BURNOUT
Author's note: I know I read about a Troll named Fuzzy Bunny somewhere, but I can't remember who came up with it first. To whomever did- sorry for lifting your character but I didn't even know I was doing it until I reread the story and realized that I'm just not that creative. (Great name, though)Watching the rigger nerving herself up to talk to Fuzzy Bunny would have been entertaining if it didn't remind me so much of Suzette's stupid vids. Suzette, a hot little number from Quebec, was a hell of a bed warmer, but she was also wild for these old "feelms". Now, these weren't trid, ya unnerstan, but like these pre-historic flatscreen vids. She had an ancient piece of tech, a DDT, I think, that played back these little pie plates, (about as big as your hand) that had these old style flatscreens on them. Anyway, she used ta spend hours watching Jerry somebody and goin on and on about "Le Eediot stewpeed". Got on my nerves after a while. I don't remember much, but in most of these vids there was a scene where this Jerry clown wanted somethin from somebody who scared the piss outta him and he'd spend all this time nervin himself up ta speak. Hysterical, right? Hey, what can I say? Quebeckers got a weird sense a humor.
So this skinny slitch keeps firing down tequila shooters and nerving herself up ta ask FB something. Problem is, each time she gets ready ta speak to the big glom another overmuscled ork or troll waltzes in an ya got another chest-thumpin, skull-smashin, I-can-bellow-deeper-and-louder-than-you, tusker greeting and the motorhead goes back into her shell.
Of course, I ain't the only swingin dick in the bar who notices this amusing, repeating scene. Maximillian is shaking his head and signaling for more Brandy like its too pitiful for him to watch, but what else would you expect from an over priced, over dressed elf wearing 800¥ "I'm a hitman" shades in a dark bar at night?
Colt's noticed (Colt notices everything) but he hasn't signaled the troll which probably means he figures whatever the rigger wants is not worth his time. Since he has the baddest rep in Cutter's most nights and hasn't acknowledged the slitch it means that her work will go to someone further down the food chain.
And speaking of food chain, Bad Barbara is looking at the rigger the way a hungry hellhound looks at a sheep. You can almost hear the merc's lip smacking. Fortunately for the rigger, Laura, (Barb's current bedmate) notices the drooling and cuts the larger woman's fantasies off with a look sharp enough to stop a truck. I become preoccupied with my nails to avoid being seen observing the lovers' quarrel.
Because I'm so caught up in my cuticles, I don't actually see it when she finally asks her question, but Fuzzy's in full Barbarian Mode and roars at her for interrupting his conversation. Take it from me, you haven't been roared at until the Bunny's done it to you in front of an entire bar. Everything stops, total silence descends and every eye in the places fastens on you with expectation that is thick enough to walk on. Most people would rather spend an hour in the back room with the Star's rubber hose squad than get nailed by the Fuzzy Bunny's roar.
So the rigger looks like she's tryin ta decide whether to wet herself or faint when the only thing that can possibly save her happens. Mama Cutter, all four feet of her, hears the silence and stomps outta the back room. Quick as you please, she's up on the bar and has grabbed a handful of FB's lower lip. She pulls the troll's massive head down to her level and yells-
"WHADDA YA DOIN, BUNNY? YOU MAKIN TROUBLE IN MY PLACE? I'LL WRAP THIS LIP RIGHT OVER YER HEAD, YA LUMMOX! WHAT HAPPENED?"
Even the Bunny knows that the question is rhetorical. Mama Cutter is rollin which means if you wanna see daylight again, get outta the way. Her glare around the room causes everybody to suddenly check their nails, wristcoms, pocket secretaries or anything else that will prevent eye contact. The silence is absolute. Satisfied that nobody is willing to challenge her, she turns her attention back to Fuzzy.
"YOU GONNA BEHAVE?"
"Yeth Ma"
"THEN SHADDAP AN SIDDOWN"
"Yeth Ma"
Now, here's the thing. This stunty slitch with nothing but a handful of Troll lip had just terrorized a bar full of people who make their living on the other side of the law. People who face getting shot at as part of the price of doing business. Think about that. You ever been shot at? Ever realize that a fraction of an inch from where the shot was fired is another spot that would have sent a bullet through your body? That someone has acted on their intention to make you a memory? That, but for some cosmic crapshoot, you're life would be over at that instant?
