Second Night
Even though they'd draped a ragged blanket over her, she was terribly cold. Still, she'd woken up, that meant she'd made it through the night. Unless she'd died and was in some kind of squalid, smelly version of Hell.
She opened her eyes and saw a young woman sitting next to her on a chair, smoking a cigarette, her legs crossed. Immediately, the girl's eyes zipped towards her and she greeted her with a downright hostile, "Oh look. You're awake. Goodie." It was very dark, but sharp ears visibly protruded from her straight black hair.
"Y… yeah, I'm…"
"Yes, yes," she sighed in annoyance. "You've made it through, good for you. Pardon me for not jumping for joy."
This was clearly the owner of the voice last night. Ning? Something like that. Huojin had been right, it seemed. She was difficult. "Look," she began, "I just – "
She held up a hand and turned her face away. "I don't care. Just lie there, let me go get Tweezer." She rose, brushing imaginary dust off the sleeves of her black woollen turtleneck pullover, as if she wanted to get the filth of her new guest off her, and walked off.
Whoever this Tweezer was, she hoped she'd be of a better disposition than this surly Elf. Sure, she probably wasn't a welcome guest, being who she was, but still, come on.
She seemed to remember more, thankfully. Her name, for starters. That was always nice. And she worked security for one of the big corps. Tsang, that was it. Memories came back to her, and she closed her eyes and sorted them, putting them in order and assembling them into a coherent picture. But no memories that explained why she'd been half dead in an ambulance. She'd heard that was normal. People who got into accidents often didn't remember what had happened and had to have the whole thing explained to them.
And now she was in a squalid hovel in… some part of town. She didn't even know where. The shitty part. It always made her sad when she thought of how the people had to live here, but she was also realistic enough to know she had her own problems and couldn't save the world. At least, not with the security job she had now. The police had never been an option – they were bent as Hell in HK, just like everywhere else – and she didn't have any particular skills or talents, apart from being proficient with a gun and, to a lesser extent, close quarters combat. Some people told her she also had her looks, but those people were probably the kind who told everyone that.
She looked around the gloomy shack, only a small step above the cabins built from corrugated metal. This one had walls, but the entire inner structure was divided by wooden planks nailed against metal wall studs, and ragged curtains. No doors, no real walls. The roof did actually qualify for corrugated-metal-status, and she heard the rain gently tap on the steel. What little furniture there was, was mismatched except for its crumminess, and borderline worthless. Rusty metal folding chairs, rickety little tables. It was all so depressing.
"Oh hallo," a cheerful, almost jittery voice returned her to the present. Standing over her was a blonde woman with her hair tied in two pigtails, clad in what looked to be a butcher's smock over a worn leather biker jacket and blue jeans. "Alors. It goes?" She wore a broad grin.
"Uh, hi. Um, what goes?"
She giggled. "You feel better?"
"Oh. Yeah," She croaked. "Kinda." She did feel better. Her belly still hurt, but much less than yesterday. In fact, she felt surprisingly good. Cold and woozy, though.
"I am Alisa," her voice carried a heavy French accent. "But I have the street name Tweezer." Her head bobbed from one side to the other as she talked, making her look like an oversized ten-year-old. "Ning does not like it when we use real names. Oops. Sorry, Ning." She giggled. "What is your name?"
"I'm uh," she remembered her name, all she had to do was say it out loud, "Ekatarina… but my friends call just me Katie or Kate. Since you guys saved me, I s'pose you're friends."
"We will see," she said with a coy smirk. She was pretty – for an Orc – but so cheerful Kate wondered if she wasn't simply batshit crazy. Anyone who was cheerful in a place like this had to be off her rocker. "We will look at your wounds now."
"Uh, sure." Right, Tweezer. This was the medic, or what passed for one in this hole. These people didn't look like a family, and the mention of street names, as well as the mismatched nature of this group gave her a pretty good idea of who these people were – or wanted to be. If she was right, then yeah, then were technically enemies, she supposed. But how could she be enemies with people who'd taken her in and probably saved her life? She figured she could thank them by not reporting them the minute she walked out the door, to start.
Tweezer pulled the blanket off her. She'd put a shirt on her patient at some point during her sleep, thankfully, an oversized one with a print of a giant, two-legged, rocket-launching and laser-shooting robot on it. Lifting the shirt to uncover her abdomen and shining a flashlight on the injury, the Orc girl remarked, "Hmmm. You heal very quick, n'est-ce pas?"
She looked down at herself to see that, indeed, the terrible gash was already closing, half as broad as it was last night, with pink, new flesh forming on either side. The clumsy tape-job had been removed, replaced with asymmetrical but efficient-looking stitches.
The medic frowned. "You have slept all day. You heal wounds very fast. Your temperature is very low." She stood up, looking almost as if she recoiled. "There is something that is not normal."
"What? What's wrong?"
"I… must see your eyes."
"O… kay?"
The Orc girl slowly lifted the flashlight to shine into her eyes. What she saw – whatever it was – made her inhale sharply in fright. She immediately jumped up and backed away. "Tu bouges pas! Tu restes là, c'est compris? You… you stay right there. You don't move."
Not understanding, Kate showed her empty hands, sitting up straight, slowly. "I'm… not going anywhere. What's wrong?"
"You… you don't know?" The girl's face was confused and frightened at the same time, and her hand was feeling for the medical instruments on the tray beside her. "You're not… not lying, are you?"
"Okay," she explained. Might as well come clean and tell them everything. They were not very liable to off her or sell her for ransom after all the effort they'd done. Perhaps if she was honest about everything, they'd have some trust in her. "Listen. I know you're probably wondering who I work for. I'll tell you straight, I'm with the Tsang Corporation. Security division. I don't care about politics or oppressing the weak, I just wanted a stable wage, and the opportunity to make have a modest career, but just internal stuff, you know, no…" she trailed off when she saw the Orc girl shake her head, her hand settling on a scalpel. "What? I'm telling the truth."
