Chapter Nine
A Real, Old-Fashioned Armed Robbery
-
The elegantly-dressed night-porter in the hotel lobby amused and fascinated the shabby-looking girl he had approached. Shamelessly she looked him up and down with the smile of a child looking upon something for the first time. He wore an old-time black suit and tie and had a neat, curly beard and a slightly balding pate. He was shorter than Shepard but his rigid, robotic stance made them seem the same height.
"Is there… something I can do for you, miss?" he asked her, though his tone made it clear enough that there wasn't. The young girl was certainly underdressed, but she had not realised the Clarion was such an expensive, upmarket place. Though they were concealed by a long, black overcoat, her clothes were rags in comparison to this man's. She stopped staring at him and took a step back. It was obvious he meant her no offence but didn't want her wasting his time.
"No sir," she said politely, and she moved away. The porter gave her a little nod, which she took as acknowledging her good form.
Back outside she found a place to stand, away from the door so as not to get in the way as she waited. She was early for her mysterious meeting with Nash and had only been waiting indoors in order to get a little warmer. Only five minutes now, and Shepard was adept at time-wasting. This would be easy.
Never a particularly organised person in private, she made it a point always to appear early to any appointment with another person. She had never failed in this duty, becoming a different person whenever she found herself responsible to someone else. It was a strange quirk which she had never come to fully understand. It wasn't that she was simply afraid of disappointing the other. She held little respect for most people she met and she was quick-witted and agile enough to escape those people for whom respect had lost its meaning. Often she would sit and think about it, trying to be objective and scientific about the lifelong problem.
Every now and again she would feel as if she was getting close, but then some pressing problem would drag her away from her ruminations. She leaned back on the wall of the hotel with a foot or two of plaster separating either side of her from windows, scratching a little lump of paint with a chewed fingernail. Her habit of working harder for others than for herself sometimes made her feel weak, but she was sure it wasn't exactly a weakness. She genuinely wanted to help others, and in a self-serving way. It felt like she was after something from them. But what? She could never work that out.
The sounds of a lively conversation drew her attention away from introspection and toward a crowd of four figures approaching in dark clothing like her own.
"Good," she muttered into her collar. "At least I'm dressed right."
One of the taller figures broke off from the conversation and approached Shepard a little faster. Nash had recognised her first, which made Shepard feel good, but when the red-haired thief reached her she unnerved her young protégé with a look.
"Shepard? What are you doing here?" The tone was not of surprise or disappointment but, of fear.
"Uh…" the long-haired girl stumbled. "Cross told me to come here."
"Holy… you met Cross?"
The girl nodded.
"Well… Jesus… unh," Nash seemed surprised, trying to figure something out. "Have you got a gun?"
Shepard blinked. "A gun?"
"Shit!" Nash half-whispered. She gritted her teeth then swore some more, loud enough to silence the crowd she had brought with her. After collecting herself she turned back to them and assured them that nothing was wrong. They continued to talk amongst themselves but stayed a few feet behind the two women, aware that something serious was being discussed. "Look, sweetie, you might need to defend yourself on this job. Here," the older thief unbuttoned her thin coat a little, revealing a pistol snugly resting in the inside pocket. "That Cross is an asshole, you know that?"
Shepard completely agreed with her, though she was not brave enough to say so in front of the men. When she looked she could see clearly that two of them were wearing body armour. Nash had on her usual modified pieces of military hardsuit beneath the coat, but that was nothing she hadn't seen before. As she accepted the cold, grey pistol from her occasional mentor she wondered at Nash's swearing. It wasn't like her.
"Yeah well, he is," the older woman told her. "Just hold onto the gun there and stay at the back."
"What's the job?" Shepard asked, her head tilted with mild suspicion.
"Never mind what the job is, sweetie," Nash snapped, taking the other by surprise. "Just stay back. Goddamn it, Cross! What was he thinking? Was he high?"
The girl's first reaction was to defend her usefulness for the mission, whatever it was, but she closed her mouth when she remembered that when he had given her the job, Cross had only just taken some red sand.
"Actually he was."
