Burnout 4
By shapcano
I wrote Burnout and Burnout 2, Lonnie McDowell wrote Burnout 3. You need to read them first or this is not going to make any sense at all.
You ever have one of those putrid-yellow, clammy-skinned, knee-wobbling, "mornings after"? You know, where everything’s stuck together from the night sweats, there’s a singularly unpleasant smell in the air, a bad taste in your mouth, the inside of your eyelids feel gritty and nothing stays in focus….. well, if you’ve never had one, stick around- you’ve got something to look forward to. Although I’ve had more than my share of these, I’d been magicked into another one and it came with a throbbing headache.
Instead of enjoying the you’ve-been-dogpaddling-in-the-cesspool-but-now-the-trolls-want-to-finish-stomping-you-to-death feeling, I slowly returned to reality with Gears yelling "Get up! Come on, Calahan!! GET UP!!" as she dragged me across a tile floor by one arm. I tried to get my legs under me while stumbling forward , only to discover I’ve been pulled through somebody’s yarf. A moment of lucidity struck and I realized it was my own, which somehow made it less disgusting (though I can’t for the life of me explain why) but no better smelling.
Gears looked terrified as she kept glancing behind me at her unconscious former teammates. She didn’t see the pair of rentacops who placed themselves between us and the door. I briefly considered pulling my blaster but discarded the idea as we didn’t need any more hostile attention than we already had. Instead, I launched myself forward while making gagging sounds (which was amazingly easy to do when you're wearing your own vomit) and relied on my magical coat of upchuck to clear the way. The gambit worked like a charm as the secboys parted like the red sea to avoid getting any of my Technicolor yawn on their nice clean uniforms and Gears slipstreamed behind me. Once we are outside and moving away from the building I suppose they felt their job was done because they didn't follow us out of the customs building. Hopefully they would content themselves with the pair still stretched out in the lobby.
"That was Michael and Redjack!" Gears breathed disbelievingly. "How did they get here so fast?"
"Hmmph" I mumbled as I attempted to clean myself off. "Probably waiting here for you to leave town."
I was occupied with my own disgusting job as we hurried to the car but I noticed that she looked thoughtful, worried yet thoughtful, as she digested the idea. When we got in the car she said with conviction, "We need someplace to hide for a while."
"Yeah, someplace with water." I replied while rolling down the window. With that the dark gray Seattle sky opened up with a sudden downpour. "Oh, thank you!" I shouted at the sky while rolling the window back up. Gears actually giggled as we pulled away.
*******
The sky gods couldn’t make up their minds. It poured buckets, then drizzled, became heavy rain, no rain and light rain, all in the time it took us to get away from the docks. Having been fragged over more times than I like to count, I knew of a lot of out-of-the-way places to hide from trouble. I gave Gears directions to a nearby area with warehouses where I hoped to make a com call.We quickly found a vid booth, which smelled like it did double duty as the neighborhood urinal, surprisingly contained a semi-functional telecomm unit. I called Cutter’s.I recognized Kenny’s voice when he answered, which was fortunate as the vid screen had a jagged scar running down its middle and no picture. Unfortunately, Kenny recognized my voice as well and bombarded me with questions.
“......Put Mama on." I cut him off and listened to the hurt silence as the bartender signaled for his boss. Don't get me wrong, Kenny is good people and as loyal as they come but he loves to gossip and right then the last thing I needed was a town crier spreading news about us. I ran my finger along the crack in the broken vid screen and scanned the area around the booth. I could see Gears nervously peering around from the front seat of the car idling at the curb as Mama came on the line.
"Whadda ya want" the gruff voice asked.
"Mama, its Calahan. My client had some trouble at the train station. Jinn's crew. Also at the pier. A 2nd group. You'll hear about it eventually."
"You askin for help?" the dwarf asked suspiciously.
"No." I replied tersely, "Just warnin you ta watch yerself. Quality opposition"
"Don't teach mama ta suck eggs, Burnout" the runt snarled. "I wuz watchin myself when you were in diapers."
If the video worked she would have seen me giving her a pair of single finger salutes, but it definitely wasn't because as I reached for the disconnect button she said in a much softer tone "But thanks, kid. Be careful." I felt like I should say something more but as I opened my mouth she finished in perfect Mama Cutter fashion, "Because you owe me money, deadbeat, and I plan ta collect." I shook my head as I disconnected.
*******
Two people in a coffin hotel room is about one and a half people too many. When one of them reeks of regurgitated food, well, let's just say that as desperate as Gears and I were to not be seen, neither of us had problems with my running through the communal showers before we tried to figure out what to do next. A little cleaner and smelling much better I let the door swing shut on the cubicle as I sat against the left wall at the head of the cramped space, while Gears reclined against the opposite wall at the foot of our capsule."Cozy" she said.
"Claustrophobic" I responded. "Look. The way I see it we got three problems. 1) The fixer Diogenes......"
"But he's neutralized......" she began, but quieted at my upraised hand.
