Even though I hated buying it without having enough time to shop around, I was becoming fond of the Bear as we rolled through the Cascades. The engine ran smooth, it was responsive to my rigging, had a broad enough footprint to be stable through the turns and had enough power to take the hills without straining. It was big and not particularly pretty, but it could do the work. Sorta like me. We kinda fit, me and the Bear. I glanced over at the boss and thought about where that poor son of a bitch fit.
He’d become….unhealthy. That might not mean much if somebody said it about me, but an unhealthy phys ad…..its like a statue or some work of art that suddenly been defaced. From practically glowing with health and vitality , the boss had been reduced to this pale, a sort of pasty, week-old fish color…his eyes seemed sunk into his head. He had the shakes. Hell, he looked liked a strung out junkie.
I been with Owen Glendower through some real shitstorms, I mean nasty situations with a capital NAST. I’ve seen him pretty badly busted up- really seriously wounded and more than once, but he never looked as bad as he did huddled on the front seat of that Renraku Bear as we fled from Seattle.
I say fled because that’s the only way to describe it. For the first time that I can remember, we’d stepped in it up to our necks and instead of winding up with brass ring, we were just running out.
It started with a piece of crap that the streeters back home had brought us. We were gonna see if the old flail had any real magic and try to sell it for a profit. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, this was before the Atlantean Foundation got wind of it and sent their Mystic Crusaders after it, before a free spirit we know went all spooky and warned us to take it to the council of princes, before we crossed the freakin continent to have the damned thing fuck with our minds.
Lug had been the first victim. Lug is, or at least was, a rock solid dwarf samurai. Long on experience, long on guts and dependable as they come, Lug was exactly the guy you want backing you up when the fit hits the shan in a firefight. Then he fell under the scourge’s influence. After we stopped him from killing us and snapped him out of the trance he was in, well, he just wasn’t the old Lug anymore. It was like he was a whole lot less sure about what was real and what wasn’t, what he should do, what anybody else would do….I dunno, it was like he’d lost a piece of himself. Shook him up. Hell, it shook us all up.
Still, as screwed up as that was, it was nothing compared to what happened to the boss.
Now I put this together from what everybody said, (because I was stuck waiting with the wheels) but while the boss and part of the team was meeting with some slug in the basement of this club, The Inferno, an attack began from the roof. Result: Chaos. Lots of panic, screaming, shooting and running as everybody tries to get out. Then things really got screwy. The bad guys on the roof get attacked by a dracoform, people waiting to get into the club are blocking people tryin to get out, there’s a battle at the end of the street between some black hats setting up an ambush and the local go gang. While all this is happening, two of our guys on the roof of a neighboring building set up cover fire on both the mercs on the roof and the mercs on the street, which means they start drawing fire, spells are wizzing around, the boss and Doc and Mouse get out of the club to find themselves in a battle with a city spirit. The boss somehow manages to be under the spirit as it disrupts dropping hundreds of pounds of rubble on him. Then part of the building that our guys were shooting from comes down on top of that.
Everybody starts digging the boss out when the artifact gets its hooks in him. Suddenly he’s surrounded by this sick purple cloud. Floating. Screaming gibberish in this otherworldly voice, he starts going for some spell slinger who helped take out the city spirit. Before it can really get nasty, Mouse hits the boss with a rock to distract him. Then Doc saves Mouse by hitting the boss with another rock. Pretty soon everybody’s stoning the boss and whatever has a hold of him drops him on the slag pile.
By this time I’ve arrived on the scene and at Mouse’s instructions we take off with our tails between our legs. Even though Mouse has the flail and Doc’s nearly dead himself with trying to heal the boss’s injuries, we’re all thinking Owen may be done. Since he’s the one who brought the team together we’re all feeling pretty low when he calls me and asks me to take him home.