"You really… don't know, do you?"
"Don't know what?" she snapped, her inability to understand making her nervous.
The street medic breathed hard, her mind clearly working furiously, trying to decide whether or not to continue the conversation or simply go into fight-or-flight mode.
"Look, Tweezer," she grunted. Stupid street names these types gave themselves. "Ugh, Alisa. I'm not dangerous. I owe you my life. I don't know what you're afraid of, but I can't possibly imagine it being worse than me reporting you to the cops as soon as I leave here. Which I won't."
"It's not that," the girl half-shouted nervously, then quickly looked around to check no one had heard. "It's something else," she continued quietly. "You…"
"What? What, dammit?"
The medic held her palms in front of her. "Alright. I will trust you about this. But you stay there, alright?"
"I won't try anything, just… tell me."
The girl remained silent, and with trembling hands, picked up a small make-up mirror and held it out, immediately pulling her hand back when Kate took it. With a plop, the medic's flashlight fell on the blanket next to Kate. "You have to look at your eyes."
Bothered, Kate grabbed the mirror and looked at herself, shining the flashlight at an angle so it didn't blind her. What she saw made her breath briefly stop. "My… my eye, what…"
"Have you… felt anything else unusual?"
"No, just… nothing that couldn't be attributed to the injuries. Cold, slowed heart rate, weak muscles. Stuff like that." She looked at her left eye again. It wasn't just bloodshot, it was much more than that. All the veins in her sclera were bright red, dilated and swollen, looking like a web of fat, bloody strands being spun over her eyeball. The other eye was completely unaffected. "What the Hell is going on with me?"
The Orc girl breathed deep, closed her eyes, and said, "So you don't know."
"Obviously!" she shouted back, her voice ear-piercingly loud in the silence of the hovel. Damn it, this girl was trying her patience. Her eyes looked like they were in the process of fucking mutating and this Tusker still couldn't spit it out. She had to close her eyes and recollect herself. It wasn't right to call rotten names to someone who'd taken her in and patched her up, no matter how nervous she was.
Another breath. "Please don't be angry on me for telling you this. But…" she reconsidered. "Wait. We must be sure. Ning!"
Oh great, she was going to get the bitchy Elf to join in.
From a distance away, came an annoyed voice. "What?"
"Come here. Hurry."
A dismissive snort. "I'm not spending any more time near – "
"Sois pas un trou de cul! This is urgent."
There was the sound of a plate and silverware being banged down, and then trudging footsteps. "What?"
"Read her aura." The girl was insistent, her eyes wide.
She blew. "What, to know she's a corp grunt with a credstick where a heart should be?"
The medic took another breath, this one to contain her anger, and said low, "Ning. I need you to work with me here. Can you please read her aura?"
The Elven girl rolled her eyes. "Fine." Another short grunt, and the woman closed her eyes. Everything was quiet for a short time, Kate only barely capable of keeping her nerves.
"Whoa, what the…" The Elf's eyes flew open, and in a quick motion, she drew a pistol, pointing it straight at Kate's forehead. "Get this bitch out of here right now."
"Was the aura…" Tweezer asked, and Ning finished, her voice shaky, "… frayed and blackened. Yes. Drek! Fucking Huojin brought a god damn jiangshi here."
"Okay," Kate said calmly, her confusion and anxiousness temporarily overridden by the gun in her face. "I don't know what's going on, but I can tell you that I really have no intention of hurting anyone. Can you please tell me what you two are going all panicky about? I'm just some corpsec gun on legs, nothing more."
Tweezer and Ning quickly shared a nervous glance, and then the medic slowly said. "Whatever it was that happened to you before the ambulance, you… took something with you. You are… infected."
Holy shit what was going on here? "Infected with what? Is it contagious?"
"Why are we wasting time talking?" Ning rapped, her voice close to breaking. "She has to leave, now, before she turns on us."
Tweezer ignored her and said quietly, "The… Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus. Probably the Harz-Greenbaum strain."
Kate's voice failed her. "The wh… the what?" she could only croak.
"The Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus. The retrovirus that turns metahumans into… monsters. In your case…"
"A vampire," Ning finished. "A blood-sucker."
This was ridiculous. Vampires? She'd heard of them, but she'd heard of lots of things, and the people around her had always assured her they were myths. Sure, there was such a thing as magic and shamanism and all that, but vampires? Zombies? They were fairy tales. "Look, there has to be some kind of logical explanation – "
"Yes," Tweezer cut her off. "The logical explanation is that you were infected by micro-organisms that took over your cells and are currently uh, how you say… rewriting your genetic code. The mutations in the eyes are… a first sign."
"Bullshit," Kate said. "If I was a vampire, I'd have like, fangs – " her voice stalled when she unconsciously ran her tongue over her teeth and realized that her eye teeth were sharp and pointed. Her stomach felt like it slowly shrunk into a leaden ball and she slowly fell back in her bed. "Oh this can't be happening. This can't be fucking happening…"
"I'm… sorry?" Tweezer said carefully. "For what it's worth, you seem to be relatively unaffected emotionally… I mean, you didn't even know – "
"Assuming this isn't just an act," Ning interrupted her, the gun still raised. "She might be faking it for all we know."
"Mais putain! So she faked the ambulance crash? And then she spent hours lying here, doing nothing instead of killing us all?" Tweezer said to her. "No, it's not an act."
"I don't – "
"Ning. She's clearly as shocked as we are."
Kate didn't even hear what they were saying. The only thing in her head was now oh god I'm a vampire oh god I'm a vampire oh god I'm a vampire over and over again. Was she going to turn into a rampaging monster? A deranged nightstalker? Would she burn in the sunlight? Not be able to enter a house unless invited? Was her life, essentially, over?
