By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-sitting, and I know she thinks of me.
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
When the mist was on the rice-fields and the sun was dropping slow,
She'd get her little banjo and she'd sing 'Kulla-lo-lo'
With her arm upon my shoulder and her cheek against my cheek,
We used to watch the steamers and the hathis piling teak.
Elephants a-piling teak,
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence hung so heavy you were half-afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay, where the flying fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder, out of China 'cross the bay!
–Kipling, Mandalay
Interstate Route 5, Central Valley, Calfree, Feb 2053 (Eight months after the Armoury fight)
Lying in a rough roadside ditch next to the Five, a half-klick from the barricade set by some third-rate water bandits, was naturally not what Hotspur had expected of the Prime Runner lifestyle. They'd made it to L.A., seen the high life and the lows, but they hadn't seen the hooded elf in the fifth-floor window before she pulled the trigger. They'd slot and run again, Susan and he, as Runners did.
It seemed they'd be running from their enemies forever; or hiding out in this wilderness of empty. But the woman who made the life they shared into a fantastical adventure was sharing this ditch with him. So close, he could blow strands of hair off her firm brow...
"Oi! Focus!" Susan hissed at him.
"Yeah, I'm focused…"
"On the job! Even with you, I'm not settling down here for the night."
"You could distract those mooks with a song and dance? Promise I'd save you."
"Not funny."
"But you still love me?"
"Really not funny. Good banter and plans take effort, dummy. Everything does."
The wide-open plain of dirt and stubby grass was like a hob under the beating sun. They were scratched, tired and snappy. In their time, they'd closed hundred-thousand nyuyen Runs; beaten megacorps, terrorists and world-class killers. Now they'd stalled in front of a dozen thugs, with rattling AKs and a clear field of fire to the horizon. Because the effort for a fistful of nyuyen, and no hope of more than this, was too dispiriting? Or because nightmares, hunting them from Hong Kong to L.A., had finally unthreaded their nerves and bled their hearts out?
Harry hoped it was neither. Desperately hoped that neither fate was on their marriage either, or ever would be. Having no one but each other could become yet another pressure. What he could barely imagine he could still dread, because idiocy could frag up forever in a moment…
"How about this?" Susan whispered again, "We tell them straight off we're shadowrunners–"
"Chip truth? Always wanted to do that. Just do it, love, it's perfect."
She met his smile and squeezed his hand; Harry knew in an instant that they would do this when they were old. His wife rose slowly out of the ditch, and walked towards the roadblock of burnt-out vans, hands raised. Hotspur army-crawled along the ditch as her hidden backup, slowing as they drew closer to the bandits.
The bearded men in studded leather and ragged singlets stared at the woman with the endless empty freeway at her back. The Ares milspec vest under her brown Kevlar-weave duster was visibly worn but well-cleaned. Her thick, high braid, along with her perfectly balanced and assured posture, added two apparent inches to five foot ten. A broad, tanned face and hardened dark eyes still met the world head on, without aggression–but her measured steps were like a panther, utterly aware and unafraid.
"Hoi! Stop there! You a Ranger? One of them…shadowrunners? What the frag do you want?"
She gave a fake street name and told them she had a proposition. Only one ork was dim enough to snigger, and then the danger flashing to her eyes bucked him down. She wasn't recognised; she had a fresh braided hairstyle, no scarf and her new armour pushed her breasts down. When the storied, hunted Fighter was a Chinese girl with a ponytail and boobs, she only needed a few more touches for an effective disguise–with guys like this, anyway.
"My crew have been escorting water tankers to the farmlands, by highway and river. Hard, boring work, and the Agricorps don't pay us drek. I'm ready to hand over their schedules and security plans for the next three months, cash down."
"Raided a big Agricorp convoy on the Thirty Two, two weeks ago." A reddish-haired dwarf woman, the bandits' leader, met Susan's gaze, "Where were you then?"
"Maybe with your husband?" Fighter grinned, even as her eyes kept a hint of steel, "Or shaving my legs and wishing I was back in San Francisco."
