Shadowrun, page 15
She wasn’t sure she could bear to go through that again.
The sky wraps around, but not stifling, not enveloping.
Cradling, but open enough to allow full freedom of movement, inviting but not restricting.
The chains still bind, but their creaking is louder now, more strident,
the links struggling against the forces pushing them outward, striving to break free.
Already there is some give to them. Soon there will be more.
Soon they will snap, and fall away, and there will be no more obstacles, no more tethers.
Only freedom.
“What’ve we got?” Allie asked as she pulled the ambulance over between two patrol cars. The Knight Errant officers had waved the ambulance through the cordon, dropping the electric warning fence they’d erected and then quickly reestablishing it, so as Allie parked and got out, all she saw around them were people in full tactical gear.
“Domestic violence,” Lanos answered. That was how they always worked, he took the calls while she drove, then filled her in when they got there. The last thing he wanted, he often said, was to distract her from her driving. “Husband, wife, two kids.”
“Injuries?” This was directed as much to the sergeant approaching them as to Lanos.
“We don’t know yet,” the security expert admitted as he reached them, looking no-nonsense in his smart black uniform. “The husband just got laid off, he and the wife got into it, he got physical, the neighbor called it in. He’s tough, was one of us till he got let go for drinking, so we weren’t taking any chances. Sent in a neuro-stun via drone, place’s been quiet since, figure he’s down and out.”
“Right, so we’re on search and rescue.” Allie tapped Lanos on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
They headed past the Knights and inside. They’d done this sort of thing before, of course. The wife and children would’ve been knocked out as well, and who knew if he’d hurt them before that, so Allie and Lanos would go in, locate the wife and kids, assess their condition, escort them out if possible, and call for backup if not. Meanwhile the Knights would keep watch outside—once everyone else was clear they’d go in and cuff the guy, but they didn’t want to risk setting him off and endangering everyone else further.
An HRT Knight, fully decked out in tac-armor and an Ares Alpha with underbarrel grenade launcher, showed them to the apartment door, which had already been breached. Gas was still drifting out from under the partially-open door, but the room behind was only mildly hazy, which meant most of the stun gas had already dissipated. Even so, Allie pulled out her gas mask and slid it on, hooking it onto her helmet, and Lanos did the same beside her. Better safe than sorry.
Then they went in.
Even through her visor, Allie could see that everything had a seedy, rundown look to it. Most of it was neat, though. Nothing out of place, not like that ork’s the other day. Clearly this family believed in keeping up appearances.
But where were they?
“Over here!” Lanos called, and Allie turned. He’d split off, checking a room to the side, and Allie quickly caught up with him. Three figures were curled up in the far corner behind a set of bunk beds: one adult, the other two smaller. The wife and kids. Allie sighed in relief before hurrying over to help check on them.
“Vitals are strong,” she reported a minute later, reading the scan off her visor. “Unconscious, but they’ll be fine. Where is he?” They couldn’t risk waking and moving the family until they knew they had a clear exit path.
“Got to be around here somewhere,” Lanos answered. There wasn’t anyone else in this room, so they stepped back out into the main area. A kitchen lay beyond that, and there were two other doors as well. One had to be a bathroom, which would make the other the master bedroom.
They could see the whole kitchen and it was empty, so the husband had to be behind one of those two doors. Their helmets had IR capability, but gas confused the sensors, so they were stuck with operating on pure visual for now.
Allie reached the first door, quietly twisted the knob, and pushed it open. A large bed greeted her. Master bedroom. But she didn’t see anyone. She cautiously stuck her head in and looked around, but still no sign of the husband.
She was just turning to let Lanos know the room was clear when she caught motion past him. It was the bathroom door, silently swinging open. The space beyond it was dark, and completely clear of gas—but far from empty.
“Look out!” she shouted, but the gas mask muffled her words. Her partner’s sharp elf ears heard her anyway, and he started to turn, but didn’t get more than halfway around before a short, stocky figure reared up and smashed Lanos across the head with something heavy. Allie heard the crack of metal on plasteel, and her partner dropped to the ground.
“No!” she shouted. The husband—a dwarf, by his height and build and heavy beard—turned to her, grinning savagely as he raised the mace and stepped forward. Allie tried to back away, but only got a few feet before she bumped up against the living room couch. The husband stalked closer, mace ready to swing.
He was only a few feet away now, and she could clearly see his wild eyes and flared nostrils, the heaving chest and the mumbling, grunting mouth. There was definitely something wrong with him.
Allie couldn’t breathe. She ripped off her helmet, gas mask and all, locking eyes with the dwarf as he lifted his mace. He hefted it, clearly about to strike her down as well—
—and somewhere in her head Allie heard a clear, crisp sound, almost like the tone of a bell.
Or the sound of something metal finally snapping and falling away.
“You will not hurt me,” she declared in a loud, ringing voice, tossing her braid over her shoulder. She glared down at the dwarf, and suddenly it seemed as if he had shrunk or she had grown because the height difference between them increased so that she had to tilt her head forward in order to make him out. His own face had paled, his mouth falling open, eyes widening as he gazed up at her, and his hand shook around the mace.
