Chapter 2
Rain
The Barrens
Redmond, Seattle
8:45 pm
Rain.
It rained in Seattle more than half the year sometimes. The water would flood the streets and sweep the garbage into the sewers. It made the streets look new, but they weren't. All of the grim and trash was swept under the rug. During the springtime the rain would have enough pH to digest a car battery. A brand new car could be left out overnight, only to see it's shiny coat of paint ruined by the morning.
Hard rain.
Perhaps the only thing worse than leaving a car out in it was to be walking through it. The hard rain made skin very tender the next morning. That is why in some of Seattle's worse downpours the streets are almost deserted. Not even the squatters want to get out in it. Instead they huddle up in near trash cans and under fire escapes to keep from getting wet.
With all of these facts running through his mind, Nightsky had to wonder what had possessed him to leave the relative safety of his home to travel in this weather. He had worn a waterproof poncho and pulled up the hood to keep the water off of him. He had even put on some thick boots to keep from freezing his feet off. None of it seemed to help much. The wind would blow sprinkles of water into his face and his boots always seemed to leak.
He kicked a can that was being washed down the sidewalk. The atmosphere around him was enough to make a compulsive depressant think that they had died. Neon signs caste ghostly glows as the rain fell. Graffiti covered buildings that crumbled from years of neglect lined the streets. The water hit the ground and immediately turned black from all of the soot on the concrete. There wasn't any grass here. Nightsky hadn't seen any grass in almost a year. In Seattle there was not a hint of green for miles around. Probably because this was the barrens. Either that, or it could be that Seattle was the concrete jungle. Nothing grew here.
Nightsky stopped his walk through the rain at a small storefront. It had long since closed down, but he knew who had setup shop after the owners had left. He banged twice on the old, steel door with his fist. There was some shuffling beyond the closed door. Like someone stepping over a mound of papers and slipping on a wet floor.
Half a dozen locks were undone and the door creaked open. There was coughing from someone on the other side, but that soon stopped.
"What you want here, halfscan?" A harsh voice roared.
Nightsky shucked the glove off of his left hand, revealing a small tatoo of a black heart at the base of his palm. He held up to view of the person at the door.
The ganger seemed to stare at Michael's open hand for an eternity. For a moment, Michael feared that he wouldn't recognize the sign. Then the ganger snorted and swung the door open. "Michael Perrin," A husky voice gloomed from the opened door. "Been a while since you dipped around this pad." The door swung open, revealing a elf of moderate height and a gold glitter in his oversized eyes.
"Spark." He addressed the elf as he stepped inside. "I thought I'd see how things were holding together."
"We're here with duct tape a spit at the moment." The elf closed and locked the door as Nightsky entered. "It's been a rough day."
"Really?" This was the first that Nightsky had heard of anything happening today. "What went down today?" Within the past few weeks Nightsky's old gang, the Blackhearts, were a group of people that he had grown up. Recently the gang had been having some trouble with a local cell of the Night Hunters. Everybody knew that the Night Hunters were a recruiting ground for the Humanis Policlub. The Blackhearts, being a racially mixed group of metahumans, were a likely target of the Night Hunters' aggression.
"Had a couple brothers over by the Lantern this morning when a bunch of Hunters sporting colors and the works barged in. Messed them up real good." Spark explained as he lead Nightsky through the crumbling storefront. They stepped over fallen shelves and old refuse that had collected on the floor. It was nearly knee deep in some places. "They buzzed out of there and came here. They're still downstairs."
"I'm afraid what I got to tell you won't make you feel any better." Nightsky said as the two of them went through a heavy steel door at the back. "I was on my way over here when I passed by the old market. A group of them were huddled under the old shacks trying to stay out of the rain."
"Did they see you?"
Nightsky shook his head, no. "Where's Jackal?"
"Our brave and fearless leader is downstairs." Spark said as the two of them headed down a short flight of stairs past the steel door to another door that had a pull-away plate in the center so the person on the other side could see who was coming. Spark came up and banged on the outside of the door with the butt of a pistol.
The metal plate slide aside, revealing blue eyes of a young boy. "Who's there."
"Spark and Sky, Floppy." Nightsky said from behind Spark's shoulder. Even though Spark was short for an elf, he was still taller than the adept. "Open the door."
"Oh," Floppy seemed to exchange a few words with someone. "What's the password?"
Spark clenched his teeth. "Just open the door."
"Can't." Floppy shook his head, flopping his long wire-like hair around. "Jackal says that you got to have the password."
"The password is that there is no password." Nightsky blurted. "Now open up."
"Uh," Floppy stuttered. "Okay, that's the right one. One second."
