u2
(~*~)
Dim lights, loud music and smoke. There
were a hundred other venues like it, which was good. Nobody could watch them
all.
Yeah, well, he was telling
Takimoto he was here on business- casing the joint, checking the place out to
see whether it would be useful for future deals. And the answer was yes. It
wasn't controlled by any of the major gangs, it didn't have a huge drug
dealership, it was relatively well-established. No problems. Job done. So
tonight Vincent Valentine was getting paid to knock back a few and relax a
little.
Vincent was in a corner of the
room near the door, with a few of Takimoto's regulars. Not Vincent's type of
people. Sure, they got paid a little more for their loyalty, but they were a group.
People linked them mentally to anything their boss did. Jiro Takimoto? Instant
connection. Mac, Ryu, Leong, Harding. Want to get back at Takimoto? Those are
the guys you frame, discredit, ice with a blade in the back or a shot to the
head. No. Better to be a mercenary, a drifter. Better still to be a drifter
with a reputation. A brilliant marksman who spoke little and smiled less. But
for now, he was one of the gang and could act accordingly.
Harding, a big black Corel guy
with an eye for the ladies, was spinning some chick a few lines at the bar.
Mac, who had been turned down rather unconditionally by the same girl about
half an hour before, was sulking at the end of the table. And Leong was trying
to talk to him. He was all right, Leong.
"Been busy?"
"Yeah. The Lawmakers do that."
"Bunch of fuckwits."
"I hear you."
"Anyway, I gotta feeling they
won't be bothering us any time soon. Specially not now that Ray's dead."
"Ray Cassidy?"
Leong grinned. "Took him out
myself. The Lawmakers are screwed now, anyway. Without their boss they're just
gonna fight over shit until they tear themselves apart or get wiped by another
gang." This news didn't seem to bother the gunman in the slightest. He seemed
pleased, if anything. Vincent wondered what Leong had to gain from the downfall
of the once powerful criminal organisation.
"Anyway, Vince, there's- "
Vincent wasn't listening. His
attention had been attracted by the swing of the door, the blast of cold air
from outside- and then caught and held firmly by the person who entered.
She was attractive, all right,
figure to match although a little on the lean side. Her black jacket hung loose
around her shoulders, her blue-black hair held what little light there was. She
wore slacks, not a skirt. Her face was striking in and of itself, pale skin and
high cheekbones, but a long scar from the corner of her right eye down her
cheek prevented her from looking unnaturally perfect.
Wow.
She scanned the room, looking
for a seat, and a few guys who had been staring like idiots glanced away
hurriedly. Vincent didn't. She met his gaze with a smile and immediately made
her way through the clutter of tables towards him. Ah, why not, he hadn't
played this game in a while.
Leong got the message, suddenly
remembering a pressing engagement on the other side of the room. He was all
right, Leong. The girl took the seat next to Vincent like she'd been invited,
like they were old friends.
"Valentine."
Well, that eliminated the need
for pick up lines. Not that he used them, of course. "Do I know you?"
She shrugged, gracefully.
"You're well known."
He was immediately on guard,
although he didn't show it. After all, she could be anyone. A spy, a Lawmaker
hired gun. "I would have remembered you if I did know you."
"I'm Akira."
Yeah, he'd thought she looked
Wutainese. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Sure, whatever you're having."
He called for another two shots
of sake. "Where you from?"
"Originally, Wutai. Now, Sector
4."
Vincent was surprised. Not many
people actually chose to live in the slums, and anyone with the cash to move
from Wutai to Midgar. . . "Why'd you leave?"
She raised an eyebrow. "I felt
like it."
"Sorry, that was kind of a
personal question."
"That's okay."
The barman slid Vincent the
drinks he'd ordered. The dark-haired gunman pulled out a few gil and dropped it
on the counter, returning his attention to his companion. Hmm. Much more
interesting.
Akira lifted the glass, knocked
back the entire contents and flicked her hair away from her face with a shake
of the head. "This is excellent. I should come here more often."
"Sounds good to me."
Talking to her was easy. No
awkward silences. She was animated, she talked with her hands, a smile was
never far from her lips. But she always steered smoothly away from any
questions about her past or her current occupation, and Vincent was happy to do
likewise.
"So you know this area pretty
well?"
