Dear Delilah
by Daishi Prime
That afternoon, I spent a lovely hour with Delilah, making sure that she was as ready as I for the night ahead. I carefully oiled every centimeter of her dark brown length, caressing the oil into her until she glistened in the dim lighting I liked in my apartment. She practically purred as I rubbed the oil into her, quivering with eagerness in my hands as I worked.
All too soon, it was time to go. I took her downstairs, and we moved off sedately enough on my Yamaha Rapier, imitating the good little citizen, which was my official life. In a matter of minutes, we were into less pleasant surroundings, and my real life began. I leaned further over, feeling Delilah's lovely length pressing into my back even harder as she leaned with me. My speed rose, and I began taking the corners sharply, pushing the souped up little bike as hard as I could. I'm not a race-class driver, mind you, but I've evaded my share of pursuers in my time, and I'm not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
Still, we couldn't afford to drive into the target, there was too much chance that someone would notice us and, even worse, remember us. So I pulled into one of the corporate-mall parking garages, paying for a couple of days worth of parking, just in case we couldn't get back in time. It would all go on the receipts as expenses, something to charge the Johnson the next time we happened to cross paths.
From there, it was a good twenty-minute walk to our vantage point, a run-down building barely three stories tall. The front facade was rather well maintained, but still kinda shabby and disreputable, but the alleys leading down the sides and behind it were far worse. There were several piles of loose trash, including the living kind, but Delilah and I ignored them completely. They weren't any business of ours, and if they were smart enough to survive living on the streets, they were smart enough not to mess with us.
We scrambled up the fire escape on the north side, not too concerned with noise. At the top, however, I took several moments to scan the rooftop for any strange shadows. It was evening, with the sun mostly set, and the shadows were tricky things (in all their forms, oh ye of the metaphysical bent), and this wasn't exactly friendly territory. So I paused, and I looked, and my senses told me we were safe. As usual, Delilah trusted my judgement, and I slipped over the side of the roof and crawled in a most undignified manner to one particular pile of shadows.
The roof of the building was surrounded by a low wall, a ledge of bricks intended to hide the unsightly machinery, which at one time was less pleasant to look at than the face of the building. Up against this ledge, about a third of the distance in from the north wall on the side facing the street, I had built my blind a few nights before, leaving Delilah at home. I had spent the intervening days improving it, creating a small gap in the bricks, a rounded slot, right over a padded rest angled to let me lay there and look over the ledge. Now, Delilah and I lay down on the pad, both of us getting ready. I slipped a small mirror over the ledge, angling it so that I could see the entrance to the building across the street in it. Then I lay beside my love to wait for the moment.
The target walked out right on time, predictable as Ye Olde Timepiece. It was sad, really. Such an admirable trait, to be such a major component in the target's demise. But what the hey, Delilah and I just execute the sentence. This one said the wrong thing to someone, or bought the wrong bit of info, and someone else shelled out our not-insignificant fee to erase this one. So there we were, on a nice, damp Seattle night, stretched out on a rooftop, watching the target stroll out to the sidewalk.
The club was one of the newest trends, those hot-for-a-pico-second joints that are celebrated last night and dives this morning. This one was still in the up-and-coming stage, attracting a large number of wannabes and almosts who wanted to be close to the action, to look like they were part of the scene. It wasn't Dante's Inferno, but it also wasn't doing too badly at the moment. As such, it had wonderful security. The bouncers were well dressed and exceedingly polite, none of them particularly offensive, but each very much the obvious muscle. More worthy opponents sought to protect the paying customers from positions more similar to our own. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't nearly so smart as he liked to think.
He (or she, for that matter. I never bothered to find out, and it's hard to tell on a dark roof with that kinda glare coming up from below,) was using a pair of low-light binoculars to scan the surrounding rooftops. Normally, that would have been a good thing (for him. I don't much care to be spotted, but hey, that's his job), but this stupid fool was too busy using those nice fancy binoculars to look down the shirts of the pretty chicks passing by below, or something like that. He spent far more time looking down than doing his job, anyway, and left me an opening a mile wide. Delilah and I only managed to override our sense of professional artistry with the most Herculean of efforts, aided by the minor status of the opposition.
I saw the target come out before he did, and Delilah and I turned to the task. The damn fool hadn't moved in the three nights I had spent watching the place from my current perch, standing right over the door, getting nice and blinded by the bright lights and deafened by the noise. Delilah nestled oh so gently into my shoulder, and then gave me a quick caress. The idiot vanished, but I couldn't hear anything over the noise below. Only Delilah's laughter as she reloaded. Her silencer and gas-vent systems functioned as perfectly as always, and we were tracking the target before I even realized the other guy was down. There wasn't even the tinkle of a cartridge hitting the gravel on the roof. The cartridges were ejected into a little cloth bag I had personally woven for my dear Delilah.
The target hadn't noticed anything either, simply walking to the curb and waiting. It always paused on the curb, waiting for a driver or friend to bring up the car. Two security goons were present, one to either side, both big bad burly muscle boys with fewer brains than the kid on the roof used to have. I had to swing over the edge for this shot, revealing myself partly, but I didn't think they'd notice. They never looked up before, and I doubted they would start tonight.