This admission made Nash laugh a little. After looking to the heavens for strength, she placed a hand on Shepard's forearm by way of apology. Her usual knowing half-grin appeared, but she failed to make eye contact. She turned away and returned to her three men, who were glancing at the Clarion Hotel's main entrance. Two of them had covered their faces with scarves and the other wore a floppy hood over his eyes. Even from this short distance she could make out little beyond their skin-tones. It suddenly struck her that Nash's coat too had a hood on the back.
This meeting was growing stranger by the minute. Shepard thought she ought to be scared by the necessity of a firearm and questioning of Nash's strange behaviour and the scarves, but there was no need. The young orphan did not trust easily, but over the course of a couple of missions together, Gina Nash had managed to bring her out of her shell and win her friendship. Whatever was going on here, it would be okay. Gina was a kind soul who had seen something in Shepard she liked and taken it upon herself to act as her protector. Her charge loved the feeling but equally found a mutual admiration in the tough, thoughtful and considerate woman's demeanour. Their relationship had been further enhanced by a few trips to Stinger's Exit, a Red-friendly bar where the gang tended to congregate. They had been drunk together, played darts and talked long into the night, finding much in common. At the end of their second night at the Exit they had even danced. As a rule, Shepard never danced, so that meant that Nash was to be trusted.
When Nash returned, her friends were examining their guns and stashing them into covert but easy spots about their clothing. Instinctively, Shepard flicked off the safety on the gun she had been lent.
"Shepard, honey, you don't have to do this job. It's not your usual walk-in theft."
This much was obvious. It was nearly midnight and they were out of Glendale. It had been a long walk.
"It's a real, old-fashioned armed robbery, you know what I mean? We're going to take the safe money from folks who don't deserve that kind of harsh treatment. It's a serious job." She paused to let Shepard react. "So it's not the stuff that you like to do. It's dirty. There might be fightin', too. Now I know you can handle yourself…" she trailed off, helpless.
Shepard chewed the flesh beneath her bottom lip and stared, thinking about it. It did seem much more serious now, somewhat immoral and certainly not the kind of job she would ever choose to work on. But Nash was here, so it would be okay. Only for the briefest moment did she wonder why a hotel so far away from home had been chosen.
"I'm in," she said, eager to impress her friend.
Nash responded with the arched eyebrows of a proud but worried mother. "I don't want you on this one, honey. I mean, I want you around, but this job is… I can't believe Cross put you up to this! His idea of a j…"
The word was never finished as Nash suddenly screamed in pain and crumpled to the ground. The bullet that hit her knee, just above the edge of her concealed armour, made its presence known to Shepard when it passed through the limb and finally clattered to a halt on the dirty concrete below. Nash fell onto the injured leg, then yelped and rolled over.
In the next second the battle began, while every party but the bewildered Shepard and the injured Nash ran for cover and began firing pistols. The sniper who had started the conflict was easy to spot on the balcony of another building. He tried to make himself less of a target by crouching as he lined-up another shot. Meanwhile six other gunmen had made themselves visible by opening fire on the group. The attackers all wore bright Hawaiian shirts and cream-coloured slacks; it made for a snappy gang uniform but terrible night camouflage.
The sniper's second bullet whizzed past Shepard's ear so closely that it felt hot. She got scared, but knew she had to act. Grabbing her borrowed gun she aimed loosely at the sniper and hurled a flurry of shots, almost enough to overheat the weapon, in his direction. When she was convinced she could safely fire no more she fell gracelessly to the floor, feeling her arms shaking a little with panic.
As she landed, Shepard found herself face to face with the struggling Nash, who was trying to lift her body into a better position with one arm while her left held her pistol and tried to find a mark. Nash glanced at the sniper's position, half-grinned at Shepard for a split-second, and said, "Atta girl."
Shepard's arms relax and she feels strength pouring into them. All of her muscles surrender control to her mind, and she feels a little warmer. Suddenly she becomes aware of everything. The sniper is dead; one of the many blind shots she fired actually hit home. She was lucky she wasn't hit while standing up in the open for so long, but it doesn't matter now. She has just killed a man, for the first time, but that doesn't matter now either. She is in control now.