"Yeah, I live around here,
actually," Vincent replied. Casually.
Akira shot him a glance, looked
like she was about to reply-
Gunfire.
Instinct took over. Vincent
dropped and crouched behind a nearby table, hand reaching for the Glock in his
inside pocket. Keeping his peripheral vision on high beam and his trigger
finger poised to fire, Vincent scanned the room.
A few other guys had dropped to
escape the shots. He could see Harding's new girlfriend huddled behind the pool
table. But from his awkward position he couldn't make out the gunman or the
target. And where the hell was Akira?
The music still blared, but
from outside came the crunch of wheels on gravel, followed by heavy doors
slamming shut. This was obviously organised. Vincent heard footsteps, and the
door swinging open. Then the lights went out.
By the intermittent light of
the flashing neon sign over the bar, Vincent made out three figures at the
entrance. He didn't recognise any of them. Then again, the light was so bad
that the lead man could be Takimoto himself and Vincent wouldn't-
A hand from behind grabbed his
gun.
Caught flat-footed. He was on
his knees, so he couldn't kick, the gun itself was pointing outwards and he
couldn't even fucking see his attacker. Stupid, just plain amateur
stupid. He tried to twist his Glock out of his assailant's grasp or failing
that, to turn around and elbow the guy in the face.
"Valentine!"
". . . Akira?"
"You know what's going on?"
"I can guess. The Lawmakers."
From the other side of the room
came a sudden scuffle of movement, followed by the unmistakeable flesh-on-flesh
sound of a blow and a cry of pain, cut abruptly short.
That had almost sounded like
Ryu. . .
"Can't see a damn thing," Akira
murmured. "Someone's gotta get the lights on. But it's pretty exposed up there,
no cover. These guys are smart."
Vincent shook his head, then
realised she probably couldn't see him. "No. If the lights go on they'll be
confused for a few seconds, taken by surprise. Enough time to take cover
again." His mind called up a mental plan of the bar, searching for escape
routes, protected corners, places where he could get a clear shot at wide areas
of the room. Now that the indecision of hiding in darkness had been replaced
with the certainty of action, he was operating on high speed, feeling the
familiar pre-battle rush. He loved his work.
Akira produced a small pistol
of her own, apparently out of nowhere. Vincent recognised it, a nice piece of
work more commonly known as the Peacemaker, made in Junon if his memory served
him correctly. Vincent preferred the higher calibre weapons himself. Then
again, he had Takimoto to provide him with whatever he needed, whereas she
probably didn't have the cash for- He realised his mind was wandering and
cursed mentally. He preferred operating alone.
Akira quickly checked her
weapon and nodded. She was ready. Slowly and silently Vincent stood and began
making his way towards the door. As the neon sign flashed on again Vincent
dropped, followed closely and just as quietly by Akira. She was obviously more
than just another street thug, it was evident in every movement of her
body. Making almost no noise as she
crept close to the wall, she held her gun one-handed, lips drawn back in what
could only loosely be called a smile.
There were voices, now, at the
other end of the room. Vincent tried to move faster. Just when he though the
Lawmakers were sure to have seen them, he reached the edge of the door and ran
his fingers down the frame, searching for the switch. There. He almost flipped it straight away, but remembered to tap
Akira on the shoulder. "Ready?"
"Yeah."
"Go."
(~*~)
As Vincent had predicted, the
Lawmaker thugs were taken completely off-guard by the sudden light in their
formerly secure hiding place. As he ducked behind one of the benches he had a
split second to take the scene in. Mac and Harding were slumped against the
back wall and didn't look like they'd be getting up again. Harding's new
girlfriend was one of the eight or so Lawmakers standing in the middle of the
room. Ryu was on the floor bleeding from the nose and what could have been a
stab wound in his chest. Leong was nowhere in sight.
A flurry of bullets chipped
plaster and splintered wood over a metre from where Vincent's head had been
about five seconds before. Not good enough, guys. Vincent returned the favour,
hearing Akira do the same from somewhere over to his right. Harding's
traitorous girlfriend took a shot to the stomach and went down with a scream.
His Glock barked twice more, his first shot missing a heavy-set bald man by a
hair but the second thudding squarely into his chest.
