Chapter Nine
Dark Side
By the time Boxer and Kino returned to Seattle the sun was sitting behind the downtown skyline. In the distance the towering Renraku Acrology could be seen with the last dying rays of the run peaking over its enormous peak. It must be nice to live in downtown Seattle, where all the glitter and the shine is. It's always so clean and safe there. Unlike lower Redmond which is like a demilitarized zone on a bad day and a small slice of hell on a good one.
Kino breathed a small sigh of relief as she left the worst part of the Barrens behind them. Their destination was Renton, a neighboring part of the sprawl a few miles south. Her relief was short lived as the Honda turned off the freeway and into a low class housing district. The streets here were cluttered with garbage and loiters. All of the houses had bars over the windows. The businesses, what few there were, had graffiti on their walls. All things considered, it wasn't a bad neighborhood. It wasn't too far removed from Kino's home in Touristville, but the further they drove the more the scenery changed for the worse.
"Are you sure you know where we are going?" Kino asked for the hundredth time.
"I'm sure." Boxer replied. "Grubber wasn't at his cabin. There's only one place he could have gone. Take the next right up here."
The next right was a narrow street barely wide enough for two cars. Businesses and apartment buildings were crammed so close together that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. The dark, gray walls seemed to meld into each other to become one solid thing.
"What the?" Kino stopped the car in front of a makeshift barricade. "It's a dead end?"
"Does your car have an anti-theft?"
"Of course. Why?"
"We're on foot from here." Boxer said as he lifted his tired, stiff hulk out of the low-slung sports car. The street was dark, grimy with years of settling smog. Even out here, in the fringes of society, mankind's touch left it's greasy finger on all. Boxer's orkish eyes pulled shapes out of the darkness better than any humans. Certainly better than Kino's who refused to get cybernetic enhancements. He huffed as he looked around. The only sign of life he spotted came from a small collection of people huddled around a burning trashcan. They exchanged cruel jokes with one another, laughing obscenely at things that shouldn't be funny.
Boxer absent-mindly slid his hand around the butt of his Ares Predator. The induction pad in his palm brought up the smartlink display in his vision. The weapon had a full clip of hard ammo. Normally Boxer packed soft, gel bullets designed to knock a person out rather than kill them outright. He made the switch to hard ammo after the Stuffer Shack. He had urged Kino to do the same.
"Which way?" Kino asked.
Boxer pulled a cigar from his jacket and lit it with a cheap plastic lighter. The flame illuminated his features in dull orange light while he puffed on the toxic fumes, welcoming the calming effect on his nerves.
Without another word he walked down the street. Kino fell into line close behind him. He didn't have to look at her to sense her eyes warily watching the men around the trashcan. Boxer, for the most part, ignored them. He figured that if he paid them no mind they would return the favor. Which was true. As Boxer passed none of them so much as spared him a glance much less a harsh word. Boxer had an intimidation factor on his side. He wasn't the biggest ork in the world, but he could look mean when he wanted to. That's all that matters on streets like this.
A block down Boxer was looking for markers to find where he was going. He was working on memory from the last time he was here, well over a year ago. Street signs had been torn down long ago. He had marked the way by remembering the combination of potholes and roofless buildings that lined the street. It formed a cryptic map in his head. Two potholes down, take a left at the roofless building on the right, walk by the hole in the wall, count down seven cracks in the sidewalk, then a right into the alley. To any other person it would have been complete gibberish, but to Boxer it all fell into place.
Halfway down the alley Kino asked, "Are you sure you know where you are going?"
Glass crunched under Boxer's boot. "I'm sure."
"But this alley is a dead end."
Boxer glanced around. She was right. It wasn't like this before. What had changed?
"We're lost, aren't we?"
"No. This is it. Give me a second to think."
After a moment of studying the buildings he discovered the difference. Someone had walled off a section to his left that had been open. He put his hand on the barricade, which was made up of haphazardly slapped together tin plating and old tables. Not very sturdy.
