Hunting Shadows
By
Fade
Chapter 8
Silk awoke to some very good news. Hammer had been up for hours by the time the mage rolled out of bed, and the troll had spent at least some of that time on the phone with Peter. It turned out that Peter had called fairly early to inform the team that he had just credited their account for the pre-agreed amount of one hundred and twenty thousand nuyen.
The fixer had offered the team another job to be performed immediately, but Hammer had rejected it out of hand because it would have put them on even more shaky ground morally. The troll reported that Peter hadn’t been surprised by the rejection, but that the fixer cut the call short with a hard edge that was atypical for the genial Azetlander.
Silk couldn’t imagine what would have caused Peter to even ask, considering how difficult it had been to convince Hammer to accept their last job, one that for all intents and purposes had been to save innocents. After a couple of minutes of thought the mage dismissed the incident, but she noticed that Hammer seemed to mull it over for quite a while. I guess when you’ve been running the shadow as long as he has any deviation from the norm starts making you jumpy.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing. Hammer indicated that he figured everyone needed a break, so Silk immediately started trying to drag someone shopping. The mage wanted to ask Shiver, but the other elf was walking around with such an expression of doom that she decided against it. Part of the pretty runner felt like she should invite the gillette anyway, but what he had almost done during the run made her more than a little nervous. Silk hadn’t ever been able to find any studies to the effect, but she had noticed that most of the extreme razors she worked with tended to be fairly unstable. Normal, sane people like Hammer and Shiver were more of the exception than the rule, and Silk didn’t want to be anywhere around if Shiver was starting down the slide into insanity. Even the growing attraction that the mage was feeling wasn’t enough to overcome the simple fact that she needed some time to decide how to handle the prospect of being so attracted to someone who might snap at any time.
With the other elf eliminated from the running, Silk instead focused her efforts on Hammer and Shadow. Hammer had simply smiled and shook his head when asked. “Can you really see someone my size in one of the stores you are planning on frequenting? Not only do they not carry anything that would fit a heavily cybered troll, everyone in the store, from the manager all the way down would be flabbergasted that someone like me would have the gall to even shadow their doors.”
Silk had tried to convince Hammer otherwise for a few more minutes, but her heart wasn’t in it. Hammer was completely correct, a shopping trip with him would probably be hampered by all the salespeople trying to show them the way out. Instead, the mage attacked her last hope with all the vigor her despairing soul possessed. Shadow had tried to come up with a reason that he couldn’t go, using everything from needing to train, to wanting to read a book, or watch the trid. Not to be foiled, Silk pointed out that Hammer was giving them a break from training, and that the real reason he wanted to watch the trid, or read a book was simply to learn more about how people interact with each other, something that could be accomplished quite nicely while shopping.
In the end, Shadow had relented, and agreed to go with Silk as Shiver shot her a look that she couldn’t interpret, but which might have been jealousy. The pair had left and headed down to the some of the more elite shops downtown. Shadow knew what to expect from earlier trips, so he wasn’t surprised when the mage picked out fifteen or twenty articles of clothing for each of them before guiding him to the dressing rooms.
Shadow soon found himself trying on a variety of suites, sweaters, and slacks. Two hours later, Silk shook her head in disdain (more for the benefit of the salespeople waiting on them than anything else Shadow thought) and informed the shape shifter that they would be leaving.
The next stop was a much more relaxed, but still pricey shop, selling the kind of thing that people with too much money wore when they went slumming. Silk soon had Shadow in a thin, blue spider silk shirt that provided a limited amount of ballistic protection, while still showing his impressive physique to best advantage. Matching black pants, made out of the same material, replete with pockets for everything from weapons to ammunition rounded out the outfit nicely enough that the mage decided to buy it for Shadow.
Silk decided to go with something that would complement what she was getting the shape shifter, and picked out a pair of black spider silk cargo pants, and a blue halter top. Two hours later, the pair left the store with a number of new outfits. Silk’s favorite find was a pair of black combat boots that came with SureGrip TM soles, and a special sleeve for a sheath knife. Unfortunately not even the joys of shopping served to distract the mage from her concern over Shiver, so instead of continuing on to another place, the pair decided to call it a day.
The pair of runners returned to the safe house just in time to see Shiver storm out, leaving Hammer looking very sad. The elf didn’t look back, even when Silk called his name, instead breaking into a quick jog that took him rapidly out of sight.
“What happened,” demanded the mage as she ran to the doorway.
Hammer shrugged heavily. “I tried to talk about him about what happened on the run. It seemed like a good opportunity, there wasn’t anyone else around. He wouldn’t feel like he needed to protect his image, or defend his ego.”
