Paid in Blood
"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
-William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Chapter 1
Standing before the bedroom window, I watched as rivulets of rain water cascaded down the glass. Somewhere out in the concrete jungle, a siren howled. Night reigned over Seattle, but still the city glowed. Despite the rain, streetlights, billboards, and neon signs combined to cast a multi-hued pall over the Emerald City. But no matter how much light shone over Seattle, its grime-streaked walls still harbored deep shadows—deeper, I think, than any other city I've ever known. Predators lurked in those shadows—both men and beasts and things that were neither men nor beasts.
But that wasn't what kept me up that night. I wasn't afraid of what dangers lurked in Seattle's darkened alleyways. It was a dog eat dog world out on the streets, but I knew I could still hold my own. Three years after retiring from that life, I was still a lot tougher and a lot meaner than any of those gutter punks could ever hope to be. No, that wasn't it at all. What I was afraid of was that some forgotten aspect of my past would emerge from that darkness and latch onto me once more—that the comfortable life I had constructed around me would crumble like a house of cards, and I would be left naked with nothing but an empty, wasted existence to show for it.
I sighed and reached up to run my right hand over my shaved scalp. The flesh along my skull prickled into goose bumps as the chill metal passed, sending an involuntary shudder down my spine. It had been ten years since I lost the meat and replaced it with cold hard steel, but I still couldn't get used to feeling the steel against my skin. Even when I slept, I involuntarily kept the chromed fist away from my side. It felt cold and foreign, like a part of myself that I didn't want to acknowledge.
But that's what we had to do back then. I was big, yeah—bigger than most of my kind, but physical ability wasn't always enough in those days. My body was criss-crossed with more scars than I could count. God knows there were enough of them to kill an ordinary man ten times over, but I had pulled through it all, thanks to the 'ware.
Back then, we wouldn't hesitate to go under the knife if it meant we could get even a slight edge on the street. For a fistful of cash, they would scoop out your insides and replace the fragile flesh with resilient steel. They gave me new eyes and new ears, then pumped my system full of artificial enzymes to increase reaction and reinforce my bones. Hell, I even had them install a machine pistol in my hand.
That was how it was for everyone back then—back there. We willingly gave up a part of ourselves—a part of our essence. If you believe some of those religious whackjobs out there, we gave up a part of our souls too. But we didn't buy into in any of that drek. We didn't believe in religion. We believed in lead, guts, and street cred. Without one, you couldn't have the others. I paid them all the money I had to transform me into a living weapon.
But that was a lifetime ago. Things had changed since then. Back then I strove to be the best deniable corporate stooge that money could buy, scraping together a pittance compared to what the corporate big wigs raked in due to my actions. To them I was nothing. On paper, I didn't even exist. I was a ghost. I was a shadowrunner. But no longer.
The rustle of bed sheets disturbed me from my reverie. I turned back toward the bed, looking to the prostrate form stretched out over it. Sugar stretched in her sleep, reaching up to push a stray lock of dark hair behind the silvery datajack protruding from her temple. She must have been having a good dream because she smiled, biting her upper lip against one of her tusks.
She was an ork, just like me. With a sloping brow and protruding lower tusks, we looked like something out of the head of J. R. R. Tolkien. But the Awakening, when magic had come back into the world, the whole slobbering barbarian image had been shattered. Things aren't as simple as fairy tales would have you believe. Reality is a lot more complex than anyone wants to admit.
And just like reality, the business I was involved in was complicated—so complicated that one misstep could spell the end. Sugar and I both knew the risks. We told ourselves it was something our kind had to live with, but it didn't make it any easier. It wore on us. She grew tired of watching me head off to another corporate enclave, wondering if that would be the last time she ever saw me again. And I grew to hate the sight of her jack into the matrix on another data steal, not knowing whether or not some corporate black IC would fry her brains out of her skull before my very eyes. So we quit. We retired from life in the shadows and tried to settle down like normal, law abiding citizens.