People who face those thoughts each time they decide to do a job are not easily intimidated. They can't be. But still, nobody faced down Mama Cutter. Nobody even tried. In fact, having uniformly low tolerance levels for death, everybody did their best to find something quiet and unobtrusive to do so as to avoid any further dealings with Mama. I nursed my beer and tried to remember when I could work mana without feeling like I had icepicks in my eyes.
"Burn, uh.... Calahan, you aren't on a job at the moment, right?" the dwarf asked, pulling me outta my stroll down memory lane.
You ever notice that when people avoid a nickname you hate its because they want something? Mama knew very freakin well that I hadn't seen any biz in the last ten-day. That since Alice and Johnny Sweets had gotten fragged on our last run that the community was treatin me like a Jonah. Hell, I'd been on the cuff for the last three nights in this very wateringhole so she definitely knew I wasn't on the job at the moment.
I was all set to demonstrate my rapier like wit when something stopped me. I think they call it "survival instinct". Remembering who I was dealing with, I decided to forgo both the snappy comeback about current jobs and the observation about her not calling me "Burnout".
I shook my head.
"Well this little lady,...... what's your name, dearie?"
"Gears" the rigger mumbled.
"Well Gears here is looking for someone for a job. You interested?"
Grammatically that might be mistaken for a question, but if you heard the way it rolled out of Mama Cutter's mouth, you'd understand that it was not "Are you interested?" as much as "You ARE interested". I looked over at the "Johnson" and was about to tell Mama what I really thought when that finely honed survival instinct kicked in again and I confined my reply to a shrug.
"Good" the stunted woman exclaimed. "Then I'll leave you two to work out the details."
"Hey Mama," Fuzzy Bunny bellowed as the dwarf headed back towards his end of the bar, "Whaddayou Burnout's fixer, now? Har-Har-Har-
I'm not entirely sure, of course, because it was delivered with speed and precision, but I think the punch was an overhand right rather than a simple jab. The noisy vomiting that the troll engaged in after he had rolled on the floor for a few minutes left little doubt about whether Mama's groin punch had been "all ball". (Perhaps there is an advantage to being waist high to a troll).
Gears watched the exchange with a sort of wide-eyed disbelief that marked her as a newbie. Her question, when it came was precisely the one I was dreading.
"Burnout?" she asked.
"Burnout- anyone who compromises his ability to manipulate mana by polluting his body" I responded. "It doesn't really matter if its done against your will by a double-dealing, mother-humping, drek-eating corp, or if you decide yourself that the mana is not enough. Once you've got metal in your meat, mojo becomes painful, so you use it less. You're a burnout."
Either the bitterness of my tone or the very concept of such a thing must have alarmed her because my Johnson suddenly looked like she had another appointment someplace else. Part of me wanted to let her go, but another part, (I think it was the part that eats) went into salesman mode.
"Now Burnout sounds like washed up, but it just means I'm a sam who can throw spells. Instead of fumbling for a narcojet, I can just toss a sleep spell if the situation calls for non lethal action. I've been around for a while and I stay alive by using this", I said while pointing at my head, "Whether its to aim this, " I did a quickdraw with my .223 autoloader (a very scary looking pistol for shooting rifle-caliber bullets) which moved so fast that it appeared in my hand like magic, "Or do this" I said as I actually did spin a spell which drew the tequila bottle down the bar to where I was sitting.
The rigger was so impressed with the combination of talents I displayed, I don't think she noticed the unfocused look on my face. What do I mean by unfocused? Imagine the pain of having impacted wisdom teeth extracted. Without anesthetic. Now double it and imagine it right behind your eyeballs. (I guess unfocused doesn't say enough, does it?)
When I steadied myself enough to begin breathing again, I grated out "What's the job?" through clenched teeth and tried not to fall over as I leaned in to hear what the Johnson had to say.
"I need muscle" the woman confided.
So, the mystery of why she had approached the largest troll in Cutters was solved. I waited patiently for her next astounding revelation.
"I need to make a delivery," she began, "and I need some, uh, security, so that the hand off doesn't get fragged up. I ....uh..."