Controlling her breathing and laying down some well-aimed covering fire, Shepard grabbed Nash by the arm and pulled. "We need cover," she explained. By way of agreement, Nash dragged herself along with Shepard using her other arm and her good leg for propulsion. The movement was clearly causing her great pain, but they both knew they had to get to a better vantage point.
Soon they hit the shady, solid side-wall of the hotel and Nash sighed loudly. Right away both women lifted their weapons and began surveying the battlefield.
Time seems to stop for Shepard. With one look she can see all three of their fellow Reds and all five of the Hawaiian shirt boys. One of the Reds, the one with the hood, is already dead. From the sheer number of wounds in his body it's clear that at least one of the Hawaiians is using an assault rifle. The two guys in scarves are not injured. One's scarf has dropped off to reveal an ugly tattoo across his cheeks and chin. She adjusts her glance to focus on the enemies. Three of them are using single pistols, one is attempting, foolishly, to fire two at once, and the last is the man with the assault rifle. He will have to go first. Nash is about to fire and from the looks of things her mark is the dual-pistol-wielding man. It seems like an odd choice, but from her low vantage point on the ground, he is her best shot. Shepard aims for the rifleman's head and flicks on her gun's rapid-fire mechanism.
And then Shepard jumped out of her strange, timeless moment. Her temporary advantage had faded and everyone now seemed to move at the same speed. The sudden change in her perceptions jarred her a little, but her aim was still good. Wasting no time, she fired five straight shots, each one right behind the other, at her target. Four of the tiny bullets landed in the shaved head of the man with the rifle, dropping him and his weapon instantly. The one with the two pistols was dead as well. Nash's aim was good.
The quick, deadly-accurate shooting from the side of the hotel had changed the tide of the fight in an instant. The three surviving Hawaiians quickly dropped behind cover of their own in the form of two cars parked outside of the main entrance. Shepard took a deep breath and spoke to Nash.
"Who are we fighting? What's really going on here?"
"I don't know! This isn't what we… came for," Nash said, hissing with the pain from her smashed kneecap. "But obviously we're in their territory!"
Three or four slugs crashed into the edge of the wall next to them, sending dust flying up and chips of plaster and paint across the floor. The two male Reds now rushed to join them behind a wall. One of them, the heavier man with the face tattoos, awkwardly felt around the back of his custom suit of armour and found a switch, which activated a kinetic barrier. It had come a little late, Shepard thought, but would all-but guarantee his survival in the rest of the fight. The other man, still wearing his scarf, showed his attractive mocha skin and cool green eyes to Shepard. "Good work," he told her. "Now it's four against three."
Shepard's head darts out from the edge of her cover. In the ensuing second she finds the positions of the three Hawaiians and spies the discarded assault rifle, still lying there, but now closer to them than to the enemy. The Hawaiians are about twenty feet away, now. One of them has retreated to behind the fountain on the far side and Shepard can barely see him. She bets he thinks he is invisible, though, so she still has some advantage. The other two are still behind the cars and waiting. They aren't bold enough to attack, but Shepard is.
"We need a plan," said the man in the scarf, looking at Nash. The older thief nodded back derisively, suggesting she was already working on one.
Unable to help herself, Shepard spoke up. "You with the shields…" she began.
"Hullick," he corrected.
"Hullick, you're pretty well-protected against three men, so you can charge them. And you with the, uh, scarf…?"
The scarfed man nodded but did not say his name, perhaps thinking it unnecessary. Nash told her the man was named Tony. It seemed an oddly-pleasant name for a gang-member, but she shook it off.
"Okay, Tony, you run behind him and cover him, and make for that fence across from us. They won't see where you end up. Me and Nash will try for the guy hiding in the fountain. Hullick, grab that assault rifle and start trying to scare them away from the car. When they run, Tony and me will join you."
For a second they all considered the plan, until Nash started laughing. "I didn't know you had it in ya, sweet-heart!" she giggled, then told the two men, "That's our plan. Get moving. Go!"
