Chapter Three
"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted."
--Mother Teresa (1910-)
Bellevue Central Hospital
Bellevue, Seattle
April 17, 2059
8:30 am
"Mommy! Look at the flowers!"
The hyperactive eight year-old ran down the hallway at break-neck speeds. The child did not hear her mother's insistent call. The child a wide smile of glee on her face after seeing a man moving flowers out of a room.
"Zoey, come back here." The mother called.
Zoey turned her little head. She was running forward as she yelled back at her mother. "Just a minute! I want to see the flowers. They're so-"
The child gave a "Oof" as she ran right into Tart's leg. The impact of the running ball of mayhem almost knocked Tart over. The child, Zoey, was a resilient one, and hardly noticed the impact. Instead she looked up at Tart with big, happy eyes and a cheerful voice.
"Did you see the flowers?" Zoey was so excited that she looked like she would pop.
Tart forced a smile at her, trying to be nice. The little girl reminded Tart of herself when she was little.
Zoey's mother came up. She took her daughter by the arm and pulled her away from Tart. "What did I tell you about running off like that?" The mother scorned.
The way the mother talked also reminded Tart about her childhood. It was like she was seeing a mirror reflecting herself in this mother and daughter pair.
The mother looked at Tart and smiled. "I'm sorry about that, young lady. My daughter can be a handful sometimes."
"It's okay." Tart said shyly.
"Zoey, what do you say to the nice young lady?" She prodded her daughter.
Zoey had her finger in her mouth, chewing on it.
"Zoey?" Her mother coaxed.
"I'm sorry." Zoey pouted while looking at the floor.
"That's better, now come along. We have to be going."
"But Mommy the flowers?" Zoey said insistently as she was lead away.
"We'll get you some of your own just as soon as we get home."
"But, Mommy......."
Tart watched the mother and daughter as they left. They reminded her so much of her own childhood that it was uncanny. The daughter was more open that Lori had ever been, but the way the mother acted was like Tart's mother.
She shook her head and headed down the hall with all sorts of problems on her mind. She knew what she had told Samantha the day before. The guilt was still tearing away at her. To make herself feel better Tart had resolved to see her mother today. The thought brought both happiness and fear to her. Was making the wrong choice about seeing her mother? What if her mother did not want to see her? What if her mother did not recognize her?
Tart stopped outside a door on the hallway, taking the moment to push the thoughts of family aside. She made sure to double check the room number before knocking.
"Yes?" A voice answered from the other side.
Tart pushed the door open. "It's me."
Shard looked up from a book that she was reading. "Tart! I thought you weren't coming until tonight."
Tart smiled. "I thought you could use some company."
"I can always use that. The nurses are nice, but they can be very dull at times." Shard held up the hospital gown that she was wearing. "They have the worst fashion sense. Such a dull white doesn't do anything for my eyes and it makes me look pale."
Tart stepped inside and closed the door.
"Come in and sit down." Shard put the book on a table.
"Has anyone else come to see you?" Tart crossed the bed and sat in a chair next to it. The book on the table had an unusual symbol on the front of it. It was an actual paper book, very rare in the mid twenty-first century. Most books that were now made with plastic pages instead of paper.
"Michael and Gideon came by yesterday. They stayed for a while and left when the nurses brought me dinner. Riggs picked them up."
"That's nice."
"Lenny will be by this afternoon." She laughed a little. "He said that he would bring me some decent food too."
"The hospital's food is really that bad?"
"Well, it's not the Space Needle, but I shouldn't have to stay much longer."
"When will they let you go home?"
"My doctor talks like it will be a few more days. I might get to leave Tuesday if things go really good today, but I have my doubts about being released that soon."
"It looks like your doing better."
"I'm fine. It's just this headache and I'm a little swore from laying in bed so much. I love two o'clock everyday."
"Why's that?"
"That's when I take physical therapy. It's not as hard as it was a week ago. It's more of a chance to get some exercise and stretch than therapy."
Tart glanced at the floor for a moment. "That's great, Shard."
"Tart?" Shard sounded concerned. "Is something wrong? You look like there is something on your mind."
"It's okay." Tart replied. "I'm fine."
"Tart, your trying to lie to a mage who can see your aura."
Tart looked at her with naive eyes.
"For example, I can see from your astral aura that you are worried about something."
Tart broke eye contact. "Maybe I am."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"When I was coming up here to see you today, someone bumped into me. It was the cute little button of a girl who was chasing after a man with flowers. The little girl's name is Zoey." Tart explained. "Zoey's mother came up and told her to apologize to me. I know it might not sound like much, but that mother and daughter reminded me of my childhood. It was so strange. I felt like I was watching myself in a mirror. I felt like it was me who was chasing after the man with flowers."
"What's so wrong with that?"
"There's nothing wrong with it. It's just the way it made me feel."