Delilah kissed my shoulder once more, such a gently loving caress, and the target dropped like hay before a reaper. She shifted left immediately, taking the guy on the south side, putting a single round through his heart. The second bodyguard was starting to look up as people began screaming below, but he was way too slow. His hands weren't even moving for his weapons when Delilah's fourth round of the evening slammed him to the ground. I had a split second flash of something under his suit, and grinned to myself as Delilah slipped into her carry-bag. Armor doesn't help against a ten-millimeter armor piercing discarding sabot round. Delilah's rounds'll go through any body armor short of military combat armor, and even there I would be willing to bet that she could find the weak-spot.
I stood up and turned, pulling Delilah after me. Everything else, the foam pad, the cheap binoculars, the book I read to pass the time, the left over survival rations I'd snacked on for the past couple of nights, the urban camouflage netting, it all stayed right where it was. Let Lone Star or Knight Errant worry about where they came from and who bought them. In every case, it wasn't me. I'm sorry officer, I don't know whom you're talking about, I spent the evening at a bar with some friends. Sure, officer, here are their names and phone numbers. I do hope you catch the vicious criminal. It sure is reassuring to know that such skilled and diligent men as yourselves are protecting our streets! I practically laughed at the image my imagination was creating. The distraction almost killed me.
The first warning I had of a problem came as I was about to go over the fire-escape ladder. Something hummed viciously past my ear and there was a pop from the even taller building beyond me as something hit it. I didn't think, but just flipped over the side, holding onto the railing with one hand and praying that my gloves were as good as they were advertised to be. White fire stabbed into my leg as I went over, drawing a gasp and almost a scream. I held it in even as my fingers spasmed, letting go at a very unfortunate moment. Fortunately for me, there was a bum and a pile of trash below to break my fall. Not that the bum was trying, mind you, I doubt it even noticed my approach. I certainly noticed the landing, especially when my leg hit the something angular and hard right next to where I'd been shot.
I ran through a mental cantrip as I fought my way free of the bum, grabbing Delilah and forcing myself to hobble down the alley, activating my implant telephone. A quick muttered sequence of numbers, and Arrow picked up the far end. "Yo, what's up and who're you?"
"Yo Arrow," I said, "nice to hear ya, man. Do me a favor? Two grand in it."
"What's up?"
"Pick me up?"
"Two grand for a lift? You screw up again?"
"Nothing so trivial, my man," I answered, getting to the edge of the alley and turning away from the club. I couldn't hear any signs of pursuit yet, but that could just be an unusually stealthy bouncer. I hobbled along. "One in the leg, I can still hobble, so it ain't too bad."
"Where are you?" I gave him a quick address, nearby but not too nearby. "Right, ten minutes man. Me an' Ranger Bob'll meet you."
"Thanks man."
Arrow was good for it, I knew. I had helped him out on a couple of runs his team pulled down, and we got along well enough. Then again, two thousand nuyen for a simple pick-up in a good neighborhood isn't bad at all. These are the shadows, after all. As for my lovely little bike, well, I would have to come back for it when I could use my leg again.
Three minutes after hanging up on Arrow, Delilah and I were sitting on a bench near the street. My T-shirt was wrapped around my leg (simple puncture, it turned, out, just a groove in the calf), and my jacket was pulled tight around me, just another tired guy who was waiting for his lift. I displayed truly superhuman courage and strength of spirit in not cursing each and every inconsiderate bastard who sat on that bench without taking into consideration my poor injured leg, and even more courage and strength in not cursing Arrow when he finally dragged his slow ass to the curb in that beat-up Jackrabbit he drives.
"Hey, Dys, how ya doin'?" The vaguely brutish face which greeted me was less than pleasant to some, but I have always considered Arrow to be a friend, or at least as much a friend as any 'runner can be. So I didn't mind his use of that annoying nickname of mine that everyone seems to know. Honestly, I was in grade school when one of my fellow students called my 'Dysfunctional'. Stupid kid didn't even know what it meant, he just thought it sounded insulting.
"Not bad, shorty," I answered, pushing a few buttons myself as I slid into the rear passenger seat, nodding to his other passenger, "Ranger Bob." She was sitting in the back, a medkit already opened, a homely woman who, to my knowledge, no one has ever called anything but Ranger Bob. I looked back and airily waved a hand to the front window as Ranger Bob practically sliced my pants leg off, reciting in my best upper-class-British accent, "Home, James."
Another run safely completed, and I began to relax, getting my usual case of pre-event shudders. Ranger Bob muttered a curse or two at me, but I didn't mind. She hates it when her patients aren't conveniently sedated or unconscious (or dead, for that matter). Sometimes I think she'd only be happy as a coroner. No living patients to go out and mess up her hard work. That was all right, though. Everything was right with the world, and I was a cool hundred thousand nuyen richer, even after handing over four thou to Arrow and Ranger Bob. Plus dinner. They deserved dinner. I decided to take them to a lovely Chinese place I know.
Chinese is always good.