Unlike the bizarre lobby, the office we were ushered into was a pretty standard salariman’s workplace. You know…. big desk, chairs, picture windows, corper talking 90 miles a minute on multiple coms, etc.
Kilkenny looked up as we came in and signaled us to sit down without missing a beat in any of his com calls. I sat Tommy and myself down and then watched the tension between the boss and greenjeans. They weren’t nervous, exactly, just real…wary. Ready for the other to suddenly attack for no reason. Finally Kilkenny broke his last com connection.
“So,” he said without any preamble, “What do you want to see me about?”
When the boss looked over at me I knew he was expecting me to handle this biz since I was the one who started it. I swallowed hard and said “We here to deliver this young man. He was entrusted to us by a woman who asked us to bring him to Kilkenny in Casper. Are you Kilkenny?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I see some proof?”
“Proof? Ha-ha. Proof.” He studied me for a minute. “So my word’s not good enough, eh? What are you gonna do if I refuse to document myself?”
“I can’t turn over the kid then.” I said reasonably.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “And what makes you think that I need you to turn over the kid? You’re my ‘guests’ and so is he.”
I took a deep breath and looking him in the eye I asked “You sure you want to play it that way?”
The silence didn’t quite last an eternity but it seemed that long. Finally Kilkenny smiled out of one corner of his mouth and plugged his credstick into a reader on his desk. The holo that flashed above the unit showed a 3-d head and shoulders of the man I was talking to alongside the words Kilkenny, NFI, NMI.
The letters stumped me for a minute until it dawned on me they meant “no first initial, no middle initial”.
“So, now that we know who I am, who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I said “Were just a couple of good Samaritans.”
Greenie's snicker was almost lost in Kilkenny’s roar of laughter. He kept it up for too long and I started to get pissed.
“Don’t mean to spoil your fun there chuckles,” I said, even though I did, “but here’s the deal. About 150 miles ago I’m at truckstop on I 90. As I’m about to pull away, shots ring out, a woman comes running out screaming for me to stop and swinging a handgun about 6 times too big for her. Not wanting to eat a bullet, I stop, she pushes the kid in the window, screams ‘Take him to Kilkenny in Casper’ and goes back to shooting. I beat feet.”
“We drive here, get treated like lepers by the townsfolk, get jumped by a pair of your sec boys in the street, my friend has to play paddycake with junior here”, pointing my thumb at greenie, who is now giving me a very dirty look, “and then find that we're your comedy interlude. You want to give us a break?”
He wasn’t slow on the uptake. When I finished he said “Wait one” and his eyes went unfocused. Whether he was manipulating mana or using a wireless headware connection he seemed to be directing his assets to check out the truckstop.
His next question was the obvious one. “Who was she shooting at?”
“No idea”, I replied. “She got out of an old Nissan patrol-1 with a big twitchy fragger. He was 6-8, maybe 260, square jaw, bullet head. They went into the stop together, she came out alone and shooting.”
He didn’t seem surprised by any part of my description, nodding to himself as I spoke. Finally I told him “Kid’s been no trouble at all.”
Kilkenny focused on Tommy for the first time. He looked at the kid for a couple of seconds and then with that same corner-of-the-mouth smile went into his desk and pulled out a real long sheet of paper and a huge box of crayons. He held them out to the kid. Those big eyes lit up when Tommy saw the crayons but the kid looked at me for permission before he moved. I smiled and nodded as, still clutching the bear, he jumped up to draw.
Kilkenny nodded after Tommy started composing his masterpiece. He looked over at us and asked “How much?”
Now, I ain’t been in a coma while working with the Lost Boys. I said “We don’t sell kids.”
Kilkenny got mad. Like instantly really offended. “If you buy them all the time,” I continued, “you could tell me how much they go for. You know, just as a point of information, how much is Tommy worth.”
I guess he got the point because he dipped his head as if to acknowledge that it was really stupid thing to ask. Finally he said “But you must want something.”