"How did it make you feel?"
Tart shrugged. "I don't know."
"Lonely?"
Tart was about to open her mouth, but stopped herself. She thought back to the little girl and her mother. The way they were close to the way that Tart's mother was to her. "Maybe a little."
Shard did not say anything.
"Shard, are you parents still alive?"
"Yes, they are." Shard admitted. "They live in Los Angeles, but I don't see them much. A card during Christmas is all."
"My Mom's still with me. I haven't seen her in months. My Dad...." Tart pushed thoughts of her father aside as tears threatened to build. She glanced at Shard to see the concern in those almond eyes.
Shard had no idea how Tart gotten into the shadows. She did not know what she went through to get where she was today. Tart felt embarrassed for tell her.
"...my Dad left." Tart continued. "Now my Mom's in the hospital with something called chronic depression. My sister keeps yelling at me to visit, but I don't know if I should. I'm afraid."
"Why are you afraid to see you mother?"
Tart shrugged again. She never looked Shard in the face. "I don't know if I should. I mean, it's not like I live a normal life. What if something were to happen or, worse, what if my Mom found out."
Shard shook her head. "Tart, dear, listen to yourself. You making excuses."
Tart sniffed her nose. "I know."
"It's okay, though." Shard comforted. "There's nothing wrong with making excuses. People do it all the time, but I think there's something that you should realize."
"What?"
"I think that if you don't see your mother, no matter how it turns out, you will always feel terrible for not trying. If you go and see her you'll know that you did your best. That's all any of us can do."
Tart wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Tears were starting to swell up behind her eyes, but Tart did all she could to hold them back. "Do you think so?"
"It can help you put it out of the way. Maybe it won't bother you so much after you've confronted it."
"So you think I should see her?"
"Tart, I think that it's the best thing that you could do. It'll help you just as much as it will help your mother."
Loveland
Puyallup, Seattle
10:00 pm
Abigail Starlight tore through the crowd at blinding speeds. Her bare feet hit the cold, hard sidewalk with burning stings. Each time she brought her foot down she felt her skin tearing off. She had been through too much to stop now.
Two men were chasing her down the sidewalk of Loveland. The roar of their voices was replaced by the booms from a gun. A bullet shattered a window on Abigail's left. Another lodged itself into a defunct telecom booth.
Abigail let out a brisk cry for help, but no one answered her. The few people on the street scattered as the trio darted past. This was Loveland, not Downtown. People didn't want to get involved in a running gun battle.
"Don't kill her." A voice said sternly from behind. "We don't know what she did with the tape."
Abigail made a beeline for the subway access. She hurled herself down the steps at breakneck speeds. The two men were close behind. They were not giving up their pursuit so easily. A train had just pulled into the station. That left the men with a small crowd to push through. Abigail was able to just beat the crowd.
"Then I'll put a cap in her leg and we can drag her back to Wesson." One of the two men said. He was a large individual with ominous bulges under his black skin. His head was bald except for a signal line of hair that stretched from temple to temple. He also wore a tailored suit and black undershirt.
"Don't mention his name in public." His companion said as he nudged his way down the stairs. This man was an elf. Long hair pulled into a ponytail covered his pointed ears. His skin was a pale pink and very smooth to the touch. A datajack sat just above his ear. There were three separate jacks on his left temple.
The two men hit the bottom of the stairs to find a nearly empty terminal. The few people present were on their way up the stairs. Those people gave the two men a wide berth.
The elf ran to the subway train that was sitting on the tracks. He looked in each of the five cars trying to find Abigail. Meanwhile the elf's partner looked behind all the support columns in the station. Neither of them had any luck. The girl was no where to be found.
The man shrugged at the elf.
"She's still here. There's no where she could have gone." The elf replied.
The man looked up and down the subway tunnel.
The elf stood in the center of the station and orientated himself. For the first time he noticed a garbage can off in a corner. It almost blended in with the wall behind it. As the elf was about to check it out the doors on the subway cars chimed and started to close.
The elf's attention was temporarily focused on the chiming. He did not notice the figure that darted out from behind the garbage can until it was too late.
His partner, however, did see the flash of movement.
"There!" He signaled as he brought his pistol to bear. As instructed before, he aimed low. Not wanting to kill her.
Bullets pinged off the concrete and broke windows on the subway car. The elf started running towards Abigail, hoping to intercept her before the doors on the subway car closed . He reached out at the last second, but Abigail slipped away. She fell through the doorway and landed hard on the car's floor. The elf cursed loudly and tried to run along side the car as the train started up.
Abigail, who was gasping for breath, allowed a bright smile to cross her face. "I told you not to come after me, weedeater." She taunted and promptly gave the elf a one-finger salute.
When it was obvious that the car was pulling away the elf reaching into his suit and pulled out a pistol.