"Har-fragging-har..."
The dwarf woman had more questions, but it helped that Fighter and Hotspur had actually done a few tedious milk runs for the Agricorps. The bandits obviously didn't have the wherewithal to close a serious deal, so Fighter waited for the demand that she come back to their camp and meet the chief.
Hotspur stood up slowly from the roadside, giving the bandits a fair shock–but Fighter had persuaded him to leave his headband at home and he could be very pleasantly unthreatening when required. The mood in the bandits' pick-up as they roared off was rather chummy. Dorbi, the dwarf woman, was a quick, outspoken mage who was glaringly wasted on cheap thuggery.
The camp was at the end of a gulch between two rocky hills–Hotspur could imagine they were wary gunslingers in a Western. All that kept the bandits down were the famous California Rangers; Calfree's 'government' in Sacramento was a penniless joke, and the Agricorp bean counters budgeted a bare minimum for regular security. Hotspur could tell that the whole camp might be packed up for a move within hours, however, and that there were caves behind the tents to give shelter from airstrikes. Camo-netting was strung across the gulch, to block spy-drones from spotting the very man that Fighter and Hotspur shook hands with, in front of his tent.
He wasn't exactly 'Kane' Kastle, just the boss of a gang that had somehow scored heavy weapons and plundered a few convoys too many. A shaved-head Chinese-American, with a drooping moustache and bare arms held solidly akimbo. Fighter triggered the locator hidden in her palm, and then took another look at the man stood beside the chief.
Milspec full-body armour was unusual kit for a bandit. From the broadsword at his hip, he could be another adept–but the steel mask, a shadowed grille like an angler fish's jaws, was definitely weird. Fighter noted that Dorbi, still right behind them with her gunmen, was staring at the man with shock and thunderous rage. It seemed they'd barged into another meeting, which the chief had meant to keep quiet from some of his own band.
"Dorbi, greet our new comrade." The bandit chief finally grated, "Boss of the Native Californians, out of Chico–"
"I know who he is…boss," The dwarf mage hissed like burning steam, "He's the fragging Ork Slayer!"
-0-
"Native Californian? You mean, Amindian?" Hotspur gamely tried to head off what he knew was coming. They could see the masked man was powerfully built, but nothing of his bare skin.
"An understandable misconception, Shadowrunner," The voice from the mask was roughly-accented, but strikingly refined and considered in tone, "The red savage has been a viper in the bosom of America–even from before its birth, by and for the true god-fearing, native American people, down to the present remorseful day."
"Ah. You're Humanis? Should've guessed from the name."
"Of course he is fragging Humanis!" Dorbi screamed. Sparks of magic flew from her waving fists.
"We take a more pragmatic view than our brothers of the Humanis Policlub," Ork Slayer responded calmly, "We are prepared to work with magic-users, and immigrants. Even with stump-legs and tuskers, at a hygienic distance."
It was quiet and buried–but Fighter had never heard such intensity of hatred in any voice. Humanis. The Troll Hunters. They'd killed Anya's boyfriend–they'd killed the trogs who'd beaten and almost raped her. She felt dizzy and sick.
"Dorbi, calm the frag down!" Snapped the bandit chief snapped, "This is just a deal! We send the NCs a cut of our plunder; they keep the heavy weapons coming. Think of the future!"
"The future like, next month, you have to cut our throats for your guns? Every meta of us, and their families–" Dorbi gestured at the orks behind her, who were also beginning to look mutinous, "–and you'd do it wouldn't you, big man? You slotting coward, I'm taking over this ship right now!"
"You do that, the Native Californians wipe us out!" The chief roared, "Human and meta, within a week! Friends in high places, they're the guys with all the guns, you little witch! We can deal with them and survive, if you just shut up!"
"Or then again," Ork Slayer interjected, "We could all ask the famous Fighter and Hotspur what they're really doing in a cesspit like this?"
As soon as the man had spoken, Fighter had known they were going to get made. Her furious prayers that their backup would swoop in, now, had brought nothing, of course–but of course, she'd already charged her limbs with Ki.