Kino suddenly perked up and looked over her shoulder. She took on an alarmed posture.
"What's wrong?"
"I thought I heard something."
Boxer huffed, then turned his attention back to the barricade. "Someone walled up this part. Need something to break this. Hand me to break this. Grubber had a flat the next alley over." He turned back to her as she looked around for a pipe or something to use as a club.
As he did a towering shadow melted out of the darkness and loomed over her.
"Kino!"
Too late. A foul smelling man wrapped his arm around Kino's neck and dragged her into him, holding her arm up and away at an obviously painful angle. Kino screamed something, unable to reach her gun.
"Looks like we's got some high and mighty glitter fools coming down to out squat, don't it?" The men leered.
Three other figures came into view. Half of them brandishing crude clubs. All bore tattoos of a fist on their foreheads. Boxer frowned. They had run into a pack of gangers.
"Yeah," One of the tattoo heads banged his pipe against the wall, causing chunks of plasticrete to break free. "Give us yer' 'yen."
"Fuck their 'yen." Another said. "Let's clobber 'em."
"Boxer!" Kino screamed.
Boxer pulled is Predator. The sinister looking automatic lumbered out of the holster. The smartlink came online, lighting up a targeting reticle in his vision. Ammo count displayed in the corner of his sight. "Let her go!" He barked.
The gangers rushed him. Boxer felt their weight barrel into him with more force then he expected. The Predator went off, smashing the silence of the sprawl with its report.
"Boxer!" Kino screamed again.
"Quiet, sltich!" The men lifted his arm up, strangling Kino by the throat. "Just watch. It'll be over in a tick."
A heavy pipe smashed into the forearm guard on Boxer's armored jacket. The impact numbed his arm. His senses wailed, but he fought through them. His hand wrapped around the pipe and dragged the poor slob into his meaty fist.
"Die you fucking tusker!"
A pipe smashed the wall above Boxer's head. He turned half a spin, bringing his Predator right to the ganger's face. boxer was more than ready to blow the fraghead's brains right out the back of his head. Suddenly unimaginable pain blared through his senses as the third ganger slammed his club right across his wrist. The Predator dropped. For a terrifying moment Boxer feared his wrist had been broken.
"Yeah!" The sour smelling man yelled with glee as he tightened his grip on Kino. "Beat that ork's ass!"
"Let me go!" Kino squirmed.
"I said shut up, bitch!"
Kino reached into her pocket, yanked out a small sap, and give it a sharp flick. "Suck this!" She brought the extendable baton around and slammed it into the man's head.
"Arg! Fucking bitch! BITCH!"
Kino spun for a loop. Her face throbbing from the man's brutal right hook. For a brief moment she didn't know where she was.
"Kino!" Boxer called. "Ah, you fraggers, get off of me!"
"Fuck him up!"
Boxer crumpled under their blows. The pipes came down on his hulking form. His body cried out under the abusive punishment. His senses blurred as he tried to fight back. Throw a punch, knock them down, anything to make them stop. Anything to bring just one of them down. Anger and desperation drove his body into overtime as the wires in his nerves kicked into gear, flailing about his arms with all the speed they could provide. One of the gangers took an ugly one-two-uppercut combo, but his chummers were on top of him before he could finish the fragger off.
Through his pain and misery he saw Kino, swaggering and dazed, attempt to swing with her baton. Only to see her laid to the ground by the sour smelling man. Blood splattered from her nose and lip.
"Fucking little bitch! You just fucked with the one motherfucker tonight! You're going to regret that!"
The man grabbed Kino's throat, throttling her at the same time as he held her down. A nice appeared in his hand. Boxer barely had time to see what happened next as the punishing gangers brought their clubs down again. His leg's buckled. He felt himself about to go down. If he hit the ground he wouldn't be getting back up.