Nevertheless, old habits died hard. I still wore that old armored jacket whenever I went out, and even as I slept, I still made sure to keep the pistol in my hand loaded. And sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep for no good reason at all. It was illogical, I know, but sometimes that on-edge feeling came over me, and I just couldn't force myself to relax.
I sighed and headed for the bedroom door. Standing around rehashing the past wouldn't get me to sleep any faster, but maybe a full belly would. My stomach was growling anyway, so a midnight snack couldn't hurt. As my hand touched upon the doorknob, though, the bedclothes rustled again.
"Peaches?"
No matter how many times I heard that street name, it still brought the hint of a smile to my lips. It had started as a joke—a nickname one of the older guys decided to call me one day. But unlike most nicknames, it had stuck. That name followed me up from the streets, and stuck by me when just about every other aspect of my essence changed and molted away. I never really did fit the name, but some how the irony of it all fitted me perfectly.
I turned back to the bed where Sugar lay propped up on one elbow, her eyes and datajack glistening in the darkness.
"I'm here baby. Just go back to sleep."
She mumbled something unintelligible and lay back down. I eased the door open and slipped out into the hallway, making my way through the apartment to the kitchen.
The place wasn't overly huge, but it was big enough. Located in a relatively safe neighborhood in the Metroplex's Bellevue district, it didn't have very tight security, but it boasted some of the best neighbors around—the kind that minded their own business. Even better was the fact that Apartment 105 didn't even exist—at least, not officially. In exchange for a job or two, a friend in a rather high place arranged for a computer glitch to "lose" the location, rent, and ownership information on the apartment. In this digital world where bills and payments are kept track of almost entirely by computers, it was startlingly easy to lose property in the shuffle of mega-corp assets.
I passed into the den and switched on the trideo set. The three dimensional image of a plastic-faced anchorman sprang up over the projector, bathing the room in a flickering blue glow. I keyed the volume down to a low murmur as the anchor droned on about some company being investigated by the UCAS government and Corporate Council for "corrupt business practices." I didn't catch the corporation's name, but it hardly mattered. With the exception of one, they were all the same brand of asshole. Anyway, "corrupt business practices" was a misnomer. In this day and age, all businesses were corrupt. How did I know? Because they were the same drekheads I spent seven years of my life working for.
I wasn't interested in hearing any of it, so instead I moved into the kitchen. The soft glow of the trideo barely penetrated the kitchen's darkness, but I still didn't turn on the light. I switched my cybernetic vision to thermographic and followed the chilly outline offered by the refrigerator.
I opened it up, disengaging the thermals as the refrigerator's golden light fell over the kitchen. I stood there for a moment or two trying to decide what I wanted to eat. Finally I sighed and grabbed a beer. I had turned back toward the den about to twist off the long neck's cap when I heard something. I didn't know what it was or where I'd heard it, but I froze with beer in hand, peering curiously toward the flickering den.
"Sugar, that you?" I called out.
No answer.
I dialed up the hearing amplification on my cyber ears, filtering out the sound of the newscaster's voice with the implanted sound filter. First I heard the sound of my own breath, and then the pounding of my heart. And then I heard it. It would have been imperceptible to the naked ear, but there it was: the shallow breathing of someone who didn't want to be heard.
Suddenly there was a rush of movement and a black figure appeared in the doorway. A ski mask covered his face, but I didn't need to see his expression to know his intent. The submachine gun he held in both hands said it all. He started to lift the weapon to his shoulder.
I sprang into motion without thinking, hurling the beer bottle as hard as I could in his general direction. He raised the submachine gun to ward off the blow, and the bottle struck the weapon, shattering into a shower of glass and foam as the man reeled backward from the unexpected missile. I didn't wait to see any more. Instead I twisted and ran for where I thought the kitchen table should have been.
It was all I could do to keep moving, raising my arms protectively over my face as the soft chuff-chuff of a suppressed automatic weapon sounded from behind me. Splinters of wood and plasticrete showered my body as bullets ripped into the floor and walls. I dove. My vision exploded into stars as I collided head-first into one of the chairs, but I pushed the pain aside and somehow managed to flip the table before several slugs thudded into the upturned furniture.