The big troll walked over to a reinforced chair and dropped himself into it. Putting his head into his hands the gillette continued. “I tried to talk about his responsibility, the fact that he has greater responsibility due to the gifts he has been given. He doesn’t seem to understand anymore. Power to his mind is given to be used. The killing we do to save other lives is little different in his mind than what he would have done to that guard.”
Shadow pulled his katana out-slowly to make sure that he didn’t alarm his teammates-and then began polishing it with a cloth he had left in the living room. “I don’t understand. I thought he was our friend.”
Silk shook her head, a little worried. The mage had only seen Shadow pull his curl-up-with-sword like-it-is-a-teddy-bear trick a couple other times, both when something was really bothering the shape shifter. “It isn’t that easy, we are all friends, at least I think we are, but that doesn’t mean that we see every issue in the exact same manner. Things that you see as being self-evident are more grey for most people.”
Hammer nodded slowly. “Even stating that he wouldn’t want someone to do the same thing to him isn’t a valid argument in his eyes. He is still young enough to believe that he will never face a situation where it is him that is about to be murdered.” Looking at the distraught shape shifter the troll frowned. “We all hope that Shiver will work his way through this and decided as we do, but I think that you should realize that it is possible that he’ll decide to part ways from us, or us from him.”
Silk looked from Hammer, to Shadow who was still rocking back and forth slightly as he took care of his weapon. Turning back to the troll, the mage knew that he was talking as much or more to her than the physad. As Hammer met her eyes, the elf knew that they were both looking months and years into the future. “What will you do shifu?”
Hammer’s rough face seemed to turn to stone, and the light behind his eyes seemed to dim a little. “I don’t know Silk, I guess whatever I have to.”
***
Shiver came back the next day. As laconic as the elf was, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Normally, you can tell that something is bothering someone by the fact that they aren’t talking. Shiver never really talked, so the rest of the team had to go off of much subtler signals when trying to decide how to handle things.
Hammer initially seemed at a loss for what to do, but settled for working Shiver, Shadow and himself so hard that they collapsed into their beds each night. Silk wouldn’t have believed it was possible for anyone to be more anxious about the situation that Hammer, but Shadow somehow managed to do it. The shape shifter spent any time that he wasn’t practicing with Hammer and Shiver isolated in quiet meditation, or caring for his katana. It hadn’t been more than a few days since the team had gone up to the mountains to distract Shadow, but the physad was reverting to the same state of despair that he had been in just before they had gone on the picnic. Shadow of course wouldn’t talk to her about what was going on, but Silk imagined that he was having a hard time reconciling the possibility that someone he had thought of as a friend was so casual about the idea of killing. Shadow seemed to be handling his anxiety by simply shutting Shiver out. The shape shifter didn’t talk to his friend any more than necessary for training.
Silk on the other hand felt like the best way to help Shiver come around was to continue on as normally as she was able so that Shiver didn’t feel like his friends were abandoning him. Consequently, even though the mage had spent a ton of time working on her art, she tried to make a little bit of time each day to hang out with the boys, and engage everyone in conversation-at least as much as the unhappy trio was willing to be engaged.
It seemed as though her efforts were starting to pay off after a couple of days. Shiver hadn’t argued with Hammer any more, and things were starting to thaw out a little between the elf and Shadow. In an effort to speed up the process, and improve her hand-to-hand skills a little, Silk had started joining the practice session from time to time.
Things had seemed to continue improving right up to the point where Hammer had paired the two elves together for a sparring match. Everything was very low key, and Silk decided to give Shiver some good-natured ribbing five minutes into the bout. “Careful there Junior, you’re starting to slow down these days. Another couple of bouts and I’ll be scrapping you off of the floor. I guess I’d better move on sparring against Shadow, he still has the magic.” Shiver’s eyes suddenly went hard, and he slipped a kick past her defenses, with enough speed and power to nearly knock her out.
Silk saw red, it was nearly impossible for someone with Shiver’s modifications and skill to hit someone that hard on accident. Before the stars had even stopped floating across her field of vision she’d pulled in just about all the mana she could hold, and forced it into the form required for a heavy-duty sleep spell.
Shiver, reading her change of expressions in slow motion, had correctly guessed what she intended to do, and had sprung towards her. The situation would have gotten ugly really quickly, and probably ended with the mage unconscious on the floor, but Shadow had been supervising the practice bout, and had correctly interpreted what was going on. The shape shifter moved with the kind of inhuman speed that Silk had seen few people match, to intercept the razor.
