Chapter 10

I hit the van's horn twice, looking expectantly toward the large warehouse door we had parked in front of.

"You sure this is the right address?" Diana asked.

"Yeah. Well, I mean I guess it is. This is where Michelson said to go to pick up the stuff."

"Maybe no one's home," Blitz ventured.

That certainly seemed like a possibility. The warehouse, and the whole neighborhood for that matter, looked as if it had seen better days. Acid rain had long ago stripped away the building's paint, leaving it a red-streaked brown that seemed to be the uniform color for this district of Seattle. The parking lot around it was cracked and broken, overgrown with brown weeds and smattered with all manner of discarded trash. It looked totally abandoned.

"Wait, look over there." Sugar pointed to the side where a set of rickety wooden steps led up to a small door. The door had just opened and wide, scruffy figure emerged from inside—it was Boris, Jesus' dwarf friend from Bottoms Up. He shuffled down the ramshackle steps and over to the driver's side window. I rolled down the window to oblige him.

"The damn garage door's stuck on the inside—the controls don't work. Gotta open it up from the outside. Hold on a sec."

I nodded wordlessly, saving my many questions for later as I watched him saunter over to a key pad mounted on the wall beside the garage door. He hit the number sequence and stood back as the garage door groaned open.

"58823," Blitz said from where he sat, looking over my shoulder.

I gave him a quizzical glance. "What?"

"58823. That's the code."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I dunno. It might be important if things don't go as planned."

I gave him a blank stare.

"I have a thing with numbers, okay?"

Sugar slapped me on the arm, "Would you shut up and drive?" She gestured to where the garage door now stood open.

I just sighed and turned back around, jockeying the van into the warehouse.

The expansive structure was composed of building materials that looked like they predated the matrix crash of '29. Cinderblocks made up portions of the wall, and galvanized steel trusses, by now heavily corroded with rust and all manner of other contaminants, criss-crossed the cavernous ceiling. For all of its size, the place looked like it could fall down at any moment. It was definitely out of its prime, as evidenced by the many grease stains on the concrete floor and the patches of light streaming in from holes in the roof. It was practically empty except for a trio of large crates that sat at the center of the floor, but more interesting was the man who sat atop them.

Jesus sat with his hands folded over the cane in his lap, his legs dangling over the side of the crate he had perched himself upon. He still wore the same get-up as the last time I'd seen him—a white wife-beater, suspenders, and a pair of slacks. He looked more like a gangster in a bad Noir film than a twenty-first century fixer.

Jesus raked his sightless gaze across us as we approached. "Ah, I see you brought company this time," he said, chuckling at his own joke.

"Hoi, Jesus," Diana said. "Long time no see."

He gave a good natured laugh. "Longer for me, I'm sure. Who else do you have with you?"

"Not to be rude or anything," I interjected before Diana could say anything else, "but what the hell are you doing here, Jesus?"

He shrugged. "If I've been informed correctly, you're in need of some high end gear." He spread his arms to encompass the crates around him. "And I'm here to deliver."

"That still doesn't explain why you're here making good on a delivery we ordered from Michelson," Sugar said distrustfully.

He shrugged again. "Goods have to come from somewhere, and unfortunately for Ayanami, most of the smaller corps don't have the pull to get the kind of ordinance you requested through legitimate means. So here I am. Just think of me as a subcontractor."

"But why you?"

"I've had contracts with Ayanami in the past, so it would seem the logical choice, don't you think? Anyway, how do you think I got all those Ayanami contracts for you and your crew back when you were still running? You think I magically pulled them out of my ass? My name might be Jesus, but I'm not a miracle worker."

I shrugged. It made a certain kind of sense. Anyway, I didn't have time to think about it anymore. The longer we delayed, the closer Rei got to skipping town.

"Good enough." I gestured to the crates. "Is this everything?"

"Yep." He patted the crate he was sitting on. "Even the special little toy you ordered." He hopped off onto the ground. "I'll leave you all alone to look through your new goodies." He guestured to a small door set in the warehouse side wall. "That hallway leads outside. I've got a couple of offices through there. Just come find Boris when you're done. He'll let you out."

He grinned in my direction. "Looks like you ended up taking that Ayanami contract after all. Good luck, omae. I hope you come out of it all right." With that he turned and headed for the door, feeling his way along with his walking stick.