I reached around the table with my cybernetic hand, triggering a blast from the machine pistol at where I thought the bastard would be. There was a shout and a curse as bullets ripped into the wall.
"Frag, he's got a gun!" the man cried out—to whom, I couldn't tell, but it obviously meant he had help.
I didn't have time to ponder it any longer, because the next moment I heard him lurch forward, feet pounding on the tile. I snatched up one of the chairs and rose over the table, flinging it as hard as I could.
The chair whipped against the man's shins, entangling itself with his churning legs. He pitched forward, landing hard on his shoulder as he struggled to maintain his grip on the SMG. He tried to twist and bring his weapon to bear on me, but I was quicker. My machine pistol chattered away, slamming into the downed man's shoulder in a bright spray of crimson. I let the recoil ride the barrel upward, stitching a short line of bullet holes into his trachea. Blood spurted from the wound as his body began to go into convulsions. He clamped down on the trigger spasmodically, emptying the rest of his clip into the wall beside me in a flurry of shell casings and dry wall.
I didn't have time to savor the victory, though, because another submachine gun opened up from the den doorway. I dropped behind the table again as a long burst of automatic fire tore through the area I had just been standing in. I reached over the table with my cybernetic hand to offer return fire. The shots missed horribly, and soon another long blast from the doorway followed. We traded shots back and forth as wood splintered and tile shattered, the sustained bursts ripping through what was left of the table. At any minute I expected a bullet to find me and splatter my guts all over the kitchen wall, but suddenly everything went silent as the magazine clicked empty.
Seizing the opportunity, I sprang up into a crouch, hands braced above the edge of the hole-ridden table. Another figure stood in the middle of the doorway, clothed and masked just like the other with a submachine gun cradled in his arms. I aimed without thinking, mentally keying the trigger before he could get to cover and reload. But instead of the long burst of auto fire I had expected, there was only a hollow click.
"Oh shit," I groaned.
The man in the doorway stepped forward with a confident swagger. The spent clip clattered to the ground as he began to deliberately select another.
Like a caged animal, I desperately looked for a way out, mind racing a mile a minute. The man across from me slammed in the new clip and reached up to chamber the first bullet.
That was when I stopped thinking. It was like I was back on the streets all over again. Logic and reason went out the window, and a sudden wave of bestial anger surged through my senses. I was no longer a rational meta-being. I was an animal. Before I knew it, I was moving, charging full tilt toward the advancing gunman.
I lifted the table up before me, slamming it and myself into the bastard with bone-shattering force. He tried to bring his weapon to bear, but the table struck before he got it all the way up, sending his arm wheeling upward as his finger clamped down on the trigger. Slugs blasted into the ceiling, showering us with plasticrete as he was thrown backward through the living room doorway.
I leapt over the table and pounced on him before he had a chance to recover. He tried to bring the gun around again, but I gave him the back of my hand and swatted the gun out of his grip. Using my body as leverage, I slammed my fist into the masked face beneath me. Instead of flesh and bone, though, I struck hard steel. I howled, pulling my bruised hand back into my gut.
The intruder capitalized on the moment, wriggling partly out from under me to free his arms as three-inch long steel blades slid out from under his fingertips. He lashed out, savagely swiping his cat's claws across my face. I cried out and fell back, my face stinging where the raw flesh met with open air. Blood began to pour into my eyes as I struggled to get up, but the hardwood floor beneath me was slick from it all. I slipped and crashed to the ground.
The gillette was on his feet before I knew it. "Now you're gonna die, you fragging trog," he growled, brandishing his hand razors with malicious glee. He took a step forward.
And then the center of his chest exploded in a spray of crimson pulp as a pair of shots rang out. He hit the ground hard, gurgling softly before finally laying still.
Behind him, Sugar stood with my old revolver held in both hands. The Ruger Super Warhawk glinted in the darkness, its chromed surface reflecting the muted light from the trideo. Sugar's eyes were wide with terror, but her hands held the weapon unwaveringly as she pumped two more rounds into the man's back.
Slowly I picked myself up off the floor.