The kick shot out from her hip. Her knife hand moved like a wheel–eyes! Neck! Breastbone!–the three gunmen round her thumped down. Hotspur's sword-hilt shot back into a bearded jaw, then his blade stabbed toward the chief in a diving lunge.
Dorbi launched a Flamestrike at Ork Slayer in the confusion. Who burst it on a Mystic Shield, struck Hotspur down with a pommel strike–and drove his sword through the dwarf mage's throat. He had sliced through the chests of both orks, even before Fighter could scream.
"HARRY!"
Her thrown knife hit the sawn-off drawn by the chief–the blast only caught Hotspur's arm. Gritting his teeth, he still kicked at an AK barrel, slashed his katana through an ankle, and leapt up.
"They were traitors, in league with the Runners." Ork Slayer told the comrades of the metas he'd cut down. "Now, we kill the shadowscum."
There was barely enough confusion, with the crippled bandit thrashing in the dust, for Hotspur and Fighter to bolt for rocky cover. Then multiple AK-97s opened up on Ork Slayer's command. More gunmen were stumbling from caves and tents all round them, more than they'd planned for–many with the armour and milspec Colt rifles of NC heavies. Getting shot to pieces by cheap thugs from every side was a miserable fate for Prime Runners, but the Shadows gave no second chances.
There was no time for a word, or a final clasp of hands, as the sun glared over the hills. No need for anything but a glance, with both their grenades already pin-pulled.
Hotspur darted out left, faster than ever. The Ares HE he'd flung like an outfielder went off, throwing bodies down, as bullets tore the air where he'd been. Body low, he slashed up into the bandits moving to flank their cover. Fighter flung her grenade over the rock, at the assembled firing line; it blew a hole, and then she monkey-leapt across the gulch towards it. Trained foes would have shot her from the sky like a pigeon, but her power threw the bandits back in shock.
She came down on a gunman's neck, chopped and kicked down the ones that had dodged the blast. A few Colt bullets from both sides had cut her limbs–and Ork Slayer was lunging for her, adept-fast like lightning.
She twisted aside, drove Ork Slayer back with a leg sweep. Kicked down a hunting rifle aimed across the gully at her husband–they could watch each other's sixes from opposite sides of a fight, and they'd have been instantly boxed in fighting back to back. Against ranged weapons they had to be a rainstorm– everywhere at once and always moving.
You picked off lone gunmen behind or ahead of the pack, then darted through the ruck where they couldn't shoot without geeking their own. In theory–another ork bandit going at Fighter with an axe was shot down by the NC. Hotspur still charged into another knot of foes, while Ork Slayer thrust through the melee and slashed Fighter's leg.
"Susan…!"
Hotspur could only chop again at the foes around him–but Fighter stayed up.
She punched at the steel mask; his forearm block bloodied her knuckles and she barely ducked his thrust at her head. Then the kick aimed at her stomach–deadly speed, a self-taught, intensely practised style, and a body filled with weapons.
He would have been a deadly challenge, like she hadn't faced for months–if they hadn't been surrounded by furious brutes swinging guns, axes, clubs. Closing in on Harry to beat him down, and her–
"TARANTA-RA, TARANTA-RA!" A tremendous voice suddenly boomed through the gulch, "THE SEVENTH CAVALRY ARE ON THE SCENE! FLY, MY ANGELS!"
The California Rangers had long found that expertise in heavy drone rigging was much more useful in keeping the Calfree highways clear than any grasp of subtlety. The four rotor-drones barrelling down the gully with autocannons blazing would have done their intended job without Ode to Joy booming over their speakers. Nearly drowning out the amplified laughter of a very happy troll indeed.
"I LLLLOOO-VE my D–RRROONNES!"
