Deadly
Game
Chapter
Seven
By
Fade
Stretching bruised muscles, and once again favoring his left shoulder, Hammer analyzed the results of the previous day’s events. Shadow had done an incredible job keeping the building cleared. Peter’s response team had arrived on scene moments after Shadow had caught up with the rest of team. After the casualties Hammer’s team had inflicted on the op forces, Peter’s forces had vastly outnumbered the remaining opponents. A short firefight combined with hand-to-hand attacks on the still-active hostile elementals had been sufficient to eliminate the remaining resistance, and Peter’s forces had bugged out just moments before Lonestar arrived with some incredible machinery.
Yellow jacket and Wasp helicopters had over flown the area, while squad cars and riot control vehicles had surrounded the block. The media had been going crazy for the entire day trying to find out what had happened, but Lonestar had kept the block locked down as they tried to find useable evidence.
The combination of increased police presence in Redmond, and the fact that the opposition had taken such big losses seemed to have caused them to abort the rest of the assassination attempts. The mages had attempted to follow the first City Master, but had run into no less than eight mages along the way. Peter’s mages were top notch, but there was no way they could lock horns with that kind of power, so they had been forced to flee, leaving one of their number dead.
Peter had managed to round up a group of shamans to launch a trace on the blood that Silk had retrieved, while the hermetic mages recovered from their recent astral battle, but nobody had very much hope that it would work. The odds were very much in favor of the bad guys having everyone involved in any of the operations locked behind some very heavy wards that would block all tracing attempts.
Silk had remained unconscious for hours, a fact that had been of some concern to Hammer until Shadow told him that it was pretty much par for the course. “Doc Wagon wanted maximum hitting power,” the shape shifter had informed him. “They didn’t care so much if she had staying power, just so long as she could hit hard when the time came. Once she learns not to put so much into it, she’ll stay on her feet better.”
Thanks to Silk’s spell, Ox was suffering no ill effects from his wounds. It had been touch and go for Vixen for a little while, but Peter had arranged for top notch magical care and all indications were that the young gillette would be up and about in the next day or so.
The rest of the team had fared quite a bit better. Shiver had avoided anything more serious than a few scratches, and Hammer had gotten away with not much worse. Thank goodness for orthoskin and bone lacing, I’ve had more slugs flatten against my skin than I care to think about.
The most remarkable thing of all was that Shadow hadn’t been killed. On their way out the back door, Hammer and Shiver had seen where the shape shifter had tangled with those six samurai. The amount of blood had seemed slight for a fight involving so many opponents, until the troll had realized that it had nearly all been Shadow’s. I can’t believe he took all those razors with nothing but his bare hands. Shiver or I might have been able to do it, but we would have taken enough damage that someone would have had to carry us out the door.
Upon making it to another of Peter’s safe houses, again one with a very powerful ward, all three men had decided it was time to eat. Hammer always needed an impressive amount of food to sustain his massive frame. The super thyroid Shiver had received last month had put his metabolism through the roof, so the elf now ate nearly as much as his teacher. The real surprise had been how much Shadow proceeded to eat.
The shape shifter had polished off nearly 10 kilos of food, slept for three hours, and awoke and repeated the process four more times. By the time the shape shifter woke up and announced that he wasn’t hungry anymore, Silk had awoke and heard stories about the incredible amounts of food her friend had consumed.
“I lost a lot of blood, and a various other sources of mass,” commented Shadow in response to her question. “The magic makes it so that I heal regardless, but it depletes some kind of reserves in my body. The only way to replenish the reserves is to eat and sleep-luckily we made it out before it got really bad. On one occasion, I had to go so long without food or sleep after a fight with a pack of hellhounds, that eventually I just collapsed. As near as I can tell I slept for three days, and awoke to find that I had lost around 30 kilos of muscle. I was on the border of starvation for two or three weeks.”
Digesting this new bit of news, the each of the other three members of the team vowed to do what they could to keep their friend from overextending himself so severely in the future. In the end that train of thought caused Hammer to think of another member of the team that had likewise pushed too hard in the last engagement.
Silk nodded at his frank analysis of her performance, and agreed that she needed to pace herself better whenever possible, but in the end felt that another point had to be brought up.
“I understand that you want me, and even Shadow to try not to run ourselves into the ground, but the fact of the matter is that the two of us were just plain and simply in over our heads. What we need is to increase our abilities.”
Hammer’s response was forestalled by a call from Peter. “Senior Hammer, Peter has some bad news. The trace has failed. The shamans I hired are some of the more powerful ones that I have access to, but they were unable to complete their magical trace from the blood sample you collected. I’m afraid that we are back to the same place we where before this operation.”