“No…” he whispered, the first word Allie had heard him say. “Please, no.” For a second, she thought he might drop the weapon, but instead she saw his eyes narrow and his lips pull back in a sneer as he gripped the mace even more tightly. With a roar he leaped toward her, mace poised to strike.
But the blow never landed, as Allie opened her mouth to scream her defiance, daring him to do his worst—
—and electricity shot forth, arcing into the dwarf and freezing him in place, his whole body convulsing. The mace fell to the floor, but the crackling energy continued for a few seconds before finally fading away, leaving the dwarf unconscious and twitching on the floor, Lanos there beside him.
Allie felt her feet sink back down onto the threadbare carpet, a wave of exhaustion suddenly hitting her, and she staggered, resting a hand on the couch back for support.
What in the nine hells just happened?
Afterward, she just stood and stared. Lanos was finishing up handing the wife and children off to nurses, but Allie couldn’t even remembering driving them back to the hospital. She must have, though, because the ambulance was in its usual spot and she was standing outside it.
“You okay?” her partner asked her once the family had been taken care of. He winced and rubbed his head. “I’m going to get checked out—you should too.” He’d been lucky—the sound Allie had heard had been his helmet shattering, not his skull, and it had dispersed the force of the blow enough to render it nonlethal, but he probably still had a concussion, if not worse.
“I’m fine,” Allie pulled herself together enough to reply. “You go on. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yeah, okay.” He started for the hospital doors but paused. “Hey, Allie?” he asked, and she nodded. “Good work today. If you hadn’t hit him with that taser... Thanks.” This was as serious as she’d ever seen him, and Allie knew better than to blow off such a sincere statement.
Instead she just said, “Of course. You know I’ve got your back.” She watched as Lanos headed back inside.
Then she turned and took off in the other direction.
Allie didn’t get very far, however. A few minutes later she was in the hospital garden, a little place out back that provided a few bushes, a few flowers, a few benches, and some grass and trees for anyone needing to escape the hospital’s sterile environment. She sank down onto one of the benches and tried to marshal her thoughts.
What was going on with her? What had happened with that dwarf? Yes, their gloves had built-in tasers, but she hadn’t activated hers. And what about that ork, for that matter? None of it made sense, but something deep within told Allie that that might not mean it was wrong. Making sense didn’t seem to have much of a relationship with the truth at the moment.
Footsteps suddenly rang out nearby, making her glance up.
It was the man she’d seen the other day, the tall one with the pale hair and the fancy clothes. “You appear to be having some difficulty,” he said as he slid onto the bench beside her, leaving a small buffer space between them. “I can help, if I may.”
Allie glared at him. “Who are you? What do you want? Have you been following me?”
But he waved the questions aside. “The past is not important,” he claimed. “It’s what we do with tomorrow that matters.”
“Nice way to avoid the question,” Allie shot back, earning a flush against almost-milk-pale skin.
“Very well.” The stranger executed an odd, seemingly formal bow. “I have been following you, yes. To make sure you are safe. That is all.”
“Safe? Safe how?” She shuddered at the memory of recent events. “I nearly got flattened by an ork a few days ago. Then today I almost got taken down by a dwarf. You call that safe?”
“Neither of them could have hurt you,” he assured her, sounding as if he genuinely believed that, “and that is not the sort of safety that concerns me.” Eyes as ice-blue as her own stabbed at her; not meanly, just with laser intensity. “Tell me, what do you remember?” Allie started telling him about the ork and the dwarf, but he held up a long, slender hand. “No,” he said softly. “What do you remember?”
“I—I’ve been having these dreams,” she replied finally, not even sure why she was telling him this. “About the sky—and flying, I think. And about chains.” He nodded, and she went on, “and the chains—they were breaking.”
That earned a sigh from him. “Yes,” he agreed, pushing back his long white hair; a hue that, like her own, belied youthful features. “You are starting to break free. To remember what—and who—you truly are.” He did not seem entirely happy about this. “It is too soon, however,” he declared softly, his gaze fierce and sad all at once. “You must go back.”
“Go back? Go back where?” Allie felt a shiver of fear run through her. “Who did this to me? And what did they do to me, exactly?”
Now he smiled, and it was so sad she felt her own eyes well up in response. “Who did this?” he repeated. “You did.”
“What?” But something inside Allie told her this was true.
“You knew they were not ready yet,” the man continued. “Your presence would set certain events in motion, and to start that too soon would spell the end of all. So you hid yourself away. But you are beginning to break free, despite yourself.”
She considered that, searching for falsehood in his words, his tone, his gaze, and finding none. “So this . . . release,” she said slowly, watching him closely. “It’s bad?” He nodded. “And I knew that?” Another nod. She almost asked what she was, what she had been, what she was becoming, but some instinct stopped her. If she did ask that, and he answered, she somehow knew that would be irreversible. And if what he said was true, that would be bad for everyone. “All right,” she decided. “Then how do I stop it?”