The boss was completely unprepared for what I said next. “Actually, I do want something.” I said.
“Name it.” said Kilkenny. “I don’t like to owe.”
“Good. I want this snide superior sonofabitch to apologize.” I said nodding at greenboy. “Maybe it will teach him not to attack or threaten visitors until he’s sure they are enemies.”
I am so grateful that phys ads don’t kill with looks because if they could, I’d be dead right now. Kilkenny said “Jade” before there was any violence but everyone except Tommy knew that mayhem was only a breath away.
Jade and the K man then had a staring match of their own. Kilkenny obviously wanted him to apologize so that there would be no debt. Jade didn’t intend to apologize to “Mercenaries” no matter how wrong he was or how much his employer wanted him to. After several minutes of silence, Jade stalked off without a word.
Kilkenny shrugged as if to say “What can I do?”.
I nodded my understanding and said “No problem, you can owe us.”
As we were leaving the office Tommy looked up and waved to the boss. Then he smiled at me and said "Bye-bye, toothy man" and went back to his crayons.
I figured we were done with Casper, but as we get out to the Bear I see my new friend Jade leaning against the hood.
Happy, he was not.
I look at the boss who walks past him as though the man in green is invisible. The boss gets in without incident and, with a little shrug, so do I. As I'm closing my door Jade sort of slides to my window and sticks his face in. I say "slides" because even though I could see every detail and it looked like slow motion it actually took about half a second for him to get from the front bumper to my window.
This was bad.
The guy is a pissed off phys ad who is in dutch with his employer because of me. He's easily able to kill me before the boss or I can do anything about it and the thought that the boss will probably kill Jade after Jade kills me gives me very little comfort.
Now, I've got to do this in slow motion so you can understand how weird it is.
All at the same time Jade inhales because he's about to tell me something (probably how he can kill me before the boss or I can do anything about it), the boss starts to open his door to come to my rescue (I assume) and I start bringing up my left hand to shield myself from the strike I'm sure is coming. At this precise instant the truck being jumpstarted backfires and we are all distracted by the "boom". The boss flinches, I flinch and Jade flinches. At least, that's what I guess happened in retrospect.
Anyway, I'm throwing up my hand as I'm ducking away from the window the boss is ducking back into the car away from his window and Jade is ducking his head down. There follows a loud "KnoK" like the sound of two coconuts being smashed together as the boss and I headbutt each other. About two tenth's of a second later there is a sound like celery being stepped on followed immediately by a hiss.
Smashing heads is not fun. It hurts, its disorienting and makes you see stars. It also makes you dizzy when you try to sit up. Eventually I was able to change the position of my throbbing noggin without needing to call Ralph on the big porcelain phone and that's when I noticed Jade. He's not leaning in my window about to threaten me with death. He's flat on his back with his hands around his throat and his heels drumming on the street. The Boss zips around the car as I get out.
Apparently the knuckle of my thumb caught the phys ad in the exact spot to collapse his trachea. My hand (jerking up in a panic reaction) and his head (jerking down also in a panic reaction) created enough force so that at the point of impact his wind pipe folded in on itself, eliminating his ability to exhale the air in his lungs or draw any new air in.
We stood there as he suffocated.
I guess you could argue that we should have done something. As we were driving out of Casper the boss described how you can open a small hole in his throat below the injury and shove a soda straw in to act as an airway. But that was later. While Jade was dying we just watched. .
It was kind of like watching a devilrat drown in a stormdrain after a heavy thunderstorm. You're not angry at the rat or anything, you just know that if you try to interfere you'll regret it, so you just stand back and watch it die.
That's what we did with Jade.
Of course, if I'd been thinking (and a better liar) I could have enhanced my rep by acting as if it wasn't an accident. You know, 'killed a phys ad in hand to hand combat' sort of bulldrek.
Who can say? If I was pulling it on somebody other than the boss, somebody who I hadn't cocobutted while executing my "attack", they might have bought it.
Jade was certainly dead, after all.
Rather than explain it to Kilkenny, we quickly left Casper.