"There have been… many reports on the Shadowland BBS about humans infected with the HMHVV being able to lead, uh, how you say, uh… relatively normal lives. They… don't go insane like most metahumans do." Tweezer paused and then admitted. "I'm… not a virologist, but I know… how you say… the base?"
The door banged open, and Huojin stormed in, his face panicked and wet from the rain. "You. You can't stay here."
All eyes went to him, and Ning asked, "How do you know she's – "
"There's corp agents combing the neighbourhood," Huojin panted, running his hand through his wet hair. "At least, I'm pretty sure they're corp. And before you suggest it, no, it's not a search party."
"What's going on?" Ning demanded to know.
"Like I said. Corp gunmen kicking down doors. They're not here to rescue our patient. They're wearing thermals, packing live ammo, suppressors. Already shot a few people for resisting, and for being SINless. Including some hiding in the closets, before they even knew who they were. So no, it's not a rescue operation."
The Elf shot a dirty look toward Kate. "Some friends you have."
"What? I have no idea – "
"Sure you don't," she snapped back. "Think they're searching for illegally copied trids? Maybe for outstanding parking tickets?"
"Not helping," Tweezer stopped her. "We need to figure out what to do."
"Easy," Ning said curtly. "We give them what they want." She couldn't be serious.
"Hey, hold on a second. I don't know what this is about, I really don't," Kate tried to explain, "but I'm telling you, there's no reason to assume they're even looking for me to begin with. But if they're shooting people, they'll probably kill me too, just for being there. You're not seriously thinking about handing me over to some random murder squad, are you?"
"If that gets them off our back," the Elf bit at her, "then yes. If they're shooting people for being SINless – "
"She's right, Ning. You want to kick her out on the street?" Huojin protested too, thankfully. "To get shot? Hoping she's the one they want and they'll leave us alone? Is that how we do things, Ning? When the boss gets here, we'll – "
"We can't wait for the boss," Tweezer immediately stopped him. "We have to go. Can you walk?"
"I… yeah, I can walk." She definitely could. She still felt weak and vulnerable, but there was almost no pain anymore, no feeling of being injured. "But… if they're killing people, shouldn't we – "
Huojin shook his head. "These are professional killers. Military or corporate. Cleaners. Top of the line equipment, years of training, we don't stand a chance. No point dying along with them." Fair point. "I know how you feel, but there's nothing we can do. A firefight would just get us killed and cause even more civilian casualties." He was right. She hated it, but he was right. "I'll get the hatch."
That was something at least, these guys had a secret escape route. She had no idea what the shit was going on, but a hit squad going from door to door simply could not be good news for her, even if it didn't have anything to do with her. But wasn't it a bit naïve to think this was all unrelated? Why else would assassins break down doors and shoot everyone that was hiding or didn't identify themselves?
The sounds were coming closer now. Of doors being kicked in. People scattering. A few screams of alarm being quickly cut short.
"Come on," Tweezer said, helping Kate out of the bed before grabbing her pistol and frayed medic bag. "We have to get to the hatch and get far away so their thermal vision can no longer pick us up."
"You're going to show her the escape?" Ning breathed, exasperated, shrugging on the strap of her submachine gun nevertheless. "You drekhead! Are you insane?"
"Come on, Ning," Huojin merely told her, grabbing his cheap, worn cyberdeck and buckling his gunbelt. "It's too late to worry now. Get your stuff, we have to go." He ran for the kitchen, slid his knife inside a small slit, and used the blade as a lever to lift a section of the tiles. Then he kicked two duffel bags down the hole. "Down here, go."
"Hide your fangs," Tweezer whispered at Kate as she led her patient to the kitchen. "From the others here too. The less people who know about it, the better."
"This breeder drekbitch is going to get us all killed," Ning cursed, sliding lithely down the hatch, Huojin motioning for Tweezer and Kate to hurry. The sounds came closer. Only a few doors down. Kate's eye fell on the armoured trousers with the Tsang logo. She quickly snatched them off the table and went down the ladder after Tweezer, with Huojin coming last and letting the hatch fall closed.
A few metres ahead, Ning conjured up a small dancing flame, lighting up her silhouette as she marched briskly on, the anger clear in her step. They followed her, getting as much distance between them and the house as possible. Kate had Tsang-issued thermals back in her locker, but she'd only been allowed to use them once or twice and couldn't tell for sure how far they detected heat signatures underground. In this cold tunnel of solid stone, hopefully not too far.
"The escape ends in a false storm drain near the dock," Tweezer whispered to Kate. "But we'll just sit tight for a bit. Until the heatwave passes."
"Not the first time we had to hide here," Huojin chuckled, trying to sound confident. "Don't worry, all our stuff's in the duffel bags, they won't know it's a Sh… uh, a house where um, you know."
"Shadowrunners live," Kate finished, making sure her apathy was abundantly clear. "I'm not going to report you," she sighed. "I already told you that. I'm as confused by this as you are." She put on the armoured trousers over her shorts, because why not. They felt familiar and safe. If only she still had the top half.
"There's no point speculating anyway," Tweezer said quietly. "We'll have to wait and see. Might be about something completely different."
"How long do we wait?" Ning grunted, letting the flame wink out of existence and putting them back in the dark. Kate noticed she could still see shapes, while the others immediately started feeling for the walls. Perks of being a vampire, she supposed. Fuck, she had that to deal with too.
"At least an hour or two, I think," Huojin said. "We have to be sure they're gone. And then we have to figure out what to do. I mean, I don't think it'd be a good idea for you to stroll back to Tsang and say how good it is to be back, for now at least." A short silence. "By the way, I never got your name?"
She heard Ning let out a grunting sigh, probably accompanied by a roll of her eyes.
"It's Ekatarina. But my friends call me Katie or Kate. Anything's fine. Thanks for getting me out of there, by the way, I haven't had the chance to mention that yet."
She could all but hear him smile. "That's fine. Good thing I got there when I did. Weird to see you up and about so quickly though. With the way you were banged up last night, I was afraid we'd have to drag you down here."