“Only you can restore the bonds you forged,” he told her. “I can guide you, however. But are you sure?”
“If it keeps people safe, yes.” She didn’t give herself time to second-guess her choice. “What do we do?”
He frowned a second, then smoothed his face to calm again. “Close your eyes,” he instructed, and she did so, oddly finding herself completely comfortable trusting this man she’d only just met. “Picture the chains in your mind.”
That was easy enough—she could hear them grinding against each other every time she went quiet, could see their massive, rusted links every time she blinked.
“Now pour your strength into them,” he told her, his voice low and soothing and hypnotic. “Imbue them with your convictions. Will them to grow solid and closed again.”
Allie did as he said. She focused on the chains and wished for them to become strong again, to tighten around her, to grow taut. She put all of her thought into it, all of her heart, and she felt the change take hold, the chains firming and freezing, the links no longer shrieking and bending, the lengths no longer sliding and shifting. Everything settled, like a great weight sinking in on her, pinning her down.
“Good,” he said, and she wondered how he could know she’d succeeded. “You have done well. As I knew you would. You were ever the greatest of us.” She blinked, opening her eyes, but he was gone, the echo of his words fading away on the breeze.
Allie shook her head and rose to her feet. She had a fierce headache, and wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep it off. Why had she been sitting here in the hospital garden, anyway?
She staggered toward home, her limbs leaden, her eyes aching, her mind numb. Somehow she made it back to her apartment and to her couch, which she dropped onto, too exhausted to continue to the bedroom. This would do fine.
Why does my head hurt so much? What have I been doing? Everything was a blur, particularly the last few days, and trying to think about them just sent shards of pain lancing behind her eyes. Easier not to, she decided, and let her eyes droop closed. Perhaps I’ll feel better in the morning…
Sky above. Earth below. Sea beyond.
All quiet and calm. Peaceful.
No motion, no turmoil, all at rest.
Each to its own place, and all content.
Across the street from Allie’s building, a tall, slender man stood in the shadows, watching with more than just his eyes. At last he nodded, satisfied.
“Sleep well, Mother,” he whispered, his long white hair flowing about him in a wind that stirred nothing else. “I will see you again—some day.” His eyes glittered with more than just their normal icy blue, but no tears fell as he turned away. There was a rustling in the dark, a pale shadow darting up into the sky, and then all was quiet once more.
And back in her room, Allie dreamed of nothing—and did not know to mourn her loss.
MY ENEMY, MI AMICI
(the higher power)
MONICA VALENTINELLI
I used to love shadowrunning. At first, I ran because I didn’t have enough nuyen to pay my medical bills, and Signore Giovanni did. After my doctors cleared me, telling me I wasn’t at risk of contracting VITAS-m anymore, I kept on running because the nuyen was too good, too easy.
I remember rationalizing how I was doing the right thing. I was picky about the jobs my fixer offered me, and managed to avoid selling my soul to the Pagliarelli mob. Instead, I focused on taking gigs that made me feel righteous, and eventually I found a way to undermine Domenica, Incorporated—the same fragging company that almost bankrupted me just for being sick—on behalf of all VITAS-m sufferers in the Italian Federation.
Unfortunately, every shadowrunner knows that sooner or later feelings get in the way of the job, and no matter how much you plan for the worst—your enemies will surprise you when you least expect them to.
“Bella…”
For a couple years, running was all I could think about. Every job Signore Giovanni offered was another opportunity to escape my good-little-Catholic-girl life. By day, I was Maria Isabella Santini, a wage slave, soypresso addict, and dutiful supporter of Pope Pio XIII. I even wore a disguise to blend in with the faithful: a drab sweater and black ankle-length skirt, boring head scarf that hid my brightly-colored hair, gold cross around my neck, and no makeup, visible augmentations, or perfume.
By night, I was Belladonna and she was her—my—exact opposite. Belladonna had no last name, drank real vino and espresso, and had a string of needy lovers—orks, dwarfs, and elves—lined up to embrace her. She was chaos in a jumpsuit, with shocking pink hair and glittery chandelier earrings, who ran around in metallic knee-high boots with the tattoo of Romulus and Remus, the wolfish founders of ancient Rome, howling on her back.
Eventually, my guilt got the better of me, because I thought about what I had that so many other VITAS-m survivors didn’t—more nuyen than I could ever want. So, I decided to abandon “Belladonna” and revert to my former self. All I needed to do, I convinced myself, was to rip off Domenica, Inc. one last time. Then, after donating the funds from that job to charity, only then I would finally be free.
“Belladonna…”
Getting a job was easy; getting out was a lot harder than I thought. It almost sounds boring, but that’s exactly what the Prego Job was: a cliché piled on top of a heap of clichés. See, normally Signore Giovanni contacted my fixer, Rico, and I’d pay my people out of the pot—minus Rico’s 20% convenience fee, of course. For my last job, Rico had approached me first. He claimed he’d “found something” and added a bunch of maps, articles, and research to a datafile—and for some stupid reason, I didn’t question him further.
