Chapter Four
Shack Attack
The sun slowly moves across the sky. Its rays are enough to warm the otherwise chilly afternoon. The end effect is a perfectly peaceful March day. Kino, as someone who despised cold weather, felt the day was almost perfect. The only thing she can do without it the grumbling from her empty stomach and the fact that she's particular mal-odorous this morning. Boxer doesn't seem to notice as she idly kicks the tire of her Honda. The activity serves as a distraction from hunger pains. Plus she is bored. Kino hates being bored.
Boxer, with his 'Slick Nick' sunglasses and out-stuck lip, barely pays her any attention. More important thoughts are running through his head. Grubber, the chummer he was suppose to meet, had once been a part of a shadowrun team Boxer and his brother were on. he hadn't seen or even talked to the shaman in nearly a year.
"What time is it?" Kino asked.
"A little after one." That bothered him too. Grubber was late. Any other day Boxer could have set his watch by him. The shaman was a paranoid headcase between runs, but he was always punctual.
Boxer is momentarily distracted as Kino rubs her belly and eyes the Stuffer Shack across the street. It's easy to guess what she's thinking before she glances at Boxer with large, questioning brown eyes.
"Do you want anything?"
"No." He shook his head. "Not now." He answered as Kino jogged across the street. Boxer leaned against the car and looked around the parking lot for some sign. Nothing had chanced since the last time he looked which was less than a minute ago. Frowning, he glanced at his watch again and decided to give Grubber five more minutes.
Kino made it across the almost deserted pavement. By the time she reached the front doors the grumbling in her stomach had become an all out roar for greasy, hot chow. Her quest for food almost caused her to forget to check the door for metal detectors. Sure enough, there was one there. It was one of the cheaper models. Probably not that sensitive otherwise anyone with a datajack could set it off. Kino planned to use that excuse of the Browning set it off, but doubted she would need it. A mess of wires at the base suggested the thing hadn't worked in years. Nevertheless she held her breath as she stepped over the threshold. The silence on the other side was almost bliss.
Obstacle now behind her, it's time to hunting for soy burritos. She passes the clerk, a pimpled faced human with an apron ('Eat Shack! Get Fat!') obviously going through some stage of puberty, and disappears down the fifth aisle (Personal Hygiene: Regular and Industrial Strength!). She grabs a can of Smell Away. Boxer had smelled a bit ripe on the ride down here. She didn't know if she was any worse. Stinky people can't smell themselves through some twist in the human nasal system. Probably a product of evolution.
The popular 'Sprawl Jack' song plays softly from overhead speakers as Kino turns down another aisle. An impressively obese woman occupies a section filled various non-prescription medications. Perfectly understandable considering the insistent begging of the woman's equally obese child. "I want this one, Mommie! Please? I want this! I want to play the arcade game! Please Mommie, can I, can I? Please? PLEEAASSssseeeeee!" Kino lithely sidesteps the pair to reach a glorious line of freezers filled with all sorts of goodies.
Kino pauses briefly in front of one filled with cheap brands of beer. She gives it a long look, remembering how her sister had gotten just before she died. The image after the fact tore away any desire she had for the drink. She takes a V-12 juice drink (New Tropical Flavor!) instead. She immediately opens it and takes a sip, calming the demon of hunger.
"You're going to have to pay for that." A stock boy at the end of the freezers says.
Kino waves him off. Of course she will pay for it. What kind of person does he think she is? If she was going to steal it wouldn't it make more sense to wait until she is outside before taking a sip? Forget him! There are more important things to worry about. Such as solid food. The next aisle over holds a cure for that. In less than thirty seconds Kino has her arms loaded down with Zingers, Cheesy Buns, and Soysticks.
She bites the plastic wrap off a Cheesy Bun and lets the yummy goodness tickle her taste buds. For a few brief moments the world is perfect. The things she has done in the past do not matter now. It's almost like she is living a normal life with a normal job with a bunch of normal friends. The feeling doesn't last. Normal people don't have greasy organleggers chasing after them. Normal people don't have to carry a gun around because they're too scared of their own shadow. Normal people don't have twenty-thousand nuyen worth of metal in their skulls.
Kino places her hand over the rigger jacks on her neck. The same things that brought her this far drove her away in the first place.
"Look, Mommie!" The obese child laughs. "She eating cheesy buns! I want cheesy buns too!"
"Hush now." The mother scooted her child along. "We'll get you some cheesy buns later."