Fighter dived for cover, wincing from her injured leg, as did Hotspur, Ork Slayer, and everyone else in the gully who wasn't quickly cut down from the air. Some of the bandits made it to their boltholes in the hillside and Fighter didn't see Ork Slayer's body among the carnage. Or poor Dorbi's body, strangely–she could only hope the mage had escaped, perhaps to become a bandit queen someday. The water bandit chief was very dead, however, and his band thoroughly broken up. California Ranger Ollendorf, their employer for this alleged milk run, handed over their money on the spot with a hefty bonus.
"I think this'll be a very fair warning not to cause trouble on the old Five!" The troll chortled, smacking Hotspur on the back and nearly pitching him over. His fellow Ranger Ballou, a dwarf in a cowboy hat, merely inclined his head. The Rangers usually worked as individual mavericks–they'd seen the trophies strung up along Rick's section of the Five, from motors or motorists who'd thought they could dodge their highway repair toll.
Actually, it was the biggest Run they'd closed for months. It simply wasn't much next to what they'd known, and in the boonies it didn't get any bigger than this. But they were a little richer, still very much not dead. And heading home together seemed the most precious reward they could hold.
As Susan patched up Harry's arm, and he saw to her thigh, they felt the moments over again when they could have lost forever–and everything, in that moment, they had known of love together. Harry rested his forehead against Susan's brow, under a clear, bright sky, until Ollendorf began imitating little birdies and collapsed with laughter.
"Something you need to get home for, kids?"
"Guess so," Susan stood up, Harry's hand in hers, "Once we've mended the roof, walked the dog…"
They rode with the Rangers back to their van. Little twinges of desire prickling their arms, as their hands held on all the way.
-0-
They'd spent the first month living out the van they'd traded their bike for in Sacramento. A covert IJM squad had torn up the city looking for them, they'd heard, but they were already at Lake Tahoe, and then Yosemite. Staying inside the van, or crouching under a forest ledge, whenever a rotorcraft passed over. Though awakened forest beasts gave them more trouble than any of the dangerous players they'd left with bloody noses–and the wide, towering glories of nature blew all of the newlyweds' troubles into the lake. Wide as Susan's arms of kindness, sparkling as her armour of courage–Harry would never be a warrior poet, but he meant every word and Susan adored him.
Moving around was the safest way, until you were spotted; hiding out was the safest way until you were found. Four months ago–after the Ghosts of Tir had slipping in ahead of all the new enemies they'd found in L.A., and sent them running for the hills–they'd started looking for a quiet place. Trying to set up shop or even lie low in another city would have set a fire of whispers through the Shadows, back to Saito, the Tir, the Triads; the MPA and Shavarus' militant brothers. In a small town or even the wilderness they would have stuck out like a troll's sore thumb. Finding work wasn't a consideration, then–after L.A,. Susan's first trip with Docwagon, on top of their nightmares from Hong Kong and San Francisco, they'd just wanted a time of peace.
Lonely derelict farmhouses or holiday villas, from the days of Californian prosperity, were all squats for bandits or Calfree gypsies–even if they'd cleared out the bandits, there would have been talk. They'd finally found a lakeside villa with a broken roof, where a gypsy family had been devoured by a ghoul clan. Feral, deformed monsters; twisted by a mutant Krieger strain.
Fighter and Warrior had killed them with satisfaction, buried the gypsies' remains with sorrow. Then geeked the offshoot clan that had crept down from the hills by night, around the house. The Runners had come prepared with IR cameras, alarms and tripwires to defend their home, and darkness held no terrors before an adept's senses. They chased the last ghouls down, then set to mending the roof, bleaching blood off the walls and burying what they couldn't save.
More ghouls might come, but Saito and the Tir would always be coming; next year, next week, tomorrow. It was a shunned and feared house, miles from any help, but all they needed was a secret place and each other. They were going to make a loving home on top of a place of death; but they'd both lost count of their dead before they were twenty-one. A happy home was just what they were going to make, against all odds.
-0-
Pup woke Susan up in the morning, licking her bare foot stuck out of the bed. Their quiet black Labrottie-mutt was unquestionably the best treasure they'd taken from L.A. Harry had found her wounded in El Infernio, Susan had nursed the stray as if she'd been waiting for it her whole life.