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.....er..um...... Topps maybe? (I lost my score card). 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.
Kilkenny looked up as we came in and signaled us to sit down without missing a beat in any of his com calls. I sat Tommy and myself down and then watched the tension between the boss and greenjeans. They weren’t nervous, exactly, just real…wary. Ready for the other to suddenly attack for no reason. Finally Kilkenny broke his last com connection.
“So,” he said without any preamble, “What do you want to see me about?”
When the boss looked over at me I knew he was expecting me to handle this biz since I was the one who started it. I swallowed hard and said “We here to deliver this young man. He was entrusted to us by a woman who asked us to bring him to Kilkenny in Casper. Are you Kilkenny?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I see some proof?”
“Proof? Ha-ha. Proof.” He studied me for a minute. “So my word’s not good enough, eh? What are you gonna do if I refuse to document myself?”
“I can’t turn over the kid then.” I said reasonably.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “And what makes you think that I need you to turn over the kid? You’re my ‘guests’ and so is he.”
I took a deep breath and looking him in the eye I asked “You sure you want to play it that way?”
The silence didn’t quite last an eternity but it seemed that long. Finally Kilkenny smiled out of one corner of his mouth and plugged his credstick into a reader on his desk. The holo that flashed above the unit showed a 3-d head and shoulders of the man I was talking to alongside the words Kilkenny, NFI, NMI.
The letters stumped me for a minute until it dawned on me they meant “no first initial, no middle initial”.
“So, now that we know who I am, who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I said “Were just a couple of good Samaritans.”
Greenie's snicker was almost lost in Kilkenny’s roar of laughter. He kept it up for too long and I started to get pissed.
“Don’t mean to spoil your fun there chuckles,” I said, even though I did, “but here’s the deal. About 150 miles ago I’m at truckstop on I 90. As I’m about to pull away, shots ring out, a woman comes running out screaming for me to stop and swinging a handgun about 6 times too big for her. Not wanting to eat a bullet, I stop, she pushes the kid in the window, screams ‘Take him to Kilkenny in Casper’ and goes back to shooting. I beat feet.”
“We drive here, get treated like lepers by the townsfolk, get jumped by a pair of your sec boys in the street, my friend has to play paddycake with junior here”, pointing my thumb at greenie, who is now giving me a very dirty look, “and then find that we're your comedy interlude. You want to give us a break?”
He wasn’t slow on the uptake. When I finished he said “Wait one” and his eyes went unfocused. Whether he was manipulating mana or using a wireless headware connection he seemed to be directing his assets to check out the truckstop.
His next question was the obvious one. “Who was she shooting at?”
“No idea”, I replied. “She got out of an old Nissan patrol-1 with a big twitchy fragger. He was 6-8, maybe 260, square jaw, bullet head. They went into the stop together, she came out alone and shooting.”
He didn’t seem surprised by any part of my description, nodding to himself as I spoke. Finally I told him “Kid’s been no trouble at all.”
Kilkenny focused on Tommy for the first time. He looked at the kid for a couple of seconds and then with that same corner-of-the-mouth smile went into his desk and pulled out a real long sheet of paper and a huge box of crayons. He held them out to the kid. Those big eyes lit up when Tommy saw the crayons but the kid looked at me for permission before he moved. I smiled and nodded as, still clutching the bear, he jumped up to draw.
Kilkenny nodded after Tommy started composing his masterpiece. He looked over at us and asked “How much?”
Now, I ain’t been in a coma while working with the Lost Boys. I said “We don’t sell kids.”
Kilkenny got mad. Like instantly really offended. “If you buy them all the time,” I continued, “you could tell me how much they go for. You know, just as a point of information, how much is Tommy worth.”
I guess he got the point because he dipped his head as if to acknowledge that it was really stupid thing to ask. Finally he said “But you must want something.”
The boss was completely unprepared for what I said next. “Actually, I do want something.” I said.
“Name it.” said Kilkenny. “I don’t like to owe.”
“Good. I want this snide superior sonofabitch to apologize.” I said nodding at greenboy. “Maybe it will teach him not to attack or threaten visitors until he’s sure they are enemies.”
I am so grateful that phys ads don’t kill with looks because if they could, I’d be dead right now. Kilkenny said “Jade” before there was any violence but everyone except Tommy knew that mayhem was only a breath away.
Jade and the K man then had a staring match of their own. Kilkenny obviously wanted him to apologize so that there would be no debt. Jade didn’t intend to apologize to “Mercenaries” no matter how wrong he was or how much his employer wanted him to. After several minutes of silence, Jade stalked off without a word.
Kilkenny shrugged as if to say “What can I do?”.
I nodded my understanding and said “No problem, you can owe us.”
As we were leaving the office Tommy looked up and waved to the boss. Then he smiled at me and said "Bye-bye, toothy man" and went back to his crayons.
I figured we were done with Casper, but as we get out to the Bear I see my new friend Jade leaning against the hood.
Happy, he was not.
I look at the boss who walks past him as though the man in green is invisible. The boss gets in without incident and, with a little shrug, so do I. As I'm closing my door Jade sort of slides to my window and sticks his face in. I say "slides" because even though I could see every detail and it looked like slow motion it actually took about half a second for him to get from the front bumper to my window.
This was bad.
The guy is a pissed off phys ad who is in dutch with his employer because of me. He's easily able to kill me before the boss or I can do anything about it and the thought that the boss will probably kill Jade after Jade kills me gives me very little comfort.
Now, I've got to do this in slow motion so you can understand how weird it is.
All at the same time Jade inhales because he's about to tell me something (probably how he can kill me before the boss or I can do anything about it), the boss starts to open his door to come to my rescue (I assume) and I start bringing up my left hand to shield myself from the strike I'm sure is coming. At this precise instant the truck being jumpstarted backfires and we are all distracted by the "boom". The boss flinches, I flinch and Jade flinches. At least, that's what I guess happened in retrospect.
Anyway, I'm throwing up my hand as I'm ducking away from the window the boss is ducking back into the car away from his window and Jade is ducking his head down. There follows a loud "KnoK" like the sound of two coconuts being smashed together as the boss and I headbutt each other. About two tenth's of a second later there is a sound like celery being stepped on followed immediately by a hiss.
Smashing heads is not fun. It hurts, its disorienting and makes you see stars. It also makes you dizzy when you try to sit up. Eventually I was able to change the position of my throbbing noggin without needing to call Ralph on the big porcelain phone and that's when I noticed Jade. He's not leaning in my window about to threaten me with death. He's flat on his back with his hands around his throat and his heels drumming on the street. The Boss zips around the car as I get out.
Apparently the knuckle of my thumb caught the phys ad in the exact spot to collapse his trachea. My hand (jerking up in a panic reaction) and his head (jerking down also in a panic reaction) created enough force so that at the point of impact his wind pipe folded in on itself, eliminating his ability to exhale the air in his lungs or draw any new air in.
We stood there as he suffocated.
I guess you could argue that we should have done something. As we were driving out of Casper the boss described how you can open a small hole in his throat below the injury and shove a soda straw in to act as an airway. But that was later. While Jade was dying we just watched. .
It was kind of like watching a devilrat drown in a stormdrain after a heavy thunderstorm. You're not angry at the rat or anything, you just know that if you try to interfere you'll regret it, so you just stand back and watch it die.
That's what we did with Jade.
Of course, if I'd been thinking (and a better liar) I could have enhanced my rep by acting as if it wasn't an accident. You know, 'killed a phys ad in hand to hand combat' sort of bulldrek.
Who can say? If I was pulling it on somebody other than the boss, somebody who I hadn't cocobutted while executing my "attack", they might have bought it.
Jade was certainly dead, after all.
Rather than explain it to Kilkenny, we quickly left Casper.
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.....er..um...... Topps maybe? (I lost my score card). 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.
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