"Stay up," he told himself, "stay up you hardhead or it's all over!"
The words rang in his mind he as decked one of them hard enough to rattle teeth.
"Can't go down! Got to stay up!"
"He broke my jaw!" One screamed.
"Kill that fucker!" The sour man yelled. "KILL HIM NOW!"
Kino saw the blackness edging into her vision as the man choked the life from her. She watched the man's twisted features. his head was turned, watching Boxer's demise. Kino couldn't let it end like this. Not now. Her hand went to her vest.
The sour smelling man turned back to her, knife in hand, but his features suddenly went slack.
Kino had an Ultra-Power pointed at his head.
BOOM!
Boxer's ears lighted up in horror. A gunshot! He struggled through the bodies wailing on him, which had suddenly stopped beating him to death, to find Kino. She was laying on the ground. The sour smelling man was crouched, twitching, over her. The left side of his head is missing. The other gangers stood still in shock.
Kino fired again. The Ultra-Power's barrel spat out a sharp of flash. The sour man's body jerked violently before falling back.
"Holy drek!" One of the other ganger's exclaimed.
Kino scooted to the alley wall, clutching her vest close. The Ultra-Power's targeting laser lit up a quivering dot on that ganger's chest. "GET AWAY FROM HIM!" She screamed in a voice so loud Boxer didn't think she was capable of making.
The other gangers froze. Probably in horror or shock or just plain disbelief.
"I MEAN IT!"
They dropped their clubs and backed away. Their eyes filled with the reality of a situation that started out as harmless fun to him, but now had taken a fatal turn. Kino shook the pistol at them. The compact automatic was more than capable of tearing through their synleathers. They slunk back into the shadows and ran away down the alley.
Boxer brushed himself off and fished through a pile of garbage until he found his Predator. His head was a little rattled. His side also hurt. No doubt from a new set of bruised ribs. Tomorrow he'll really be in pain. The discomfort will be welcomed. Bumps and bruises is better than being dead.
"You okay, Kino?"
Kino pulled her legs up while wiping her nose. She held her hand to her eyes. "Drek, I'm bleeding."
Boxer took one last look around the alley to make sure the gangers had gone before pulling out a handkerchief. "Here, take this." He pressed it against her nose. "Tilt your head back."
She made a stuffy, coughing sound. Blood stained the clothe and streamed down her cheeks.
"Looks like they're gone." Boxer shoved the Predator into his belt and grabbed one of the pipes. "But they might come back. We better be well gone when they do. We get through this well and get to Grubber's will be okay." He slammed the pipe into the makeshift wall at the end of the alley. Chunks of plastic and aluminum chipped off.
Kino clenched the handkerchief over her nose. The flow of blood lessened slightly. The body of the sour smelling man lay sprawled in the alley before her. His contorted in the last moment of life. The side of his head looked like so much rancid hamburger meat. she never thought a 10mm slug could do so much damage. The entire left side of his skull from his ear to his crown had been butchered. White pieces of bone stuck out at odd angles from the flesh. Bits of gray matter all garbled together. There wasn't that much blood, to her surprise. Not that much at all.
"I killed him."
Boxer stopped beating on the barricade. "You say something."
Kino sat staring at the body. "I killed him."
"Yeah, you killed him." Boxer slammed his shoulder into the barricade. He felt it give a little.
Kino smirked. Her face looked odd as the red lines of blood were turned up by her lips. "I never shot someone before."
Boxer frowned a moment, but didn't stop beating the barricade senseless. "Messing with your head?"
"No." Kino used the wall to climb to her feet. "It's funny I think. I don't feel anything at all."
Boxer barricade one last shoulder and opened up a meter sized hole. "Come, Kino. Let's go."
"Okay, I'm with you." She said, but her voice sounded distant. Like her body was carrying on, but something of her soul was staying behind. "I hope we find your brother before tall, dark, and gruesome shows up."
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