I’m thinking this is like a delirious deathbed request and I’m ready to humor him with anything he wants when he gets that no-bullshit look in his eye and tells me he really needs to get back to the sprawl. He has me tell the guys he’s sorry, they should do whatever they think best with the fucking artifact, but that he is done. My suggestion would have been to throw the damned thing in the sewer, but I had to get us some wheels so I was not in on the decision.
So one rushed purchase of this overpriced SUV later, I’m bullshitting my way over the border and through Cascade checkpoints with death warmed over curled up in the passenger seat. A happy trip this is not.
*********
We'd traveled about 12 hours and then slept in the car. Nobody was more surprised then me that it seemed to help. The farther we got from Seattle the better the boss looked. Now, don’t get me wrong, he still looked like he been sleeping in a giant kitty litter box after a week-long bender, but at least his eyes were open. After a few disinterested nibbles on a power bar he took a sip of water and watched the scenery flash by.
I’d never claim to be the sharpest pencil in the box, but I’d done enough livery work (driving as a chauffeur) to know when the passenger just wants quiet. Since this was one of those times, I contented myself with feeling the road as we rolled along.
It was glaringly bright and sunny that morning and the air was surprisingly dry. We’d past Tenaway on old I 90 after coming out of what used to be called the Snoqualmie National Forest (I won’t even try the current name) as we came upon the scene. An ancient VW minibus van and what must have started life as trio of pickup trucks, thirty yards off the highway in a defensive circle surrounded by an orbit of war whooping bikers.
Forget that the “covered wagons” were impossibly old gas-guzzlers converted to smokers. Ignore the fact that the “settlers” being attacked were native peoples or that the marauding savages were Hell’s Angels on Harleys. I had visions of the boss and me ridding in with guns blazing to save the day like the old 7th cavalry. Before I could utter a sound to suggest this, he turned and looked at me and with a small shake of his head signaled me to keep going. Something in his eye told me not to argue.
I was disappointed, I’ll admit, but I consoled myself with the fact that at least he was interacting with the world again. I’d have liked to help the folks the raiders were fragging with, but I figured maybe the boss needed to avoid violence for a while. Considering how blue he got after bustin somebody up, I figured maybe he needed some peace for a change. Lord knows he’s earned it. Besides, what he needed meant a hell of a lot more to me than some strangers on the road.
We’d gone about 2 miles when he suddenly said, “stop”. As I pulled over he took off his cloak and vest. He seemed to think for a second and then pulled off his shoes, shirt, pants and the sneak suit he had on under them. He pulled 3 throwing blades out of the pile of equipment, said “wait” and grinned at me. He started running back towards the trouble.
I knew how insane it was to take off Kevlar before going into a firefight, how nuts it was to leave weapons behind when going into battle, how crazy it was to deliberately use a two mile barefoot run in boxers as a warm up for an attack on a couple of dozen armed go gangers. Hell, in his condition it wasn't even smart for him to be moving around a lot! All of that was crazy enough to be disturbing, but the thing that made the hair stand up on the back of my head was his grin. I’m no wuss, but I tell you that grin made me shiver.
In spite of being told to wait, as soon as the boss was a few hundred yards up the road, I swung the vehicle around, popped a fresh clip into my assault rifle, pulled back the charging rod and headed back towards the ambush. The boss might not like it, but I owed him too much to let him wander into that shitstorm without cover (and besides, I really wanted to see what was going to happen.) I also figured he’d shortly be too busy to bother with how well or poorly I’d followed his orders.
I was right. According to Thomas Small Buck, the boss had come running in and jumped onto the back of one Angels’ hog without so much as a by-your-leave. The surprised biker was using an AK97 as a noisemaker, firing bursts into the air as he whooped and hollered.
“Touched- by-spirits made the big man his toy.” Said Small Buck. “He grabbed both arms from behind and the dog was shooting his own pack. Forcing other dogs out of their circle. The people were so surprised it took us some moments to understand we were being rescued.”
“When the other dogs saw a wolf in their pack they tried to gun him down, but shot more of their own. When the bike crashed, Touched-by-spirits held the big one as a shield; always spinning so that the biker ate the death they wished to give your brother. Then you attacked from the road, the people found their hearts and the pack found death and fear.”