Hammer shook his head. “With all possible respect Peter, several things have changed. First, the opposition took some fairly heavy losses in the operation. It looks like they lost twenty or so skilled operatives, and a very expensive chunk of equipment. The other organization is obviously very well funded, but losing several million nuyen worth of top of the line stuff like that is likely to give someone in the organization pause somewhere along the line.”
“Secondly,” continued the large troll, “they now have a better idea of what resources you can bring to bear against them when given a chance. The fact that you were able to put together a team that withstood the best their ready response team could dish out is bound to make them slightly nervous.”
“Also our being able to predict their ambush should give them pause as well. They have to know that there is at least a slight possibility that the information was leaked from somewhere in their organization. Again, this is something that would make any normal leader nervous, and cause them to re-evaluate their position.”
Peter nodded earnestly. “Si, this is all true, but we still don’t know who they are, all we can do is try to guess their probable course of action. Not only that, but they know much more about your capabilities, they may start packing silver rounds for Senior Shadow. All we know is that they will either continue their offensive, or pull back and leave us alone. The question is which, and how they will go about whatever they decide to do.”
Shiver suddenly stood up, “No metas, no shamans, slightly more brutal treatment of metahuman operatives. Possible link?”
Hammer watched Peter’s eyes go impossibly wide as he realized what Shiver was getting at. Oh my gosh thought the big troll. I can’t believe none of us saw it before this-the clues were all there, but we didn’t realize the implications of what we were seeing.
Shadow looked from Peter to Shiver and back again. “I don’t understand, there weren’t any metahumans in the forces, but there aren’t very many metahumans in the regular population, couldn’t this just be due to random chance?”
Hammer shook his head slowly. “No, metahumans make up a relatively small percentage of the population of Seattle, but they tend to make up a much higher percentage of the shadow running community. When you are as big and strong as a troll, or even an orc, you tend to gravitate to the professions where your strength and size benefit you. The odds against seeing a team that large without any metas are so high as to make it essentially impossible.”
Silk broke in next, “so they are some kind of racist organization then?”
“Yes, yes, it is much clearer now,” interrupted Peter. “Peter has seen trends in the information that should have pointed him in that direction. There has been a rash of racial killings in the last six months, complete with mutilations. The headquarters of a variety of metahuman rights organizations have had a sharp increase in the number of suspicious ‘accidents’ that have been hitting them lately as well. I think you are right friend elf, there must be a connection between all those factors.”
“Why only mages though, why not shamans, I’ve never heard of any kind of major racist organization that also hated shamans,” questioned Hammer.
“New group?”
Peter shook his head at the troll. “No, Peter doesn't see how they could have acquired resources of this nature without being a well established organization, that doesn’t happen overnight without making some kind of ripple in the shadows, Peter really thinks that they are a group that has been established for a while.”
Shadow chose that moment to break in. “This organization has access to too much cyberware. The entire group that we ran into the first time was all running the same kind of high-level mods. Top of the line wired reflexes, type four muscle replacement. They weren’t very skilled yet, so they must be brand new mods that the organization is getting all its operatives. The resources represented by those mod are quite substantial.”
Silk found herself raising her hand since she couldn’t think of any other way to get a word in edgewise. “Excuse me, but I think it is significant that all of the magical opposition we ran into were mages instead of shamans. From the reports of the guys that tried to trail the first City Master, it sounds like they all worked very well together. We might be talking about some kind of magical group, which might explain the fact that there aren’t any shamans-most magical groups don’t mix the two types of magical users.”
Nodding Hammer broke in. “Look for some kind of geographical grouping on the incidents of racial killings, also might be worth it to look for magical groups in the city that have changed their methods of operation lately, and groups that seem to have lost several members in the last week.”
Smiling now, Peter signed off to begin gathering information.
With nothing left to do but wait, the group broke apart to handle the inactivity in their own preferred manner. Shadow started running through various Tai Chi forms as a form of moving meditation. Shiver assumed a lotus position, and began still meditation. Silk conjured a small flame and began passing it from hand to hand in an effort to improve her ability to resist drain. Hammer set up a target, and started throwing knives from across the room.
After an hour, Silk looked up from the flame in her left hand, and noticed that Shiver was shaking quite severely. Looking over to Hammer she saw a brief look of sorrow before the other veiled his face again. Deciding that she probably wouldn’t get a better chance to ask about Shiver’s condition, the mage walked over to Hammer.
As tactfully as she was able, Silk cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I ask why he shivers like that?”