By now the few remaining
Lawmakers had wised up and were taking cover as best they could, occasionally
straightening a little to return a few shots. One of them was over-eager, took
a second too long to regain cover. Last mistake he ever made.
Without warning a red-haired
woman in a cutoff leather jacket stood up, dragging one of the bar girls with
her, and flourished the handgun she had pressed against the other woman's
temple. Drawing the younger girl in front of her like a shield, she started
barking orders. "You, in the corner- drop your weapons and stand up. Now."
Vincent's hand tightened around
his Glock, but he didn't move. He was fairly confident he could hit the armed
woman without harming the girl, but he'd have to leave cover if he wanted to
fire and he wasn't about to trust his life to a chance that his opponent
wouldn't be concentrating.
The redhead fired two shots
into the ceiling and the barmaid almost collapsed. "I'm not playing around, get
up."
From the corner of his eye
Vincent noticed a movement from Akira's direction. What the hell was she doing?
Standing, but the woman and her buddies hadn't opened fire. He heard her voice
say, "Maria-"
From behind the bar, Leong
stood and calmly shot Maria in the head, leaving her hostage completely
unharmed. His high-calibre H&K shell tore easily through her skull, her gun
sliding from nerveless fingers as she collapsed. The girl screamed when she
heard the shot but had the presence of mind to hit the floor as the other gang
members returned fire. A row of bottles above Leong's head exploded into
fragments and he dived back into safety, swearing loudly. Vincent fired off a
few rounds, gritting his teeth as a bullet whistled past his head, then ducked
back behind the bench to reload.
Fitting a fresh clip of bullets
into his Glock, he was just in time to catch one of his attackers on the
shoulder as Leong took the last one out of action. The noise of sirens became
audible above the gunfire. Vincent didn't particularly want to be around when
the cops showed up to explain the mess. Time to leave.
Now that the firefight was over
a few customers were coming cautiously out from whatever hiding place they'd
managed to find. Leong, bleeding freely from a head wound caused by the broken
glass, appeared from behind the bar, gun still raised. "We'll take the back door."
In silence, Vincent followed
him through the wreckage of the bar. Ryu was dead, Mac and Harding were dead.
Akira was nowhere in sight. He wasn't surprised.
(~*~)
"Ah, shit. . ."
Leong climbed into the front
passenger seat of his car, leaving a bloody handprint on the pale leather
upholstery. "You drive." He fumbled in his pocket for his keys.
Vincent shrugged and started
the car, looking at Leong with concern. "You all right?"
"I'll live." He closed his
eyes. "Guess I'm luckier than them. . . heh. If you call this luck." He smiled,
a bitter twist of his lips that looked strange on his pale blood-streaked face.
"They were after me, ya know."
"Yeah?"
"They wanted me 'cos I iced
Cassidy. Yeah, they wanted me dead, the others were just a bonus. And now
they're gone, and I walked outta there. Funny." He shot a glance at Vincent,
whose eyes were on the road. "So that chick took you for a ride, huh?"
"She was working for them. I
should have known. She was too good for an amateur."
"We have to talk to Takimoto,
let him know- he'll have to hire some new guys in a hurry." Leong sighed and
absently re-holstered his gun. "I doubt the Lawmakers are finished with us
yet."
(~*~)
Leong had gone to Takimoto's
"office" to get his head patched up and break the bad news about the rest of
his posse. Vincent knew Takimoto wouldn't blame anyone for the shootout- there
was no way anyone could have known about the Lawmakers' plans, and despite being
outnumbered and outgunned Leong and Vincent had come out alive and victorious.
He was fair to those who were loyal, ruthless to those who betrayed him. He
placed no value on the lives of his assassins, he was just aware of the fact
that their deaths cost money and wasted time. So he protected them as best he
could. A coldly logical man, was Takimoto. Suited Vincent fine.
His bosses paid Vincent well
for his assistance. But since it wasn't exactly a legal profession, Vincent was
careful never to live beyond his means or attract too much attention to
himself. His apartment was one of several small, unremarkable rooms in a small
and unremarkable building, furnished in a simple, austere Wutainese style of
the late Whatever period. Who cared what it was called, it was practical and he
liked it. The landlord was a friendly guy who thought Vincent was a law student
and occasionally enquired as to how his studies were going.