"I uh… just heal quickly, I suppose."
A snort in the darkness from Ning. Woman, shut up.
"Well, now we're here," Huojin's voice sighed, "Might as well properly introduce ourselves. You already know we're Shadowrunners, so you also know we best stop with the real names from now on."
"Yeah," Tweezer said. "Best to be safe."
"You already know Tweezer," Huojin went on. "From now on, Ning is Mornie. She's our mage. And best to call me Frywire, starting from now."
Weird that she thought of the medic as Tweezer instead of Alisa, while she thought of the other two by their real names. Kate found the nicknames absolutely ridiculous, but whatever, if it floated their boat. She might as well show some interest. "So uh, I was always told Runners had meanings behind their nicknames. I'd like to hear yours?"
Ning snorted again. "Fucking rude."
Oops, that was apparently not done? Or perhaps Ning, err, Mornie, found everything she said rude in one way or another. But no, this one was Kate's faux pas, although Huojin chuckled and said, "It's not polite to ask for the meaning of a street name right off the bat. But sure, I can tell you mine." He paused for a moment. "It's a bit embarrassing, but you'd hear sooner or later." He scraped his throat. "The first job we did was an archive robbery. Now, the thing was, the place was secured by several low-tech mag-locks, and everyone counted on me to disable them." His voice became more animated as he spoke, and he clearly enjoyed telling the story, reminding Kate of the stories her partners always told when she was assigned to the monitoring station. It took her mind of the current clusterfuck for a bit. "But the thing was," Huojin, well, 'Frywire' went on, enthusiastic and excited, "the mag-locks were easy to open, and I figured I'd get through them in no time, but – "
"He jacked his cyberdeck into a power socket instead of a data slot like a fucking idiot and fried the whole thing into a heap of smouldering plastic," Ning intoned in a bored voice, scraping her boots on the concrete.
A short silence, and then Huojin slowly said, "Uh… yes. That's, um… what happened."
Damn. This guy had been so swept up in his story, clearly enjoying the telling, and bam, shut down. On the one hand, it was good news for Kate, because it probably wasn't personal, but on the other hand… what a total bitch.
"Merci à toi, Mornie," Alisa – Tweezer – agreed. "After all, we're spending two hours in the dark, so why not ruin every diversion we could possibly have, right?"
"Fuck off. I never agreed to this."
Bitterly, Huojin told Kate, "Ning has never heard of the term, 'making the best out of a bad situation'."
Invisible to the others in the dark, Kate saw Ning put up her middle finger. What the crap was her problem? Kate didn't think it was low self-esteem. After all, the girl was absolutely gorgeous, or at least she would be if she didn't wear an angry bitchface all the time, and her fellow Runners seemed to be much nicer to her than she deserved, so it certainly wasn't that. Maybe some people were just assholes, and this was one of them. She'd always imagined Shadowrunners to be these kinds of brothers-in-arms, tight-knit groups of rogues fighting the world from the shadows, in the spirit of camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legends, right? This group… didn't entirely adhere to that romantic image.
She also realized that these guys probably weren't all that experienced. Calling their equipment 'low-grade' was using the word generously. Sure, Kate was used to solid quality arms provided by Tsang, but she'd tussled with a few groups of runners during her short career (thankfully never with fatalities on either side, though her squad had managed to apprehend the occasional miscreant), and they'd all been equipped with better gear. Outdated black market stuff, sure, but nowhere near as crappy as this. But it wasn't just that. They slipped up constantly, using real names more than street names, and bickered more than they cooperated. And she hadn't met 'the boss' yet. She wondered, maybe he or she was the glue that held everything together? It was definitely possible. She'd known squads at Tsang Sec who couldn't even have lunch without arguing, but who turned into a single-minded machine whenever their sergeant was near.
In fact, her own squad, Hound, had been mostly dependent on its leader too, and when Phillip had been promoted to lieutenant and mutated to detective, the squad had lost its linchpin. It had been great news, but only for Phillip, not the rest of them. Zhao had done his best, but despite being a great security agent, he wasn't cut out to be a sergeant, even taking into account his newly-promotedness, and they'd slowly become "that one squad" of underperforming misfits, so much that they were often divided up and detached to other squads during operations, or even sent to positions on their own. Always the less important ones.
It had never been because its members were bad security officers (they weren't for the most part), but because they simply didn't work as a team anymore. The only squad that performed even less cohesively than Hound had been Ox, and they had the excuse of having half their team consist of new guys after one of their APCs had run over an IED. Dragon would probably have some staffing problems as well. Quite a few of them had been killed during a data theft gone violent only days ago. Kate was usually detached to Rooster or Goat, and every time she worked with them, she was jealous of their teamwork, and even they were amateurs, so she was told, compared to Snake and Horse, who were apparently so attuned to each other its members were often jokingly suspected of sharing a telepathic link.
Perhaps these guys were the same. They'd apparently completed operations before, so perhaps Kate was wrong. Or their boss was the central linchpin Phillip had been for Hound.
She decided to simply ask the question outright, both out of curiosity, and to make conversation. "So uh, who's this boss you mentioned?"
She heard Ning breathe out through her nose and ignored it.
"The boss," Alisa explained, "is, well… our boss." She giggled. "Ex-military from the Congo Tribal Lands, before it became the DMZ."
"Huojin said, with awe, "He's… seen some drek."
"Can't deck or cast spells worth jack," Ning grunted, "but he can wipe out an entire bunch of you glorified janitors without breaking a sweat."
Everything she said needed to be acidic, didn't it?
"His street name is Kaffir. No idea what his real name is," Huojin said, "but I wouldn't tell you if I knew, heh."
"Kaffir?" Kate asked. "Strange name."
Ning couldn't resist muttering, "There she goes again."