A series of locks were undone and the door swung open. On the other side the Floppy looked up at the two gangers. He pushed the door closed as the two came inside. Floppy was a small kid, no more than twelve. Floppy always looked like he just stepped out of a dryer on spin cycle. His clothes were wadded and several sizes too big for him and his hair was a dirty mop that often got in his eyes. Jackal had found him about a week ago. Some gutterpunks had thrown him in a dumpster. Floppy's mother was a street joygirl who worked around the block. She was seriously into chips and didn't pay much attention to her son. That didn't give Floppy much of a future. He spent most of his time with the Blackhearts. He had already received his identifying tatoo just under his left eye.
The inside of the store was larger than it looked from the outside. Two stories of it was underground. It dropped off in a kind of pit that was surrounded by catwalk. The only way to get to the bottom was by one of the spiral staircases. The ceiling was covered with chain-link fencing that blocked the air ducts. Barbs were lined among some of the links.
There was a bustle of activity on the ground below. A dozen and a half gangers milled around. Some were totting weapons while some just looked lost. The Blackhearts never had been a group that was big on confrontations. Most of its members were made up of lost street kids who huddled together for safety against the urban predators.
"Where's Jackal?" Spark asked the sloppy kid.
Floppy pointed a hand downstairs. "There, he's in a lousy mood."
"That's his biz." Spark replied as he and Nightsky made their way down to the ground floor.
They both moved through the light crowd of people. The smell of cooking meat made its way from a garbage can. A short dwarf sat near the can. He turned a soydog on a stick. The flames from the garbage can cooked the meat in an old, outdoors fashion.
Jackal, an ork with a chipped tusk and a thin scar running from the edge of his nose to his chin, stood over a set of mattresses. He was talking with a small norm that went by the name Chop-Chop because he was over the gang's chopshop business that worked out of an old warehouse. Standing next to him was Mira, Jackal's main squeeze. She was an ork just like him, but she was one of the strongest women that Nightsky had ever known. She could press more than Jackal could and probably punch out a troll.
Jackal was dressed in synthleathers and sporting the Blackhearts colors, brick red and black. On the mattress at his feet was a young ganger who looked like he had been run over by a stepvan. He was bleeding from deep gashes along his cheeks and his lower lip was a mushy representation of its former self.
"Night Hunters?" Michael said as he looked over the ganger. Mira stood quietly next to the bleeding Blachheart, applying a damp cloth to his wounds.
Jackal didn't even bare Nightsky a glance. The soft grunt that he gave told his answer. It was obvious that he was not happy about things. The Night Hunters, being a spinoff from the Humanis, had been hitting the Blackhearts because of the racial mix of metahumans in their ranks. In Jackal's eyes, the only reason the Hunters were giving them problems was because they didn't want to get their faces torn off by the Spikes. The smaller ones of the food chain won't be as difficult to handle.
"Lot of good those fraggers are." Spark cursed. "I'm going back topside." He added as he turned and walked back the way that he came.
"Fragging breeders aren't worth drek to me." Jackal snorted, the ork cracked his knuckles, expression his frustration. He glanced an eyeball in Nightsky's direction. "No offense, Night."
"None taken."
Jackal nodded. "If it was on my grounds, I'd splatter down the whole bunch of them. Make each of them pay for their drekking racists beliefs. They're not even below throwing down on their own kind." He said, pointing out the fact that the Night Hunters had beat up a human ganger. "Yeah, I'd take them all apart."
"Go for it, sweets." Mira said over her shoulder.
"I would, but I can't."
Nightsky asked, "Why's that?"
"Look around you, Night." Jackal spread his hand around the pit. The dozen or so gangers scattered about weren't the cream of the crop. Few of them were armed and could stand up in a outright fight against a gang with the financial backing of the Humanis. Most of the people in the pit weren't even Blackhearts. Of the dozen or so members, there were about twice as many regular street kids that had wondered around on the streets. Jackal had offered them a save place to stay instead of staying outside as streetmeat. "These chums won't stand with that kind of bust-up."
Nightsky had to admit that Jackal was right. They weren't fighters, never were. Not even since the Blackhearts inception. They were just a group of street kids that banded together for safety. They didn't pull shootouts, they pulled robberies and car thefts. If they got in a fight, they rarely settled it with firearms.
"How many out of the twenty some odd 'Hearts do you think are up for it?" Jackal asked.
Nightsky only shrugged at the question. He knew the majority of the group didn't know much about fighting. In truth, when he was younger in the gang, he didn't know anything about it until a ganger named Oreo came along and taught him much of what he knew. The only thing was that Oreo had died nearly six months ago. With Oreo, Nightsky had done his best to teach what he knew, but he wasn't as good at it.