"You also need muscle that is desperate enough to work cheap, but professional enough not to rip you off themselves."
Although her jaw didn't exactly drop open, she flashed me enough of a look that I knew I was very close to the mark. Making the next logical step I said "Which means that this delivery has already been fragged once."
Her lack of response prompted me to say: "Look, the only way I'm gonna take this job is if I know what I'm getting into. Just because I could use the cred doesn't mean I'm willing to die to get it. Tell me what's the deal is."
While she took a moment to figure exactly how much she was going to tell me, I studied her. I watched as her big brown eyes (appeared to be original equipment, but who the hell knows) scanned the ceiling while she decided how much to tell me. Her lips were too big for my taste, particularly with her being so wiry. She had black frosted light blue hair in a po'boy cut (you know, when the soup bowl goes over the head and anything uncovered gets shaved). The rigger jack was behind her ear, and looked like it had been done by a competent professional- there is nothing I hate more than seeing a sloppy joining of meat and metal. Makes me sick. She had a nose that was straight and a silly assed tattoo on her cheek. I think it was a tiny wolf. She smelled liked soap.
"My team..... ah, drek," she said while blinking back tears, "We did a run, a datasteal for a Johnson. No big deal. Schematics on some new droid that Ares is coming out with. We got in, grabbed the design stuff, got out, nice and easy. We show up at the rendezvous to turn over the data to the Johnson when the next thing you know, all hell breaks lose." She got a faraway look in her eyes as she recounted "Michael, he was our magic man, is coming out of the bar where we're supposed to turn the data in, when all of a sudden he screams and starts burning. His whole body....like a torch...." I pushed a shot of tequila into her hand to bring her back. She fired down the embalming fluid without looking at me and continued -"I grabbed the extinguisher from under the dash as Dodd jumps out of the car but Lyasu rips the firebottle out of my hands and then..... I didn't even hear the shots. I mean, I must have heard them, but it was like they were....far away. Like they had nothing to do with poor Michael screams or........"
After a few seconds she rubbed her face like she was trying to wash something away. "All of a sudden Lyasu is kicking and flailing like a madwoman. I wanted to nail her pretty elf face for picking that particular moment for a hissy fit, when I felt all this…wet. It...it was blood. They'd shot her in the head and her Move by Wire system controller was fragged, making her dance around even though....she...was dead."
She blew out a breath like this was physically exhausting her. "Dodd's screaming for me to take off while he's still outside the car, Redjack's in the back seat yelling DRIVEDRIVEDRIVEDRIVE!!! I lean across to open a door for Dodd to get in and suddenly Lyasu's body is on top of me and I hear the windshield being blown through...... explosions..... fire..... screaming...... When I woke up I was in the gutter with Redjack's datachip in my hand. The team are all dead, my car's been blown to shit and somehow I...I walked away without a scratch."
She looked at me as if I was gonna explain it all to her or make some really profound observation. I couldn't think of one so I just shrugged and nodded.
The silence began getting oppressive so I asked- "You work with a fixer?"
"Yeah. He knows about all the drek but he says I still gotta make delivery. He says if I don't the Johnson will put a bounty on my head. Even if the Johnson don't, my fixer will protect his rep and cover his own hoop by sending out bounts. I gotta get this turned over but I gotta have somebody watching my back. You want the job?"
"How much?"
"3k. I wanna make the transfer tonight."
"Three thousand for one night? Yeah, I'll play guardian angel for that. Only condition is, you do what I say, when I say. No questions, suggestions or second thoughts. Ok?"
"Ok. When do you......"
"Wait a minute." I said. "MAMA!"
When the dwarf woman showed up I said, "I'm taking the job. Pays 3k to watch her back while she makes a delivery." When mama slowly nodded I turned to Gears and said, "Pay Mama 300¥. She gets 10% for putting us together." Something in the way the rigger was looking at me as she produced her credstick prompted me to explain: "Just good biz. Stiff somebody on a finder's fee, they don't find for you again. Also gives you a little security. You've seen what a badass the dwarf is. I don't do the job or I rip you off and somebody nasty with a whole bar full of contacts might not like it."
Mama gave the rigger an old vidcom number to call when the job was done. She then told me "And you better come back here when you get paid to clear your tab."