He wondered absently if he
should have gone with Leong to Takimoto's. Vincent's status wasn't as high as
the other gunmen, being a mercenary and all. But Leong had looked pretty cut
up, not to mention bitter and angry over the deaths of his friends, and Vincent
wasn't sure whether he'd rather be alone or needed someone to talk to. He'd never
been much good at that stuff. Sympathy and empathy. Complicated things, they
were. He preferred the solid feel of metal in his hand, a target, an objective,
action and reaction. People died who needed to die, and it was over.
Like this thing with Akira. To
him, she'd seemed perfectly sincere. He remembered the way she'd smiled,
laughed, looked into his eyes. She'd chosen him out of everyone in a crowded
room and he'd felt almost flattered. Then she'd left cover and called his
attacker by name, afraid for her own skin. She was a brilliant actress.
Figures, though, the only girl to really catch his eye in about a year happened
to be the one who was trying to kill him. Heh, just his luck, right?
Vincent suddenly felt
overwhelmingly tired as the adrenaline in his system finally dissipated,
leaving him with nothing to fall back on. He'd overspent his energy in the long
firefight, it was late as hell, and he'd probably have to report to Takimoto in
the morning. Wisest to launch a pre-emptive counter strike, get rid of the rest
of the Lawmakers before they had time to fight back. Yeah, that would be smart.
He'd mention it to Takimoto later.
Shaking his head to clear the
fog, he pulled out the rubber tie that caught his hair back, leaving it to fall
like shadows in soft waves around his shoulders. He shucked his black coat and
kicked off his boots, leaving the laces tied. His sister had always hated that,
so now he did it as often as possible. Sort of like making up for lost time. A
smile on his lips, he dropped onto his unmade bed and let the darkness take
him.
(~*~)
He didn't open his eyes again
until ten thirty the next morning, awoken by the static-filled sound of a radio
next door screaming some ancient rock song. Vincent cursed, brushed the hair
out of his eyes and yawned. About time to get moving, anyway.
He took a shower, changed into
some relatively clean clothes and made a cup of coffee- he only had instant,
but he'd have to live with that. Grabbing his car keys from the bench, he
stepped out the door while sliding his shades into place. Not that he was
really going to need them. As he left the apartment building he saw ominous
storm clouds overhead, dark purple and angry, rolling slowly towards the east.
Precious little sunlight got down here anyway, what with the polluted air and
the shadows cast by skyscrapers on the plate. This sector was always dark. All
the slums were dark, not to mention dirty, fitting for a place filled with the
refuse of humanity. Maybe after Takimoto had finished with him he'd get out,
move to Junon or something. He had the cash.
Or maybe this place suited him.
He started his car- Takimoto's,
really. Another incentive to stay loyal- and pulled out of the side street,
turning on the radio and swearing as a guy on a bike zoomed out from around the
corner and across the road without a glance in Vincent's direction. Vincent
braked, but the guy had the audacity to flip him the bird as he pedalled out of
sight.
Everyone was acting crazy
today, for some reason. A girl in a beat-up convertible was talking happily on
her PHS and went straight through a red light, almost killing a few people
crossing the street. Later, as Vincent was approaching Takimoto's, a black BMW
kept trying to run up his ass. Vincent slowed down. They could pass if they
wanted, he was early anyway.
The BMW slowed to match his
speed.
Vincent's eyes narrowed. He
hadn't been watching the cars behind him that carefully, so he had no idea how
long the BMW had been there. He pulled into a back street, then another, until
he was heading in the opposite direction and back the way he had come.
The other car was still
following him.
Vincent kept going in the wrong
direction. He wasn't about to lead them straight to Takimoto. He pulled his
Glock out of the pocket of his trenchcoat and checked the clip. Full, and he
had spares. He figured he was going to need them.
By now the thugs in the BMW
would have picked up the fact that Vincent was leading them on. He sped up, heading
for the main street, and saw the other car do the same. He hadn't been careful
enough, obviously. He remembered Lee telling him that was a mistake you only
get a chance to make once. Well, he was going to prove her wrong.
Narrowly missing the corner of
a building as he wrenched the car around in a sharp turn, he wondered
distractedly why they weren't shooting at him yet. Maybe they had orders to
take him alive. The thought sent chills down his spine. He hit the accelerator
still harder, using the brake sparingly. If there was a chance in hell that he
could still outrun them, he was going to go for it. Or take his chances in
hell.