Abigail's smile was washed away as the barrel centered itself on her head. Abigail scampered out of the way just as the elf shot out the window. He had emptied half the clip before the car left the station. He never had a clear shot and ended up shooting the seats and windows.
"Frag-it!" The elf cursed as he watched the car pull away.
The other man came up behind the elf. Apparently he was a lightly out of shape because he was breathing heavily. "What are we going to do now?"
The elf looked at his partner and back at the train. "We find her."
"How are we going to do that? She sees us coming for a mile away and she'll split."
The elf put his pistol away. "Then we find someone to find her."
"That makes a lot of sense." There was a hint of sarcasm in the words.
"It better, now come on." The elf lead the way. "I've got to talk to the boss. We have a situation here."
Casino Corner
Everett, Seattle
12:00 pm
The sweet smell of fresh takeout wafted through Lenny's apartment. The food would not stay warm for ever, but it provided a nice atmosphere that made the building feel warm and cozy. Almost like Lenny was living a normal life. He imagined himself coming home from a hard day at work to the smell of a delicious meal that his wife had prepared. Lenny would take up the role as man of the house. He would give his wife a hug and a peck on the check. Then he would smile at her and ask what was for dinner.
"Fat chance of that." Lenny shook himself out of his daydream. He placed the last of the takeout dishes into a plastic shack. Of course, he would tell Shard that he cooked the meal himself.
He put the shack on his kitchen table. Just as he was putting on his coat to leave the telecom rang. Lenny mumbled something under his breath. After the first ring the call was automatically transferred to his cell-phone. It buzzed annoyingly in his coat pocket.
"Hello?"
"Afternoon, Lenny."
"Oh," Lenny sighed, but tried not to make it too obvious. "How's it going Hector?"
"Everything's fine. My son's birthday is coming up next week and there's a part planned, but that's not why I called you."
"I didn't think it was."
"I interrupted you, didn't I?"
Lenny looked at the lunch that was cooling on the table. "I was on my way to see Shard. They're talking about releasing her sometime this week. I thought I should be there if they did."
"It's good that she's doing better, but I need to talk to you about some business."
Lenny pulled a chair out from the table. "Go ahead, this is a clean line."
"I received a call a little while ago. There's a guy who wants to meet with you and a few of your group. The fellow is being real secretive about it. He says that he wants you to call him and set up a meeting." Hector explained. "He wouldn't let me arrange it."
"You know what he wants us for?"
"I don't have a clue. This guy is trying to keep this as quiet as he can. That means that whatever he wants is very sensitive or he's setting this up against you."
Lenny nodded. "Think he can be trusted?"
"I don't have anything to confirm it."
"Okay." Lenny looked at the food on the table again. It was getting cold. "Look, Hector, I'm running late. I'll give this guy a call later after I see Shard. Besides, I'll have to call up the others too. It will take me a little bit to get everyone together too. In the meantime do you think that you could dig up some more information on him? You can put the charge on my tab."
"No problem." Hector responded. "That number of his is 11206-64-9956."
Lenny grabbed a pen and wrote the number down on his hand.
"Got it?"
"Yes." Lenny tossed the pen on the table. "By the time you've done some hunting I'll have all my biz taken care of."
"I'll give you a call back when I've got something."
"Yeah. Chow, Hector."
Cougar Mountain Hospital
Bellevue, Seattle
12:20 pm
The spotless floors squeaked casually underfoot. Similar to the white walls which made things look more professional and clean. The air smelled of crisp antiseptic muffled with a faint flower scent. Someone thought that they could cover up the inherent smell of a hospital by putting in air fresheners. Whoever came up with that idea failed miserably.
The bright white walls gave Tart a headache. It was the hottest part of the day
with the sun at its peak. When sun found a window to peek through it multiplied the white to were it could blind a normal man.
"So?" Samantha said to her sister. "Are you ready?"
Tart glanced up and down the hallway again. It looked strangely deserted, adding a lonely feeling to her shyness.
"Well?"
"Yes," Tart took a deep breath. She was standing in front her mother's door. "I'm ready."
With her sister at her side, Tart opened the door. The instant she crossed the threshold every trace of the shadowrunner known as Tart disappeared from Lori's mind. She was not a decker or anything special. She was a daughter come to see her mother. She did not care what the world thought of her anymore. It felt just right too see her mother again.
She had been waiting outside the door for ten minutes thinking about what to say. When the moment finally came Lori found that she had no words to describe what she was feeling. When her mother looked up all the pain and suffering that Lori had been through seemed to melt away. A smile crossed her mother's face. The two of them embraced each other in a bond that only a mother and a daughter can share. In that moment Lori felt completely at peace. Now her wounds would start to heal.
Or so she hoped.
And if they didn't Lori would still have this moment to hang onto.
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