Shadow grabbed Shiver in a wrist lock, forcing him to the ground even as the were-tiger threw a foot out, and softly tapped Silk on the stomach. The mage collapsed as an intense wave of pain crashed through her, and realized that she had been hit with a nerve strike. From the hardwood floor, where she would spend the next few minutes unable to move, the mage saw Shiver seem to shimmer, and knock Shadow back. I thought a properly applied joint lock was supposed to be impossible to escape, thought the mage as Shadow bounced back up and placed himself between the two elves.
Shiver’s mouth tightened to a thin line, and he let his finger razors slide slowly out of their sheaths. Silk’s heart ran cold at the thought of what was about to happen, but the standoff was ended when Hammer ran into the room. “Enough,” the troll had thundered, causing first Shiver, and then Shadow to back down.
A fairly tense discussion followed in which Shiver claimed not to have meant to hit Silk quite so hard, and Silk grated out an insincere apology for having been ready to stun the other elf. Feeling like a parent with unruly children, Hammer ordered all three individuals to their rooms, and then sat in the living room trying to think of a solution to the problem which faced him.
***
Hammer woke up rubbing slightly bloodshot eyes, and then checked the chronometer that his cyber eyes displayed at the top of his field of vision. Five hours. The troll hadn’t gotten that much sleep, and still felt tired, since he had gotten his sleep regulator installed. The fact that the mass of genetically engineered tissue wasn’t able to give him truly restful sleep anymore indicated that either his worries were sufficient to override the bioware, or that his mods had taken one too many blows, and were starting to go on the fritz. Hammer hoped that it was the former, he really didn’t need to deal with making a trip to Chiba to get anything replaced. One of the many things that you don’t learn by watching Cyber Warrior TM, or Runners TM. Super human abilities all come with a price, and when they break, you can count on going from something more than metahuman, to something less than metahuman
Hammer, pulled his gee from the chair where he had left it the day before, the chair can’t support my weight, so it may as well get used for something, and quickly changed. The troll was headed out of his bedroom door when his wrist phone rung. The only person who currently knew Hammer’s number besides his teammates was Peter, so as the razor walked over to answer the call, he felt a sense of dread fill him.
Even assuming that Peter wasn’t calling about another run that smacked of wetwork, the four runners were not ready to take on even the easiest of runs. Hammer, like Silk, had thought that Shiver was starting to come around, but the events of the previous day pretty much proved that assumption to be false. Despite Shiver’s protestations of innocence, Hammer knew that there was no way that he could have hit Silk that hard without meaning to. The blow had been on purpose, and whatever Shiver’s reason had been, the only thing that Hammer could tell it had accomplished was to take the elf’s biggest supporter, and turn her against him. The troll had to agree with Silk’s assessment, things didn’t look good for the home team. Any run accepted by the team right now was likely to end with one or more people turning against Shiver.
All of which was good reason for Hammer to dread talking to Peter. The fixer was either going to ask him to assassinate someone again, or he was going to give them a legitimate run that they would have to turn down. Hammer had lost some respect for the fixer after his last request, but he thought that he’d almost rather have it be the former, than hear about a wrong that needed righting when the big troll couldn’t do anything about it. All because his most promising, last remaining, student was becoming increasingly unstable.
“Hello,” rumbled the runner as he picked up the communication device.
“Hola,” came the reply. “You speak with Peter, How are you friend Hammer?”
Considering his reply carefully so as not to give away too much information, the troll finally settled on, “We have a few things we need to iron out, but on the whole things could be much worse.”
The cagey fixer knew that such a response probably indicated problems more substantial than one would think, but he didn’t pursue the matter. “You asked Peter to keep an eye on a gang for you. It is becoming evident that you had good reason for this. The gang has posted a reward for information that can help them locate two individuals, one matching the description of Senior Shiver, the other matching closely the description of Senior Shadow.”
“Also, they are looking for a Westwind that matches the description of the one Peter disposed of for you, down to a license plate number that transposes two of the numbers on said vehicle. Fortunately, there are many people that match the description that these individuals are giving out, so no one else has yet made the connection that Peter has.”
Hammer contemplated the information he had been given for a moment before responding. “What else is this gang doing to find Shiver and Shadow?”
Peter paused slightly, probably consulting his notes before answering. “It sounds like they have stepped up their patrols in an effort to find our amigos. In addition to the reward, they have started roughing up the people in the neighborhood slightly, trying to force information out of them. They seem to believe that the individuals involved must have a link to the neighborhood, or they wouldn't have interfered with the gangers in the first place."
"Oh yes, of a seemingly lower priority to them, but still of interest, Peter learned that they have offered another reward for information leading to the capture of the two people that you had Peter hide just before you came into possession of the Westwind.”