Light up ahead. Main Street.
Seeing that their quarry might still escape them, the men in the other car
started firing. Although Vincent was dodging and weaving as best he could in
the narrow street, he heard the back tail light smash and several more shells
dent the bumper and trunk. Chips of flying brick and mortar from stray bullets
scratched at the windows. Almost there.
Without warning there was a
loud, sharp pop and Vincent's car skidded, fighting for purchase on the
worn surface of the road. Seems one of the guys had got lucky and taken out a
back tire. The car spun wildly as Vincent struggled for control, but was unsuccessful.
The momentum carried the car down the road and straight into a nearby wall.
Shaken and stunned, Vincent
tried to make sense of his surroundings. Through some stupid stroke of luck the
car had turned completely around and although the passenger side was crushed,
his remained more or less unharmed. Believe it or not, the goddamn radio was
still on. He'd hit his head against the door frame and things were spinning
rather oddly, but all in all he'd been lucky. Or maybe Lee was watching over
him. He hoped so. She'd said she would, after all.
As quickly as possible he
retrieved his Glock from where it had fallen between the seats. He smelled
petrol. Wiser to get out and run. But where was the BMW?
They'd stopped at a safe
distance and were getting out of the car, presumably waiting for Vincent to
show himself. But they obviously weren't expecting him to move any time soon,
since only one of the four was looking his way at the moment. Heh, well, die
quick now or slow later, right?
Throwing open the door so hard
it bounced on its hinges, Vincent leapt out of his crippled vehicle and
sprinted for the sanctuary of an adjacent alley, at the same time getting off a
few shots from his Glock. Amazingly enough, one of them found its target. The
guy was flung against the car by the force of the shot, a trail of red marring
the black polished metal as he slid to the ground. Now they were returning fire
with interest, sprays of bullets screaming past his head and ricocheting off
Vincent's already totalled car. He dropped at once and rolled into the dingy
laneway, heart pounding in his ears. The fact that it was still intact to do so
was nothing short of amazing, but he didn't question his good fortune. Rising
with practiced ease, he knocked over a stack of boxes down one end of the alley
and sprinted in the other direction. Might as well confuse them a little.
Over the hammering in his head
and the regular thump of his shoes on the dirty concrete, he heard the
fading sounds of shouts and gunfire as his pursuers fell for his ruse. A grim
smile touched his lips and he ran faster, lengthening his stride in an attempt
to put as much distance and as many twisting, turning alleyways between him and
the Lawmakers as possible. Graffiti-covered walls flew by in an anonymous blur.
He didn't really know where he was going. He didn't really care.
The next turn took him to a
dead end and Vincent finally stopped, leaning his left hand against a wall for
support. He touched his hand to his still-throbbing head and saw blood staining
his skin, but nothing too serious. Vincent tried to slow his breathing, ears
pricked for any signs of trouble. He heard nothing. Then it struck him how odd
that was. He should be close to Main Street by now, able to hear the roar of
passing traffic, blasting horns, backbeats from car stereos. Not silence like
this. Silence was wrong.
Damn, he didn't know every
laneway of this fucking city, it wasn't even his sector. No matter. He'd get
out, find Main Street and call Leong. He really had to get himself a PHS.
Takimoto might provide him with one, temporarily. Or maybe he'd catch a bus or
something, he had change. Heh. Considerably more than change. He could buy
himself a bus.
He wondered idly what Lee would
do now. His "big sister". He pictured her there, propped against the wall,
probably with her ubiquitous shades in place, short dark hair tousled, blue
highlights catching the dim light. Oh, and a .357 Magnum in hand. Maybe not the
best role model a kid could have, but nobody was perfect.
(~*~)
go lightly down your
darkened way
go lightly underground
i'll be down there in
another day
i won't rest until
you're found
"ground beneath her feet"
u2
(~*~)
Lee. Her real name had been Li
Ka Ieng, but nobody could pronounce it, let alone spell it, so she took her
mother's surname and called herself Lee Taylor. He remembered her so well. He'd
been eight when his parents died, an only child with no hope of surviving in a
world where the weak were the first to fall. And for some reason, or maybe for
no reason at all, an eighteen year old half-Wutainese girl had decided to help
him out.