She looked up from the body almost as if noticing me for the first time. "Peaches. Are you-"
"I'm fine," I said, closing the distance between us. I reached out to take the pistol from her now-shaking hands. Its weight was firm and reassuring. It seemed to calm the palsy of my own limbs, feeling the inscribed ivory grip beneath my palm once more.
"My God, your face," she muttered softly.
"We have to go."
"Sit down and let me clean you up a bit."
"No," I said a bit more sternly than I had intended. She gave me a hurt look, but I tried to ignore it. "Get your things packed. We need to be out of here in five minutes. They could have back-up on the way."
She started to protest, but I took her arm and steered her back to the bedroom. As soon as we got there, she started to rummage through the closet.
"One bag," I cautioned. "We have to travel light."
She gave me a slight scowl as if she resented the obvious statement but set to work anyway, cramming clothes and computer equipment into a suit case.
In the mean time I went into the bathroom, flipping on the light to look myself in the mirror. The breeder had gotten me pretty good, evidenced by the trio of slashes stretching down the right side of my face. The blood flow had pretty well stopped, but it had already drained down my neck and onto my bare chest and shoulders. The gashes stung like a bitch, but I managed to clean off most of the blood with some warm water. Around that point the wounds started to ooze again, so I took the emergency med kit out of one of the drawers and used some butterfly bandages to hold the wounds shut until I could get some proper stitches.
Sugar had packed by then and was hurriedly pulling a sweater on over her tank top. "What about you?" she called out. "Aren't you going to pack?"
"Already am." I reached into the closet and grabbed the sports duffle lying on the floor—an emergency bag in case everything went to drek and you had to get the hell out of Dodge in a hurry. It was an old habit from a life of running, and one that I would always be thankful for hanging on to. I tossed it onto the bed beside hers and went to the closet again.
I pulled on an old pair of jeans and then snatched up a black T-shirt off the floor, putting it on as well. I donned my old shoulder holster and shoved the Warhawk into its accustomed spot before finally grabbing the armored secure jacket off the coat rack.
"Are you ready to go?" Sugar stood with luggage in hand, wearing a rain jacket with her hair pulled back into a short pony tail.
"Yeah—no, wait."
She stopped half way to the door. I turned back and snatched the digital camera off of the dresser.
"What the hell is that for?"
"Evidence," I said as I breezed by her into the hall and out into the kitchen.
I approached the first attacker I had shot, cautiously stepping around the blood that had pooled on the floor around him. Gingerly I reached down and peeled the mask off to reveal his face. It was a mess of blood, but I could make out youthful human features beneath it all, blue eyes staring upward with mouth opened in a silent scream. The nub of a green mohawk stood out over his scalp and several piercings dotted his face. He didn't look like anybody special, but I took a quick snap shot of his face anyway and then moved to the living room.
The other one still lay face down in the carpet. I hit the light switch and then flipped him over. Again I pulled the mask off to look the would-be-killer in the eyes, but as the mask came off, a tangle of dirty-blonde hair spilled out from the hood, framing the steely visage beneath. To my surprise, the he wasn't a he at all—it was a woman. What's more, chrome plating, the remnant of some injury or surgery, lined the entire left side of her face.
"Do you know these guys?" Sugar asked.
I shook my head, standing up once again. "No, but I'm sure someone does." I snapped a photograph of her and then picked up my bag again. "Come on, let's get out of here."
Sugar nodded and followed me out the door.
The rain was still coming down as we left the apartment building. The city's neon lights lit up the night sky like a gaudy Christmas tree, but the street around us was strangely dark except for the one bare streetlight hovering over the doorway. Despite the urgency of the situation, I paused, lingering just beyond the doorway to the apartment—the first real home I had ever known.
Sugar seemed to sense my feelings and put a hand sympathetic hand on my shoulder. "You said it yourself," she said quietly. "We have to go."
"Yeah, I know." I gave her a shadow of a smile. "Let's blow."
We turned and headed off down the sidewalk. As we left the lone streetlight behind, the shadows enveloped our retreating forms, hungrily descending upon us once more to welcome us back into the fold.