The others ignored her, and Tweezer said, "Apparently it's a word that dates way back to the Fifth World. No idea what it means."
Huojin added, "Though I'm sure he does."
"He and Bubbles are meeting a fixer. Other side of Hong Kong," Tweezer said. "These killers will be gone by then."
Kate had to stifle a laugh. "Bubbles?"
A short silence, then Huojin's voice came, sheepishly. "He… likes to blow bubbles in his milk."
"You'll meet them soon," Tweezer said. "Don't worry, they're good people."
"I'm… sure."
"The boss will know what to do," Huojin said, his voice full of confidence. It seems this 'boss' was indeed the glue holding this team together. "Don't worry, he won't hand you over or kill you. He's a hardass, but his heart's in the right place."
Tweezer agreed. "Absolutely. Bubbles will take some… getting used to, but you'll get along great with the boss, don't worry."
"He might not get along with me," Kate pointed out. "I'm still, well, the enemy."
She could see Huojin's silhouette shake its head. "You're an injured person we're taking care of. When you're healed up and safe, you can go back to Tsang and be the enemy again. Until then, he'll help you out, believe me."
"I'm not sure I should even go back to Tsang," Kate thought out loud. "If those hitmen were sent by my corp, and they were certainly sent by a corp, then they were definitely looking for me. There's… no other explanation that makes sense."
"That would make the dead people topside your fault," Ning couldn't resist making known.
"Let it go, Ning," Huojin merely told her.
It was ridiculous to say all this was Kate's responsibility. How could it be if she didn't even know why this was happening, or even what was happening at all? She felt for the people getting their doors kicked down, their houses ransacked, and their people shot, but she was also rational enough not to be tricked by Ning's little guilt trip. This wasn't her fault, she was just a security guard. For the corps, sure, but protecting people was protecting people, corp or civ. They all bled red and they all needed protecting. All the dirty business the corps were involved in wasn't her affair, she simply patrolled the hallways, watched the CCTV monitors and kept the working man and woman safe. The custodians, the mechanics, the IT-guys, the sales people, the administrative assistants. The normal people, not the CEO's and executives and managers, but the ones just working for their wage with no involvement in the dirty politics at the top.
Sure, every once in a while they participated in what the corp called, in their PR-speak, 'proactive targeted security', which meant they rolled out to some location or other and seized assets or destroyed infrastructure known to be used by Tsang's direct rivals, and sometimes they flushed some shadowrunner group from their holes or rounded them up in cooperation with local police to teach them the merits of not getting themselves hired by the competition, but the few jobs she'd been on had been strictly zero-fatality ones. If Tsang needed a person, or group of persons, eliminated on a permanent basis, they didn't send Tsang Security, they sent the division with the inoffensive and newspaper-safe name 'Corporate Risk Management'. To Kate and her colleagues, they were more colloquially known as 'damage control' or 'the bribe alternative'. And of course, in the case of really dirty jobs that needed complete disavowability, the choice always went to Runners.
Neither of them were people Kate were involved with, or even knew about other than through scuttlebutt.
So no, this wasn't her fault, her responsibility, or even her concern. Human and metahuman lives were threatened, and that was terrible, but Huojin had been right. No point dying up there with them. These were Runners, so they were almost certainly SINless, and she'd probably get shot for resisting or simply being there. Provoking a fight would get them killed in short order, and lead to even more loss of life.
It was possible that the killers up there were indeed Tsang's bribe alternative. It was even likely. The company's security division had been on high alert after a break-in by a group of Shadowrunners, these guys much more capable than most, who'd made off with 'critical information and/or assets' according to the corp, as well as causing the deaths of about a dozen of her colleagues. Perhaps this was a retributive strike? Hey, there was a possibility.
"Hey uh…" she asked carefully. "You guys weren't at all involved with a high-profile data theft at Tsang, were you?"
"What? No," Tweezer responded, clearly having no idea what she was talking about. Kate believed her.
Ning, of course, felt it opportune to add, "High profile data theft, huh? You guys must really be good at your jobs."
This time, Kate couldn't help but grunt, "Fuck off."
"Does that theft happen to have anything to do with the Walled City?" Huojin asked.
"Walled City? You mean the Walled City? Kowloon? No… Well, I don't know. They didn't tell us anything." A strange feeling took hold of her… something felt like it unlocked in her head.
"I'm just asking," Huojin went on, "because there were news reports about Tsang Security being deployed at the Walled City and the whole thing ending up in disaster. It was all censored, of course, and it probably wasn't your uh… group or platoon…"
"Squad," Kate informed him, almost not hearing herself speak. The Walled City. Something had happened there. She'd been there.
"Right," she heard the guy say, far away. "But just figured it was possible. Same night you were in the ambulance wreck."
Her mouth moved on its own. "The Walled City… What was I doing there?"
"Wait," Tweezer asked, even though Kate didn't hear her. "You were at the Walled City? Last night? Katie, this could be important. Try to remember."
"I just remember… being assigned to secure… some place. Unimportant. On my own. Being brought in with the APC, then… walking to my designated position." She remembered alright. Remembered the squalid filth of Kowloon Walled City. The trash, the stink, the narrow alleys, flickering, buzzing lights, flies and vermin everywhere. Unclean people, hungry and desperate, some no longer able to walk. All of them accosting her for a handout, but getting nothing because the orders had been explicit. She'd been guarding some stupid platform of absolutely no importance. But what had happened then? She didn't remember.
"Do you know what happened at the Walled City?" Huojin asked. Ning was thankfully silent. "News reports have been contradicting and vague."
"I uh… just remember we had to go there to secure the place. No one in or out. Keep the civilians in check. You know, make sure they didn't riot or stampede and get themselves injured or killed. Evacuate them in an orderly fashion if necessary."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's the whole story," Ning scoffed. "I think you were deployed for an entirely different reason. Something you're holding out on us."
"I told you," Kate snapped. "I'm a security agent, not a black ops commando. They don't tell me those things!"