Shepard stood back to let Nash reach the edge of the white wall, and they began firing at the fountain. It was some distance away, so they took their time with each shot and retreated afterwards. Fire was quickly returned by all of the Hawaiians, but Hullick and Tony were already away. A few bullets hit Hullick and one even seemed to knock the well-armoured man's armour, piercing his shields, but it did him no harm. Trying to take the heat off him, the other three Reds fired on the cars, which silenced the men hiding behind them for a few seconds and gave Shepard another shot at the fountain. She missed, but Nash leaned over and fired immediately afterwards. The surprise second shot revealed the man behind the water and felled him.
Hulick now had begun retreating back to safety whilst hurling the incessant volleys of assault rifle pellets through the car windows, repeatedly breaking the shards of glass. One of the two Hawaiians screamed and the other bolted, helplessly running for the street. But a few frantic bursts of fire from Hullick finished him off. Looking a little shaken and with fully depleted shields, the tank resumed his own retreat.
It was done, then. There were smiles and relieved laughter among the Reds as they relaxed a little. Tony slowly started to make his way back, but stopped to turn his head back toward the cars. Before Shepard realised that the Hawaiian who had screamed was still alive, it was too late. Tony took three slugs to the chest and dropped, bleeding badly.
Shepard gets back into her shooting position and finds her mark. The last Hawaiian has had to prop himself up against the car, so he is a ridiculously easy target. Maybe his leg is hurt like Nash's or maybe he has just given up on surviving this encounter. If so, he is stupid, but it's not important. Shepard fires twice, to be sure.
The last of the rival gang members put up very little resistance to Shepard's carefully-aimed shots and collapsed heavily against the car.
As Hullick rushed to tend to Tony's body, Shepard turned to Nash. By now she was trying to force herself to her feet, but having little success and wincing with pain. Shepard immediately put an arm around her waist and took some of her weight by force. With an anguished, but muted sigh, Nash accepted the help and met Shepard's eyes. "Thank you," she said with a cold sincerity Shepard had never heard in her syrup voice. She turned her head quickly toward the car park, where Hullick was slapping Tony's lifeless face, having given up on a pulse. "Hullick?" she asked.
"He's dead, Gina."
Nash nodded back at the man. "Okay, I'm betting everyone in the hotel foyer was watching that little display. We have to get out of here before some kind of authorities come down or we run into more trouble with the freaking loud-shirt-gang. Hullick, you're driving."
As she spoke, Nash had been applying clear gel from a grey tube to her injury. The application alone seemed to give Nash renewed vigour and strength. Shepard wondered if it might be the medi-gel used in hospitals and by the military. There were rumours it was even available commercially in some of the big cities, so it was not hard to believe Nash had gotten her hands on some.
"What about Tony and Draa?" the big man asked, trying to sound emotionless. Shepard guessed that Draa was the hooded man who had died when the gunfight began.
Nash coughed a little and winced as the vibrations hit her knee. "We can't carry them and me back to the car. Sorry, Hullick."
Hullick reacted stoically and took Nash's other side, so that he and Shepard almost lifted her of the ground.
Perhaps for Shepard's benefit or perhaps to make herself feel better, Nash explained, "City Hall will get the bodies and cremate them with a little service. It's better than some of us get back in Glendale. Now let's go. Faster."
"Where are we going?" Hullick asked.
"Fifth street. I know a guy who'll fix me up. I think the bullet isn't still in my leg so it'll be easy."
"It's not," Shepard confirmed. "I saw it hit the ground."
"Good."
They reach the car and hurriedly lay Nash down on the back seat, though she keeps complaining about the fuss being made over her. The other two are relaxing back into their normal behaviour and Nash even seems relieved now that it's over, but Shepard is still tense. She feels a need to look behind her and check the wing-mirror, just in case more of the Hawaiians come looking for them. She feels her finger twitching and her heart beating. Every little sound she hears makes her eyes widen and blood pulse harder. She doesn't want to lose possession of the gun she's been given.
Even when the car starts Shepard can't relax. The adrenaline is still rushing through her, readying her for the next attack, keeping her deadly abilities available to her. All the way home she waits, but the second attack never comes.