I nodded and told Gears "That's to let you know that if you ain't what you seem and this is a setup, Mama Cutter can come looking for you too."
I'll give her this- for a motorhead she wasn't slow on the uptake. Most riggers only focus when you're talking about horsepower and drek like that. This little lady was obviously curios about why we were at the train station but rather than ask she just worked it over in her brain until she figured it out.
When I came back from the gift kiosk with the Chief Thunderhawk® Kidcom units she asked "Lockers?"
I was a little taken aback by her smarts but eventually nodded and told her, "Call the fixer. Tell him that because the run got fragged you're super paranoid. Don't mention me but be real insistent that the handoff be in a public place. You want the payment at the train station because you are getting out of town, stat. Tell him, money in full, 1 hour. He's to ask for the old issue of Brawl from the dwarf at the 31st street-side news kiosk. He's to mention the one with Mad Maggie on the cover." When it looked like she was set to do her end I nodded again and said "Now, give me 100¥." She didn't argue, but she was kind of slow in counting up the Mylar scrip, so I nodded at little Leo, held up the kidcom and asked "He's going to want something for his part, don't you think?" While she made the call I talked Leo into playing postman.
A few minutes later she came back to tell me that the Johnson was annoyed, suspicious and unenthusiastic, but had agreed to the "dog and pony show" to get the fragging data. I explained how, for this to work, both she and the Johnson would be in plain site, but at opposite ends of the station. She listened and, without any of the usual crap, figured out the answers to most of her questions. I put her where I wanted her, made sure we had our signals clear and moved to my hiding/sniping/observation spot.
The Johnson was a beard.
Don't get me wrong, he had the right clothes, the right shoes, even the right accent, but he was definitely a beard. He did the corporate no-nonsense, time-is-money attitude ok, but he didn't get the guilt right. Real corpers know that to climb over the clown above you on the corporate ladder, you've got to cut corners. Some of them even develop a flair for it. The thing is, all of them, without exception, are looking over their shoulders. Whether its their boss, one of the other sharks in the tank, their own corp security, the last runner they fragged over, the Star, the other corp's security or, God forbid, the corporate court's investigators, they know that some career ending entity might be right behind them, waiting to catch them with their hands in the cookie jar. You watch them close enough you can pick up on the vibe.
Little Leo caught it right off and moved some glossy mags to signal me as we'd agreed. (Of course, Little Leo is older than dirt so it would have been a shock if somebody had come up with a wrinkle he hadn't already seen). His signal just confirmed what I was already feeling- that the supposed Suit wasn't self-conscious/uncomfortable enough, didn't have enough guilt and/or fear to be an actual SIN. Realizing this ratcheted up my paranoia several more degrees.
Gears gave the instructions to the fake Johnson over the kidcom that Louie passed him when he bought the old fight magazine. Again, the beard was annoyed enough about putting the payment in one locker and having to walk all the way across the station to get his data, he just didn't demonstrate enough worry about being observed, which meant he knew he was covered. It annoyed me that I knew someone had the fake Johnson's back but that I couldn't spot them. The Johnson and Gears had exchanged locker access codes and were opening the boxes before I noticed the fat kid staring at my employer. As soon as he began a gesture my autoloader was in my hand and firing.
A couple of great things about the .223 autoloader: number one, it's loud. That means in a big enclosed space like the train station, the boom alone is enough to make people drop in their tracks. Then, you add the reverb from the echo and the crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier and what you hear sounds more like an explosion than a handgun. (The echo also makes it really hard to zero in on the source of the sound.) Two, although its ungainly as hell, only holds 5 rounds and would be a wrist breaker for anybody without augmentation, the rifle round the autoloader fires is big enough to be sculpted without interfering with ballistics. That means it can fire the steel tipped spindle round (tip of the bullet is shaped like an icepick) which punches through body armor like nobody's business. Anything short of layered sec armor and your target gets the dirt nap.
Anyway, I saw the dying mage morphing from a fat kid into a bleeding adult as I cast my own invisibility spell. I had to steady myself against the splitting headache the spell casting caused, but the pause gave me a chance to recognize Jinn's crew as their disguises dropped away.