"Do you remember exactly what your orders were?" Huojin asked.
"Just… keeping order. I was guarding some platform. Some totally insignificant bit of infrastructure. My job was to be more furniture than anything. But… I don't know what happened next. How I ended up in the ambulance."
"Maybe it will still come to you," Tweezer said, audibly disappointed.
"Sure hope so. If not, I intend to find out."
They all fell silent, and waited for the time to pass. Ning trudged about impatiently while the others occasionally exchanged a word or two. Kate was deep in thought, trying furiously to remember what had happened before the accident. One thing was certain. She'd gone into the Walled City as a normal human, and come out as a vampire. What the fuck had happened there?
"They should be gone by now," Huojin sighed. "Let's go back topside."
"Has it been two hours?" Tweezer asked. "It's hard to keep track."
The small display on Huojin's cyberdeck lit up. "One hour and fifty-one minutes."
"Good enough," Ning decided, stomping off towards the ladder. "Sick of this drek."
Despite Ning's deplorable way of expressing herself, the others all silently agreed and went back to the ladder, finding themselves back in the safe house (or better, unsafe house right now), blinking at the stark fluorescent lights.
"I'm going to investigate, see if anyone know what those spooks wanted," Huojin announced. "You stay here, alright? It's much too dangerous."
Kate could take care of herself, but the guy was right. Showing her face would be asking for trouble, especially she had been the target, and the residents here knew. They'd probably vent their anger and grief on her in very painful and probably fatal ways.
"Yeah," Ning called after him. "Make sure to ask around if that murder squad was looking for an androgynous, pasty-skinned corp drone with tacky peroxide hair cut in the most clichéd security guard faux-hawk ever."
Kate wanted to punch her, but thankfully, Huojin did the honours for her. "Ning, just shut your damn mouth for one second."
"Besides," Tweezer said to her as Huojin left, her face carrying a slight hint of a grin. "You'd think you of all people would consider androgyny in a woman a plus."
"Yeah, you'd think wrong," Ning shot back. "Just because I'm into women, doesn't mean I'd ever even consider dirty corp minions." God damn, this woman had better be a great mage, because right now, Kate saw no redeeming qualities to her. Her opinion of the Elf plunged even lower when she added, "Especially not virus sacks."
She'd had enough. She was a guest, and these people had saved her, but even that gratitude had its limits. "Bitch, if you don't shut up right now," Kate threatened, "I'm going to teach you a lesson in the way I know best. And I'm not good with words."
"Katie," Tweezer said calmly, her hand on her shoulder, "Stay calm. Don't let this escalate. If you harm one of us, we can't let you stay here. And that's exactly what she wants."
She was right. Ning stood looking, her hands in her sides, a challenging smirk on her bitchy fucking face. She was almost asking to be punched. Tweezer was right. If she socked Ning one, she'd have what she wanted. God damn, she hoped this entire mess was over soon so she could just go back to Tsang and not have to spend any more time in this place, with this woman. But what was she saying? Going back to Tsang. Like this? As a… fucking vampire? Would they even let her back in? Probably not… or maybe they could find someone to cure this thing? It was possible.
She'd have to deal with that later. Right now, the best thing for her to do was acknowledge that Tweezer was right. "Gonna have to do better than that to get rid of me, Ning."
Innocently, Ning simply chirped, "I'm just saying what I think," before turning on her heels and walking to the kitchen. "… chummer."
Tweezer sighed and shook her head. "We best wait until the boss is back. She'll have a lot less of a big mouth when he's here."
"Sure hope so."
"I'd… offer you something to eat, but…"
"No thanks." She didn't even have to try it to know she'd probably barf it all right back up within the hour. She'd have to find someone to tell her exactly what being a vampire meant. For now, she didn't feel that much different, just cold all the time, and there was this… strange sensation she had. As if her body felt less… real. Less connected to her, for the lack of a better word. She hoped there was something she could do about that. Perhaps drinking blood could make the feeling go away, at least temporarily, but she couldn't ask that from her saviours, not even the bitchy ones like Ning. She didn't know how exactly the virus spread, but she could make a good guess that biting people had a good chance of transmitting it. And she didn't want to inflict this on others, especially not without knowing what the long-term consequences would be. Would she go crazy? Waste away? She had no idea.
"Alisa…" she asked the Orc. "Do you have any idea what being a vampire entails? Because… I really don't know what's going to happen to me."
The girl shook her head, looking sad. "I don't know either. And I don't want to tell you things that might end up being wrong. That would be worse than not saying." She sighed. "But there are people who know about occult diseases. I can check the Shadowland BBS for you if you'd like?"
She managed a smile. "That'd be nice. Just… be careful. I don't know what that whole thing is about, but make sure no one can… I don't know. Track you. Or identify you. Or me. You know."
"It'll be fine."
When Huojin came back in, his face told them all what they needed to know before he even opened his mouth to say, "The people I talked to all said the same thing. Those spooks shot everyone who was SINless, but those weren't their main targets. They shot people who hid and didn't identify themselves, and then verified the dead bodies against a holo. Guess whose face that showed."
Her heart sank. "Mine."
"Yours. The SINless were just gravy. You know, 'while we're here'."
"Think they'll be back?" Tweezer asked.
"Not sure. But we should let the boss know. Staying here might be dangerous. The boss'll know what to do. Until then, we should keep our guard up."
It turned out their guard did not need to be kept up for long. Only half an hour later, there was a knock on the door. The voice that came through didn't even wait for a response. "It's me. Open up."
As Huojin opened the door, Tweezer gave Kate a confident smile and said, "Don't worry, now that the boss is here, things'll work out."
"I hope so." That, or 'the boss' would rip her head off. Guys who came back from the Africas were usually somewhat… damaged by what they'd seen. She'd had one of them as a colleague a while back and boy was he weird.