When he finally left, I turned back to the others. "Alright, let's check the equipment and get it loaded up." I glanced at my watch. "We've only got three hours until nightfall."

Blitz made a bee-line for the central crate. "God, I hope this is what I think it is." He popped the lid and gave a small whoop. "Oh yeah, this is what I'm talking about!" The rest of us headed to the other crates as Blitz stripped away the remains of the crate to reveal what lay inside.

The Steel Lynx drone was a veritable tank with its three-meter length simply covered in armor plating. The top-mounted turret bore a pair of Ingram Valiant light machine guns with large ammunition bins slung underneath each one. Its entire hide had been painted matte black, giving it a decidedly menacing look.

As Blitz lovingly ran his hands over the Lynx, Diana moved over to another crate and lifted the lid off. "Peaches, you'll enjoy this one." She withdrew a glossy black rifle from within the crate and tossed it toward me.

I deftly snatched the Colt M221A1 out of the air. Without me even thinking about it, my chromed hand wrapped itself around the weapon's grip with the practiced ease born from years of familiarity. My vision blurred slightly as the tech that laced my body interfaced with the weapon's circuitry. With that familiar sensation, long-forgotten memories came bubbling to the surface of my conscience—memories of a man who no longer existed.

"Did you ask Michelson for that specifically?" Diana asked.

I turned the weapon over in my hands, gently running my fingertips over the under-barrel grenade launcher and top-mounted scope. "No," I muttered softly.

"It's just like your old piece. Jesus sure knows how to take care of a chummer, 'eh?"

I nodded wordlessly. I didn't feel much like talking anymore.

Diana hefted a box of ammo from the crate and began to haul it back to the van. "Blitz, when you're done jacking off over that drone, we could use a hand with this stuff."

"Oh yeah. Sorry." He sauntered over to the other crate and began to unload with Sugar and Diana. He pulled out the first thing that came to hand and gave a low whistle, holding up the IWS Multi-launcher for everyone to see. "Damn, P. Did you get this for the run, or are you planning a fragging war on the side?"

I shrugged uninterestedly. "As long as Michelson is footing the bill, I figured we should be as prepared as possible."

Blitz conceded the point with a shrug and hefted the weapon over his shoulder, heading for the van.

"Look," I said after a moment, "I'm not feeling too hot. Do you think you guys could take care of loading this stuff without me?"

Sugar frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just need some air."

"Go ahead," Diana offered. "We can take it from here."

I forced a weak smile of thanks and headed for the door.

I sat on the rickety steps outside the warehouse, watching as the sun dipped below Seattle's shining skyline of glass and steel. A haze of smog spread outward from the descending orb like the last feeble breath of a dying day. Soon night would be upon us, and the city's predators would claw their way out of their day-time hideaways to skulk along the shadowed streets once more. Once the sun went down, it would be time for us to go to work. I was stalking the shadows once more. But was I ready?

It hadn't really dawned on me until the Colt touched my hands. Then the old sensations came flooding back, reminding me of the feel of cold steel beneath my palms, lead in my gut, and bullets hammering into my chest. The Warhawk had been with me through all of the years since I'd left home, but when things really went to drek, the Colt was there to take its place. My old assault rifle had taken more lives than I cared to count—deaths that I had written off as a necessary means to an end. In that time of my life, there wasn't much else I could do. Since my retirement I had locked away that part of my life in a hole deep in the bottom of my soul. But when I laid hands upon that rifle, it all came rushing back like a loyal cur that had spent too much time apart from its master. Two people had already died since this drek started. Was I willing to increase the body count to see this thing through to the end?

The door opened behind me, disturbing me from my thoughts. I looked over my shoulder to see Diana emerge from the doorway.

"The others are finishing up," she announced.

I nodded and turned back toward the fading sun.

I expected her to turn around and head back inside, but the next thing I knew she had plopped down on the steps right next to me and was soon busy lighting up a cigarette.

"You got another one of those?" I asked.

Her brow scrunched up in confusion. "I thought you quit."

"Yeah, well lately it seems like I'm doing a lot of stuff I thought I'd never do again."