Hammer shook his head slightly. “No, I don’t mind if you ask, but I don’t know if it is my place to tell you the answer.” After a few moments, in which Silk maintained an uncharacteristic silence, Hammer appeared to make a decision.
“I suppose that you asking Shiver would probably cause him more pain than my telling you would, so I will tell you a story. There once was a troll who had two passions. The first was sculpting-I think because it allowed him to create beautiful things. The other was justice, probably because it allowed him to protect the rest of the beautiful things in the world. As time went on, those with whom the troll lived found that they had a greater and greater need for his help in protecting the good things where they lived. Finally, the troll realized that to survive, he would need to become stronger, faster, no longer merely metahuman.”
Silk waited while Hammer paused for a few minutes. “In the end, the troll’s friends arranged for him to make a trip to one of the best clinics in the world. During the two weeks the troll was there, he was cut up, and re-made into something that could withstand the travails that he believed would come. After coming out of the anesthesia for the final time, the troll was very excited to be able to return to his home and sculpt.”
“When this toll arrived home he found that he couldn’t create anything anymore. The physical skills were still there, he could form the clay, but he it was if he didn’t have anything inside from where he usually went to create.”
“Years passed, and the troll came to accept his sacrifice-he couldn’t create anymore, but he could kill those who would destroy the creations of others. Eventually, a young elf came to the place where the troll lived. The elf was a promising student of all things martial. Not only that, the elf was a physical adept much like friend Shadow, and a good poet.”
Unfortunately the times were rapidly worsening. The young elf decided to undergo modification to help his teacher the troll defend the innocent. The troll counseled his student against undergoing modification, but proof was given that the deadliness which the elf would gain would more than offset the deadliness which he would loose.”
“In the end, the elf decided to get the modification. Sadly enough, the foreign metal felt like ice in the elf’s body due to his magical nature. The constant chill resulted in the elf shaking when he wasn’t thinking about controlling the shiver. Even more sadly the events that followed resulted in the pair’s home being destroyed. The elf realized that his skills were still insufficient for the course he and his teacher would be forced to follow. The student refused to abandon his teacher to pursue the course alone. Instead, the elf asked to undergo further modification.”
When it became apparent that Hammer had finished his story Silk quietly bowed to him, and went to her room to leave the troll alone. I never understood, though the mage. I always assumed that he was some kind of spoiled jerk-being modified with that kind of high-quality delta grade cyberware tends to give people a God complex. I never considered the possibility that being modified like that would be such a sacrifice.
Just before she went through her door, Silk looked over to Shadow. The shape shifter opened his eyes, and gave the mage a sad smile to indicate he had heard the story, before continuing with his form. Silk thought about going back out and asking Shadow what was bothering him, but decided that the shape shifter would let her know when he was ready to talk about whatever he was thinking about.
* * *
Four hours later, Peter called back. “Senior Hammer, I think we have found them. We looked at the locations of the killings, compared them against places where the killings have not occurred in the last week, and then finally we looked on the astral plain for areas with powerful wards. We narrowed it down to two sites, and then I had a couple of people go talk to the locals. The second site matches what we would expect. The metas have moved out of the neighborhood in the last little while, and there have been a lot of equipment moving around on the streets lately.”
“Additionally, there have been a lot of disappearances lately among those who live in the area. No body, no ransom note, people just don’t come home. Those last disappearances don’t really fit what you would expect, especially since a big chunk of the people disappearing are norms.”
“Peter thinks we should hit the facility now-before they get a chance to start taking his organization apart again.”
Hammer analyzed the new information and turned to Shiver. “What do you think?”
Shiver shook his head. “Need information, attack too complex.”
The big troll turned back to Peter. “Peter, I understand your desire to go on the offensive, but you are talking about trying to storm the facilities of an organization whose strength is still unknown. We could be talking about the desert wars on a mini scale. We need more information on what we are going to be looking at.”
Peter shook his head. “Peter cannot agree with what you are suggesting. Right now we would have the element of surprise if we attacked. If we try to scout the facility, we could tip our hand. If these hombres know we are coming, they could potentially muster enough force to crush my entire organization without any effort.”
Looking Hammer in the eye, the tiny fixer continued. “Peter knows this is a gamble, but he has no choice. Waiting would be a much greater gamble. Will you help Peter?”
The rest of the group gave Hammer various signs of agreement as he looked at each of them in turn. Silk was the last to agree, muttering the whole time about the wisdom of trying to take on a bunch of militant racists who spent money like it was going out of style.
Turning back to the vid screen Hammer nodded slowly to Peter. “We will do what we can. Although I do not think much of our chances, a racist organization like this needs to be stopped.”
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