Hammer sighed, “How badly are they roughing people up?”
Unseen on the other end of the line, Peter smiled to see that Hammer had asked the question that the fixer had thought he would. “They have been fairly light, Peter's information indicates that there have been a couple of fractured arms, but on the whole people are coming away from it all with nothing more than bruises.”
The fixer again consulted his notes before continuing. “It would appear that the ruffians are going easy on people because they have overextended themselves quite drastically. The gang, known as the Night Feeders, was very small time until just recently. The members controlled all of about four blocks, and did so on the sufferance of a much bigger gang, the Tiger Sharks, which received portion of the protection money they raised.”
“About two years ago, the leadership of the Night Feeders got inspired. They made a couple of deals, doubled their membership, and took over four more blocks. Since then, they have started gobbling up the other small gangs around them, and slowly taken out their bigger competitors as well. They are nothing like the Ancients, or the Halloweeners still, but they were to the point where they had taken out all their potential competitors, leaving a buffer of small gangs around them to help ward off problems.”
Peter continued. “Despite their size, it looks as though they’ve gotten too greedy as of late, they have wars going on with at least three other gangs, all of who have turned out to be fairly tough opponents. Combined, it looks like the gangs, may be able to take the Night Feeders down. Peter doesn’t think that a reasonable leader would allow his gang members to anger anyone else at this point-there is just no way that they can hold off any more opposition. On the other hand, a reasonable person probably wouldn’t have jumped into a four way war.
“Peter, thank you for getting this information to me. What is the going rate for this kind of stuff.?”
“It is already paid for. Your initial payment covered everything, none of Peter’s people were hurt, and no special measures were required to gather the information.”
Hammer absently thanked the fixer, and after a request to keep them updated on any further developments, the troll ended the call.
Gritting his teeth slightly, Hammer rousted Shadow and Silk out of bed, and asked Shiver to come into the living room so they could all confer on the new information. When the troll finished outlining the situation, there was something of a blowup, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Hammer had been secretly afraid it would be.
“We need to get out of town. I know of a place or two where we could go to hide,” announced Silk.
Shadow shook his head. “We need to help Lonestar bring these people to justice. We could go in with narcojets and pick them off one patrol at a time, turning the unconscious gangers over to the Star. Just running would be to abandon the innocent to the predations of these individuals.”
Shiver yawned slightly before interjecting, “Frag that, not our problem. They won't find us before those other gangs take them out."
Hammer shot his student a disapproving look, and shook his head in response to Silk. “I don’t think we need to flee the city at this point. As I mentioned before, these people have only a vague description of Shiver and Shadow. It is highly unlikely that they will be able to track any of us down based on the small amount on information that they have.”
Shadow took a deep breath, as if in preparation to argue his case, but Hammer forestalled him with a raised hand. “It could definitely be said that we brought this about, but nobody has been seriously injured yet. The chances are very good that another gang will eliminate the Night Feeders in short order, or at least press them hard enough that they forgo looking for us. Not only that, turning these undesirables into Lone Star will only result in their being incarcerated for a matter of a few days, possibly a few hours. I believe that Shiver is correct as to the wisest course of action if not the reason why we should take it.”
Shadow looked like he would argue regardless, but Silk placed a hand on his arm and shook her head. A few seconds later the shape shifter retreated into his room, obviously furious with the team’s decision and disillusioned with his ‘friends’.
***
The next couple of days passed without incident. Silk's fear that the gang would find the team and come after them with guns blazing slowly disappeared over the next little while, and when Peter reported that the gang still hadn’t killed anyone Shadow started to calm down slightly.
The mage's worries about Shiver proved to be much more resilient. On the surface of things, the other elf appeared to be back to normal, but Silk noticed that Shiver ducked out a couple of times, apparently to use his wrist phone, and he was back to being a sarcastic jerk.
Silk and Shadow where on their way back from a trip to buy supplies for ritual magic when Shadow stopped the mage while they were still thirty feet from the house's door. Silk turned to ask the shape shifter what was going on, but the expression on her friend's face stopped her more effectively than Shadow's iron grip.
"Do an astral recon of the house please," requested the physad as he carefully set the bag he was carrying down, and grabbed Silk with one arm while unobtrusively drawing a heavy pistol.
Silk half surprised herself when instead of arguing, she simply nodded, and relaxed into Shadow as she loosened the bindings that held her astral and mundane bodies together.
The mage slowly surveyed her surroundings, checking for astral threats and making sure that Shadow was being sufficiently careful with her body, before zipping over to the window. Silk gathered her energy, and pushed through the ward that protected the house. It is a good thing that when the original ward failed, I didn’t replaced that overpowered monstrosity with anything even close to as powerful. Chalk another one up to laziness.