Pup had been their watchdog, fought and scavenged beside them; she was a survivor and a fighter. The warm, silent trust she'd finally bestowed on Susan had stolen the shadowrunner's heart. Susan and Harry had picked the same name, 'Pup', since she was such a big girl, once again showing off the drekky naming sense they mysteriously shared with Ilsa. Though when you were one heart and flesh, doing things together was what really mattered.
Susan smiled, as Harry stirred against her naked back. Spent from their Run, they had fallen on the bed. Made love once, with the simple, consuming intensity of exhaustion, then slept. So, she wasn't surprised that Harry was already circling her ear with kisses and stroking one finger over her thigh.
"Aw." She whispered, "Is baby hungry this morning?"
"No, mommy's hungry. Hungry for daddy."
"Oh yes, but…morning exercises first. Proper exercise! Ah, Harry, get off, I'm not skipping them this time...!"
Ungrappling herself from her husband's mouth and fingers–barely, before he reached the spots that would've made her a helpless jellyfish in his arms–Susan skipped out of bed. She raised her arms and stretched out in the first stance of her morning Tai Chi. Still wearing nothing, as she faced her husband, except her loosed dark hair and a very big smile.
Harry lay back on the bed, trembling. Eight months, he'd taught her practically everything he knew about sex–and learnt that he'd known nothing at all, before her. Other girls had drawn him, but her love held him like a silk rope. Her eyes were the Shadows themselves, power and adventure. Her muscles moved like sleek, latent missiles of living fire; under every beloved callus and scar, her skin was pure. Her breasts filled his world, moving gently as clouds. Firm like the leg she raised to her waist, to show him everything…
"…you're thinking about something naughty again, aren't you?"
She couldn't help laughing; Harry let out a little groan of desire. She saw his lean body was springy with smooth readiness, like a cat, and of course her man was very ready where it counted. She was tight down there herself, so big but not huge was perfect. Then her eyes moved up his smooth chest, over the proud, pitiful scars he'd borne at her side. His soft cheeks, under childhood scrapes. Bright eyes that had been made for this, their happy ever after, that made her a queen and gave her all his heroic love.
"Just watch me, Harry, for five minutes. Train your willpower. Or you could play with yourself…show me how much you want me… but just five minutes, then take me. No messing about, because I know exactly how you feel."
Harry did have iron willpower–when he wanted to use it. He lasted for barely three minutes of Susan's drifting, willow-strong limbs and rising, falling breasts. Until she turned her back and dropped into a hip stretch against the bedroom wall, perhaps with a lot more hoop-wiggle than needed.
-0-
Their cries of passion faded to echoes; gave way to thick, fast panting as they lay spent. Stretched out on the floor, linked by their squeezing fingers, soporific with each other's love. Susan presently mustered the strength to get up and feed the dog.
Apart from a few whines, Pup had shown remarkable patience; noisy dogs didn't last very long in El Infernio. Susan rewarded her with pettings, a hug and a full apology, before putting her out in the walled back yard. Then crawling back into bed next to Harry, for a lazy morning with a few more gentle rounds of canoodling.
Shagging like wild animals was for when you were both still alive after a Run–Harry gave amazing foot massages as well. Sometimes he would slowly work up her ankle, up her thigh with kisses. Worshiping her biceps, playing with her breasts very gently. Feeling her heartbeat, as his chest hammered against her hand…meditating on a beloved body and soul for an hour, before Harry's tongue even touched her. It was another fruit of their adept training–apart from Olympic bodies, limitless endurance, and the sensation heightening powers they were both hopelessly hooked on–that had made them very happy bunnies. Ancient Tibetan masters, and less-ancient California Hippies, had pursued tantric sexual perfection as a path to enlightenment–but for Susan and Harry, Nirvana could wait.
There was little else to do in the evenings, they were somewhat in love, and Susan was determined to be better at sex than Harry, someday. She'd taken sex on with the same bold, physical passion as martial arts, and a fierce competitive spirit, as if she had something to prove. Or something to run from.