She shrugged and handed me a cig. I held it to my lips as she lit it for me and gave it a few experimental puffs. A dry warmth began to spread throughout my mouth and chest as I inhaled, tingling with nicotine delight. I'd forgotten how good one of those things could be after a long day.

The conversation lapsed into silence as we watched the sun recede beyond the horizon. For a few moments we just sat there, listening to the sounds of the city and blowing smoke trails into the air.

"Can I ask you a question?" I said, breaking the trance-like quietude.

Diana took a drag off of her cigarette. "Shoot."

"Are you and Blitz together?"

She laughed. "What, you mean together together? Spirits, no. I could almost be his mother."

I shrugged and hit the cig again, tapping ash over the railing.

"What brought that up?"

I forced a smile. "Sugar is worried about you being around again. She thinks you're going to steal me away from her. I thought maybe she'd lighten up if she knew you were already taken." I tried hard to believe my own line, but it was only a half-truth.

Diana flashed a knowing smile, as if she saw through the ruse but didn't want to say as much. "She always was the jealous type."

"She thinks I'm going about this all wrong."

"That you think with your heart and not with your head?" She grinned like a cheshire cat.

My stomach lurched with the realization. "Were you awake that whole time?"

"You'd be amazed at what people say when they think you can't hear them."

I shook my head, looking out over the city once more.

"But she's right you know."

I looked back at Diana. "Huh?"

"About you thinking with your heart."

"Gee, thanks," I muttered sarcastically.

"But it's a good thing. Trust me."

"Yeah, right."

"No, I'm serious. Peaches, you have a good heart. Out of all the people I've run the shadows with, you're one of the most genuine individuals I've ever known. I mean, more often than not it ends up coming around to bite you in the ass, but you're more alive than half of the people in this damned city. The yabos in this line of work are always talking about how you can't let your emotions cloud your judgement, how you have to focus on the bottom line or you're going to end up flatlined with nothing to show for it. But you know what I think? Yeah, that line of thinking may keep you from getting scragged for a while, but each day you buy into that line of bullshit, you lose a little bit more of your humanity. It's that kind of thinking that has turned this world of ours upside down. People like that are like machines, performing a function without any real investment in it.

"But you're different. The bottom line doesn't mean near as much to you as being able to look yourself in the mirror and know that this drek-heap of a world we live in hasn't corrupted the humanity in you. Even with all that tech inside of you, sometimes I think you're more human than I could ever be."

She was silent a moment before continuing. "That's what originally attracted me to you—that spark inside of you that lets everyone know that you're something different, that you actually care about what happens to the people around you. It's that spark that makes you such a good leader. I don't know if you know it or not, but there are people out there that would follow you to the ends of the Earth if you asked them too."

I scoffed. "Like who?"

"Me, for one. You think I'd be here if I didn't believe in you? For all the posturing about old runs gone bad and backstabbing Johnsons, I'm here for one reason: because I know you'd do the same for me. I know that you'll be my chummer until the day that I die."

I gave her a smile of thanks, mostly because I couldn't think of what else to say. Again our conversation faded away, only to be replaced once more by the sounds of the city.

"Why did we ever call it quits?" I asked suddenly.

"What, call us quits?"

"Yeah."

She sighed. "It was fun while it lasted, but you always wanted more than I could give you. This," she said, opening her arms to encompass the shadowed city, "is my life. I've lived in the shadows for nearly all of it, and I'll probably die in the shadows too. It's the only thing I know, and the only thing I've ever yearned for. But you wanted something beyond that, something more meaningful than an adrenaline rush and a fist full of cred. I saw that in you long before you saw it in yourself. For all her bitching, Sugar fits you better than I ever could. That's why we called it off—because we both knew that we didn't belong together, whether we consciously realized it or not."

I nodded in agreement, taking a final drag off the cigarette before snubbing it out on the step below me. For a moment we just sat there, watching as the sun dipped below the artificial horizon, silhouetting the skyscrapers of downtown Seattle.

"We better get going," I finally said. "We still have work to do."

She stood, flicking her cigarette butt onto the sidewalk. "Yeah, let's get out of here." She started for the door, but a word from me stopped her.

"Diana?"

"Yeah?" she said, turning back to face me.

"Thanks."

She threw me a lopsided grin. "Null sheen, omae. Just make sure we all make it out of this in one piece."