the details of how my friends were doing, but another part of me was proud that the kid was smart enough to know that he couldn't clearly see what was happening while he was in the middle of it. (I think he also wanted so badly to get it right, leading the team for the first time, that he really didn't want to be distracted by figuring out what details he needed to share with somebody who was a week removed from the action)

Basically, I got that everybody was alive, that plans to present the artifact to the Council of Princes seemed to be moving ahead, and that Sayla, Galron, Barnaby and another pair of elves had contacted the team about the meet. That Sayla was pissed she'd missed Owen, that she wanted to run after us but couldn't get out of her assignment and that she kept pestering the guys to repeat details of the story of how the artifact got the boss. I also learned that the artifact had done a little light show a few days ago, buzzing and popping and throwing off sparks as it floated in the air. A little math told me this happened just about the time Sacred Raven was doing his thing in the sweat lodge. What this means, I have no idea, but did I mention how much I hate this spirit stuff?

Com one call done, I talked to some people back home. Took me a couple of hours of checking with various sources but I did find that our digs had been the subject of several "probes" by different groups. I never learned whether they were looking for us, looking for a home to call their own or looking to make off with whatever we hadn't nailed down. I thought about all the perfectly good sets of wheels sitting in that warehouse and cringed. Suddenly getting home soon became a priority.

My next call.... well, my next call was kind of a problem. Owen's always been real big on not dealing with fixers. Now me, I can take 'em or leave 'em. Some of 'em are hardworking honest middlemen. They take care of the stuff that runners don't care about or ain't very good at- you know, finding Johnsons, fencing goods, maybe cooling John Law by kicking a little taste back to boss badge. On the other hand, some of 'em are the lowest scum suckers on the planet- getting fat on somebody else's' blood, sweat and tears while developing amnesia at the first sniff of trouble only if they can't make a nuyen betraying you..

I guess the boss must have run into a lot of the second type cause he wanted nothing to do with any fixer. Problem is, we spent a lot of our cash reserves on this trip to Seattle. I ain't saying we were broke, you understand, just that we'd dipped into the reserves and with most of the team still outta town (and no immediate prospects of paying jobs when we got home), I thought we needed some help. I sure as hell didn't want to stumble into a clusterfrag of a mission like this last one by relying on work to present itself.

I called Felix- a prime fixer in the plex and somebody who had a standing offer for the lost boys collectively and/or individually and explained the situation. Now, I am not somebody who can comment about anybody else's shortcomings in the looks department so I won't talk about Felix's physical beauty. I will say that she had one hell of a brilliant mind and was a big fan of Owen's in spite of his having turned down every one of her offers. I didn't have that luxury.

After a bit of runaround I got to talk to Felix. She was concerned about the boss (naturally) and the rest of the team (only vaguely seeming to remember me). I didn't give her a detailed account, but I did explain that Owen and I might take some work when we got back to the sprawl, but that it would have to be kept quiet. She's not a top fixer for nothing because within seconds she had twigged to the fact that Owen had not authorized the call and that some major drek must have gone down for me to be violating the boss' standing orders. She was cool about it but even over my wrist com I could hear the gears spinning as she considered how to get the maximum out of the situation.

Felix immediately offered to get us local support wherever we were and told me if I needed ¥ she would set up an account I could immediately draw from. Part of me breathed easier, (even though I told her this wouldn't be necessary,) but another part of me saw all she offered as delicious bait obscuring a sharp hook. Felix would break her neck to get us whatever we might need, but then we'd be in her debt and I immediately recognized that was not a place I wanted to be.

I told her we were moving way too fast and that calling her for a date didn't mean I was ready for wedding plans. I asked that she consider our situation and see what she could come up with that I might propose to the boss WHEN we got home. Since I didn't know when that would be, or even that I could get the boss to take work from a fixer, I suggested that she keep us in mind but not plan on us.

She made some noise about "boys who tease but don't please" as if she was real disappointed, but I figured she understood where I was coming from. I told her I'd call her when we hit town.

*******

While I'm in the midst of this phoneathon a repainted old Nissan Patrol-1 pulls up at the pumps. The pug who gets outta the driver's seat is big and twitchy. You know, head on a swivel, jumping at every sound or motion seen from the corner of the eye, nervous. That means he's dangerous, not just because he's probably violent, (I'd give 3 to 1 odds he is) armed (5 to 1) but because he's scared. Now, big guys cover scared by running over opposition- try to bully in order to cover their own fear. You might get away with this on familiar turf, but amongst strangers.....well, if this is not a prescription for disaster, I don't know one.

So this glom gets out of the ex-squad car dragging this middle-aged woman and little boy. The woman has that hopeless washed out sort of look that people get the third or fourth time their life turns to drek. She could have been anywhere from 35 to 60 from the bleak surrender vibe she gave off. The kid was, I dunno, six or seven, mostly big eyes with a storytime bear clutched in one arm and the woman's hand in the other.

I watch what I figure must be the bully's warning before the he drags the pair into the "restaurant". Could what I saw simply have been the end of a family argument about rest stops on long rides between momma, poppa and baby bear? Sure..... its possible. As possible as green monkeys flying outta my butt to carry me up to Zurich sub-orbital so I can take my rightful place as king of all corps.

About this time Owen flashes me that he's ready for pickup. I check my cron and realize he's been gone for three hours. I start up the Bear only to hear a scream and two shots from inside the station.

The next thing I know the washed out woman, kid in one arm, .44 caliber Desert Eagle in the other is running at me screaming "WAIT!! WAIT! For the love of God, WAIT!!!" How can I be so sure about the type of blaster, you ask. Simple. Just once find yourself on the wrong end of that particular hand cannon and I guarantee, you will remember it for the rest of your days.

That woman's bleak look has been replaced by this kind of wild-eyed frenzy. If I'd had about 3 more IQ points I'd have just burned rubber outta there when she started yelling, but unfortunately I'm not as smart as I like to think I am and when a woman in distress screams "Wait!", like a fool I do as I'm told.

"Take him to Kilkenny in Casper!" She screamed as she thrust the kid through my window. The kid didn't make a sound through any of this, which was weird enough but the woman immediately turned and took a two handed grip on the big blaster while facing the "restaurant".

Did I look like a taxi? Was there a "for hire" sign on the door that I was unaware of? What the hell was the idea? If the kid had a clue, he wasn't talking and before I could get a syllable of protest out, a shot from inside the rest stop "SPRANGGGED" my wing mirror off.

"Get out of here!" the woman screamed as she returned fire. Not being able to think of anything else to do, I did.

---

This story is copyright of the author. Shadowrun was a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation until they went busto foldo. Now Wizkids LLC owns it. Or possibly FanPro. Or some other dragon owned subsidiary. Whoever holds the trademark, they didn't call and tell me it was ok to write this, and anybody who says I said that is full of it. I'm not challenging any of the rights or trademarks of anybody who own's them, whoever they are. I'm just writing stories. Honest. Thank you for not litigating.