As flattered as I was by the brave’s words, I knew I could have arrived sooner if the bikers had been as dumb as the storyteller was making them. They may have been a pack of dogs, but they were still smart enough to put a blocking party between the road and the battle site. The boss had apparently cleared that obstacle with his throwing blades, but it took me a little longer to get the vehicle through the bikes and bodies.
I also had to be very careful about my shot placement. First of all, the boss was moving like a blur and I didn’t want to shoot the man I was covering. Second, the circle of wagons was just beyond the bikers. Misplaced shots might kill the folks we were trying to help. In spite of this I was able to drop at least 3 of the go-gangers before they could ace either the boss or me.
Not, of course, that the boss seemed to need my help. He may have been recovering from what the artifact did to him but he wasn’t off his game when it came to sending Hell’s Angels to their last reward. He’d clothesline one hood, jump kick another and then just push a biker over in front of his oncoming buddy.
He’d caught an aluminum baseball bat that had been thrown at his head, and with amazing speed, sent it back through the thrower’s front wheel. This caused the bike to stop so suddenly that the biker on board not only ate dirt (a handstand without hands) but heard his own neck break as the inverted bike continued its flip on top of his dying body.
The bikers managed to hurt the boss too, of course. One cowpoke using a section of chain as a lariat hit him in the torso, but it couldn’t compare to the biker’s pain when the boss grabbed the chain and whipped one end around the handlebars of a bike attacking from the opposite direction. The Angel’s screech as his wrist, elbow and shoulder were simultaneously dislocated was high pitched enough to be heard over the roar of battle. Time slowed as the bike moving opposite the orbit was pulled back on top of its rider while the shrieking cowboy on the other end of the chain flew into another pile up.
Cutting down on the traffic unfortunately made the boss an easier target and my heart almost stopped when I saw him spun by a round in the hip. That he stayed on his feet was impressive enough, but I suspect that the name the people gave him came from what happened next. He slowly raised an arm and pointed at the slob who had shot him. Then he roared. Then he started running at the biker ignoring everything else. Unnerving as hell. The biker’s scrotum must have shriveled at the sight because even though he got off two shots at a target that was coming right at him, he missed. He was pulling the trigger a third time when the Boss put a finger through the shooter’s neck.
At this point the fire picked up from the circled wagons and the half dozen bikers still on their hogs roared off. I felt really awkward as the boss limped around sending the downed bikers on to their eternal reward. Coup de Grace was not his usual style at all, but he was way in some kind of zone. A couple of braves must have thought the overkill wasn't needed because they moved to cut off the circuit. One look from “Touched by Spirits” was enough to convince them to find something else to do in a hurry. When he was done I still couldn’t get through to him and the boss just stood there with a vacant look, bleeding and breathing hard until Sacred Raven shuffled up. The impossibly shriveled old patriarch of the clan kept nodding and toothlessly mumbling until he eventually rested a hand on the boss’ shoulder. They stood together for a few minutes like that and after that the little old man slowly guided the boss back to the circle of wags to be cared for.
The situation was awkward as hell. I mean, here we are in a foreign country, the boss has just iced a dozen bikers in front of witnesses, he’s a little bit out of his mind and strangers have taken him into an improvised medicine lodge/hospital. I wanted to do something but I was at a loss as to what it should be. That’s when Thomas Small Buck came up, introduced himself and and offered me a brew. I know it sounds strange, but it was the best thing he could have done.
********
While Small Buck and I stood sipping suds and surveying the damage, his tribe went to work with the quiet efficiency of ants. Some of the young men began cobbling together a flatbed out of scrap wood while others were mounting a pair of old wheels on some kind of axle. The women, kids and old folks stripped the bikers’ bodies or collected weapons and ammo. Before I’d chugged my last swallow the trailer had been put together and the whole tribe was pushing/pulling/lifting/dragging and generally jackassing the first busted bike onto the flatbed. Lacking a good excuse or anything better to do, I joined the effort.