Kino watched as they disappeared down another aisle. She was alone, locked in her memories. Tears swelled behind her eyes, but she pushed them back. As a child she hated to be alone. Now, as an adult, being alone was as comfortable as the sun on her back.
"Kino?" Boxer called her name. Kino hadn't even noticed the beep of the door. "Are you ready?"
Kino opened her mouth, dropping the cheesy bun into a waiting hand. "What about your chummer?"
Boxer shook his head. "If he's not here by now he's not coming."
"Okay." Kino juggled the various foodstuffs. Not a one of them escaped her clutch. "Get me a box of rocky road and I'll met you at the counter?"
Boxer glanced towards the back freezers and said "Sure," before tromping off. He was okay in her book. Anyone who put up with her during a bad spell deserved a medal.
"Mommie I want cheesy buns!" The child screamed next aisle over.
Cheesy buns? Kino snorts as she places the rest of the cheesy goodness in her mouth. Sure cheesy buns are great. But, oh! There's some Taffy Sticks! Those are even better!
The Stuffer Shack's front doors ping as Kino snatches the stick of sugary bliss. She fights with the slick wrapping, only barely aware of a distant thumping. She doesn't notice the look of shock worn by the cashier. She is occupied with a cheesy bun clenched tightly between her teeth, arms full of all sorts of yummies, and Taffy Sticks in her hand. The thumping becomes louder as she defeats the Taffy wrapping.
Moments before bitting into the sticky bliss a hulking, monstrous form sticks its ugly head down her aisle.
Kino finds herself unable to move. Not even to blink. Breath escapes her. Lungs refuse to work. The cheesy bun, once clenched tightly in her teeth, falls to the floor. At the end of the aisle stands this thing of bulging metal beneath a barely taunt jacket covered with chrome plates. It, very much an it, is neck and shoulder above the shelves. Shiny, chrome arms hang awkwardly at its sides. Almost like some deformed, metal ape. It's head, hard and rugged, is grotesque with the bumpy bones looking like they belonged to some half-evolved Cro-Magnon. Optical cords sprout from the head like wiry hair. It stares at Kino with dead, fiery eyes while it grinds its metal teeth. It breaths heavily, echoing with vibrating metal deep within its throat.
But nothing happens. The thing makes a grunting sound before walking pass the aisle. It stops at the next one over. Kino is left struggling for words, barely calling out "Boxer.....Boxer?" in a low whisper.
"Boxer!"
Boxer, with a box of ice cream in hand, hears Kino's call just as the lumbering monstrosity of metal and flesh casts its gleaming eyes in his direction. The thing must have recognized something because it centered its malformed head on him.
"You thought you could send me to the Echo Side?" The thing had a high, screeching voice drowning with metallic echos. The freezer next to it exploded in a hail of glass and forzen waffles as it hurled its oversized arm into it. The other arm comes up. A bulky device with a sinister looking barrel is mounted to its forearm. "I won't go faithfully into that dark night! You will!"
"Boxer!" Kino called just as the air shattered with deafening echos of a shotgun on burst-fire. Fear and dread race through Boxer's mind as that barrel lights up with the fire. Heavy slugs shattered the freezer's open door. Death smiles its cruel smile for the briefest of moments, but wired reflexes kick in as a display of canned soups explodes in his face.
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM! In rapid succession.
Boxer finds himself on the ground, his shoulder numb from landing so hard. Dazed, but not out. The wires under his skin slow every thing down. Even with the wires the marauding mountain of meat and metal moves faster than greased lightning. Boxer struggles to his feet, but the floor is slick with soup and glass.
"Frag!" Boxer curses as he slips and falls as the thing approaches. He manages an ungraceful scamper. Somewhere far off the fat lady and her child are screaming their heads off. Somewhere further off is Boxer's pride running with its tail tucked between its legs.
"I won't go back to the Echo Side!" The thing's brassy voice echoed as its heavy metal feet crushed the floor tiles. "You'll see the pain of the great beyond and no amount of running will save you from it! You're just like the servant in Samara. Running didn't save him either!"
Boxer went for his pistol, but the thing bore into him. The blow nearly snapped Boxer's head right off. Two metal-encrusted fists brought him to his knees quicker than the blood hit the floor.
"What do you want?!" Boxer spat up blood, wondering if his pistol would even be able to hurt this thing.
Another blow took a tooth. His face hit the floor's sticky surface. The thing grabbed Boxer by his collar, lifting him to his feet with little effort. It glared at him with grinding metal teeth and fiery eyes.
"I want to send you to the Echo Side!"