Silk felt the painful something-is-ripping-my-soul-into-pieces feeling that she had come to associate with ward breaking, and then she was through. It took less than a minute for Silk to find the cause of Shadow's alarm. Hammer and Shiver were in the living room, and their auras were flaring brightly with the sickly colors of anger and betrayal. Unnatural greens mixed with yellowish brown, and reddish black..
Silk knew that auras always reflected the mood of an individual, as well as reflecting the intensity of their feeling, but she hadn't ever seen anyone's aura flare this brightly before. Hammer stood in the center of the living room appearing so calm that if Silk hadn't been observing him from astral space, she wouldn't have believed anything was wrong until she saw Shiver. The other elf was obviously upset. That combined with the fact that Shiver was carrying his bugout bag, didn't bode well for where events were headed.
Silk watched Shiver gesture angrily for a few seconds, and then something changed in the other elf's aura. The anger that had been present seemed to take on a harder edge, and start to change into something even uglier.
Silk wasn't an expert in aura reading, but it had been a while since she had seen something that she didn't recognize. Whatever the color was, Silk new that it represented something from the darkest side of metahumanity, and the mage suddenly decided that she and Shadow belonged in the room where they could help Hammer. The elf blurred back through the window, and dropped back into her body. "They are arguing, we should be there."
Silk followed Shadow into the house. "Hi honey, we're home," quipped the elf as she shot Shiver a hard look. The elven gillette returned the look, with something added in that made the mage's skin crawl.
"Get lost Slitch, not your problem."
"Right, you want to break up our happy home, and it isn't my problem. Frag you drek head this isn't just about you."
Hammer made a gesture that Silk correctly interpreted to mean that she should be quiet, but the mage was mad enough that she didn't care what Hammer was going to say to her later.
"Don't talk to me about being selfish," raged Shiver. "You've felt the magic surge through you. I gave that up. For what?"
"To help your friend, the man who took you off of the street and taught you everything you know." Silk looked Shiver over with contempt. "Maybe just so you could get 10,000,000 nuyen worth of metal implanted in you."
Hammer saw the self interest that had been driving his student flicker and change into hate. Silk saw the change too, but the normally perceptive mage misread what had happened.
"Did I strike too close to home? Shiver the gutter rat-turned physad wouldn't last ten minutes on the runs we've been pulling. The only reason you are still walking around is because you sold the magic away, and you couldn't even have done that without Hammer's help."
Hammer would replay the next few seconds over again and again in his mind, but he was never quite sure what went through his student's head as Silk finished. Shiver launched himself at the mage in a blur that Hammer was barely able to follow. The elf's hand razors extended in black slivers
Silk felt a split-second sense of deja-vu as she realized what was happening. The mage threw herself to the side in an effort to avoid the attack.
Time seemed to slow, and Silk realized that there was no way she was going to dodge the gillette's attack. As the high carbon blades neared Silk's face, Shiver violently flew sideways.
As Silk hit the floor, she saw Shadow step forward. The shape shifter seemed to flicker as his katana materialized in his hands.
The hate that had previously been directed solely at Silk was now aimed equally at the shape shifter who had interfered with the elf's attack.
Silk wasn't sure how long the standoff would last, but she wasn't about to stand by doing nothing. As the mage started to command an elemental to manifest and defend the two of them, she saw felt a subtle change in the tension of the room.
Looking over to her left, Silk saw Hammer standing with a pair of Predator heavy pistols in his massive hands. Silk's heart nearly stopped until she realized that the troll was aiming not at Shadow, but at Shiver.
Shiver seemed to have followed the mage's gaze, because at that moment he started swearing bitterly.
"You are in the wrong," rumbled the massive runner. "If you try to harm her and Shadow again I will kill you." Hammer walked slowly over to Shiver's bag and carefully kicked it over to the elf. "Get out."
As Shiver walked out of the front door, Shadow trailed him, watching until the gillette had flagged down a cab and disappeared down the street. Watching from the window, Silk felt like collapsing, but instead she quickly summoned a watcher spirit and commanded it to follow Shiver and warn her if the elf came back.
"I've got a watcher following him," Silk reported. Hammer looked like he was in shock, but Silk's comment seemed to rouse him.
"Get your stuff," the troll instructed, I can't predict what he will do at this point, but we have to assume that a hostile individual now knows where we are. It is time for us to vacate this location."
Shadow came back inside and nodded. "He is like a rabid animal right now, and I believe that he will be back. Having had to back down will worry at him until he kills us, or becomes reconciled with us."
__________
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