Admittedly he was a help to
her, too. A girl with a kid tagging around after her looked a lot less
suspicious than a girl on her own. She needed that. Lee was a Mamushi, a member
of the most powerful gang in Midgar at the time and therefore the one that got
the most attention from the cops. She'd never tried to hide them from him, or
pass them off as "some friends". Whenever possible she'd tell him exactly what
was going on, withholding information only when it might endanger him to hear
it. She never treated him like a kid. So he respected her, admired her, trusted
her.
Lee taught him how to fight,
how to drive when he could reach the pedals, how to cause a distraction and
enable her to lift money or food or cigarettes. How to shoot, when he was old
enough, but he had a natural talent and could soon handle a gun better than she
could. She had no qualms about teaching him to pick locks or hot-wire a car. By
the time he was twelve he sometimes went with her on "business". He shot some thug clean through the head to
help out one of Lee's friends and was surprised at how little he cared. One
night she'd been hurt and he'd shot his way out of the warehouse they'd been
holed up in, dumped her in someone's car and high-tailed it back to Sector Six
with her coughing up blood in the back seat. He was thirteen.
Yeah, they'd had some good
times.
When Vincent was sixteen,
things had changed and the Mamushi were on their way down. A few gangs had even
joined together with the sole purpose of taking them out. Those few weeks were
among the worst in Vincent's life, right up there with the days after his
parents had died before Lee found him. Her Shinra contact who normally supplied
her with weapons had been alternately threatened and bribed until he refused to
even acknowledge that he knew her. Vincent, Lee, Lee's main man Takashi and the
few remaining survivors of the relentless raids and ambushes were hiding out in
Lee's flat until things died down. Little food and less sleep. Finally they'd
tried to slip out one night, aiming for the docks and the next ship to Costa
del Sol. It was a good plan, and it would have worked if one of the guys hadn't
got scared and sold it out to the Lawmakers in exchange for his life. Which was
a joke, seeing as they killed him too.
Him, and Yasunari, and Lei Ming
and Asha and Solen and Callahan and West and Sayuri. . . people he'd grown up
with. And Lee. She took ten of them out with her, would have been more if she
hadn't run out of ammo and been left with nothing but her knives. Vincent,
Takashi and a girl called Zai were the only ones he knew of who'd made it out
alive by climbing across the roof and running like hell.
The rest was history, as they
say. By then he was old enough and experienced enough, thanks to Lee's
training, to make it alone. He and Takashi stuck together for a while
afterwards, but eventually went their separate ways. After the remainder of the
Mamushi were wiped out the Lawmakers began their ascension to glory and things
had been good for them since then. Until Leong and the guys were sent to end
their reign. Heh. No-one screwed with Takimoto and his boys.
He had to get out of here, call
Leong or someone. Things must have died down by now. Refilling the clip in his
Glock, he left the blind alley and headed in what he hoped was the direction of
Main Street, keeping to the walls like a shadow. There were a hundred exits
from Sector Four's network of alleyways and back streets, no-one could cover
them all. If his luck held he'd be at Takimoto's by twelve.
(~*~)
He chose a passage at random,
smiling as he saw light up ahead. He'd had a rather shitty twelve hours and
getting paid just might help to dispel some of that. Maybe a bonus, too, that'd
be nice. He'd long suspected Takimoto wanted him to stay on permanently and for
once didn't immediately discard the idea. After this his anonymity was as good
as gone anyway.
The light was blocked for an
instant, and the sharp crack of gunfire mingled with the whistle of a nearby
bullet, too close for comfort. More followed, embedding themselves in brick and
mortar or ricocheting off the walls. The stones shattered under the force of
the shells, shrapnel stinging the back of Vincent's hand which he'd flung up
reflexively to protect his eyes.
Ah, that was the problem with
relying on luck.
Vincent dimly heard the guy
call for his friends and ducked back around the corner, swearing blue fire. He
didn't know this area, it'd be too easy to run into a trap if he went back
through the alleys. New plan. The remains of what was probably once a fire
escape caught his eye and he caught both hands around its base, using the same
tactic that had saved his ass the night Lee died. The Lawmakers rounded the
corner just as his fingers reached the roof but they hadn't looked up yet, and
he swung over onto the sloping surface. A convenient heap of spare tiles gave
him another idea and he threw the lot over the edge, hearing shouts as they
smashed on the ground below and hopefully on the heads of anyone foolish enough
to try and climb up after him. This accomplished, he climbed over the ridge and
ran like hell, keeping the other side of the slope between him and the gunmen.