The boss looked every bit like Kate thought he would look. A massive Troll with ebony skin and black cornrows that hung from the back of his head all the way to the waist. Beneath each of his eyes was a broad, horizontal smear of white paint. A pale brown trench coat completed the picture, and she wasn't surprised to see a bulky LMG on his back. The weapon looked like it had seen some action and taken more than a few beatings.
And the other guy must be Bubbles, a reddish bearded Dwarf, his moustache twisted into two long braids. He had his weapon on his back too, a mass-produced collapsible sniper rifle. It was obvious why he didn't carry a full-length one. A bandolier of lapua rounds hung across his chest. It was strange to see them carry their weapons so obviously, but they probably figured their boss was more than enough deterrent for anyone looking to start trouble. They were probably right.
"Client turned out to be a dud," the boss rumbled in his low voice, his African accent only vaguely discernible. "They're all talk until they have to pony up the credstick." His dark eyes fell on Kate. "Who's this?"
"This is Katie," Tweezer introduced her cheerfully. "Huojin pulled her from an ambulance wreck. She was in bad shape, but I fixed her up like the enfant prodige I am."
"I see. And she's still here because…?"
"Come on, boss," the dwarf laughed with a grin. "We can use more women here. Tweez is too tall for me, and Ning doesn't like anything that can grow a beard anywhere else than down below."
"Pretty sure this one's too tall for you too," the boss grunted. "You should find yourself a nice Dwarven girl. Cause you less neck pains."
"Boss, was that a joke about my height?" the Dwarf asked with a grin.
"No. Your height's a joke all of its own," the boss said back, his face serious, but Kate could tell he was just winding the Dwarf up.
The Dwarf realized it too, and Kate realized this meant these two had known each other for a long time already. "Well at least my height can be funny if it wants to be."
That got a chuckle out of the boss. "Now that that's out of the way, why don't you clue me in on what's been happening, Tweez? Saw some people hauling bodies. Cops come for some more target practice?"
They all sat on rickety folding chairs, gathered around a table, also of the folding variety, barely bigger than an old postage stamp on legs, and good for little more than being a fixture for one of the few lamps to stand on. Tweezer and Huojin did the explaining, with Ning being mercifully quiet. Tweezer left out Kate's infection, and Ning thankfully did not feel obliged to throw it into the group either. Kate did not speak unless spoken to. She knew damn well that she had no business offering opinions. Just being allowed to be present during the meeting was a privilege she knew she shouldn't handle carelessly.
Occasionally, the boss paused the telling to ask a question, nodding and motioning them to continue when it was answered. The entire group clearly deferred to him, and it wasn't just because he was a massive Troll able to rip their arms off – he had a natural charisma and leadership to him, and he could lead without ordering or threatening. Just like Phillip had been for her squad, this Troll was the central axle around whom the wheel of this Runner group turned.
He treated Kate with complete neutrality, which was better than she'd expected – it would be reasonable if regrettable of him to see her as the enemy.
When explanations were given and questions asked, Bubbles stroked his beard and said, "Women. Naught but trouble, aye?" adding a hoarse chuckle.
"Seems to me," the boss said, "that we have the following options. One option is, we part ways here, shake hands and move on with our lives. This option holds the distinct disadvantage of these cleaners coming back for a second look with murder on the side."
No one argued.
"Second option," the Troll went on, "is that we get those killers off our backs, and out of our neighbourhood by leaving our guest for them to pick up, in a clearly visible place. It won't be long until they hear of it, and rest assured they'll be here in minutes. They'd probably leave everyone here alone in… gratitude."
Ning said, in a far more quiet and respectful tone than usual, said, "It's… worth considering." She didn't dare look at Kate when she said it – as if she'd expected anything different from her.
Kaffir sighed. "This option holds the distinct disadvantage of us being unscrupulous, immoral finks who cave to the corps' brutalities and rat out fugitives to keep ourselves safe."
Bam. Kate wasn't unhappy to hear it, but Ning most certainly would be. Still, she only admitted, "Yes, that's true. I… hadn't looked at it that way yet."
"I've… done some digging on the Shadowland BBS," Huojin informed them. "There's… definitely something strange going on. Apparently Katie here isn't the only one being targeted by these killers. Several Tsang security gr… officers… have gone missing or turned up dead under mysterious circumstances. Tsang is supposedly 'looking into the matter'." He scratched the side of his face. "Some of it is tin foil hat stuff, I mean, it is the Shadowland BBS, but still. Further tin foil hattery suggests that all of them were people deployed to the Walled City yesterday evening." He looked around the room and finally settled his eyes on Kate. "Make of that what you will." He blinked, then cocked his head. "What's… wrong with your eyes?"
Oh shit. The redness had been invisible in the gloom, but not here, under the lights. "They're uh, just a little irritated," Kate said quickly. "Tweezer said it's a side effect of the injuries." Hopefully Huojin's medical knowledge, and that of the others, limited itself to 'wounds bad'. Tweezer, thankfully, confirmed the lie with a simple nod.
"Back to the matter at hand," Kaffir rumbled, "it seems someone is targeting Tsang's security people. It's definitely not Runners. From what you've told me, it sounds like black ops corp personnel. I don't care if corps kill each other's foot soldiers, in fact it's usually a good thing, but the problem is that we've got one of them right here." He thought for a moment. "You're certain you don't know what this is about? Certain and honest?"
Kate raised her hand. "I swear."
He nodded. "I believe you. Then I suppose, if you feel well and rested, you'd prefer to no longer associate with us? I don't think any payment is needed, you're free to go."
"Go where?" Tweezer asked. "She doesn't even know it's safe to return to Tsang. For all we know, it might be just as dangerous as staying here."
Swallowing, Kate made the suggestion that had been forming in her mind for a while. "There is… a third option, if I may? I mean, another possibility than turning me in or keeping quiet about me."
Kaffir's eyebrow went up. "Which is?"