This is the worst part of shadowrunning. The "Ah-so" moment when you understand just how fragging overmatched you are. Jinn's crew is good. Real good. So good I was surprised Gears was still walking around with data they were trying to get. So good I began thinking about options for keeping my own skin intact.
What? You were expecting nobility, loyalty and self-sacrifice? Go watch the Trid. Here on earth all of those noble heroes whose honor is worth more than their lives are all honorably dead. They are buried in bad fiction or on trid. Flesh and blood shadowrunners understand that they can only spend the nuyen they earn if they remain alive. That's what I've figured out anyway.
Unfortunately, I hadn't been paid yet. I was going to have to keep the rigger alive long enough to get my 3k. So instead of fading into the night, I hightailed it over to where Gears was crawling towards the gate for the tracks. It looked like we were going to get out before Jinn's crew was even organized but as I reached down to help Gears up I got knocked on my hoop.
I glanced up to see Frosty looking right at me. I'm still invisible, but she knows right where I am. Man, I hate physical adepts! She sort of smiled and glanced at Gears. I knew better than to talk and as fast as my wired reflexes make my draw, she still had that damn manriki-gusari coming right at my head before I could get off a shot. When I raised my gun hand to block the chain she tangled my wrist and then stepped in to kick me in the chest hard enough for my lungs to end up in my socks. At least, that's what it felt like when I tried to draw a breath. I start to get up, she steps in and lays her boot up along side my head a few dozen times before she starts breaking my ribs. Like I said, I hate physical adepts.
Maybe living with the pain involved in spell casting has killed some pain receptors or something because when Gears started fumbling with her gun and Frosty turned to kick the living crap out of her, I was able to put together a telekinesis spell superfast. I used my magic to fly an empty luggage cart into the slitch's head. Of course, knocking her out stopped her attack, but the pain from the spell was nearly as bad as if she hadn't stopped at all. I would have been content to just lay on the floor and groan for a few hours but Gears whispered "Calahan, is that you?"
"No," I whispered back, "I'm some other invisible bodyguard getting the living shit beat out of him to save your skinny hoop". Well, doesn't having a big old mudhole stomped in you make you a little testy? I quickly calmed down enough to say "Listen, Sherlock, you think you can get through that door before the rest of those bastards come to kill us?"
She bit her lip and nodded.
"Good. Do it now."
She was through the door and into the night. I pulled myself up off the ground and as soon as the terminal stopped spinning I started following her. I stopped off to kick the unconscious phys ad two or nine times on my way out. (Did I mention that I hate Physical adepts?)
There's a certain clarity that comes with being totally fragged. I knew Jinn and his crew. They were pros, but they would take my killing Tantilus very personally. Frosty would also take my failure to die at her hands (feet?) as a personal affront and would rectify the situation at her next opportunity. I didn't fool myself about being invisible either. It would not take long for a crew that good to learn exactly who had aced one of their team. So, basically my hoop was in hot water up to my neck.
On top of that, several of my ribs were broken, as was my nose and probably my cheek bone. I was on the run and the only way I could end the pain I was in would be to go through the additional agony of casting a healing spell.
On the plus side, I wasn't dead yet. (Dead definitely would have been less painful, but nonetheless, I was still breathing.) My Johnson was still alive and had handed off her data, which hopefully meant that not only would I get paid, but that she would no longer be in danger. Why was that a positive? Hey, just because I'm a shadowrunner doesn't mean I ain't human. She'd pulled a gun when Frosty was using me as soccer ball and instead of just cutting and running she was now trying to help me hobble across the tracks. Come to think of it, she was quick on the uptake, took directions, didn't ask a million stupid questions and, well, hell she was kind of cute. She must have felt me looking at her because she glanced up and smiled (I think she was trying to be re-assuring).
"If we can get up there, " she said, gesturing towards a parking lot, "I'll see if I can boost a ride. I can get you to a hospital or…."
"Just find a car," I grunted, "I'll heal myself once we're on the road."
"We're on the road?" she stopped and asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah. Unless you wanna bail now that things are getting interesting."
"I wouldn't think of it."
End Trans
Author's other note:
Thanks for your patience. I know I'm a little rusty. If you've got any interest in my continuing with Burnout & Gears and/or suggestions, and/or comments, let me know. Otherwise I'll just go back to the other stuff.
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.
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