An hour later Susan finally got up; went to the back courtyard for a bucket shower of cold lakewater. Her soaked, bare flesh shivered in the shade, but she still lingered on the rough grass, naked and warm in the sunlight. Pup gave her a resigned, forgiving look as she scratched behind floppy ears.
Susan hugged herself under her heavy breasts, became aware of her own body. The monsters its strength had killed, the lives it had saved. The pleasure her body and indomitable heart gave to her husband and herself, every day.
The terrors that had torn at her heart to tear her down…in the small hours of the night, they still came. But today they were impotent as distant black clouds in her clear sky. A warm glory rose in her, until she could have roared out her joy to the risen sun.
-0-
Dressed in her leggings and a baggy shirt, Susan went through her serious morning Tai Chi in the yard. Harry joined her for push-ups, step-ups, sit-ups; he laid down 100 overhead men cuts with his katana, while Susan punched and kicked into an old mattress hanging from a tree. Conscious technique and forged muscle memory equalled mastery.
Their happy home did have damp-browned, peeling walls in every room, and a roof that leaked buckets in the rain. After a breakfast of nutrisoy, Harry spent the rest of the morning aloft with a toolbox. His knowledge of roofing was zero, but it gave him another thing to do. He would have slotted a skillchip, if he'd had a chipslot, rather than master a menial, unglamorous skill through hard trial and error. Until Susan had shared her opinion that real men worked with their hands for their families, rather than just charming their way through life.
Susan cleaned the house as best she could. It still smelt like a locker room that had been used for an orgy, with all their training and sex–but that was better than the faint smell of blood. She ambled round near the house with Pup, checking their alarm tripwires and cameras. Smart as their doggo was, grenade booby traps were out of the question. Then she checked their food and equipment, planning their next supply run to a nearby settlement–a different place from last month. Then it was time to time tie her apron round her waist, tie back her hair under her yellow scarf, and whip up some stir fry for their lunch.
She'd always done the cooking for her father, and Harry had left cooking to his old girlfriends, when they'd cooked at all instead of going Nuke-a-Burger. It wasn't her talent, but she was better at it than all of them; she found it relaxing and fun. She'd always been eager to take care of her body with proper food, moreover, as far as a SINless Barrens girl in the age of Stuffer Shack could. Even in Redmond she hadn't only lived off ready meals, and natural veg was what she liked best about living in the country with some money.
The kitchen did also have many happy memories lingering around the table, the counter, over the sink…the times she had just pounced onto Harry's chest as he stood firm. Wrapped her feet around his legs like a vine on a tree, clung to his shoulders as he gripped both her thighs. Soared up with her between Heaven and Earth, until they were nowhere and nothing but close. Two halves, forever, who might have found each other across worlds of darkness…
Susan glanced up at the roof, stirring the pan. Smiled to think of Harry thinking of her.
-0-
They chatted through lunch with some animation about how nothing whatever had happened during the morning, glancing shyly away from each other's smiles. Then they spent the afternoon training each other in wall-running and sparring, taking breaks to play with Pup. Adept techniques and martial arts were their life–the hold on life that adepts had to centre like their breathing to survive the Shadows.
Maybe it was the only way of living they could imagine. Maybe they knew in their hearts that the Tir, Saito's Marines, the Azzies–or even Lofwyr himself–would find them one day. Burn their home to the ground, send them running for a more distant wilderness…but they would have to stand and fight in the end.
It was just like their training in Redmond, with a hundred stories to tell each other instead of a million dreams. Their affinity hadn't changed, whatever else had, and having so much to teach each other was glorious.
Everything Susan had learnt from Orion and the Agency. Everything Harry had learnt from Master Po and his Hong Kong crew; Ki techniques, driving skills, safehouse security, even basic wilderness survival. In Redmond, Susan had taught Harry Kung Fu, and rescued him from fights. She'd known before, her boy had finally grown up–but when he actually taught her to drive the van, set up the cameras and tripwires that guarded their home, and noticed little habits in her Kung Fu she'd never have caught herself…she felt so proud of her man she was ready to swoon into his arms.