"I hire you as Runners, to find out who or what wants me dead. And we see where we go from there."
The Troll grinned broadly. "A bold suggestion, indeed." He looked around the room, expecting no argument to what he was about to say. "We're Runners, we take any reasonable job, especially if it means messing with the corps… as long as you have the money."
Kate knew that someday, she'd be glad she always kept her credstick with her meagre life savings on her. Her armoured trousers had a compartment she always used to keep the stick in. Thankfully it hadn't been in the chest piece when it had been cut off her body, because the ambulance would be a stripped bare, burned wreck by now. "I have… some money. I… don't know what Runners are usually paid, but this is my life savings." She fished the credstick out of her pocket and held it up. "It's… around sixteen thousand nuyen. I… don't know if that's enough." It broke her heart to have to use her meagre savings for this but she saw no other survivable option.
Kaffir laughed loudly and slapped his thigh. "Lady, you really are out of your element. Don't worry, I won't take advantage. Depending on how dangerous the job is, something between four and seven thousand nuyen should cover it."
Ning cleared her throat. "Boss, I don't know if it's relevant, but this is what we're usually paid after the fixer deducts his share." She was an entirely different woman, cautious and subservient. "However, since we have no fixer this time…"
"I'm aware of that, Mornie," Kaffir acknowledged, "but I'm charging what I think we should be paid, not what I think our client should pay. It's a fair price, and our client shouldn't be the one to overpay because there's no middle man."
"No, of course not. I was just – "
"Looking out for our interests," the Troll said gently. "I know, Mornie, and thank you for that." He turned to Kate. "Let's discuss business… Katie, was it? I assume I can call you that and we can dispense with the client-Runner formalities?"
She nodded. "It'd be pretty misplaced of me to stand on formalities now."
As if rehearsed, the entire group left the room, except for their leader. Huojin went out the door, the others went to other parts of the den, to give them privacy. The mere presence of their boss made them of a single mind. It was impressive to see.
"Alright then," Kaffir began. "What did you have planned?"
She wrung her hands nervously. "I… don't know, really. I was hoping you'd have a suggestion? I mean, you're the Runner and all?"
She expected him to get impatient or laugh at her, but he merely looked away, thinking. "If I were in your position, I'd start with the only place I know. You don't know who is trying to kill you, so you can't start there, but you do know what you and the other targets have in common. I'd start with your employer." He shrugged. "It's the only place you can start, really."
"Mm. I can't just go up to them and ask, though. For uh… reasons."
"That's why you have us. Huojin should be able to navigate their network just fine, all we need is a port. Corp net security being what it is, I assume all the sensitive information is closed-circuit?"
She really had no idea, but she had been instructed to specifically watch for and report any unusual activity near data ports, and to check them for tampering regularly. They wouldn't do that if the network could just be accessed externally. Sometimes she'd even spent long, lonely nights guarding a single data port because there was personnel alien to the corp working in the building. And of course, there were the endless shifts standing watch over the vehicle repair hangar near the docks. The damn sectional gate often refused to close, and even though it had been reported many times before, nobody had fixed the damn thing yet, so every night, one unlucky sap had to spend the entire shift there, just standing in front of the open gate, looking out at the construction site on the other side of the street, with only the occasional patrol stopping by to check in and offer some opportunity for a brief conversation.
Of course, right now this very gate was an opportunity rather than a nuisance.
"It's all closed circuit, yes," she said, "but I know a place where the ports can be accessed in relative safety. There's a vehicle hangar near the docks. We… Tsang uses it for repairs, usually just old junk. But even hangers that repair old junk need a network connection. The sectional gate there is busted and they just can't seem to get it fixed. It's full of mechanics and admin staff during the day, but at night, there's only a single guard watching it."
He nodded. "Sounds like our place. You wouldn't mind if we mine some extra information to use as paydata, would you?"
It was pretty likely now that Tsang would never be her employer again, even if she could somehow return to them without bringing the unknown black ops guys down on her. "No, I guess not. Just… make sure none of it traces back to me. I'd… like to have at least something resembling a chance to go back to my old employer."
"Goes without saying."
"Most important thing though," she made sure to emphasize, "is that we get all the data concerning their investigation into the mysterious deaths. That we know exactly what they've found out until now."
He nodded. "The information is the main target, agreed. Five thousand should cut it. It's not risk-free, but nothing we can't handle."
She held out the credstick for him to scan and debit. "Could I… have the stick back when you're done, please? I'm… attached to it." It was bad form to ask for the return of a credstick, usually the things were left with the one receiving the nuyen, who then gave a credstick in return with the appropriate change on it, but this one was… special. "I know, it's an indecent thing to ask, but…"
"That's fine," he said, gently pushing her hand back to her. "I trust you. I know you'll pay us when the job is done." It was as much a vote of confidence as it was a clear reminder not to double-cross them.
"I will, you have my word."
"Good. Since you'll doubtless be coming along, I trust you will respect our relation as client and independent group?"
"Absolutely. I'm firmly aware of my position here. I'm the client, you're the boss." That went without saying. She'd worked with external contractors before, and there were always two rules. "Anything I need, I go through you, and under no circumstance do I issue direct orders to your men. That cover it?"
He smiled. "Good. It's refreshing to see clients who respect protocol. We leave tomorrow evening. One more thing?"
"Mm?"
"I don't care that you're an asanbosam, but you feed on any of my people or infect them and I'll have to suffer the regret of killing you myself. I hope we're clear on this."
Shit, he'd known right away, probably. Well, at least he didn't lash her to a stake and burned her for it. "Believe me, I won't touch your people. I'm… new to this HMHVV thing, and until I know exactly what I can and can't do, I'm giving everyone a wide berth. Promised."
"Good. It's nearly dawn, we should get some sleep. You especially." He held out his hand. "It will be a pleasure to work for you."
Kate shook his hand, but somehow she doubted it.