He drew his Glock again and
jumped the gap to the next building, almost slipping as he landed and grabbing
at the tiles for support. Only two left and they fell quickly, one easy shot
each from his high vantage point. Grabbing onto the gutter at the edge of the
roof, he found a foothold on a windowsill and jumped from there, taking the
shock in the legs and rising almost instantly to a run.
Out of the alleys at last,
Vincent decided to head for the motel up the road and use their phone to call
Takimoto's. Leong would be wondering where he was, since it wasn't like him to
oversleep. If Leong was still alive, that is. They'd probably sent people after
him, too. The fact that he was now in the same class as Leong meant he'd been
too long with Takimoto, people were making connections. Maybe he'd stay. He'd
work it out later.
"Son of a bitch."
The sudden cold barrel of a gun
against his back.
So there wasn't going to be a
'later'.
"Midori! Hey Midori, we found
the bastard. . ."
They'd had backup, he should
have expected it. He wondered if this was how Lee had felt when her clip ran
out in that nameless alley in Sector Seven- clear-headed, with only a sense of
inevitability. Broad daylight, or as broad as it got in these godforsaken slums
anyway, but nobody would risk their life by calling the police. So he had to
hope the Cosmo Canyon guys were right and he'd see her in the Lifestream. Maybe
his parents, too. Heh. That'd be weird, it'd been thirteen years since he last
saw them. They wouldn't recognise him, or what he had become.
"He told us to leave you alive
if we could. . ." came the voice in his ear again. "But you killed Toshio, ya
fucker, I'm not gonna let you get away. So don't cry, Valentine. This was an
accident."
See ya, Lee.
He heard a shot.
"Valentine!"
Behind him, the Lawmaker guy
hit the ground, blood spraying the back of Vincent's coat. He turned, upraised
Glock ready to fire, only to see the late thug's assistant standing at the
entrance to the alley.
Akira.
"Vince-!"
She
dived to one side as the bullet aimed for her head screamed away down the lane,
followed closely by another.
"Vincent-"
Something skimmed across the
ground near his shoe and he looked down in surprise. A small silver handgun
with "Peacemaker" engraved along the barrel. His eyes narrowed.
She was crouched on the ground,
eyes fixed on his face, hands raised and open in front of her. "Vincent, let me
explain-"
"You had time for that last
night, I would have thought." Face blank, he raised his Glock one last time.
"But a lot of people have died since then. Where's your 'explanation' for
that."
"You want an explanation?" She
was angry, her voice shaking, but her eyes never left his. "Then you'll get
one, although Takimoto will probably have me shot. Yeah, Takimoto. How do you
think he got his information to strike at the Lawmakers? He had a spy. Midori
Arai. Me. All the information goes through another guy, I wouldn't know
Takimoto if I met him on the street much less anyone who worked for him. I knew
they were after some people last night but I didn't know who because I wasn't
involved, or I would have told you, I would have. . . I'd seen you before but I
didn't know who you worked for, how could I? When Maria took that girl hostage
I only wanted to distract her, I'd heard enough about you to know you could
make a shot like that in your sleep and it wouldn't look suspicious to anyone
else, only like I made a mistake. . . They wanted to keep me in the dark about
everything in case I got caught, I only see this guy about every two weeks to
get my money and give him information, so believe me or shoot me if you don't
but for God's sake get out of here, Vincent, they'll kill you sooner or later,
you can't keep running. . ."
She broke off, clenched her
fists briefly as if to control herself, and looked up into his eyes as if
waiting for an answer. His cool brown eyes held hers for some time.
As if coming to a decision, he
kicked her small silver handgun away from him, back in her direction. It scuffed
up a puff of dust as it flew, dust which had ample time to settle in the air
before he turned and walked away without another word.
(~*~)
and if the darkness is
to keep us apart
and if the daylight
feels like it's a long way off
and if your glass heart should
crack and for a second you turn back
oh no, be strong
leave it behind
you've got to leave it
behind
"walk on"
u2
(~*~)