Though now she was kicking off a wall as they sparred, dropping her forearm toward Harry's jaw–he dodged back, she'd known he would. She came down with a reverse side kick, that he caught. Pushed her down to the grass. She sprang back up, flicked his fist away, unleashed a storm of knife-hand blows that slapped rhythmically on Harry's blocks, between them.
"Susan! You okay?"
"If it's a fight, I've got to be okay!"
She forced her breathing back under control. Met Harry's grin. They spun around each other, across the grass, like dancers in perfect sync. Until Susan's aimed a turning kick to stop one inch from Harry's stomach and missed by an inch.
"Frag! Love, are you okay? Frag, I'm so stupid–!"
"…it's okay. I'm okay. In combat, you can't hold back…and I can't win 'em all. You did great."
Harry sat on a bench, rubbing his stomach; Susan sat beside him, leaning in.
"Sorry, love. Want me to rub it better?"
"You didn't kick me there…let's just take five, babe? I need to get over this wall."
Barrens girls didn't go for flowers and chocolates. Susan's perfect man wasn't just a dreamer and a hero, but had the skills, the plans and the care she could trust her life to. They didn't need an L.A. nightclub, either–the dance of sparring was what made Susan's blood pound and fixed her eyes on his. Much as she wanted to end yet another of their bouts with a vigorous open-air romp, she contented herself with a snuggle and sweet kiss.
They both had a wall to scale themselves or fall on. They'd faced the Ghosts of Tir, twice. Deadly magic, the unseen bullets striking them down, and undefeated close-combat power. They'd known they shouldn't have lived, and would never survive a third engagement, unless they got far stronger than years of training had made them. When you hit the wall, however, it was impossible to know when effort would equal true improvement–or if you were as strong as you'd ever get.
"That Native Californian mob…" Harry had been thinking of yet another enemy, "…they're getting their kit from Saito, I guess? Ollendorf talked about them poisoning metahumans' farmland, setting bombs, raiding homesteads. No ork gangs out here; why the frag would anyone do that stuff?"
"Maybe the reason Sarah joined up with Shavarus," (Where was she now?) "Maybe the same thing that happened to me…"
"But you never took that path, love. Not Humanis. Maybe you could get through to some of them, like with Sarah?"
"What, invite them round for a chat?"
"Raids, remember? If they find us here, they could invite themselves. They're smart enough to have pirate radio and Matrix broadcasts…if we end up taking the fight to them, we could call up Anya? See if she still wants revenge?"
"Or maybe we could not go looking for trouble, with all that heat on us? We could stay here and just live free for a while, Harry, like Calfree Gypsies."
"…yeah. Hey, tell me again about that Run on Aztechnology you made with Anya? With the blood mages and cannibals?"
"I told you half-a-dozen times, love. Focus on now. Us."
Harry was silent, as Susan got him some water. Stories like old, beloved songs could be told a hundred times with laughter. But there were Runs with his old, dead crew, and nightmares Susan had lived through, that they could still never talk about. They could still hold each other–but it was the dreams unfulfilled that went bad and might poison everything.
-0-
Their first time, their wedding night, had been unprotected. They'd both wanted it so much, they hadn't got it together–and Harry had used protection with girls he'd never wanted to spend his life with. He'd pulled out and made a mess on her hoop, but Susan knew that wasn't contraception, and she wasn't really happy with it.
It had been hard to tell Harry that their wedding night had not been perfect, but it might as well have spoilt everything if she'd held back. He'd been bitterly ashamed, which was almost worse than a row, but Susan had gone on the pill and they'd both moved on, as lovers must. If there had been an unplanned baby, though, everything they were could have gone to drek.
Harry didn't want to be a dad, couldn't imagine it. They'd agreed that they could never take another shadowrun, setting their lives on a cast of dice and fleeing from city to city, if there were a child between them that could lose mother and father. Even Susan didn't like the thought of her weapon-svelte body becoming a pregnant lump.