Boxer's face went slack. The icy hand of death felt close as the metal demon looked through his soul. Death, or excruciating pain, would be more merciful.
"Let him go!" A trembling voice ordered.
Boxer looked around the murderous thing that held him in its clutches. Kino was standing there with a Browning in her hands. The pistol's laser sight lit up a ruby red dot on the monster's back. The dot shook. Kino is scared to death. She hides it well, but Boxer knows the sheer impulsiveness of her action could cost her everything.
"Kino, no." He urged. "Get out of here!"
"I'm not leaving." She snapped, holding the pistol with both hands. "Now put him down or I'll put more metal into than you already have!"
"Take not these threats unto me!" The thing roared as it spun around a hundred times faster that Kino thought it capable of. Razors snapped from its fingers. "I will throw you to the Echo Side too!"
The razors pass centimeters from her head. She ducked only to meet the a metal foot. She doubled over and fell, hitting the floor hard enough to send sparks into her vision. The thing still loomed overhead. Out of the corner of her eye she can see the stockboy cowering behind a snack food display.
"Leave her alone!" Boxer pulled his Colt and pressed the barrel against the things chest. He snapped the trigger as quick as he could, but he might as well be using a toothpick for all the good it did him. Bullets bounce off the thing's armor plating like a bugs on a windshield.
"You do not tell me what to do!" The thing lifted Boxer off his feet and slammed him through a glass freezer door. Hand razors dig into his skin. "I will never listen to the bantering of a coward like you! Never again!"
Boxer felt the promise of unconsciousness steal his vision. The stockboy was edging his way towards Kino as she shook off the stars about her head. Good, maybe he could get her out of here. If this was his day to die he didn't want any company. He hoped it would come quickly.
The manager came running around the aisle with a Remington Roomsweeper. "Put that man down and get you're hands up! I won't have some streetpunk wrecking-" He stuttered as the metal hun glared its fiery glare. "-store?"
The thing smiles and Boxer feels regret. He is going to have company after all. The beast raises its arm. The shotgun bolted to its metal flesh lits up. A thundering roar deafens his ears. An aisle dissolves under flying lead. The manger screams, dropping the shotgun and hiding beneath the Dominique display.
"Call the cops! Call the cops!" The stockboy cries as he is showered with the remains of nutri-soy meals.
"I shall silence them all!" The thing roared with its echoing metallic voice, almost like a child throwing a tantrum. "They will go to the Echo Side with you! Burn now in the eternal fires!"
The shotgun on its forearm cycles. A smartlink hud clicked on for the first time. Almost like the thing had forgotten it had it. Kino got her senses back just as the shotgun lit up again. She tried to push the stockboy out of the way, but the boy came apart in her embrace. Kino squinted her eyes. Blood covers her hands. Dead? Yes, he is. Unmoving, not breathing. Very dead.
Boxer slugged the thing with a mighty right hook, normally enough to make any man crumple. Instead Boxer nearly broke his hand. The thing's head was metal. It laughed at him, a deep, grinding sound not unlike twisting metal. Boxer frowns, then jabs his thumb into that fiery red eye.
The eye jerked out of place! The thing actually howled in pain! It could be hurt! It could also hurt him back! The thing roared in indescribable hate and flung Boxer down the aisle. He slammed into the back freezers with enough force to rattle his fillings.
"You're a coward! Weak and betraying like Brutus! Worse than Grubber ever was!" The thing growled, flexing its metal claws.
Boxer struggles painfully to his feet. At least he will not die on his knees. He will meet fate head on. As he opens his eyes he sees what has been allotted to him. Come, Fate, come now.
The thing raises those gleaming claws with delicate razors, preparing for the finishing blow. "Here comes the Echo Side, Boxer!"
The shelves suddenly collapse on the thing, covering it with all kinds of stuffers. It growls and scatters the shiny packaged foods in all directions. Kino comes up from the fallen display, with Browning in hand, and starts capping off rounds. One bounces harmlessly off its metal hide. Another strikes its head and rips a datacord free. The cord jerks about like a snake missing its head
The thing howls in pain again!
"Come on, Box! Let's get out of here!" Kino motions towards the door. The sound of sirens can be heard in the distance.
"Heretic! I'll burn you with the eternal fire!"
The monster's arm unhinges, telescoping out the razors on his fingers. They bury themselves in the armor plating of Kino's vest and hang tight, allowing The thing to toss her around like a rag doll before flinging her into a freezer. Kino, dazed and disorientated, struggles against packets of frozen fish to find her footing. The monster gloats before snapping both sets of razors.