"Let's examine that," I said, "Diogenes is neutralized, we assume, if he believes the dead drop bluff and only as long as the Regulators are around. If they were somehow out of the picture, he’d probably be a lot less worried about what you or I could do to his rep after we were dead with nobody to confirm your story. I think we can count on him tying up loose ends as soon as the Regulators are no longer a threat to him."
Gears thought it through and biting her lip, nodded for me to continue.
"The Regulators are problem 2. They want their creds but once they get them, they are also going to see us as loose ends. Can't have you talking about their little trick on Dio, and, their spell slinger, Michael was it?" At her nod I continued, "Well Michael strikes me as one of those "How-dare-you-use-magic-against-me" types, so figure he's now out for blood. Problem 3 is Jinn's crew. I'd say that you probably aren't their primary target. My blasting Tantilus gives me that distinction, but professional pride is gonna dictate that they fulfill their contract, which means bagging you and handing you over to the fixer."
"What we've got to do is somehow get those three to bump each other off. The question is- how do we do it without getting snagged ourselves."
The silence dragged on for several minutes as we tried to come up with some brilliant plan that would cause massive destruction to everybody but us. Eventually I shrugged and said, “While we're chewing on this, I gotta mention you made a stupid mistake at the customs house.”
She did that wide-eyed, head tilt thing to ask me to continue and it was so…… well, let’s just say I had some selfish second thoughts about telling her. Then I resolved to treat her as a client instead of something more personal and knew it was my job to give her what she needed to stay alive.
“Your decision not to geek those two slots was probably a good one. Even though it would have removed some of the opposition permanently, it would have drawn major attention from the Star as John Law feels he has to do something significant about anybody committing multiple murders during working hours in a government building. But” I said with emphasis, “You shouldn’t have tried to drag me outta there….”
“….But you saved me.” Gears interrupted. “You saw them closing on me and instead of pulling a fade into the crowd you hit Redjack with a spell and then Michael….”
“….As I’m paid to do.” I jumped in. “You hired me to watch your back. I’m a pro. I do my job. When I went down and you clobbered Michael you should have beat feet outta there, not stopped to drag my sleeping butt across the floor. The delay could have cost you your escape.”
“But I….I thought we were a team.” She said in a sort of hurt tone.
“Listen," I said more softly, "you’ve got a lot of really good qualities and under different circumstances…. Well, who knows? I admit I don’t have enough smart, talented, loyal friends…..But the point is, these aren’t different circumstances." I shifted to my hard-bitten, elder warrior mode."You pay me to guard you. Long as the money spends and you don’t do shit that deliberately makes it harder to protect you, I can’t ask anything more. You have to concentrate on staying alive. You’ve got lots of nuyen and you’ve learned some tricks on how to clean more. If I’m hurt or taken out of the picture in some way, you need to keep on truckin and hire somebody else. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the rescue and all, but you need to take care of number 1. Tryin to help ain't street and it ain't smart. It will get you killed and I don't want that. You see, if you die I will have gone through a lot of crap for nothing, and you'll frag my rep as a bodyguard. I've gotta take care of my reputation, so next time, you just keep going, ok?”
When I first tapped mana, this old dwarf from the neighborhood taught me about controlling the flow. He spent hours finding ways to get me to understand magic. Every once in a while I’d say something, or ask a question and he’d get this little superior smile. Nothing big, just a slight turn of the lips, but it was frustrating as shit because I knew it meant whatever I was close to understanding was something he already knew. Used to make me nuts when he got that smile because he never said anything more- he knew where I was going and would just wait until I got there on my own. I swear, when I finished talking to Gears, she had that exact same little smile on her face. I have no idea why.
*******
The alley was dark and dank, which means it was identical with about a million other alleys in the sprawl. Nothing to mark it as a border "entry point" to Halloweener turf unless you could read gang sign. Fortunately for us, I understood enough graffiti to know where to go. Ten steps into the alley I signaled Gears to freeze. We waited motionless.
Like ghosts, the gangers faded into sight. One minute there was nothing, the next, shadowed shapes resolved themselves into hard-eyed menacing sneers riding on body language that screamed violence. No sound, no motion, just the ample potential for sudden death and the unspoken question of why one had stepped into the middle of a circle of hungry wolves.
"Walpurgesnacht" I said while silently thanking the gods of luck that my partner had the brains to understand that movement of any kind could be fatal.
After an eternity or two of silence, a voice from above said "Old password, dead man". A snigger followed by the clink of a length of chain uncoiling were the only sounds to follow this pronouncement. I held myself ready but motionless as two shapes floated down from the fire-escape. The first shape was a bent, hooded figure in a patched and ragged robe. "Hssst! Smell magic and metal in this one" it said while gesturing at me with a gnarled staff. The second figure dropped much more quickly, but landed just as silently. I assumed the one who landed like a cat was both the speaker and the leader. I slowly bowed and whispered "Trick or Treat for UNICEF".
There was no indrawn breath or mutter of surprise from the gangers, they were too well disciplined to even move, but the.... I don't know.... the mood changed. The incipient violence gave way to curiosity. Don't get me wrong, the potential for violence was just as great-the least wrong word or look might still result in a firefight. It was just that the anticipation of violence had been replaced with the desire to know why a pair of citizens without colors knew Halloweener passwords and entry points.