But she thought about kids. A baby for her and Harry to make together and love together. A child who might grow to anything in the world…even a world as drekky as this. She wanted a child almost exactly as fiercely as she didn't want a child, which was a bit of a strain. It matched her ambiguity about returning to real shadowruns…and in a bad, merciless world, there was no going back from any choice.
There was still a silence between them, as they took Pup for a walk in the evening. With bare valley all the way to the hills, daylight walks held the risk they would be spotted. Pup whined up at first Susan, then Harry, sensing something wrong.
The sunset was a towering red city above the empty plain; a city without crime, poverty or death. Silence was heavy and complete beneath the sound of Pup's breath, as she ran to fetch a ball. With a happy vigor that seemed endless, and put a smile on both their faces. Susan scratched Pup's neck as she slipped Harry's hand into hers.
Their love at the end of the day seemed to have the leisurely tenderness of reconciliation. They took very mindful care of each other's pleasure, and simply adored.
"Love, you're the strongest." Harry whispered, stroking the small of her back as she lounged on his chest, "We could take the Renraku Arcology for everything in it. Just like we said we would, back then. Our anniversary, maybe…?"
"They still haven't finished it, dummy. And Seattle's full of Tir agents."
"Club Underworld 93. Maria Mercurial starts off all her world tours there; it's always been where every novahot Runner in Seattle hangs their holster. You've never seen Maria M. live, babe. Wouldn't that be worth the risk? Wouldn't it be legendary?"
"Harry, we're legends already. We saved a city, somehow we survived…isn't what we have enough?"
"You're twenty-three, Susan. No way we retire now. We should be making contacts at the top of megacorps, sitting down with the biggest Shadow-players. Some mad cult could be planning to drop Seattle into hell, any day, and we could be the ones to stop them. The world should see us, princess, you and me. How you shine through the Shadows…and didn't you want to save women from the gangs and syndicates? Love, you could do it!"
"Harry…you took on the gangs, the Triads, for me. I love you so, so much…but it didn't work." Susan's voice was like a sob, and very faint, "The Yellow Lotus, Halloweeners, the Yaks and the mob…they're all still there. I feel it, I know I'm a phoney hero, weak…but it's not a game, Harry. What I did to take down Shavarus, I will never do again. We really could die the next time, nothing could change that, and I don't want to lose you…!"
"We could die if they find us here, Susan–no one leaves the Shadows. Frag, frag, I'm sorry, babe! How can you even think that you're weak, or–?"
Susan rolled over, away from Harry. He nuzzled her neck and stroked her arm, fruitlessly, until he fell asleep against her back.
Susan knew that Harry would never turn back from her to other women–but the Shadows would never loose their hold on his heart, and she was afraid of it. When the roof was mended, when they ran out of skills to share…when everything her body and heart could give just wasn't enough, for the Runner who still dreamt at the top of the world…?
Happy ever afters were hard to keep. He frustrated her, of course, but she just couldn't hate him. She would sooner have hated herself, for wavering between two paths and living on a cloud of bliss. While girls like her, and Sarah, lived and died under the foot of evil. She'd saved that poor elvish girl in Redmond, saved some others, but what had she really ever done except kill? It was hard to think, years later, past midnight, why so many of them had died.
She wasn't only afraid of death, or losing Harry, which were the same thing. Memories still haunted her; two weeks at Shavarus' mercy, defeat, torture and shame. She fled from them every day to Harry's arms, round after round of Ki-heightened sex, and wasn't that better than all the pain and loss she'd known? But where were discipline, meditation, purity and focus of spirit? Holding on to pleasant things would only ever bring suffering, to her and others, but she could not let go.
Maybe that meant the nightmares had beaten her. Maybe that perfect Kung Fu heroine just couldn't take it any more. Maybe she would never truly fight again.
Were their life and love nothing, filling time? She didn't know any life but fighting…but she could teach people to fight. Maybe Harry's crazy faith that she could make Humanis thugs see sense was his one good idea of the day…
Then her commlink lit up, on the nightstand. She saw Ilsa Tresckow's name through the darkness.
Precisely when needed.