"Kino!"
The thing's clawed hand spun three-hundred and sixty degrees. "Now you die!"
The sharp bite of splitting flesh races through her as the armored vest is almost torn in half. A metal backhand rocks her head before razors come down for one last blow that sends her spiraling to the ground. The tiny blades slice deep. Deeper than she would have thought possible.
"You won't get another one!" A primal roar rises from Boxer's lungs as he barrels into the metal monster with a linebacker's charge. The collision sends numbness through his shoulders, but it lifts the metal beast off its feet. It stumbles into a freezer unit.
"You!" The thing cups its fists and hammers Boxer's back. "Don't!" Another blow, this one causing paralyzing pain. "Have!" Boxer collapses to his knees. "A Choice!" A knee flips his head back. Boxer falls on his back. Blood and pain blur his vision. The metal monster towers over him. It points the shotgun at his head. "Just like you never gave a choice."
Boxer coughs a mouthful of blood at his fate. It seems a strange irony to him. At that he can't help, but to smile. "Fate's a real monster, isn't it?"
The thing paused in mid-gloat. It eye becomes unfocused or as much as a cybernetic eye can become unfocused. "M-on-ster?" The metallic echo of the things voice sounds out the syllables like a child.
Boxer grits his teeth, expecting his fate to come at any moment. He is ready for it. That's the least he can do after all that has happened. That fate doesn't come. He's executioner stares blankly at the floor. Almost as if it were lost in a daydream.
A dream shattered by the crack of a gun. The bullet smashes off the things metal shoulder. Someone shouts from what sounds like far away.
"Lone Star! Get your hands up!" Standard Lone Star operating procedure. Shoot first, then ask them to give themselves up.
"What the hell is that thing?" Another voice, younger an less experienced, questions.
"I don't know, but it's not going anywhere. Call for an HTR team."
"It looks like someone made it with spare parts!"
Those words sent the thing into a state of rage. "SPARE PARTS?! THING?!" Its fiery eyes, standing head-tall over the aisle, spot the officers near the entrance as another patrol cars pulls up. The things lethal attention centers on the officers. The shotgun cycles again. "I am not a thing! I am not made of spare parts! I am not a monster!"
"Oh drek!" One cop yells as the metal beast smashes through half a dozen aisles, scattering food products in its path of destruction. Bullets bounce off its metal shell.
"Hard Ammo! Hard Ammo! We need back up!"
"I am not a thing! I am not dead! I am not a monster built of spare parts!" The thing brings its shotgun to bear. The autoloader kicks itself into place.
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!
One of the officers comes apart.
"I AM ALIVE!" The abomination screams as it stalks after the officers.
Boxer rolls over, thankful that fate has decided to over look him. Equally thankful that the fate's monster is the sensitive kind. That's all the thought he gives it. Every part of his body is screaming in too much pain to give any more. Somewhere through it all he finds the strength to speak. "Kino?" Even though his words are little more than whispers. "Kino, where are you?"
She lays among the destroyed freezers and scattered Nuk-A-Dinners. She is curled into herself like a newborn baby, arms tightly across her stomach. Shivering. Blood fills a small puddle around her.
"Kino? Can you hear me?" Boxer crawls to her as shotguns and sirens roar from the front of the store. "Say something."
"C-cold." Is all she can manage to say in a voice so soft it is barely heard. Too afraid to move. She can feel breaking flesh with its hurried breath. She has no control over shivering which brings unspeakable pain with each movement. She can't even focus on Boxer's face.
"It's okay. I'm going to get you out of here." Boxer tries to move her, but it causes her intense pain. If there was any strength left for tears they would come now.
"No!" She objects. Please don't.
"I have to."
No. "I don't want to die." She cries, each word brings a tearing sensation inside. The puddle of blood touches her chin."Don't let me! Please. I'm afraid, Boxer. I-"
Boxer cradles her as gently as he can. He's fighting between getting out and causing her as little harm as possible. Even though his own body is begging to lay down and rest.
"I miss her. I miss my sister." The edge of her vision blurs.
"Quiet now. Don't talk."
Colder now. Tears come. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Shhhh."
The vision fades. Blackness comes. Dark, cold, and alone. There is a moment of blind panic. Then there is light. It's Boxer. His face is lit up with brilliant, flowing colors. It's so beautiful. More beautiful than the most beautiful sunset. So wonderful. If only it could last forever. It's so warm and comforting, but small patches of darkness hide in the colors.
"It's okay now." She almost smiles. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
The colors fade.
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