The leader's handsigns was too rapid to follow. I assume he sent someone on to HQ, designated who was to remain on guard duty, who would be in charge and who was to accompany us, but that's only my assumption. What we saw was his gesture for us to move along. Peripherally there were hints of movement in the dark, but nothing solid. I know I had second thoughts, so I'm certain Gears was wishing we'd stayed back in that cramped cubicle in the coffin hotel.
After passing through a maze of alleys, back passageways and vacant lots, we went through lifted corners of a pair of chain link fences around an abandoned apartment building. We were lead down into a basement where electric lights revealed that our guide was a well-muscled male whose shaved head bore a Mountain Lion overmask tattoo. "What you bring in, Cougar?" challenged a basso profundo voice of a huge, leather clad, Sgt. at Arms whose name, I recalled, was Carter. "You know dis ain't da place for fuggin cits."
Our guide voiced a low growl at the hulking figure but before anything more could happen another voice cut in. "Burnout. Why the fuck you bring me this piece of drek, Cougar?" All eyes immediately focused on a slim but commanding figure whose orange hair matched the color of the Jack-o-lantern tattoo which overlaid the features of his face.
"Entered south gate properly. Used an old code. Then a priority code. Brought him here per orders." Cougar responded.
Silence greeted this brief synopsis. Time dragged very slowly as we waited for judgment. Finally, Hellion (the pumpkin head) said, "Alright. So now the question's to you, Burnout. Where the fuck do you get off using Halloweener codes and what the fuck do you want?"
"I used the code because I needed to talk to you and I needed to talk to you because I have a problem with a shadowrunning crew that you aren't particularly fond of."
"And you figure that little job you did last year cuts you enough slack to ease into my HQ without wearing orange and black?" Hellion challenged. "I ain't Grimjack and what you did for him don't mean dick to me."
I was in the midst of a verbal minefield. Hellion had just lied and we both knew it. No gang leader can distance himself from his predecessor by repudiating deals without sacrificing the gang's integrity. It was a prescription for chaos because if it were true, both allies and enemies would use assassination as a tool for policy change. They'd just keep killing bosses until they found one who was tractable. Now, if I challenged what he said, although I'd be in the right, he could take my contradicting him as an insult and wack Gears and I for disrespect. If, on the other hand, I agreed that the privileges I earned had passed with Grimjack then I had trespassed and was again subject to termination for disrespect.
"I took the job for the Halloweeners, not Grimjack. The recovery went back to the club, not into Grimjack's pockets." Taking a deep breath, I continued, "And wearing colors I ain't earned is not my style"
Several eternities of silence later the gang leader signified that I had past his first test by demanding "So what the fuck do you want, Burnout?"
"I want cover so I can set up Jinn's crew."
"Yeah, we heard you geeked his spell worm." Hellion admitted. "This the cherry in the middle?" he asked with a flick of his chin towards Gears.
"My biz." I replied. The way I said this caused an attitude change amongst the listeners, but I knew that any discussion of Gears' role in the trouble might make her a part of the negotiations and the thought of that made my palms sweat.
"So," I continued in a more reasonable tone, "You give us cover, we make sure Jinn's crew gets taken down. You interested?"
"Ask 'em who else dere hidin from" the leather clad gorilla suggested.
"Shut the fuck up, will you Carter? The day I need fuckin suggestions from a stupid musclehead motherfucker like you is the day I become a fuckin citizen." Taking a breath he widened his address to all of the gangers. "We're the Halloweeners! We don't care how many fraggin shadow sneaks are trying to reach this pathetic dickhead and his slitch. If we cover them, they're safer than in the motherfarggin Star's precinct house or the cocksuckin Governor's mansion. Nobody fucks with us and lives! We're the Halloweeners! We own the night!"
As the gang raised their voices in an inarticulate roar of confirmation, I saw why Hellion had risen so quickly in the gang's ranks. Not only was he a charismatic speaker, not only was he magically active with some very effective manipulation spells, but his face tattoo had some kind of magic sensitive ink that became brighter when he cast his control spells. The overall effect was mesmerizing.
He then turned to me and the flaming jack-o-lantern demanded "So, how much ya got?"
End Trans
Because I am profoundly grateful to all of the wonderful readers out there who have written to tell me they like my fiction, and because I really do want more people to try their hand at writing, I repeat this offer: I've started Burnout & Gears. If you like the characters and don't want to wait for me to write more about them, why don't you take a crack at it? The outline (eewwh, wrong word) the framework is there. Take the story and run with it. You have my blessing. If anybody takes me up on this and sends me what they've done, I'll post it. If I get enough, I'll create a Burnout & Gears page. Send your story (you write it, I'll worry about making the format readable) to: (Shapcano is no longer available - I kept this offer here as evidence of the generosity of the man. - DS)
This story is copyright of the author. Shadowrun is a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.
No comments:
Post a Comment