"Maybe seven or less." Jackal grimaced. "That's it. Most of the crew is down at the shop. Like I said, it's not frosty here anymore."
"That's for sure." Nightsky crouched next to Mira and looked over the injured ganger. It was a new face that Michael didn't recognize. Probably one of the new members that Jackal had found. Yet he bore the Blackhearts mark on his left ear. "The Hunters are stalking this whole block, Jackal. They've scared off most of the squatters. I've never seen the streets so deserted."
"They saw the Night Hunters marauding through the streets and they got there slags off of them." Jackal shrugged. "Can't blame them."
"They stuck around they'd end up like everyone else." Mira offered.
"We're going to take an example from the squatters, Night." Jackal said.
"What do you mean?"
"They were smart enough to get out of the way when the Hunters came through. They laid low and didn't get noticed. We need to do the same."
Mira's eyes gave a look of confusion. "You mean abandon the turf?"
"Nah, I didn't say that." Jackal raised his voice, obviously insulted at such a remark. "But half these kids down here can't handle themselves out on their own. We've been lucky so far they nobody has gotten scragged out there. Just a few bruises that'll heal. We take things low for a while and be more careful on how we conduct our business. We keep the shop quiet and safe until this blows over."
"How you know it's going to just blow us over?"
"Don't worry, Mira. It'll pass by." Jackal walked over next to a trash can that had a fire going in it. "The Night Hunters have their enemies too. Sooner or later they'll find out where the Hunters are and they'll come in. It'll be a quick bust-up and the two will move on. It's happened hundreds of times before."
"I don't think-"
"He's got a point." Nightsky cut Mira off. "The Hunters don't like lots of people. Then again lots of people don't like the Hunters. It's only a matter of time."
"We can sleaze through the cracks, pull off our biz quieter by sending only the best ones." By that Jackal was referring to the Blackhearts that were best at stealing and breaking into houses. At the same time, ones that were smart enough not to get caught. "We also got to spread ourselves out."
"Spread out?" Nightsky sounded confused.
"That's fragging right, spread out." Jackal nodded. "All bunched up like we are now, we're a sitting rat to them. We spread out it'll make it a frag of a lot harder for them to find us. Use some of the old holes. We know the turf better than they do. We'll use it to our advantage."
Mira didn't say anything. She wouldn't say wether she agreed with Jackal's ideas or not. However, she would back him up no matter what decision he made. She knew that he wanted to go out and face the Hunters one on one. Yet he couldn't do that. He had the lives of the rest of the gang to think about. They way that Jackal saw it, he didn't have any right to risk the lives of people that he knew would probably get killed.
"We'll send half the gang with Chop-Chop." Jackal plotted. "They can keep the shop running. In the meantime, the rest of us will have to keep an eye on the younger ones." He pointed a finger at Michael. "You should think about laying low too. Keep out of the neighborhood for a while. Those Hunters have a lot more manpower than we do. If we cause too much of an uproar, or provide too much of a target, they'll bring the whole lot in on us."
Nightsky didn't see his point, but agreed with him anyway.
"It's the best thing, stay out of sight in their neighborhood till it blows over."
Again, Nightsky was at a loss for words. He knew why Jackal was making such a decision, but he couldn't bring himself to like it. Yet he wouldn't go up against him. If Jackal thought it was best to stay out of the way, then that's what they would do. Get out of the neighborhood for a while? Sure, why not?
Where to go? Find someplace to push away the horrors of the barrens for a while. Focus the mind on something else. Find something to make a person forget that they ever lived this life.
Boise Neighborhood
Tacoma, Seattle
10:23 pm
A knock at the door shook Smiley's wondering mind back to reality. He wiped his nose and thought to himself, who could be knocking at this time of day? With that, his mind kicked into combat mode as he stripped a Predator from its holster and held it next to the door, lined with the head of anyone standing beyond it.
"I'm sorry," Smiley said at the person who had knocked. "But I'm busy having sex right now. Please do not disturb."
"Open the door, Smiley." A voice replied.
Smiley knew that voice. He undid the maglock and swung the door open. Nightsky was standing on the other side. His hair was a little wet from the light drizzle that was falling. Nightsky had his hand wrapped around a bag and was looking a little cold from the weather.
"Been fishing?" Smiley almost burst out laughing, but he managed to control himself for once. "Lenny said you weren't in on this one."
He shrugged and walked out of the rain. "I changed my mind, Smiley. I'm in." Nightsky's attitude was so that he didn't fear the somewhat demonic samurai, but rather trusted him. Odd, he had hardly never trusted anyone before. What had caused that change?
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