The people, which is how they refer to themselves, were surprised but too pragmatic to refuse my help. They were quiet, but I saw some shy smiles of gratitude as we loaded the broken machines onto the sled. Two of the bikes had only minor damage and a little judiciously applied muscle power by me got things unbent enough for them to be ridden. This did two things. It made me very popular with the two braves who got the bikes, as soon as they saw I was not claiming them for myself, and it also got me the wide-eyed wonder of the pack of five to eight year olds who oohed and ahhed as I pulled, unbent and straightened. I’m usually more likely to scare kids than entertain them so later when Small Buck signaled me over by the minibus it took me a while to figure out what I was seeing. I eventually realized that the kids’ attempts to walk on tip toe while sticking out their chests, showing their lower teeth, and winking at each other, were imitating me. I enjoyed it, especially that they kept dissolving into giggles at each other’s attempts to be “Strong Hands Travels” (my name among the people). When I saw the little girls had plated a shining washer in the hair by their temples, where my rigging jack is, I admit I was touched.
“Come, we eat now.” Small Buck said. “We will speak of your brother and what can be done.”
Since I was both hungry and singularly clueless on what “my brother” needed, I would have readily followed him into the shade, were it not for the fact that between the adrenaline of the battle and the exertion of the aftermath, I was more fragrant than normal. I went back to the Bear for a bottled water shower and a change of shirt. When I’d finished my quick clean up I headed over to the canvas that had been hung from a couple of the trucks. I guess by all the nodding I got when I ducked into the shade that the people either agreed with my need to bathe or considered it polite for a guest to take care of personal hygiene before sitting down to eat. In any event, I got more of those shy smiles as I got my bowl of beans and another beer.
“Your brother has poison in his spirit.” Small Buck said when the meal was done. “Sacred Raven was an elder when my father was a child, and he has never seen so much poison. It is very bad.” Shaking his head, Small Buck quietly continued, “I would urge that Sacred Raven use his power to help your brother because of what the warrior did for the people, but he says that we must help not for our debt but because the earth mother cries at your brother’s touch. He is afraid the poison will spread.”
“The people will take your brother to a sacred place. This place is sacred to the Comanche, the Sioux and the Blackfoot as well as the people. We call it Lodge Grass. Others call it the Valley of the Chiefs. Sacred Raven says that your brother must vision quest near the ancient stone pictures so that his spirit will remember itself without the poison. He says that when his spirit remembers the poison will have no hold and will go.”
As I was absorbing this, Small Buck continued, “You must know the sour as well as the sweet. Sacred Raven says that even the stone pictures may not point the way. If your brother’s spirit cannot find itself, there will be nothing but poison. Sacred Raven says that even he may not have the power to stop your brother if the poison takes his spirit’s place. There is a shaman of the Sioux that Sacred Raven will ask to end all in the sweat lodge rather than let the poison spread by using our bodies.”
Seeing my flinch at the word “our” Small Buck tried to reassure me. He put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and said “I will be there for the people. Sacred Raven will be there to guide the dream. You must be there as your brother’s link to what he was.”
Terrific I thought.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not getting killed that I’m swallowing hard about. I’m in no hurry to meet the reaper, you understand, but I owe the boss my life so many times over that if I gotta buy the farm to save his butt, it’s a deal I’m willing to make. It’s just I’d rather not deal with religious stuff to do it.
I’ve mentioned before how much I hate religious rituals. I mean, its not that I’m against them exactly. Everybody who wants to should be able to talk to the gods or the spirits or the saints or whatever. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. I’d be very happy for the higher powers to be completely unaware of an Ork rigger called Itami Hanzo. Let them do their thing in the heavens or the sky or the spirit world and let me do mine right here in the land of the blissfully ignorant. That’s all I ask. That’s not too much, is it?
Yeah, it is.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment