Perfect Moment
by shapcano
warning: still grim
Having sacrificed everything for his art, he'd grown to understand aspects of it that eluded lesser artists. He knew, for example, that the perfect artistic statement required a flawless palette, an eternal subject and a precise moment in time. When the subject was first presented to him, he sensed, with the instinct that great artists often have, that this work would give him an opportunity to isolate a single perfect moment. He embraced this opportunity because he was an artist and his art was death.
To the strains of Klemper's recording of Mozart's Die Zauberflote he spent days pouring over the data that had come in with the "request". Then during Papageno's song, he suddenly saw how his art would take shape and with a small smile began jotting down a list of the materials he would require. The next two days past quickly, filled as they were with tests designed to insure that his art would find it's perfect moment.
The Glass House truck, actually a Toyotacorp Gopher Pickup modified to carry the huge planes of plate glass that were the Glass House's stock and trade, did not turn over or begin burning when it's right front tire blew out at the corner of McArthur and 48th street, in spite of what Trid might cause one to assume. Neither did it's brief skid spread flying sheets of glass to injure pedestrians before giving the street a reflective shard shower on that rainy afternoon. It did make a minor impact on the right rear quadrant of the Nissan Jackrabbit in front of it, causing both uninjured but concerned drivers to exit their vehicles and begin the process of exchanging insurance information in spite of the rain. Subsequent investigation would show that a one and a half inch wood screw had caused the Gopher's tire to blow.
The minor accident caused Otto Schultz, retired house painter and part time school bus driver to divert from his normal route, making a right turn onto 50th street so as to avoid the tie up. He had no idea as he waited for the light at Williams drive that a Kanmushi crawler drone had the radiator flush plug for his full school bus firmly grasped in it's rubber coated pincers. Neither did he suspect that when he hit the depression as he started making the turn that the remote had detached itself from the bottom of his vehicle, pulling the vital plug with it, and scampered into a nearby storm drain. The coolant leak lasted exactly 93 seconds through the brief drive down Williams, the left on 47th, the right on McArthur and the stop to discharge his young passengers at 46th.
"Hey Otto, your Bus is taking a leak, man." Yelled one rambunctious third grader after exiting the vehicle. The driver noted the giggles and pointed fingers as the hot engine light came on. He heaved himself out of the seat muttering about "old 105 never let me down before" and made his way out to survey the problem.
On the heels of the Thompson School accident of 2052 and the St. Benedict's massacre later that year, national safety regulations were applied unilaterally across the UCAS. Vowing "never again" at the site of the Thompson School accident, lawmakers enacted tough national regulations concerning school busses. The law that stopped vehicles in both directions when a school bus was discharging passengers had met with very little resistance. Many states had already enacted such laws, but the prevailing sentiment seemed to be "the children will finally be safe". Four million nuyen were spent on a traffic safety awareness program and violators received the maximum fines. So, when Otto got out to check his injured vehicle the traffic in both directions on McArthur Blvd. was halted.
Following the maxim that no one is above the law, the secret service drivers in the first two cars escorting the Rolls Royce Phaeton Limousine, also stopped at 46th street, rather than pass the flashing stop signs of the school bus coming in the opposite direction. 'Better safe than sorry' as nobody wanted to accidentally hit some running school kid with a motorcade when the signs clearly said stop. Besides, it wasn't like they hadn't made this run without incident a hundred times before, or that the Phaeton wasn't armored to withstand even missile strikes. Just a brief delay and they'd be on their way.
When the figure on the bank roof was certain that the target vehicle was in the right location he depressed a button. This released a surge of power which transformed the low watt targeting beam aimed at the telephone pole's cross piece with a surge of power which instantly superheated the moisture in the wood, causing it to evaporate and expand with an explosive crack. The heavy ceramic insulator then ceased to be a support for the electric line and became instead a rapidly descending anchor. As previous tests had revealed, the electric cable, never intended to support such weight, parted cleanly at the insulator, with one end dropping harmlessly to the street and the other (live end) landing on the third vehicle on the east side of McArthur Blvd.
The RunFlat foam filled tires that are usually such an advantage on security vehicles proved to have less insular capacity than air filled rubber tires might have. They proceeded to melt as the voltage poured through the car's heavy metal body. The environ-seal system, roll cages, armor and passenger restraint system did not preserve the cars occupants from the fatal electrical dose. The Phaeton proved to be such a good conductor, in fact, that the insulated gas tank and hidden weapons cooked off and exploded before aid could reach the occupants.
Detaching the cable from his hidden rigger jack, the painter on the bank roof hummed as he broke down the compressed air rifle that had flattened the Glass House Truck's tire and placed it, his observation board/remote unit and the single shot surge laser into a painter's bag. He then completed touching up the roof top sign with a new coat of paint.
"Jennings! How the hell did something like this happen?"
"Freak of nature boss. Wrong place, wrong time, accident. We've checked everything. Witnesses say they saw the lightning hit the telephone poll. We had forensics check and they say the damage is exactly what happens when an electrical charge like lightning superheats the moisture in wood. Absolutely no evidence of any impact or explosive or anything like that. We checked the electrical cable. Absolutely no evidence that it was tampered with in anyway. Ditto the insulator. The airspace above the incident was completely clean and the best of the magic boys can't find any evidence of anything out of the ordinary. We checked the bus driver, who was clean and one of the investigating agents who went over the route he described actually found the lost radiator plug that caused his bus to overheat. We even checked the glass truck that had the flat and the accident that caused the bus to divert. Guy ran over a wood screw. That caused the blow out which led to the fender bender.... I'm telling you boss it was just an accident. One minute before or after, we have no problem. As it is....."
"Mr. Bishop, we are very happy with this last piece of work. Excellent. Some of the council have expressed a desire to personally........"
"No."
"Yes, well, I didn't really expect that you would change your policy in that regard. May we instead offer you some form of recreation......"
"No"
"Other than the fiscal reward isn't there anything we can do to show our appreciation?"
"Do you have another assignment"
"Well, no, not at the moment, but....."
"Contact me when you do."
Brow furrowed in concentration the artist attempted to visualize every aspect of the perfect moment in his most recent creation.
END TRANS
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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